I’ve been “about to build a new PC” for probably a year now.
Current system is a Ryzen 5 3600, RTX 2070 Super, 16GB DDR4 and a couple of SSDs. I built it in 2020 and at the time I assumed I’d get maybe 4-5 years out of it before something started feeling painfully outdated.
Well... apparently nobody told the PC.
I play at 1440p. Most of what I actually play is stuff like Baldur’s Gate 3, Helldivers 2, older RPGs, strategy games and whatever random indie game steals two weeks of my life. I’ve had to turn settings down in newer games, obviously. I’m not pretending a 2070 Super is secretly a 5080. But I launch a game, change a couple settings, and then... it works.
And that’s the problem.
Every few months I get the upgrade itch. I watch benchmarks, build a parts list, convince myself that this is finally the year. New CPU would be nice. 32GB would be nice. A modern GPU would be REALLY nice. Then I look at the total, go play something on my current PC, and within five minutes I’m thinking “wait, what exactly am I trying to fix?”
Well...kinda funny that I can afford a new build now much more comfortably than I could when I built this one. I actually want to build one. Half the fun for me is picking parts and putting the thing together.
But spending a few thousand dollars just to turn settings from “high” to “ultra” and watch an FPS counter become a bigger number feels harder to justify than I expected.
I always thought upgrading would happen because my old PC became unusable. Instead it’s slowly turning into this weird negotiation where the old bastard keeps doing just enough to survive another generation.
I’ve even caught myself almost rooting for something to finally struggle badly enough that I can upgrade without feeling stupid about it.
For now I keep closing PCPartPicker tabs and telling myself “maybe next generation,” which is exactly what I said last generation

I put off buying additional storage and now I'm regretting it. However, I had a kernel error and realized I needed reliable backup.

However, an M.2 2tb drive I bought for $120 two years ago now goes for $215?!?!?!?

Should I still buy the Silicon Power 2tb or are there better options for that price?

I was just thinking that during the RAM crisis it'd make sense for 24gb RAM to become more common as a viable in-between as 16gb is often not enough but 32gb costs your first born child, but I looked into it and it's just kind of a pain to find 24gb plus I've never seen anyone talk about it

Hi! I've been fantasizing about building a gaming PC for nearly 5 years now and have been saving up for it.

This is my planned build so far, I've spent the past weeks ping-ponging between tons of sites and consulting with AI, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it.

About the individual price parts, I've compared them to other sites in my country, my country is just super expensive; these are prices if I buy from a VAT-free location.

Name --- Price (Converted to USD):

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D AM5 Tray --- $488
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK PRO 3 Black --- $56
Motherboard: Asus PRIME B850-PLUS WiFi --- $229
Memory: Klevv DDR5 32GB (2x16GB) 6000 CL30 BOLT V Grey --- $593
Case: Fractal Design Pop 2 Air - Black TG --- $125
Case Fan: Noctua NF-A12x25 G2 PWM 120MM Fan --- $39
PSU: Corsair RM1000e 1000W ATX 3.1 Gold Modular --- $193
GPU: Palit GeForce RTX 5080 GamingPro OC 16GB --- $1766
SSD: Samsung SSD 2TB 990 PRO NVMe M.2 --- $418

For a monitor, I was eyeing the Gigabyte 27" QHD 240Hz 0.03ms USB-C OLED Gaming Monitor but the site I'm using to buy the parts from stopped displaying any monitors larger than 24.5", so I'll buy monitors from somewhere else....

What are your thoughts? What should I change if my main goal is better performance at roughly the same price range?

A few weeks ago, I had a flickering power outage only in the area where my PC is located, frying the motherboard and the CPU. Even though it was plugged into a surge protector, this had happened and I want to prevent this going forward as I have a pretty modern PC build and do not want to have to replace parts like this.

How popular are UPS's and should I invest into one? I never really heard of any of my friends or others who have a decent pc and own one of these. Is it overkill or preventative from possible future hardware from being ruined?

Hey everyone,

I'm thinking of upgrading my gpu in my pc and looking for some feedback on my component choices and expectations. I have an Intel i5-12600KF, specifically looking at the RX 9070 GRE (there's a $120 USD price gap between it and the standard RX 9070 in my market, so the GRE seems like a much better value right now).

My main goal is playing competitive shooters at 1440p aiming for 240 FPS, but I also want to play some single-player games on the side.

Here is what I'm expecting based on my research, but I wanted to see if the community agrees:

- Competitive Shooters (R6, CS2, Apex, Fortnite): Since I'll be running competitive/optimized settings, the GPU load should be lower. The i5-12600KF seems fast enough to push 240+ FPS.

- Single-Player Games: I'm not going for 240 FPS. My target is a consistent 120 FPS at 1440p. It seems like the GRE will hit 90-100+ FPS on High/Ultra in heavy titles, and I can utilize FSR 4 or Frame Generation where needed.

