Build Thread 3.0

[Keyrock]

Doing some research, it seems the LG C9 and CX already have full HDMI 2.1 support, though, while the C9 has the full 48 GB/s bandwith, it for some reason doesn't (officially) support freesync, only g-sync. The CX does officially support both freesync and g-sync, but only has 40 GB/s bandwith, which shouldn't make a difference but is still a weird design choice, given that the previous model has the full 48 GB/s.

The Sony X900H recently rolled out the first of its firmware updates which adds most (but not all) of the HDMI 2.1 features. 48GB/s with 4K@120 Hz as well as eARC, VRR is coming in a later update.

The biggest pros in favor of the LG CX are 4 HDMI 2.1 ports vs 2 for the Sony X900H and deeper blacks for the LG, since it's a OLED. On the flip side, the Sony X900H is $500 cheaper, meaning that with the difference in price I could buy a 5950X instead of a 5900X and still have enough left over for cocaine and hookers... 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Keyrock

[Humanoid]

After seeing the prices of all the next-gen stuff that's likely going to be out this year, and accounting for the Australia tax on top of them, I'm shelving my plans for a new PC this year. I was already pretty dubious after seeing the 5600X price, despite it having the same effective official price as the US, but that was contingent on everything else coming together just right.

RTX 3070 example: $499 USD plus 10% tax comes out to $780 AUD. The official local price is $809. It's just launched now and the cheapest available model is $899 for one specific model from one retailer with bugger-all availability. The majority are well over four-digits in price. And given that's the cheapest of the announced next-gen cards, this is the point where I officially fold. I'll target a 5600 non-X and either a 3060-series or 6700-series card next year I think.

In the meantime, I'm instead going to pivot towards getting myself a couple of new monitors. My ancient U2711 is officially dying - it's been acting up and requiring a power cycle pretty often for a couple years, but now the colour deterioration is becoming increasingly obvious - notably in the blue sub-pixels. I just recalibrated it yesterday and with the colour balance settings, and with blue pegged to 100, both red and green have to be dropped down into the 60-70 range just to get the standard 6500K colour balance. And partly as a consequence of that, at 100% brightness the screen is not bright enough to hit the calibration target.

While I'm replacing that monitor, and with Black Friday looming, I figure I may as well double-down and replace my primary monitor, an Asus MG279Q which I never truly liked. Its limited FreeSync functionality was never worth the loss in image and build quality over the two Dell Ultrasharp models that flanked it (a U2715? and the aforementioned U2711), and all of its controls are idiotically placed on the backside of the monitor so I have to give it a reacharound to even turn it on.

So yeah, in for a penny, in for a pound: I'm pretty certain I'll be picking up one each of a Dell S2721DGF (a gaming monitor with the usual trimmings) and a S2721DS (their basic IPS screen, only difference to the $20 cheaper S2721D is that the stand is adjustable). Neither are "premium" models like the Ultrasharps, but I think with calibration the difference should be largely negligible. Only complaint is that the DGF looks tacky as hell from the back, with utterly pointless strips of blue LEDs that fortunately can be turned off. Based on recent Prime Day pricing I can pick up both for about $800 combined, still less than the RTX 3070. Yeah...

[Totally not Gorgon]

I wanted to do a Ryzen build too, I'm overdue for an upgrade. I guess I can forget about a graphics card for the foreseeable future. That's fine, my gtx 1070 wil do a while yet. 

I wonder if there is like a checklist for a Ryzen build. Ram speeds, for instance. They actually matter from what I can gather. What do I need in a power supply for a 3000 series cars whenever they actually become available. 

What's the best bang for the buck. 1500-1800 bucks specifically. 

 

 

 

[Totally not Gorgon]

By the way, a new in the box gtx 1070 costs about the same as it did when it came out. How on earth does that make any sense. Unless the supply problems are really really bad. 

[LadyCrimson]

My problem with shopping for a new/better tv to use as a monitor is the Samsung's are constantly sold out at stores. By the time they have anything in stock or not a month long order list it'll be a new gen of TV's.  >.>   I don't want OLED yet, still too worried about burn-in with the way I'd use it (it's desktop-on pretty much all day every day, only off when I sleep).

