https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ncvVDq
Thoughts on build?
As the prices go down, i'm looking for upgrading my PC.
I'll be using my old GPU until the end, as it being the most expensive component. Alternatively, i'm looking at 6600 XT instead of 3060, haven't decided yet.
Also i've decided to go with 12400 instead of 12400F just in case of emergency, the other reason is that it's for some reason is cheaper (?) in Russia.

Current build is:
I5 6400
B150m night elf
1060 6gb
Kingston 8gb 2133mhz
1tb seagate barracuda
Deepcool DN500W

Seems fine.

Thanks!

This is high praise coming from setsul.

True.
Well, the detailed analysis is that it seems entirely logical apart from maybe the SSDs, and I don't know enough about the prices and supply situation in russia (and I really don't want to go down that rabbit hole) to try and optimize anything else.
He explained why he went for the 12400, which is a budget-ish pick, 3200 RAM fits with that though it is certainly possible to obsess over potential gains from something like 3600, but without prices and a budget I can't even begin to guess whether it would be worth it.
The budget SATA SSD is probably being reused, since the rest of the build made sense I'm just giving Abyss the benefit of the doubt here.
The NVMe SSD is definitely a budget pick, not terribly impressive, wouldn't be my first choice either if something better is available, but in russia there might not be and it is still an NVMe SSD and quite cheap.
Good case. Only 2 fans but that's just nitpicking because I prefer having a rear exhaust fan better airflow and helping out the CPU cooler fan(s) a bit, on top of keeping two intake fans for positive air pressure. Sure, a smaller case would suffice for a μATX mobo, but paradoxically most cases smaller than the Focus G with the same features and build quality are somehow more expensive.
PSU same as the SATA SSD, nothing wrong with it if it's being reused, and even if it's not, I know the pain of finding decent PSUs at reasonable prices in eastern europe and beyond. It might not be winning any awards and 600W is technically a bit too much for that build, it's still a solid, if low-end (the acceptable low-end, not "might catch fire" low end) PSU that'll do.

Add that I wasn't sure if I had it in me to write something more detailed today, let alone next week, and I wanted to at least put out something instead of leaving the question unanswered for a week.

tl;dr
"seems fine" not as in "ugh, fine, it'll do" but as in "fine build."

My only concern was the mobo, there aren't much LGA1700 B660 ones, and the ones that are out there, price is quiet unpleasant, which is understantable, as it's a completely new socket.

Around 1000~$ roughly, can't tell for sure as the prices are still jumping around.

The other options for NVMe's being close to this budget are Kingston NV1 (1 TB), Samsung 980 (500 GB), or MSI SPATIUM M390 (500 GB). The one i chose is the most benefitial in terms of price per space. For larger files i'm planning to use my old HDD, the ones that don't utilize disc speeds, like films, music, etc.

As for case fans, I can always change their position, like 1 intake, 1 exaust, I'll have to see how the temperature behaves, and what requiers more cooling solutions.

There are plenty of PSUs, I just don't know which one is good, be quiet has a lot of positive feedback, also it's 80+ bronze certified. With the higher budged I'd probably go for a modular one, but that isn't crucial to me, so whatever. My reasoning was to get the most reliable, budget, at least 80+ bronze, and with some extra power for the possible upgrades.
Higher wattage could be used for future upgrades, building on Intel also helps, as it doesn't consume as much as Ryzen, which means I can fit a better GPU in the future.

Intel mobos tend to be more expensive in general, though it's especially bad with this generation for various reasons. Intel also releases a new socket every two years no matter what (even if it's just the same socket made incompatible via an extra pin or software), so that's very much by design.

Yeah, and RAM prices fluctuate so much that I really don't want to spend time on figuring out whether 3600 would be worth it.

No contest in terms of performance, but 500 GB vs 1 TB obviously isn't quite fair. Not surprising that the 500 GB ones are much better when they cost around the same as the 1 TB.

Depending on the GPU model you pick, that one will also push out some air and the CPU fan also will. 2 intake might still be better to keep dust out and getting air out of the case is always easier than forcing it inside. Not like changing the fan position or even buying a third fan is much of a problem, you can still do either or both later if you don't like the temperatures you're getting.

