EricSartor

Budget (including currency): $300 CAD Country: Canada https://pcpartpicker.com/user/ericsartor/saved/H7zZZL Above is the PC in its current state. I built this for a friend who had a very low budget entirely out of local used parts. It is obviously not a perfect build, but lately she has been noticing CPU usage bottlenecking her, especially when trying to stream on Discord with for her friends while gaming/voice chatting. I feel like the GTX1060 is fine for what she's using it for, but it seems like maybe the CPU is bottlenecking her a bit. The problem is this motherboard only appears to support 6/7 series Intel CPUs, so I'm thinking I might have to upgrade both the motherboard and the CPU, which is probably out of her budget, even if I try to go the used route again. Any thoughts/suggestions? To my knowledge, the "bottlenecking" has been apparent since I fresh installed Windows, so I don't THINK it's a software issue, but I suppose it's possible.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-11500-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-5600X/m1496869vs4084 It seems the 11500 is a fair bit cheaper and according to User Benchmark, performs a little better almost across the board. Why do you suggest Ryzen? More storage is fair enough and Noctua fans are a pretty good idea.

For the Windows key, I am only budgeting the full price one because my friend seemed hesitant about not buying directly from Microsoft. I told them there were cheaper ways, maybe I can convince them... For the CPU, I will definitely look into that. I knew it was a weird decision to go with the K model even though they weren't going to overclock, but the pricing seemed better for some reason on PC Part Picker...maybe I was misreading it. That's a good tip. For the GPU, funny enough, I actually did recommend in my initial talks with them that they could go with a 1070/1080 used. They seemed to want to get new hardware. Again, if I can convince them, I agree that that would be the better route. Is there really any concern with buying old used GPUs? My 1070 is still running since like 5 years ago, but I wouldn't want them to buy something that's going to die in a few years. For the PSU, I read that those shorter cables were pretty much only compatible with Silverstone PSUs, so I was playing it safe...but honestly, that's enough savings that I shouldn't bother with the shorter cables?

Budget (including currency): 3000 CAD (though I really don't think they need to go that high) Country: Canada Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming, things like Skyrim, specifically at 1080p 60fps on a TV Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/ericsartor/saved/#view=RMNrvK Putting this build together for a friend, definitely a tech savvy friend (engineer) but not up to date on PC components knowledge. The case was specifically picked because of front facing IO and dimensions (they want to put the PC in an 12x12 inch opening in their shelving unit under their TV). The PSU and short cable set were also specifically picked for better cable management/airflow (didn't want to make them bother with CableMods). Only using a single 1TB NVME so they can remove the hard drive bays from the case for extra airflow. Using a low profile CPU cooler due to case layout, kinda unfortunate that it will be blasting right at the underside of the PSU but I think the only other option is water cooling and I doubt they wanna go down that road. The keyboard/mouse were picked as this will be used in a "couch-gaming" set up. I would like to have used a Roccat Sova, but they appear to be totally out of stock in Canada... Thoughts on this part list? Any concerns/suggestions?

I've always heard you don't need more than 16GBs of RAM for gaming, and I imagine that wouldn't change with a higher resolution, but maybe I'm dead wrong. And either way, is using all four RAM slots a big improvement over using two? Is there any scenario where having four 4GB sticks might bottleneck me in some way, in a scenario where a 4GB file needs to exist in memory (which sounds ridiculous, but who knows...)?

Yeah, I'm thinking of bumping up to an i3 and probably scrapping the CPU cooler, as I wouldn't be able to overclock with those anyways. Is it really viable to run games off a NAS? I mean, I've never tried it but it certainly sounds far fetched to me...it could be worth looking into tough! But ultimately, would it really save me that much money? Maybe about $110 bucks or so, but I guess I'd need to do some research on it.

But if I'm only interested in gaming, why would I be worried about anything but single-threaded performance? Do most games (especially the type of games I mentioned) not generally only use one core at a time? It seems to me like I'd be better off to go with something with better single threaded performance, which seems to be Intel. The i3s seem to be a good choice.

Reading the reviews on New Egg for that X4-950, it seems that it would bottleneck a 1050TI. This is the main thing I'm struggling with, finding a good match up of CPU to GPU on the lower end of the price scale. The idea of buying a pre-built then upgrading it certainly interesting, I'll have to take a look at that!

I haven't tried it with PUBG, but it certainly works fine for Rocket League and Dead By Daylight. I can't imagine GMOD would be too difficult to run... What would you recommend instead?