Also, I'd like one in the 48"-50" range but most of the "better" ones are 55" or larger. I could get a 60-65 and mount it on the wall but I'm paranoid about it falling down (especially if there's an earthquake), and even with some swivel/tilt and extension on the mount, getting to the back of it would be a PITA.  Are there any truly good wall mounts?

Hubby bought a floor stand for his 55" so it could be behind his desk putting a bit more distance - sadly that won't work in my case. 

I could just stick with a larger and cheaper LG TV again but ... I'm just horribly undecided.

[Humanoid]

I screwed up yesterday - or rather, this morning at 2am - when I decided to clean my PC interior for the first time since I built it five years ago. Somehow lost one of the CPU cooler fan mounting clips while remounting the heatsink. The fan stays on acceptably with one clip, but I'm worried the other one might be floating inside the case somewhere and cause a short. Spent two hours looking for it inside and outside the case but it's like it was sucked into a dimensional vortex. You'd think a 12cm piece of springy wire would be more conspicuous but nope.

No immediate disaster as the thing still boots up. I probably shouldn't have done so in that state, but in the process of standing the case up back to vertical I accidentally hit the power button - if you couldn't tell by now I have pretty poor build discipline and left it live while working in it. But it does feel like I'm playing with fire, and if it ends in tears I guess I might have to get back on the Zen 3 train.

(I wasn't doing this for no reason, I've been having some issues with my keyboard momentarily disconnecting under load and there's a non-zero possibility that it's heat/power/connection related)

[Bartimaeus]

7 hours ago, Humanoid said:

I screwed up yesterday - or rather, this morning at 2am - when I decided to clean my PC interior for the first time since I built it five years ago. Somehow lost one of the CPU cooler fan mounting clips while remounting the heatsink. The fan stays on acceptably with one clip, but I'm worried the other one might be floating inside the case somewhere and cause a short. Spent two hours looking for it inside and outside the case but it's like it was sucked into a dimensional vortex. You'd think a 12cm piece of springy wire would be more conspicuous but nope.

No immediate disaster as the thing still boots up. I probably shouldn't have done so in that state, but in the process of standing the case up back to vertical I accidentally hit the power button - if you couldn't tell by now I have pretty poor build discipline and left it live while working in it. But it does feel like I'm playing with fire, and if it ends in tears I guess I might have to get back on the Zen 3 train.

(I wasn't doing this for no reason, I've been having some issues with my keyboard momentarily disconnecting under load and there's a non-zero possibility that it's heat/power/connection related)

One of my most horrific mistakes as a general PC person was when I was about 15 years old. I was putting together my second ever self-built system, but was having trouble getting it to POST - it was just a black screen hang on boot. I still don't know exactly what happened, but I decided to shut down the system and re-seat the RAM to see if that was it, since it's a semi-common problem that the RAM isn't seated quite right for random boot issues like this. Only...when I powered it down, it uh, didn't actually power down, and I somehow completely failed to notice that (seriously, the fan on the CPU was still going!) as I ripped the first RAM module out of the live system. The terrible sounds the system made as I was doing that were kind of traumatizing. Luckily for me, the system did not appear to sustain any kind of damage, and that did actually end up seemingly being the problem, as everything worked fine after I re-seated them (and in fact, everything with that system besides the GPU still works to this day, even the kind of low-ish end PSU I bought at the time). Haven't ever screwed around with making sure the power is completely off (and drained!) since then.

Edited November 4, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Humanoid]

Started tinkering about around the same age, but only by tearing down and rebuilding old systems whenever we got a new family PC. First build I did myself would've been an Athlon XP I guess. It's probably more luck than anything that I've never made any meaningful screwups working with hardware since then.

[Totally not Gorgon]

I've bent a pin or two. My worst screwup was not dust cleaning a graphics card. When it finally died the entire interior it was incased in a cocoon. Not that they make it easy mind you, but at least modern fans and intakes are generally bigger. 

