Tell me about building a PC

[mark]

@Axtremus The Sabrent SSD I chose has a MTBF rating of 1,700,000 hours with is 70,000 days or 194 years. lol

[mark]

@George-K said in Tell me about building a PC:

@mark said in Tell me about building a PC:

@89th said in Tell me about building a PC:

@mark holy crap that’s one powerful rig! Although you might want to add a hard drive lolz. Def SSD.

HDD: SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS 2TB Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V7S2T0B/AM
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-plus-2tb/p/N82E16820147744

Added it above. There will also be an 8TB External HDD for backup and misc. storage.

So, now you're up to about $4.2 K, right?

If I add a 4 year parts/labor/shipping warranty on all the major components, it is $4.2k

[George K]

@mark said in Tell me about building a PC:

@George-K said in Tell me about building a PC:

So, now you're up to about $4.2 K, right?

$3.8k

CPU - $958
Motherboard - $750
Power supply $230
RAM - $490
Video Card $720
SSD - $430
Case $270
Trackball - $85
External Drive $150

Total $4,083.

Add a monitor and keyboard....

[mark]

@mark said in Tell me about building a PC:

@George-K said in Tell me about building a PC:

@mark said in Tell me about building a PC:

@89th said in Tell me about building a PC:

@mark holy crap that’s one powerful rig! Although you might want to add a hard drive lolz. Def SSD.

HDD: SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS 2TB Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V7S2T0B/AM
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-plus-2tb/p/N82E16820147744

Added it above. There will also be an 8TB External HDD for backup and misc. storage.

So, now you're up to about $4.2 K, right?

If I add a 4 year parts/labor/shipping warranty on all the major components, it is $4.2k

Ah! I forgot the external drive. lol I have a 4 TB right now that would suffice so that is an optional purchase.

[mark]

Already have a 30" monitor but will be adding a new one possibly 2. The new video card supports 4 monitors and a max resolution of 7680 x 4320. I'm seriously thinking about one ultra wide and the 30" or maybe a 4k (42" or so) TV. The possibilities are fun.

Keyboard and Mouse, I have the Mouse. Keyboard will most likely be a gaming keyboard, wired of course.

[Horace]

Thanks for all the good info, I will be building a PC myself soon.

[Doctor Phibes]

@mark said in Tell me about building a PC:

@George-K said in Tell me about building a PC:

@mark said in Tell me about building a PC:

@89th said in Tell me about building a PC:

@mark holy crap that’s one powerful rig! Although you might want to add a hard drive lolz. Def SSD.

HDD: SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS 2TB Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V7S2T0B/AM
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-plus-2tb/p/N82E16820147744

Added it above. There will also be an 8TB External HDD for backup and misc. storage.

So, now you're up to about $4.2 K, right?

If I add a 4 year parts/labor/shipping warranty on all the major components, it is $4.2k

Forget the PC - you could get a really nice monitor stand for that, and also help fund H's pension.

[jon-nyc]

@Horace said in Tell me about building a PC:

Thanks for all the good info, I will be building a PC myself soon.

Heretic.

[xenon]

Here’s a really cool case that knocks off the Mac Pro aesthetic.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dune-pro-pc-case#/

Doesn’t seem widely available though. More like some sort of Kickstarter type offering.

[89th]

@mark that’s so good. Sounds like the best computer EVAH

[mark]

@89th said in Tell me about building a PC:

@mark that’s so good. Sounds like the best computer EVAH

It should be a good one. I build them to last 8 to 10 years. My current build is going on 10 years old. Started out life as a First Generation i7 with 4 cores and 8 threads. It was also a Windows 7 machine. It's maxed out at 12 GB of ram. lol The new one will go to 256 GB ram. I decided that 10x my current memory or 128 GB would more than suffice. It was kinder to the budget than to just max it out right out of the gate. Upgrades are always fun.

Forgot the CPU cooler. I need to go back and look at them.

I was considering the 16 core / 32 thread, AMD Threadripper processor but I have always had good luck with Intel processors so I decided to stay with them this time around. The have a 32 core / 64 thread version but it runs $1,500. Intel maxes out at 18 cores and costs as much and more than the AMD 32 core. It's tempting to throw caution to the wind and get the 32 core AMD but I am not sure I want to go there. I certainly don't need it. No, 14 cores will be plenty. lol

[89th]

[George K]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of tasks that you routinely do that require that much horsepower?

When I was working, I'd always upgrade to the most powerful computer I could, because it was, basically, free.

However, I'm now using a Mac that's going to be 5 years old this year. It's working find, doing what I do with no hiccups, etc. Granted, I'm not doing video processing, serious gaming, etc.

So, what are you doing that needs that much power?

[Klaus]

@George-K said in Tell me about building a PC:

Just out of curiosity, what kind of tasks that you routinely do that require that much horsepower?

Bragging?

Just pulling Mark's leg

[mark]

Video / Audio (mostly audio) engineering/processing, gaming, including VR RC Helicopter simulation and of course continued development of our software.

[mark]

Plus, a computer can never be too fast.

[Klaus]

Well, there are a couple of applications where you always want more computer power. For instance, for many simulations, such as weather, you have a slider where can control how fine-grained your simulation is. Of course, the more fine-grained the better the results. But there's no maximum. Even if computing power would improve by a factor of a trillion, these applications would still profit from even more computing power.

[Larry]

Here's how I built my last computer:

1. Drive to Wal-Mart
2. Pick one out.
3. Take it home and unbox it.
4. Plug it up.

[jon-nyc]

I do better than that, I order it online and they ship it to my front door.

This is more about a project for the boy.

[Rainman]

I do some research, then wait for a sale, like Black Friday sales after Thanksgiving.
Then, I order based also on price. If something costs more, then it MUST be better. And I know that's dumb, but I also end up with overall a powerful computer, even if paying too much.
Last one I bought (this one), I bought on Black Friday, spent a little over $2k, list price was around $4500. And, it's been great, especially since it can handle very large music files created in a DAW, withough getting overwhelmed.

Next computer I get will have a liquid cooling system. Even if I don't need it, it's cool (haha, a pun, so so clever...), and seems something to brag about whether needed or not.

I bought a 1 T external hard drive a few weeks ago, based on my Dell having two thunderbolt ports. I had no idea what thunderbolt was, did a little research, and am really happy with the new external drive which is amazingly fast. It was a bit pricey, but what the heck. I used to dump money into cars and motorcycles, all in all, this is a lot cheaper.