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/ericsartor/saved/#view=cbrm8d - The build I came up with, I'm looking for opinions, suggestions, criticisms, etc. So I want to build a dope LAN station with 4 PCs. I want them to be able to run most games at mid level 1080p settings, 60 FPS. Not trying to create a monstrous build or anything, just something reliable that won't bankrupt me after building 4. We won't be playing any particularly demanding games, mostly stuff like PUBG, Dead By Daylight, Rocket League, GMOD, etc. Ideally, I'd rather small form builds, such as Mini ITX or MicroATX, and I'm not worried one bit about appearance. They'll likely just be sitting under a table, out of sight. As far as IO, I just need USB, HDMI and Ethernet, but I can't imagine there are builds that wouldn't include those. USB would be the main thing, I'd like to have a minimum of 6 USB ports on the back, I don't imagine the front IO will be getting any use. 1 mouse, 1 keyboard, 1 USB headset, 1 Xbox controller, and then 2 - 4 spares would work fine. So we'll say 6-10 rear USB ports if possible, but obviously I could get USB hubs if necessary. Only using 1 monitor per computer and I'm not picky about which connection is used, since I'll using USB for the audio anyways and won't be running anything over 1080p or 60fps. And as far as a budget goes, if I could build each computer for around $1000 Canadian, that would be pretty nifty. The build I came up with comes in at $945 with a Wifi card, mouse, keyboard, headset and monitor. So what do you guys think of what I came up with? The GPU/CPU would be the main things I want opinions on, I'm far from an expert at picking them. I have a G4560 with a GTX 1060 in one of my current computers, and I've been very happy with that pairing, so I imagine going down the 1050TI would be a pretty safe bet. I also have heard that AMD GPUs can get warm/draw a lot of power, so if I'm going to be running 4 in the same place, I figured it might not be a bad idea to just stick with the Green Team for this. I've only ever used one AMD GPU and I wasn't particularly happy with it, so that's left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I'm also wondering if the dual 4GB RAM sticks is a better choice over a single 8GB stick. I imagine it is, but if it was entirely inconsequential, sticking to one in the small case I have would be better. I actually have my current main build in almost the exact same case, and the RAM caused some spacing issues with the CPU cooler I have, so it would be cool to avoid that, though the cooler I picked is reasonably small.

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-desktop-computers/city-of-toronto/intel-entry-level-intel-gaming-pc/1309557628 Saw this bad boy, seems like a pretty decent deal. Fairly similar to a computer I just built, with an older graphics card. is this worth snagging for this price? Keep in mind, this is Canadian dollars. PC Part Picker says it's about $700 without the video card. Ad offers it for $600.

Relevant to your recent water cooling vs air cooling video, I have an idea for the next step up from that: The same thing, but in an exceptionally warm room. For example, I'm sitting in a boiling hot 28C room right now and my air conditioner is just shitting the bed...and yet my i7 6700K is also sitting at a comfortable 28C with my Noctua NH-U9S on it. So I'm hoping to answer the question of which type of cooling is better in an extreme situation? Does water perhaps do a better job when the air in the room is already very warm?

So Linus just reviewed this bad boy, and I'm pretty impressed. I like the idea of a 144hz ultra wide, and as Linus said in the video, I see the non-1440 resolution as a plus. However, 2560x1080 is still a lot of pixels to push...so I'm wondering if anyone has anything experience with this kind of set up? Could I get away with a single 1080Ti? Or is this SLI territory? I'm currently running a 1080p 144hz monitor with a GTX 1070 but I don't think I'm actually hitting that FPS mark in most games...

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/ericsartor/saved/#view=FNw23C This is what I came up with, I'm hoping I can get people's opinions on it. I'm actually using the G4560 in a build right now, and I'm really happy with it at that excellent price point. The power supply has some extra wattage for if he ever wants to upgrade the GPU or processor, and is semi-modular due to the size of the case. I opted for the GTX1050 over the RX460 because the price difference was relatively small, and the performance bump + less power draw seemed desirable, but I'd love to hear arguments against/for that. The CPU cooler has good reviews and a low profile. I feel like the SSD/HDD combo was a no-brainer, but feel free to dispute that as well! I'm also using the RAM in one of my current builds, and it's been working well. Any thoughts? Improvements? It'll be for 1080p low end gaming.

Maybe my standards are too high. My primary gaming PC idles at 25-30c and tops out at 50c...and it has a more powerful GPU and WAY more powerful CPU. Though maybe more powerful processors stay cooler by design...clearly I know very little about thermals -.-