Never go by brands for PSUs. Completely different performance depending on the model, and they're all manufactured by completely different companies anyway. be quiet is mostly FSP, but also HEC and even some Seasonic models, much less spread than some others, but the difference between a low end FSP and high end FSP model is still huge. 80+ Bronze only tells you about efficiency and the standard is 14 years old. Any PSU that can't meet such an old standard is either ancient or dangerous. Again, not saying that the one you picked is bad, but it is the absolute lowest I'd go in terms of quality/performance. Who printed the fancy sticker on its side and named it doesn't change that.
EDIT: The only way to be sure is to read reviews.

Not sure where you got the idea that Intel needs less power.

https://tpucdn.com/review/intel-core-i5-12400f/images/power-multithread.png

At least with Alder Lake/12th gen Intel is at least back to similar power consumption instead of the embarrassment you can see with with 10th and 11th gen, but a 5600X is still definitely faster than a 12400(F) while needing less power. The 12400F is cheaper though, so Intel finally managed to produce a good deal in the 200$ segment again after 5 years of nothing. That's only going to last until Zen 4 is released in september, but competition is good.

Hi, I've been getting some odd reboots on my PC as of recently.

A month ago, I was getting some that seemed fairly random, sometimes upon changing maps in TF2 or booting up the game but outside of that I couldn't see a pattern. I did some dust cleaning, switched power from one PSU PCIe slot to the other (might have been placebo) and it seemed to disappear.

However, just a few days ago, I started getting more frequent crashes, although on completely different tasks: a very common one is upon Preview rendering in Premiere Pro, I just get a PC reboot in the middle of it and I have no clue why. CPU temps seem fine (always below 75°C, and I'm using a Ryzen 7 5800X lol), and I was keeping an eye on VCore as a test and I couldn't see it go past 1.4 while it happened, so I'm genuinely confused. The event I'm getting is the Kernel-Power Event 41 (63) in Windows 10. My version of Windows 10 is not up to date if that ever matters, it's from a year ago, my Windows Update seemingly broke (it can install minor fixes but not major updates). I believe I have PBO on, with a slight voltage negative offset, but I did all this a year and a half ago so I'm not 100% sure how I tweaked it exactly. Nevertheless the reboots only started around a month ago so I doubt that would be the problem. My BIOS version is that of a year and a half ago when I built the PC.

Full specs:

MSI B450 Tomahawk Max II
Ryzen 7 5800X
2 500 GB SSDs (1 M.2 NVMe, 1 SATA), 1 1 TB HDD
32 GB DDR4 G. Skill Ripjaws V 3200 MHz (4x8, 2 from previous PC, 2 bought upon upgrading)
GTX 1070 (EVGA XC version)
Be Quiet! Pure Power 11 CM 500W (80+ Gold, bought a year ago bruh)
Fractal Design Focus G

Thanks in advance, it's really annoying and I'm afraid it will fuck up my drives and peripherals at some point.
Side note: none of these reboots involve a BSOD, only a black usual reboot screen.

How many cores and threads does tf2 use? I keep looking through old tftv threads about this topic and the answers keep changing. How bad is the multithreading in this game?

I'm buying pc parts slowly and so far I've only bought a DyAc+ 240 hz monitor and a Samsung 980 Pro Gen 4 SSD (2 TB). I just have no idea what CPU is good for tf2 because of my questions above.

My current specs are:
CPU : i7-6700 @ 3.4 Ghz
GPU: GTX 960
RAM: 16GB 2133 MHz (1 slot is being used)
1.8 TB HDD
for the PSU, MOBO, and CPU cooler I have no clue. This is some random Dell XPS 8910 pc my brother bought.
Monitor: Dell U2417H (60hz 8 millisecond response time)

#3860

That's usually power failure or anything that could cause a hard reset, I think.
Check all cables, especially GPU power, check RAM (whether it's seated properly, maybe even run memtest86+), update BIOS and drivers, all that fun stuff.

