ADVICE: Build your own PC after the quarantine

[Natsuu]

Having your own high-performing pc is becoming a necessity these days, given that during this crisis, you have nowhere to go but to stay inside the house and do your thing, especially schools/universities perform their classes online. The higher the specs of your pc, the higher the chance you can get on board with your class. But the prices of the parts drastically increased especially if you are one of the people who buy in your local shops. I recently discovered this after I spotted the part I've been wanting to then seeing it increases by 10%. I have confirmed that its not only in our local shop, but also outside the city where I lived. Yet if you really really need it right now, better buy from legit online shops and get the highest specs you can from your savings.

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[Artemis3]

There is no point for this. Everything about video streaming is about internet bandwidth, the computer is pretty much irrelevant. In fact, you could just use a tablet.

The only reason someone could possibly want a high performing pc nowdays, is because they have something their work requires is to (ie. rendering videos or 3d), or gaming.

For the vast majority of people, whatever they can get their hands into, is good enough. Internet does not require much resource usage, even with the bloated browsers of today (which you may tame down a bit with some settings and addons).

My computer is 10 years old, and i can still do everything with it. Yes i built it myself, with the aim of being not the top of what you could buy at the time, but second. I just upgraded its GPU twice for a better Linux gaming experience.

Incidentally, with your gpu you can encode your videos as well, so its win/win.

The computers of today are way too fast, you cannot even buy a "slow" computer even if you wanted to. Of course windows can make anything look slow but that has always been the case. Don't use a garbage os.

[akram143]

Having your own high-performing pc is becoming a necessity these days, given that during this crisis, you have nowhere to go but to stay inside the house and do your thing, especially schools/universities perform their classes online. The higher the specs of your pc, the higher the chance you can get on board with your class. But the prices of the parts drastically increased especially if you are one of the people who buy in your local shops. I recently discovered this after I spotted the part I've been wanting to then seeing it increases by 10%. I have confirmed that its not only in our local shop, but also outside the city where I lived. Yet if you really really need it right now, better buy from legit online shops and get the highest specs you can from your savings.

No need powerful PCs if you ae going to do basic things like online class or shopping and there is no relation with what PC you have and get into the class.

You need powerful pc when you are going to do multiple tasks or high graphical gaming.

[boyptc]

There are bundles that some shops do for them to easily dispose of their stocks but sometimes it's limited to MBs + CPUs. That's what the most deals that I'm seeing lately. But if you're only going to use it for online classes or research.

There's no sense for building powerful PC or high specs for just the use of online video calls or conferences like Zoom, MS teams, skype etc. Middle-class-old specs should do the thing.

But as someone who can do a lot of things related to works, you actually need a higher specs PC.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

For most people, (aside from gamers or those with other resource-intensive needs) the only high-end point they should care about is memory.

The more the better because it means the OS spends a lot less time using the HD or SSD as swap space. Used to be that 4GB was fine, and for a mm streaming box still is tho 8GB is better. If running Winbloze 10 then 8GB is the minimum for decent performance...

[boyptc]

For most people, (aside from gamers or those with other resource-intensive needs) the only high-end point they should care about is memory.

The more the better because it means the OS spends a lot less time using the HD or SSD as swap space. Used to be that 4GB was fine, and for a mm streaming box still is tho 8GB is better. If running Winbloze 10 then 8GB is the minimum for decent performance...

All totally correct.

About the HD and SSD, I've built my PC 3 years ago and that's the mistake that I did. Because of not being aware how SSDs are good and better than HDD and since it was my first time to build, I've picked the 1TB HDD.

With what I mostly see with gamers or even the normal PC users, they buy small gbs for SSD maybe 120gb-250gb just for the OS to be installed there and the rest is in the HDD.

But if you can avail to buy a 500gb - 1TB SSD or even more, that's the best option.

With most of the applications today, that 4GB ram will only be consumed by browsers especially if you're always with Google Chrome. It's true that 8GB should be their minimum choice.

[GazetaBitcoin]

A good SSD is one which has NVME technology (Non Volatile Memory Express), which uses the speed of your PCI Express. There are two types: M2 format factor and those which plug directly into a PCI Express slot. The lattest reach speeds of at least 2 GB/s for both reading and writing.