Does this setup make sense, or am I overestimating what the 12600KF and 9070 GRE can do at 1440p? Is skipping the standard RX 9070 to save $120 the right call for my use case?

Also should I buy now, or wait till black friday sale, or will there even be a reprieve for GPUs on blackfriday in general?

I recently built my wife a new PC. I was going for a smaller, mATX form factor so it’s all inside a Lian Li A3.
After running the PC for a few days with no issues, I realized that I had installed the fans in backwards and were intaking when they should be outputting and vice versa. An easy fix, so I unplugged the PC, popped it open, fixed the fans, and then plugged the PC back in and turned it on to test the fans. Zero issues, everything ran great.

When it came time to plug the peripherals back in, however, I let my wife help with that. Here’s where I think I fried the PC. After the PSU was already plugged in and everything, my wife was plugging peripherals into the MB I/O panel and mistakingly also plugged in a 65w usb-c charging cable (brick to usb-c) for her laptop that was also plugged into the wall. It was after this that the standby light on the motherboard turned off.
Now I didn’t realize it at the time, so where I suspect I made it worse was I kept turning the PSU on and off to get the standby light to stay on all while the usb-c charger was still plugged in.
What would usually happen is the standby light would turn on, flicker, I’d hear a buzzing noise, then I’d get freaked out and turn the PSU off. Eventually the standby light would only flicker occasionally or not at all.

Here’s my component list in case it helps:
MB: ASUS ROG STRX B850-G mATX
CPU: Ryzen 7800X3D
RAM: 32GB DDR5 Corsair vengeance (I had to sell a kidney for that)
GPU: Radeon ASUS 9060XT
SSD: Samsung 9100 pro 2TB n.vme
PSU: Lian Li SP750
4x Lian Li case fans
AIO: NZXT kraken 240mm

I have already tried unplugging everything from the PSU and MB except the 24-pin connector that connects the two to try and run power to the MB. When I did that, I would occasionally get a flicker of the standby light but that’s about it. I also got a red blinking light which I believe is the MBs way of indicating there’s no power going to the CPU.

Be honest, am I cooked? I’d really like to salvage this build if possible but if not then it’s not the end of the world. Any and all advice or ideas for how to fix the problem are welcome.

Been upgrading my system over the last few months got a free gpu upgrade to a 3070. All I have is the pigtail pcie for my RM650 Corsair psu. Looked on the official corsair site and theres no options anymore is 3rd party safe for pcie to get a more stable power draw or should I stick with the pig tail cable?

On an extremely tight budget. I purchased a optiplex 3050 MT for $45. I want to upgrade it to be a somewhat decent 1080 gaming experience for her as we would mainly play friendslop games. I have had a 32 GB stick of RAM collecting dust and will throw that in there. What are your thoughts? I know I will need to dish out another $50 for a SFX ATX PSU & a conversion cable which leaves me only maybe $50 left to budget for a used gpu.

FInally finished my first ever build to no POST. Turns out the motherboard I selected (ASUS B650e Max Gaming Wifi) does not feature q-led diagnostics. Ok, thats fine, it's supposed to output to the power led. My case (Phanteks XT Pro Ultra) doesn't have one. Inconvenient, but whatever, I'll just buy one of those beep code speakers on amazon, only a few bucks and a 5 days to ship, no problem. Doesn't support that. Just 'cause I guess?? So I'm at a total loss for how to try to diagnose it. Should I just cut my losses and take it a shop?

Hi, I found an unused 32GB DDR4 Corsair RAM with a 9060 XT I had motivated me to build a PC for my GF for Christmas.

She has a small space for a PC so I thought I would make a mATX.

My Q is would these parts make a nice little 1440 gaming machine (she's also doing her doctorate so I want her to have a nice machine as she never had one before but she loves to play rdr2. Also, any pitfalls to matx and tips in building it. I've done plenty of normal ATX.

Thanks in advance.

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

Gigabyte B550M GAMING X WIFI6

Kingston NV3 1 TB SSD

Cooler Master Hyper 212 ARGB

DeepCool CH360 Digital Case

Corsair RM650e 650 W PSU

Samsung 120 GB SSD

I'm upgrading my gaming PC and wanted to hear from people who've made a similar upgrade, especially in Esports games like Valorant and Fortnite.

Old PC:

• CPU: i5-10400F
• GPU: GTX 1660 Ti 6GB
• RAM: 16GB (2x8GB) Crucial DDR4-2667

New PC:

• CPU: i5-14400F
• GPU: RTX 3060 12GB
• RAM: 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3600

I play at 1080p on a 240Hz monitor, mainly Valorant on competitive low settings and Fortnite on Performance Mode.

I'm wondering:

1. How big of an FPS improvement should I realistically expect in both games?
2. What average FPS and 1% lows should I expect?
3. Will I be able to maintain a stable 240 FPS, especially during fights?
4. Has anyone made a similar upgrade? What were your before-and-after FPS numbers?

