Technology New Desktop computer

[ARon]

That new Nvidia card is supposed to be like $1020 or something. And someone buying that for intense gaming or something is likely going to replace that card within 18 months to get the latest and greatest again.

And this is why we need more competition

 

[masta247]

Yup, traditionally their sweet spot cards were about $250-400 ($400 would get you just a tier below flagship), and you would be likely to replace one every 2 generations, so every 4 years, although one could easily last you for 6 if your requirements weren't high. This is the largest price hike they've ever done, and on top of that, apparently, they also downgraded their series down one notch for the first time (previously their X70 series would always be exactly on par with the previous gen Ti series, now it is apparently on par with the previous gen X80 series, with the new X80 series being on par with last gen Ti). So to get the same performance jump that you did last gen for 400$ with a GTX1070 (which was actually faster than a 980Ti), you'd need to spend over $700 now on the RTX2080 (which is said to be about as fast as a 1080Ti), with the RTX2080Ti being the same tier as the GTX1080 was during the previous gen. Basically, price gouging.

Part of this is AMD not having any competitive cards in the high-end, part of it was the price craze in general due to insane demand over the last two years or so, which increased the retail prices, that Nvidia couldn't fully profit from.

What's additionally annoying is that the whole launch presentation was focused around Ray Tracing, without even mentioning the real-life performance of those cards, not a single game benchmark. And then they ask people to pre-order. That's really shady, and a first even for Nvidia.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

What do you think about this specification for the games I specified above? Tweaked a custom configuration on MESH computers to come up with this for £473. There's a 10% off code as well which should bring it to around £425.70 but that ends in 5 minutes so let's just say £473 for now.

• CiT MX-A05 Black Micro ATX Case
• 400W Power Supply
• ASUS Prime A320M-K Micro-ATX Motherboard
• AMD Ryzen™ 5-2400G Quad Core Processor (3.9GHz) with Vega Graphics
• 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 (1x8GB) - Major Brand
• Integrated AMD RADEON™ RX VEGA 11 Graphics
• 120GB 2.5" SATA III SSD
• 2TB SATA III 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms
• Integrated 7.1 High Definition 8-Channel Audio
• ASUS PCE-N15 PCIe 802.11n 300Mbps Wireless Network Adaptor
• Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64 Bit
• No Anti-Virus Software Required
• Lifetime Warranty - (Lifetime Labour,1 Year Parts,1 Month Collect & Return).

The website says that the RX Vega 11 integrated graphics handles 1080p gaming well and that integrated audio has come a long way and is pretty decent. I'm not a hardcore gamer or a sound engineer - so I think this type of setup would suffice.

But there's no keyboard or mouse included so I need to find a bundle - I'll have a look later. Having said that, I can wait until Black Friday/Cyber Weekend or the January sales.

 

[masta247]

What do you think about this specification for the games I specified above? Tweaked a custom configuration on MESH computers to come up with this for £473. There's a 10% off code as well which should bring it to around £425.70 but that ends in 5 minutes so let's just say £473 for now.

• CiT MX-A05 Black Micro ATX Case
• 400W Power Supply
• ASUS Prime A320M-K Micro-ATX Motherboard
• AMD Ryzen™ 5-2400G Quad Core Processor (3.9GHz) with Vega Graphics
• 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 (1x8GB) - Major Brand
• Integrated AMD RADEON™ RX VEGA 11 Graphics
• 120GB 2.5" SATA III SSD
• 2TB SATA III 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms
• Integrated 7.1 High Definition 8-Channel Audio
• ASUS PCE-N15 PCIe 802.11n 300Mbps Wireless Network Adaptor
• Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64 Bit
• No Anti-Virus Software Required
• Lifetime Warranty - (Lifetime Labour,1 Year Parts,1 Month Collect & Return).

The website says that the RX Vega 11 integrated graphics handles 1080p gaming well and that integrated audio has come a long way and is pretty decent. I'm not a hardcore gamer or a sound engineer - so I think this type of setup would suffice.

But there's no keyboard or mouse included so I need to find a bundle - I'll have a look later. Having said that, I can wait until Black Friday/Cyber Weekend or the January sales.

A point worth mentioning is that it matters what Power supply this is and the model of the SSD.
You want to get a power supply from a good maker and a good model - their quality is very important, as the no-name ones frequently lack proper safety precautions, and when one fries (and the no-names are more likely to do so), it fries your whole computer. Otherwise it's a fine entry-level PC.

Again, if you're not planning on playing any modern AAA titles, the Vega graphics might be enough. It's surely not future-proof for big games coming out for the years to come, but it can handle most less-demanding games at 1080P if that's all you play, as well as most of the remasters of older games and the older games themselves. This is what you can expect from it:

Ideally you'd be aming at 60fps, with above 30 being considered "playable". As you can see the settings have to be dropped to low or medium in order to accomplish that with larger, fairly recent games, and it will only be worse for future games if you ever decide you want to play one. If you don't, that should be good enough.