There are also other SSDs which use the SATA III's speed, but these ones are way slower. SATA III supports a maximum speed of 600 MB/s but most of SATA III SSDs will reach a 450-500 MB/s speed for reading/writing (the writing speed is always lower than reading speed).

That being said, not all SSDs are a "must have". Indeed, even a SATA III SSD can revive an old PC, but if you really want to feel the benefits of a good SSD, you should buy a NVME SSD.

excepting this, HDDs should not be fully excluded from PCs. They are cheap now, even large ones (4-6 TB), as the price per GB dropped to a few cents, and they are a good way for storing your rarely used data (photos, old movies etc.). There is no difference in watching a photo/movie stored on the HDD compared with doing the same operation with such file stored on a SSD.

The problem with SSDs is that they have a limited life time. They can be fully filled with data for a certain number of cycles. That's why you should avoid over-using a SSD. Use a HDD each time when it's not necessary to use the SSD. Indeed, the OS should be placed on SSDs. And so too should the games. But avoid using the SSD for movies, photos, audio files or other archived files used rarely, in order to extend its life.

Also, for the same reason, a SSD should never be defragmented. There is no need to, as it is very fast. But also, when you defragment a disk, it moves your data in order to better arrange it. Doing that on a SSD implies that the defragment program will erase some data placed on a specific part of the drive in order to move it somewhere else, thus all data will be arranged. But this operation would also lower the (limited) writing cycles of the SSD.

[Jet Cash]

It isn't always true that you save money by building your own. Many retail outlets offer Windows based machines with a load of trial software pre-installed. The retailer gets paid for that, and this extra money can allow him to sell the machine at below the cost of the components. If you reformat the HDD, and install Linux, you can get an efficient machine at a bargain price.

[mprep]

If you're buying a PC for school / uni, I don't think waiting is really an option if you don't have a backup device (unless your school / uni year somehow hasn't started yet). At that point, as many users have already pointed out, your old machine will probably be good enough to browse and watch videos for years (if not decades) to come.

A good SSD is one which has NVME technology (Non Volatile Memory Express), which uses the speed of your PCI Express. There are two types: M2 format factor and those which plug directly into a PCI Express slot. The lattest reach speeds of at least 2 GB/s for both reading and writing.

There are also other SSDs which use the SATA III's speed, but these ones are way slower. SATA III supports a maximum speed of 600 MB/s but most of SATA III SSDs will reach a 450-500 MB/s speed for reading/writing (the writing speed is always lower than reading speed).

That being said, not all SSDs are a "must have". Indeed, even a SATA III SSD can revive an old PC, but if you really want to feel the benefits of a good SSD, you should buy a NVME SSD.

excepting this, HDDs should not be fully excluded from PCs. They are cheap now, even large ones (4-6 TB), as the price per GB dropped to a few cents, and they are a good way for storing your rarely used data (photos, old movies etc.). There is no difference in watching a photo/movie stored on the HDD compared with doing the same operation with such file stored on a SSD.

The problem with SSDs is that they have a limited life time. They can be fully filled with data for a certain number of cycles. That's why you should avoid over-using a SSD. Use a HDD each time when it's not necessary to use the SSD. Indeed, the OS should be placed on SSDs. And so too should the games. But avoid using the SSD for movies, photos, audio files or other archived files used rarely, in order to extend its life.

Also, for the same reason, a SSD should never be defragmented. There is no need to, as it is very fast. But also, when you defragment a disk, it moves your data in order to better arrange it. Doing that on a SSD implies that the defragment program will erase some data placed on a specific part of the drive in order to move it somewhere else, thus all data will be arranged. But this operation would also lower the (limited) writing cycles of the SSD.