#3861
Really bad.
Back when I check years ago, the answer was theoretically infinite, so it will use all cores/threads for the parts that are multithreaded, but so few of it is multithreaded that the average works out to less than 2. Plus one more for the GPU driver, so a third thread helped, but not a lot. As in, 2 cores were significantly slower, but 2 cores + SMT/Hyperthreading for 4 threads total was only marginally slower than 3 or 4 real cores. And beyond that nothing really changed.
The last time I asked, it seems to have gotten slightly better or just worked differently for Ryzen since those seem to be getting more frames beyond 4 cores/threads, but you definitely still shouldn't buy a CPU for TF2 based on cores.
You want clockrate/IPC and anything that is actually fast that way and/or overclockable will most likely have more cores/threads than you benefit from in TF2.

In 2018 I thought TF2 only really used about 3 cores, but I figure I test again to double check.

Using a 5800X and I am assigning TF2 to specific cores (not HT ones) on game launch.

https://i.imgur.com/qrhjbAP.png

2 cores: +50% performance
3 cores: +11% performance
4 cores: +2% performance

Scaling past 3 cores is very small. Pretty much all gains are gone past 4 cores. So TF2 is still heavily reliant upon single core performance.

A safe bet is probably at least a 6 core Zen 3 or Alder Lake CPU, ie a ryzen 5 5600(x) or a core i5 12400(f), because having a couple of cores spare for multi tasking, or other games/apps that use 6 cores, is nice to have. Dual channel memory is a must with atleast 3200MHz and decent timings.

According to this video, DDR4 vs DDR5 is pretty much the same for CSGO, therefore probably TF2.

Always disappointing, but not surprising to see that things really haven't improved at all since 2015.
Thanks for reminding me about memory latency. TF2 does seem to be affected by that significantly, so it's possible that 5800X3D might end up being the fastest CPU for TF2 due to cheating a bit with its massive cache.

does anyone know a good way to maximize my frames? I have good specs (i7 9th gen, 2080s, 32 gbs of 3600hz, 1tb ssd & 2tb hdd) but I constantly alternate between like 600 fps and 60 fps.

i7 6700k -> r9 5900x
Asus Z170 mobo -> MSI MAG B550M Mortar wifi mATX
EVGA GTX 1080ftw -> EVGA RTX 3080ftw3
Corsair DDR4 2400hz 2x8 ram -> same
Corsair 750w psu -> same

• do these upgrades make sense?
  
• is psu wattage an issue at all?
  
• general thoughts on waiting for 40 series? not in a huge rush

Make sense for what?
We're also 1.5 months away from the Ryzen 7000 release, so if you're willing to wait until 2023 for an RTX 4080 or something like that then why bother planning anything out now?
Also ngl, 2400MHz RAM would suck for Zen.

12 cores for tf2 only, general triple A gaming or a rendering workstation please state your needs

10 gig 3080 instead of 12 gig version? that is if you need a 3080(see above)

16gb ram at 3200mhz cl16 costs 50$ FLAT you should factor it in when spending almost 1300$ on an upgrade

psu should be fine if you dont simultaneously full synthethic load your cpu+gpu combination of choice under overclock
setsul is gonna need an exact model for an educated guess whether or not its made of hotglue and duct tape

also budget would help if you actually care about performance per dollar

Thanks - wasn't aware new Ryzen CPUs are out soon as well. I'll probably just revisit in a couple months and upgrade ram too. To clarify I obviously want good performance in games like TF2/valorant etc but I would like to be able to play Triple As in 4k/high.

Hey, got a question about upgrading my rig as it relates to mining crypto. Something is compelling me to post about it on a tf2 forum, idk how you'll feel about that lol

I have a lot of ancient equipment. Two gtx680s, a 9500gt, an array of cpus a decade or more ancient than the i5-4690k I just replaced with an i7. Miscellaneous Other Things. Unused tablet and smartphone. A lot of this stuff has contributed to me playing TF2, i mean im pretty sure that 9500gt let me play the orange box for the first time ever back in 2010. But now that I've got an upgraded rig and an additional pile of mostly-functional equipment, I'd like to try to put it to use. Mining.