If you can, I'd wait for the black friday sales for sure. That's the best day to save on at least some of those components, or potentially getting better ones for a similar price.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

What would you recommend to get the most reliable internet connectivity and speeds if my router is downstairs and my desktop PC will be upstairs.

Do I get a wireless network card built into the PC or do I get some sort of wifi extender downstairs and then some kind of receiver that can plug into my PC via ethernet?

What do you guys recommend?


This is the cross-section layout of the 3 rooms:

BEDROOM (DESKTOP PC)

___________________________________________________________________________

LOUNGE (WIFI EXTENDER) --------- | --------- LIVING ROOM (ROUTER)


As you can see, a wi-fi extender in the lounge should theoretically improve signal to the bedroom just above it. So do I then get an internal wifi network card for the PC?

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Thoughts on the AMD Ryzen 5 3400G?

 

[masta247]

Thoughts on the AMD Ryzen 5 3400G?

It's alright, but the new full Ryzen processors with the Zen 2 core are at 7nm and are amazing. If you could consider splurging for the 3600, you'd be set for the next 10 years or so, lol.
Or get the 2600 on a crazy sale.

If you absolutely can't and are on a tight budget and you can't splurge on a dedicated GPU, get the 2400g on sale. The 3400g isn't that much faster - only get it if the price difference isn't large.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

This year and the next two years are going to be really expensive. I will wait until Black Friday or January and reassess the prices.

I'm in need of a new phone and a desktop, but it would also be nice to have a new 2-in-1 Chromebook also. For this reason, I am waiting for the Pixel 4 to see if I like it and then either get it in a sale or get the Pixel 4a. I will then look for a custom PC at a good price, and I also have a Currys gift card that I purchased which I need to use, so will most likely use that on a mid-range Chromebook 2-in-1 (but they always seem to be lacking something). Ideally, I could get a Pixel 4a and a good mid-range Chromebook within the gift card budget - I'd be very happy with that.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

If using a laptop as my main computer at home, would it be better to keep it plugged in and on charge all the time, or use the battery to let it discharge and recharge? The latter would probably be the more energy efficient way but would that also degrade the battery quicker?

I am thinking of having a Windows laptop (AMD Ryzen 5 4000 series CPU), docking station setup, use my existing LG IPS225 monitor via HDMI, and perhaps a wired keyboard and mouse. I will have to use wireless internet, maybe a Wi-Fi range extender.

On a side note: My desktop PC turned 10 years old either on 6th May. AMD Phenom II Dual Core CPU

 

[masta247]

If using a laptop as my main computer at home, would it be better to keep it plugged in and on charge all the time, or use the battery to let it discharge and recharge? The latter would probably be the more energy efficient way but would that also degrade the battery quicker?

I am thinking of having a Windows laptop (AMD Ryzen 5 4000 series CPU), docking station setup, use my existing LG IPS225 monitor via HDMI, and perhaps a wired keyboard and mouse. I will have to use wireless internet, maybe a Wi-Fi range extender.

On a side note: My desktop PC turned 10 years old either on 6th May. AMD Phenom II Dual Core CPU

The laptop Ryzen 4000 series are amazing. The 3300x that just launched is amazing value if you're buying a desktop with a dedicated GPU.

As for leaving it plugged in or not, that doesn't really matter much anymore. You can have your laptop plugged in 100% of the time and the battery won't degrade that much faster.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

The laptop Ryzen 4000 series are amazing. The 3300x that just launched is amazing value if you're buying a desktop with a dedicated GPU.

As for leaving it plugged in or not, that doesn't really matter much anymore. You can have your laptop plugged in 100% of the time and the battery won't degrade that much faster.

So, leaving it on charge (and not letting it discharge) degrades the battery capacity/health quicker but not by a significant amount?

 

[masta247]

So, leaving it on charge (and not letting it discharge) degrades the battery capacity/health quicker but not by a significant amount?

It's not really about not letting it discharge (it's actually not advisable to let it fully discharge).
As for what is best, it's a bit more complicated than that.

If your laptop is in use, typically you will do much better by keeping it plugged in as depending on the design it will most likely use power from the plug bypassing the battery, which would slow down the degradation (battery is barely in use apart from occasionally topping up).

It's more about the battery being constantly at close to 100% full when your laptop is not in use. Batteries degrade slightly slower when they are resting at only 50-80% full, but that makes a very small difference all things considered. Especially in a laptop, where the heat generated when the laptop is in use regardless what you do will impact degradation rate like.. a hundred or so times more.

The main takeaway is that I wouldn't worry about it. With average usage laptop batteries should retain most of their capacity for 2-4 years, perhaps making it 5 if you really take care of them, and will hold charge for longer than that, albeit at significantly reduced capacity. Which might not make it worth inconveniencing yourself and unplugging it, since you can replace the battery if you wish to have OG battery life again and decide to keep the laptop for longer anyway. This is especially easy if you go for a design with good reparability score - in some it's just a matter of unscrewing the back or keyboard, removing the old battery and plugging a new one in. They're around $50 for popular models.