IMO NVMe SSDs are overkill for any sort of casual use. Hell, even if you're doing high-end gaming, it still might be overkill (IIRC it's nowhere close to the performance jump from HDDs to SATA SSDs). Unless your motherboard has free slots for it (and if you're already considering rebuilding / substantially upgrading your PC, it might not) and the price is very close to SATA SSDs of similar quality, I don't think it's worth worrying about it too much. As for the SSDs' limited lifetime, well, HDDs aren't immortal either. Take my research with a grain of salt but AFAIK consumer HDDs and SSDs seem to have a similar lifespan (given both the SSD and HDD models are of similar quality).

It isn't always true that you save money by building your own. Many retail outlets offer Windows based machines with a load of trial software pre-installed. The retailer gets paid for that, and this extra money can allow him to sell the machine at below the cost of the components. If you reformat the HDD, and install Linux, you can get an efficient machine at a bargain price.

Just make sure that the bloatware is located just on the HDD and isn't embedded deep enough to persist OS reinstalls. Then again, it might not be set up to run on Linux so you'd dodge that bullet as long as you don't decide to install Windows. If that were the case, I'd still steer clear of such a device, just to be safe.

[GazetaBitcoin]

It isn't always true that you save money by building your own.

That's correct, but some -- which are more into computers (not necessary tech savvy) -- may prefer to build the machine by themselves. You know, in modding, for example, there is a saying: 'the normal user says "why change it (in this case it's about the PC's case) if it works like this?", while a modder says "why not change it if I'm able to change it?"'. I believe this can also apply to building a computer piece by piece instead of buying it built by a shop.

IMO NVMe SSDs are overkill for any sort of casual use.

Why do you think they are overkill?

Unless your motherboard has free slots for it (and if you're already considering rebuilding / substantially upgrading your PC, it might not)

Well, that could be a problem for some old motherboards. That is, if you were talking about free PCI Express slots. Regarding M.2 slots, these are always free, unless you already have a SSD plugged into the M.2. And these ports were launched in 2012. What I'm trying to say is that many recent motherboards are equipped with such slot for a SSD. And you can use it for both NVMe SSDs and SATA III SSDs (although SATA III SSDs with M.2 form factor are rare).

As for the SSDs' limited lifetime, well, HDDs aren't immortal either. Take my research with a grain of salt but AFAIK consumer HDDs and SSDs seem to have a similar lifespan (given both the SSD and HDD models are of similar quality).

Uhm... that's debatable. I mean yes, HDDs are not immortal. I was talking about the lifespan now. I guess you can say both that the allegation is true and not true, depending from which point of view you say it. In my case, knowing for sure that my SSD has XXX writing cycles (although this number is the order of thousands) scares me in part. Because I know that when that number is reached, the SSD is gone. Each of its cells was (re)written that XXX number of times and all are dead now. On the other hand, HDDs are more sensible as they having moving parts inside them. You have to be careful when you transport them, try to avoid shocks and so on, indeed. And if you give them a bad treatment they're gone too. I understand that. But at least I know I'm not limited from the very beginning of using it to a fixed number of writing cycles.

So, regarding that, I'd say (as an old rabbi, lol) that I assume we are both right.

[mprep]

IMO NVMe SSDs are overkill for any sort of casual use.

Why do you think they are overkill?

When adding it to an old PC? AFAIK:
1. May require the board to have a PCIe 3.0 slot on the motherboard to leverage its full speed. Older (especially budget) motherboards might only have a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot for the GPU with the rest of the slots being 2.0. Since (theoretical maximum speed) =/= (actual IRL speed), the PCIe 2.0 x4 slot may bottleneck the SSD, especially if it's a higher end one (anecdotally, this has been confirmed by a bunch of random geeks across various tech forums (link 1, link 2, link 3) with one of 'em even running some benchmarks).
2. Takes up a PCIe x4 slot, which a user may want to use for some sort of adapter later in the future. Some (at least older budget) motherboards even disable the x1 slots if you use the x4 one.
3. Requires NVMe support. Again, much less common in older (especially budget) motherboards.
4. Casual PC users (browsing, watching videos) users won't really feel the speed up. Your PC booting up 4 times faster (theoretically; in reality any speed up is usually smaller) doesn't matter as much when it's already doing so in 15-20 seconds with a SATA SSD.
5. While not as pointless for those who enjoy some high-end gaming, the loading times (as with the PC boot up times) are usually small enough with a SATA SSD for the perceptible speedup to be negligible. With certain games, you might even get bottlenecked by the CPU processing the data (decompression, deserialization, anti-cheat checks, etc.) rather than by loading it to memory from an SSD. Here's some more anecdotal evidence (hey, it's better than no evidence) from a variety of tech geeks: link 1 and link 2.
6. They may be slightly more expensive (varies by region, obviously).