I'm mainly looking for real-world experiences rather than FPS calculator estimates. Thanks!

As the title says, I have a 3440x1440p monitor that goes up to 165hz.

I previously had an hdmi cable which only allowed up to 100hz, no problems there.

Now I have a new dp cable and it works fine for a few minutes, but then the screen suddenly flashes green (almost looking like an artifact) and the display ceases to work. After I replug the dp cable it would work again (whether I replug it in the gpu or the monitor). I don’t think it’s my gpu because I tested it on furmark w the artifact checker and I got nothing, could this be a faulty dp cable?

hello! any coolman zentra luxe atx case user here? I just want to ask where do you put the 2 ssd sata in the case? thanks!

Hi guys, thanks for your time. Recently I’ve started my PC rebuild and have ran into trouble. I can’t seem to get it to post to the monitor no matter what I do. I went through the trouble of flashing the bios once, checking the power supply connections, removing and replacing the ram to seat it better( with two different sets, I bought new sticks in addition to my old set. ) I’m not extremely tech savvy and hope I can get some advice.

My specs:
MB: MSI B550 A-pro
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th anniversary
Ram: Netac DDR4 DRAM (2x16) 3200MHz XMP 2.0 Dual Channel RAM CL16
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080

It should be noted that the CPU ez debug light turns on when powered. It seems it be receiving power fine. Thanks again.

hello, i've recently built a PC with a Fractal Design Focus G ATX, which has room for an optical disc drive - i have one lying around, but it's a slimline and also kind of old, so i'd rather get a newer one at a proper size - what's the market like these days?

i don't need something super fancy, just capable of burning/ripping CDs at a decent speed... i also have very little desk space, so i do not want an external drive

(additionally, if anyone could recommend an australian retailer so i don't have to pay 10 billion dollars shipping, that would be greatly appreciated!)

I came across a corsair rm850e gold on Best Buy clearance for 72.99. I’m wondering if the golds are good or should I just get the rm850x for 139.99. My sons pc has the rm850x in it and I’m building mine similar to his ( 9800x3d and 5070 ti with 32 g ddr5 )

I’ve just built my first PC and curious what are some essentials you always make.

hello, I am getting some parts from my brother, the 3070 and the ddr4. I have an idea for cpu but struggling to determine what motherboard would be best, i know jack. and psu/ssd but i can figure that out im sure. anyways any recommendations? or warn me if my build sounds like dogshit idk. any monitor recs would be cool too.

- mostly play fortnite, overwatch, etc. would love to finally be able to play cyberpunk etc. (currently using a 2012 asus laptop that's on its last legs and barely runs/ wont update drivers lol.)

Have all the parts; just want someone to really put this thing together the right way. Anyone have someone or a friend they've worked with that they'd recommend?

rate pc:

rx 6800 xt 365€

ryzen 7 7700 180€

Thermalright peerless assassin 120 se 48€

2x8 gb 5200mhz cl40 (6000mhz cl30 costs 3x more) 260€

Gigabyte b650 eagle 115€

Lexar NQ790 SSD 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 NVMe 170€

Deepcool pq850g gold 850w modular 85€

montech air 903 65€

These are cheapest price here.

Is it good combo when you account both for euro per dollar spent ,and future upgradeability potential.

Cheapest rtx 5060ti 16gb costs 850€ in my country.

Pc with r5 9600 and rtx 5060 non ti is sold for 1250€ here...

My build is a:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H, Rev. 1.0
Motherboard chipset: Intel B75
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 (new, rip my $400)
BIOS: Updated from the original 2013 BIOS to F16f

I have internal graphics luckily and for some reason my bios never shows nor do my monitors respond unless I go into BIOS Via my integrated graphics and change that one setting to “PEG”.

This is how it’s always been and always has fixed it, but now this one setting gets reset after every restart and switches back to auto which in theory makes my motherboard not talk to my GPU.

I changed a couple of harmless bios setting and restart and they all SAVE and persist across restarts but that one setting changes back to auto every time.
I think it’s because it’s because it doesn’t detect a PEG supported GPU, but It’s been fine and this process has been working for MONTHS. I did receive a notification about a windows update last night before turning off my pc (Windows 10, latest version) and when I first booted up my pc today using my internal graphics card, windows started “repairing” but then failed and reverted and now it boots like normal.

I have no clue what’s happening, but I love when things that don’t correlate with each other suddenly break for no reason.
Any advice appreciated!!

Lights on motherboard are on but pc won’t turn on. I’ve tried reseating ram it’s still not posting

I have an Rtx 2080ti by PNY, and i love it so far but I’m not crazy about the looks and since it’s blower style it gets quite loud. I was thinking about buying one of those reproduction 2080 cyberpunk 2077 shells and replacing the one on my current gpu, would it be as simple as tearing it down and placing it on or would the design of the pcb cause issues and whatnot?