Everything I've come across online says "don't do this, your equipment is basically fossilized, dont be an idiot." Is there any other wisdom to be had?

My current specs are:
MSI Z97 Gaming 7 Motherboard
Intel Core i7-4790K
Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
XFX Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB Speedster QICK 319
1x GTX 680

I've been able to get some mining done with the 6700, but the 680 refuses to cooperate no matter which coin or miner I try to use. Vertcoin OCM got it loading something at least, but I couldn't figure out where it was mining to lmao. I thought if I got a second rig going with just my NVIDIA cards, less scammy miners might work better.

I can list out all my spare parts in more detail (like I could maybe try to find specs on the pre-2000s Compaq pc cases I'm planning on using) but I figure the most relevant are the i5-4690k, the two 680s, the 9500gt, and a budget of $500-$1000 to hopefully pack all that together into a complete mining rig. Would I need to buy a new CPU+mobo to run all 3 cards in SLI, or can the 9500 even run on the same machine as the 680s at all? Something like this or instead like this?

There is little point in mining with a card as old as the 9500 GT. The electricity would cost much more than the mined coins are worth. If you just want to transform money into heat you might as well burn a stack of one dollar bills.

The GTX 680s aren't going to be much better.

Mining doesn't use SLI. Any PCIe slot would do, even x1.
I've got no idea why you're looking at a LGA2066/X299 mobo, you don't have a CPU for that.

Sometimes, the reason why everyone is telling you that it's a stupid idea is simply the fact that it is indeed a stupid idea.

Just go with the secondary gaming pc. Forget about the 9500 GT, get some used DDR3 RAM and a mobo, ideally Z97 because overclocking would be nice, a PSU that won't set itself or anything else on fire, and a case recent enough to fit the mobo, optionally even recent enough that just looking at the layout won't make you want to kill yourself, and you'll have something actually useful.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/K2YHnt

im building a new pc pretty much from scratch and feel like it could be improved a bit, but the how is beyond my knowledge. the main games i play rn are hunt: showdown, apex legends and potentially total warhammer 3 with a bit of pub tf2 now and again. ideally, i would like to get as close to 250 fps in hunt and apex as possible and maintain at least a playable framerate in total warhammer 3. i only do the occasional streaming/video editing so thats pretty much not a consideration at all with this build.

the cpu and mobo is quite possibly just a stopgap measure until new gen comes out and hopefully(?) drives down the prices on current higher end cpus like the 5800x3d a little bit. also worth mentioning that ALL of the components will be purchased used where thats possible. is there anything i could do to save a bit of money while not cutting down on performance? the less i spend on this build the more ive got to import a fucking viewsonic xg2431 (thanks for eu sales dickheads) and silk bedding for me and the wife.

edit: noise is a HUGE factor for me, i would like the pc to be as silent as possible while maintaining performance and am willing to spend extra money on that if need be

I don't think 250 fps in hunt are happening, the rest should be easy.
Not that 250 fps on a 240 Hz FreeSync monitor are going to do anything. Unless you want to import a ViewSonic XG2431 specifically because it can't do strobing and variable refresh rate at the same time? That's certainly one way to make your life harder.

Your plan is still shit though.
Do you really think you'll get a used 5800X3D 5 months after release?
What is the point of a "higher end cpu" if you're also going to handicap it by going with DDR4 RAM that was considered good in 2017?
If you want to save money, have you considered not spending as much on your PSU as on CPU and mobo combined? What's a 1000W PSU supposed to do for a 500W build?

#3872
with how power and performance are scaling, I think bumping up to a 12600k/h670 mobo or 5600x/X570 and dropping down to a (good) 750W PSU then holding off for 2-3 years would be the play. Regarding hunt, do you have any benchmarks handy? the ones coming up through google/reddit are kinda outdated and seem to top out near 150fps regardless of resolution or setup.

im pretty attached to the idea of importing the xg2431 to try out the backlight strobing in games that i know i will be hitting high enough fps in (accounting for the vast majority of my playtime), and the ones where i dont will be played on the lg c2 we will have as an all-rounder display in the living room

i thought that getting a 1000w psu now might be a good idea if i want to keep it inbetween builds like my current one that ive had for over 10 years. ive also played with the idea of maybe just upping my budget and getting a 4000 series card and one of the new cpus in maybe 6 months time or so, or as i said maybe a more powerful current one as people start getting rid of them early in the next year.
what do you suggest would make the most sense for my use case?

