PERSONAL

8

1,666

Buying a New PC - Round 3

3 years ago851 words

Should I buy THIS computer??

Urgh, I've been putting this off for weeks despite thinking about it every day because there are so many options and I'm so out of my realm of experience and knowledge that the whole thing just feels like the worst kind of homework assignment... but Christmas is almost here, and I'd rather get this out of the way before then just in case it gets in the way somehow. Plus I'm still having lag etc every day which I'd really like to see the back of!

A refresher: I want to get a new PC, which I'd prefer to be a good one because I use mine all day every day for a lot of complex creative things, but I neither know nor particularly care about things like hardware specs or whatever, so I wrote a couple of posts recently asking for any suggestions from people who do know and care about that stuff more than I do. I got a few good long comments, which I greatly appreciate!

My best option might be to do something that Wolf suggested, which is to use a website that lets you select a bunch of components that they assemble; seems a nice medium between building my own (which I can't be bothered with) and getting one completely pre-made (which might be too limited). He mentioned a specific UK site where I could do that, ∞ PC Specialist ∞, and gave a list of part suggestions, with rationalisations for his decisions that are surely more informed than I can be bothered to be.

So based on those suggestions, I've selected the following on that site:

Case

FRACTAL MESHIFY 2 LIGHT TEMPERED GLASS

Core components

Processor:
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12 Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.8GHz/70MB CACHE/AM4)

Motherboard:
ASUS® TUF X570-PLUS GAMING WIFI (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0, CrossFireX) - RGB Ready!

Memory (RAM):
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (4 x 8GB)

Graphics Card:
8GB ASUS ROG STRIX GEFORCE RTX 3070 Ti - HDMI, DP

Storage etc

1st Storage Drive:
4TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE

1st M.2 SSD Drive:
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)

This is something which is both important to me and which I'm unsure about. Currently I have a 1TB HDD as my main C drive which has my Windows install and most of the files I use daily, like the games I'm developing and other creative work; it's over 90% full currently. Originally this computer only had this drive, but later on I added a second 4TB HDD - I think it was a presumably older version of those BARRACUDA ones, the name rings a bell - of which I've filled 1TB, mostly with backups and stuff I rarely access.

My plan this time is to have a smaller drive with system files and a larger one with everything else; I assume that's what other people do? But I was hoping for the speed benefits of an SSD, and I'd be doing most of my work on the HDD with these selections...

(Also I'm assuming Windows would come installed on the 'M.2 Drive' here rather than the 'Storage Drive'?)

Power and Cooling

Power Supply:
CORSAIR 750W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Processor Cooling:
PCS FrostFlow 200 Series High Performance CPU Cooler

Thermal Paste:
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

System Refinements

This section has a bunch of stuff I don't understand, but I'm curious about the Sound Card bit. I vaguely remember struggling with some sound-card-related stuff while trying to record sound from my computer or something, years ago, but I assume issues like that are a thing of the past? There are 10 different options, up to £178 more expensive than the standard one, and I don't know what difference any of them would make. I compose music so sound is important to me, but I'm hardly an audiophile. I always use headphones.

There are also several Wireless Network Card options, and I don't know the difference between those either. My current PC has to use some USB thing to connect to Wi-fi at all, but it looks like this option allows it to be built-in or something?

There's also a USB/Thunderbolt Options bit, which seems to be for the number of ports on the back? The case only mentions having a small number of USB ports, which is a concern since I've got a bunch on my current PC, and they're all full; I'm needing to use an extension thing to fit more in.



I'm both eager to get this out of the way, and highly reluctant to actually make the decision since it's a big, expensive one - the selections here go a few hundred pounds above my not-remotely-strict £2000 budget estimate - and the decisions I'm having to make are outside my realm of knowledge, so I keep dragging my feet about it.

So I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts again! Is there anything you'd choose differently here? Anything you could say about the 'System Refinements' bits I don't understand?