[Humanoid]

A bit more shopping, halfway between an impulse-purchase and not. See, I was informed of a great deal on a 750W BitFenix Whisper M PSU. Never heard of it before but some research shows it's well-regarded, and the price being asked was two-thirds of equivalent PSUs from the likes of Corsair and Seasonic. But shipping would have made it still-a-good-deal, but I wanted a great deal. The store has a promo where buying $99 worth of Thermaltake stuff made the entire order ship for free.

Now I generally despise Thermaltake for how gaudy and plasticky they tend to be, especially in their past, but I was conveniently pointed to what looked like a decent and miraculously understated memory pair, a H-ONE 3600MHz CL18 set. Nothing special spec-wise but for $99 it's very cheap, exactly the amount I needed to spend for the promo, and I've been having problems with my current PC which I had to get around by disabling the XMP profile, so I figure why not.

Next, I figured that since I was getting free shipping anyway, I may as well buy the case for my actual build, even if it's likely not happening until next year. So I bought the Fractal Design Define 7 in white, no window, the case I had wanted all along.

And finally, I thought that since my current 6700K system isn't all that bad currently, and I need to clean out my current case (a Define R5) to find that damned fan clip, I devised a case shuffle, or musical chairs. I would build my new PC, then move my current system into a cheap-ish case, then in the future use the freed-up case to perhaps build a new system for my sister, whose PC is of a similar vintage to mine (an i5-6500 and RX570 I think).

 

So in the end the damage is:

- BitFenix Whisper M 750W

_ 2x8GB Thermaltake H-ONE 3600MHz kit

- Fractal Design Define 7 White, no window

- be quiet! Pure Base 500 White, no window

For a total of about $600AUD, happy with that.

[LadyCrimson]

On 10/29/2020 at 12:56 PM, LadyCrimson said:

I don't want OLED yet, still too worried about burn-in with the way I'd use it (it's desktop-on pretty much all day every day, only off when I sleep).

Did I say that? I just bought the LG CX, 55".  

It was on sale for $1400 (the 90T QLED I've been eyeballing is around $1500+ for same size).  Fark it.  Won't know re: burn-in risks unless I try one, and if I think it's too much burn-in risk for my PC usage, as hubby said,  "we can just stick it in the living room for movies/TV" and I can go back to 90T hunting.  Wasn't in store stock so I get to pick it up Monday.

So then the question becomes...will 55" be too big even for me (probably not...)? Maybe I can lay down some plastic, get a wheeled mini-table to put the KB/mouse on and just postion-roll myself where-ever in the room like a crazy person?  We shall see.

Edited November 15, 2020 by LadyCrimson

[LadyCrimson]

The LG CX is a very nice TV indeed, once you have all the settings whatever way you prefer.  The 90T QLED  hubby is using pales in comparison (tho it is still pretty nice, and much better for his work needs, don't get me wrong).  Hopefully with precautions I can keep image persistence to a minimum over 6-8+ years etc.

That said, the remote control that comes with it sucks monkey spit.  It has this large "pointer" arrow that moves based on remote motion, which is the most aggravating thing ever.  If you press the arrow buttons it'll go away so you don't have to use it on menus, but the arrow is default and always shows up first - and can show up just picking the remote up, not just button pressing. Luckily I rarely need to use it.  But if it bothers you, better find another option that would work w/the TV.

I do not connect "smart" TV's to internet cables, so I cannot speak about any possible downloaded software or apps.  Sony (ps4) already spies on my gaming/streaming activity, no need for LG to, also. 
eg, you can use/set up the TV without a net cable.  It did insist on a zipcode being entered for "service" purpose, I couldn't hit "enter" without it.  I put in one from a couple county's over, because I'm ornery like that.

 

Edit:  oh, the stand it comes with is completely flush with the bottom of the TV, meaning you can't pull even a wire under it.  So if you want to be able to do that for some reason, you'll need to buy a different stand.

Edited November 17, 2020 by LadyCrimson

[Humanoid]

Not surprising, the whole "QLED" thing is just a super cynical Samsung spoiling exercise, a fancy name for what fundamentally is still a plain old LCD screen. Hard to believe the name is anything but an attempt to actively confuse buyers - just like the whole "LED" TV thing of the last decade which simply meant "LCD with LED backlight".

[Sarex]

@LadyCrimson Once you get used to the Magic remote it's great, your going to start to try doing the movements with regular remotes.