#3874
im sorry i dont have any benchmarks for hunt but with a 8600k and msi 1080 i get around 80fps with high object and texture quality and everything else set to pisslow

Again, why does that mean you need to import an XG2431?
You won't get 250 fps in hunt, will you stop playing that?
What is stopping you from buying a monitor available in the UK that can do strobing at any refresh rate?

You need to decide either on a budget or a performance goal. You can't both be budget conscious and then blow an extra 200 quid on a PSU you won't ever fully utilize unless you spend 2000 on a 600W 4090 Ti (if that happens and it's even that "cheap") and another 2000 or so on a 300W 32 core Threadripper.
I'm not sure why you expect people to buy a new CPU every year. Or is there some special reason why some brits would want to get rid of their cpus early next year?

I actually sold my 10900k/3070ti build about 2 months ago with that idea in mind and threw together an i5 6600, 1060 6gb w 2x4gb 2133 ram mostly for tf2 and kovaaks.

With the recent news (to me), that AM5/ryzen 7xxx is going to be ddr5 only I'm going to hold off one more generation/year and go for a fuck all specced build crammed into a sub 15L case, ideally late 2023. With ddr5 now being the only option for the duopoly, we'll have more appreciable gains over 4k mhz specced ddr4, and at not the eye watering prices rn. Hopefully Intel's 14th gen pulls out another neat fab/hardware trick, but more e-cores for 13xxx alone isn't enough for me to pull the trigger.
OH and new atx power supply standard is kinda rolling out/announced as well, and the concept seems pretty interesting for small/quiet builds like we're aiming for

oh and btw with my Samsung 32in G7 I've found VRR just doesn't really help for most games. Useful, but I get massive boosts to motion clarity with ULMB and limiting fps to right at 145/144. I may drop to 120 or use RTSS again to control fps cap to 144.X0 timings, as occasionally I'll get a lateral sync/scan line running down the screen if tf2 chugs. I used to lock it at 240hz with the build I previously mentioned but no shot in hell 1060 will be able to keep up lol.

Hope the similarly diff perspective helps.

Gonna be building a pc soon, so I'm going to go with AMD in terms of the CPU side, but I just want your thoughts on the matter if it worth going for a r5 5600 or just going like fuck it and invest in a 7000 series. Should I hold out and wait for lower tiered 7000 series products or just go for 5000 right now?

At least wait for 7000 series to come out and see if they're worth the money/price drops in older cards.

@Setsul, how do you know so much about computer architecture? Do you have a masters in Computer Engineering?

#3878
The 5600 is a 150$ CPU, the 7600X is a 300$ CPU. Are you asking me if a 300$ CPU is worth it?
It is ~35% faster, no idea if that's worth it to you.

For lower tiered 7000s you'd have to be fairly patient. The 5600 was released 2 years after 5600X because AMD was doing far too well selling the more expensive models to bother with cheaper ones.
APUs are planned for the end of 2023, so that's still a year away.
You could wait until Intel releases the 13600K and so on (20th October) and hope that reduces the 7600X slightly, but that's about it.

#3879
This is about CPUs. No, using the exact same numbers for both is not doing AMD any favours.

#3880
Not a masters but yes.
Though this is a hobby and has little to do with computer architecture.
Basically, this page scratches the surface of computer architecture, the other 20 tell you if it's worth buying.

Any feedback on this build?

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/rpQ4wc

It's for a friend, his main games are risk of rain, elden ring, cyberpunk, and some Rust. I've not done a tonne of research but afaik the 5600x is still one of the best of the cheaper AMD CPUs, the 6700XT was chosen to try and take advantage of the AMD smart access memory/ReBar.

Though I dunno if going intel would be better with an older series 20xx nvidia card could be a better shout, GPU prices still a little bit wild.