If you're building a new PC and willing to shell out 10-20$ dollars more per TB (or even find prices that match the SATA SSDs), yeah, why not.

Unless your motherboard has free slots for it (and if you're already considering rebuilding / substantially upgrading your PC, it might not)

Well, that could be a problem for some old motherboards. That is, if you were talking about free PCI Express slots. Regarding M.2 slots, these are always free, unless you already have a SSD plugged into the M.2. And these ports were launched in 2012. What I'm trying to say is that many recent motherboards are equipped with such slot for a SSD. And you can use it for both NVMe SSDs and SATA III SSDs (although SATA III SSDs with M.2 form factor are rare).

Date when the standard was released =/= date when motherboard manufacturers started adapting all (or even the majority) of their boards for it.

As for the SSDs' limited lifetime, well, HDDs aren't immortal either. Take my research with a grain of salt but AFAIK consumer HDDs and SSDs seem to have a similar lifespan (given both the SSD and HDD models are of similar quality).

Uhm... that's debatable. I mean yes, HDDs are not immortal. I was talking about the lifespan now. I guess you can say both that the allegation is true and not true, depending from which point of view you say it. In my case, knowing for sure that my SSD has XXX writing cycles (although this number is the order of thousands) scares me in part. Because I know that when that number is reached, the SSD is gone. Each of its cells was (re)written that XXX number of times and all are dead now. On the other hand, HDDs are more sensible as they having moving parts inside them. You have to be careful when you transport them, try to avoid shocks and so on, indeed. And if you give them a bad treatment they're gone too. I understand that. But at least I know I'm not limited from the very beginning of using it to a fixed number of writing cycles.

So, regarding that, I'd say (as an old rabbi, lol) that I assume we are both right.

Knowing how many write / read cycles you're limited to is much better than having an ever shifting hidden pseudo-counter that wipes your data when it reaches number X. When you know how close your SSD is to dying, you know when you have to replace it with a new one. With an HDD, it's a perpetual data loss lottery. Obviously, SSDs aren't impervious to random breakage but at least you can measure and monitor one potential point of failure.

[peter0425]

i have my own pc built now and it is intel 7 8th generation,this is enough for me and not needing ano higher performing PC .

i enjoy gaming with this and also all my activities aside from my laptop.

[GazetaBitcoin]

When adding it to an old PC? AFAIK:

~snip~

I understand now what you meant, you were talking for older motherboards and yes, all that you said is correct in this case. I wasn't talking about that old, but a bit more recent ones.

Date when the standard was released =/= date when motherboard manufacturers started adapting all (or even the majority) of their boards for it.

Yes, that's correct.

Knowing how many write / read cycles you're limited to is much better than having an ever shifting hidden pseudo-counter that wipes your data when it reaches number X. When you know how close your SSD is to dying, you know when you have to replace it with a new one. With an HDD, it's a perpetual data loss lottery. Obviously, SSDs aren't impervious to random breakage but at least you can measure and monitor one potential point of failure.

That's why I said earlier that this point is debatable Some see from your point of view, some from mine. I guess it's a matter of perception, like seeing a glass half full of half empty.


Excepting all these, I'd like to mention also that I enjoy a lot seeing that there are users with technical expertise on PC hardware on the forum. I didn't see too many though, but it's great there are still some left and you can engage with them in such serious discussions.

[boyptc]

i have my own pc built now and it is intel 7 8th generation,this is enough for me and not needing ano higher performing PC .

i enjoy gaming with this and also all my activities aside from my laptop.

What's the complete specification of PC? i7 8th gen is still fine and not that outdated so for a CPU, it's still fine. What GPU you have and how huge the RAM you have?

I think you're in the middle-range good specs type.