[LadyCrimson]

12 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Not surprising, the whole "QLED" thing is just a super cynical Samsung spoiling exercise, a fancy name for what fundamentally is still a plain old LCD screen.

The QLED does look better than the cheapie LED 4k TV I was using, especially re: small text. Better contrast a bit but...
Strangely LG's OLED, on the one hand it's the closest to my memory of old crts, or the plasma re: contrast.  Fantastic for most scenes.  Yet it still misses the mark a bit where some scenes can be too dark yet with eye-blasting brightness (dim room/dark faces with a bright window in background, say).  And it's overall too bright if you turn things up to see in those dark bits (at least in a dark room).  On the plasma things look dark but faces don't lose detail/shadowed so much and bright spots aren't like looking into the sun.  It's still difficult to feel like one profile setting works overall and some shows/films you might use this altered profile, another one that profile. So annoying switching profiles all the time. It's about 88% there (vs. LCD/LED/QLED being 50% there).  Then, I'm also picky...

16 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Once you get used to the Magic remote it's great, your going to start to try doing the movements with regular remotes.

I don't want to get used to it. 
One problem is its speed of movement. I turned it to Low and it's still so fast I miss the mark with it most of the time.  They should have an option to disable it completely.  Anyway all I use tv remote for is on/off and switching color profiles.

[Humanoid]

@LadyCrimsonSince you're spending so much on displays as it is, you may as well invest in some sort of calibration, either something like an i1Display Pro or a Datacolor SpyderX is a great investment for people serious about image quality/accuracy.

[AwesomeOcelot]

I managed to order a 5900x 6 minutes after release, even after a site crash kicked me out of checkout first time, but I'm just under 800 in the queue out of about 1600 people. Who knows when they'll get to me, it's meant to be not as bad as the 3080 launch, but it's going to take me longer to get one.

[Azdeus]

33 minutes ago, AwesomeOcelot said:

I managed to order a 5900x 6 minutes after release, even after a site crash kicked me out of checkout first time, but I'm just under 800 in the queue out of about 1600 people. Who knows when they'll get to me, it's meant to be not as bad as the 3080 launch, but it's going to take me longer to get one.

Ordered the 3080 on release; Still waiting.

[ComradeYellow]

At this rate we're gonna need government intervention.

[Sarex]

I made peace with not going for a new PC this year.

[Gorgon]

lol, most def. 

[Zoraptor]

At the moment we have all 5000 series (except 5950X, which we haven't had a single one delivered yet) and at least some 3070/80/90 in stock though the GPUs are all at massively inflated prices. We also had big shortages of PSUs and MoBos a few months ago but plenty of stock now.

[ComradeYellow]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

I made peace with not going for a new PC this year.

Yup.  Looks like I'm gonna have to wait until Spring when Rocket Lake and the EVGA 3080ti liquid cooled aio GPU's launch.

Still, fascinating stuff developing, regardless of the shortages.

[LadyCrimson]

"Out of stock" is going to be the thing forever now I bet. Or at least until covid concerns are "gone," perhaps.  If you call Best Buy here right now, voice message immediately tells you that they will have no more PS5's in-store (ever?), go online/order.  

13 hours ago, Humanoid said:

something like an i1Display Pro or a Datacolor SpyderX

I'm picky, but I'm also lazy.  Eventually I get the TV profiles as close as I can get it then force myself to stop thinking about it and ...

Speaking of it, should I worry about light spots if they only show up with a medium-grey background?  eg, they're not dead pixels, they weirdly don't show up/can't see them with a black background... just medium to light grey.  It's odd.  Haven't noticed if they ever move or not yet.

Edited November 17, 2020 by LadyCrimson

[Humanoid]

1 hour ago, LadyCrimson said:

I'm picky, but I'm also lazy.  Eventually I get the TV profiles as close as I can get it then force myself to stop thinking about it

Fortunately that's pretty much the use case of these devices. You just install the software, it walks you through a simple guided process to get your desired result, and you're good until the next time you decide to clean-install Windows. Professionals might want to repeat the process on a regular basis, but for everyone else you just stop thinking about it.