Time For Something New

[Silver Sorrow]

All right. Okay. I get it: I need a new computer. And what better way to acquire one than pay someone a crapload of money to build it for me? I sure as hell can't put one together...if you saw the model cars I put together when I was a kid, you'd agree with me. Junior High wood shop was a disaster. Sadly, I have not improved.

So...this is a screenshot of a tentative build from Ava Direct. It's pricey (understatement) and I know there's room for improvement here and there, but here you go:

A sales rep from Ava emailed me and asked if I would be open to a few suggestions for improvements, but I have yet to hear back from him.

Notes:

Case - I'm not interested in blinky flashing multicolored lights, sassy fans, or rainbow glitter everywhere. A plain black no-nonsense case is all I require. I have plenty of space, so a full tower isn't out of the question.

Mobo - I'd prefer an Asus ROG, but...whatever works.

Proc - high-end. Love it.

Vid card - An RTX 3080 or 3090 seems about as hardcore as I want to go right now, as the 4090 is astronomical still. But that's cutting edge stuff, and one thing my dad told me (that I actually remember) is that you should never buy cutting edge. Last generation is perfectly fine and you can always upgrade when the expensive stuff becomes affordable.

Memory - you can never have enough.

Power supply - 1000w is probably overkill.

Cooling - I've never comfortable with the idea of liquid cooling. I was always under the impression that water and electrical components don't mix well, but what do I know? Anyway, I have a Noctua CPU fan in my current rig and it works just fine. How it'll fare with a 3090 however...I don't know.

Storage - 2tb all around; one M.2, one SSD. No HDD, which I may correct.

Sound card - I've never liked onboard sound. Call me weird. Go ahead. I won't argue with it.

Other stuff - I may add an internal BD/DVD burner drive, but I kind of wonder what the point of it is. I have external drives to backup stuff. And I hate the time-consuming process of burning a CD just to keep a backup of crap I just can't bring myself to throw away.

Also: peripherals. I already have a wireless mouse, which is...okay. It's a Logitech G305 and it's fine for general use. Simple, no frills. I don't need 115 buttons.

I'm currently using a Saitek Cyborg keyboard with red backlighting that I picked up years ago. I have no problems with it, so that's fine.

I'm thinking of a new monitor as well, although the Samsung 27" thing I have now is perfectly okay. Wasn't common a few years ago, still works. I was considering the curved screen, but those have always struck me as being gimmicks. I'm okay with a bump up in resolution, but I'm not a fan of the ultrawide fad.

Oh, and with Win 10. Not going to 11 just yet, but this will be capable should I lose my mind and go that route.

What else? Uh...I think that's it. Or at least all I can remember. Feedback would be appreciated. Abuse would be expected.

[Doc_Brown]

I'm by no means a tech wiz, so I've only got three contributions to make:

1) Granted I'm the one who recommended them to you in the first place, but out of curiosity have you seen what a similar build would run you elsewhere (Acer Predator, Alienware, Lenovo Legion, Origin PC, etc.)?  AVA Direct seemed more affordable back when I bought my computer, but that was something like six years ago so I can't guarantee they still are...

2) Make note of the measurements of the tower.  When I purchased mine there were two options, which I assumed were "mini" and "normal" and thus chose the latter.  Turns out they were actually "normal" and "ginormous," and while it hasn't been an issue (nice, sturdy handle for moving it around) I am to this day somewhat chagrined by the sheer enormity of it.

3) If you plan on reusing any existing hardware, be aware that the connections might have changed.  I kept my old computer's DVD burner and wireless card, and while the former works fine the latter had completely different connections than the new motherboard.  I've just had to run my internet wired as a result, but you don't want to assume you've got something covered and then find out you're SOL.

[Silver Sorrow]

Oh, I haven't looked at those others yet...thanks for the links. I'm still comparison-shopping, so that will be quite handy. 

The guy got back to me with a couple of suggestions which made sense and trimmed the price by about $75...but I made a mistake in my original config when I chose the 10-core i9 when I meant to go for the 16-core. That would've bumped the price up by $400, probably. And he suggested I go with the RTX 4080, which is in stock. Good suggestions, but I haven't sealed the deal in blood, so I'm free to keep looking.

Tower size: I know what you mean. I hear PC builders like dealing with full towers because they're easier to climb into. (An image of Bilbo pacing around his hobbit-hole, smacking himself in head and muttering "bad memory!" just won't go away.)

I have an old internal BD/DVD burner, but that was 2 computers back and I'm pretty sure that the tech to make it work no longer exists on this planet, as far as I know. Kind of like trying to figure out how to hook up an Atari 2600 to a flatscreen TV. I mean...okay, not that bad, but...

[Doc_Brown]

To be fair, I just glanced at Wikipedia's listing for gaming computers to come up with those suggestions.  If you do a search for something like "best custom PC builders" you'll find many more options like these.  Of course, giving yourself too many variables can lead to analysis paralysis, so it really comes down to how much research you're comfortable with.

[Starfox]

Regarding the config you give... What do you intend to use it for? Because what I see there is more like a workstation (heavy duty file processing) and less like a gaming PC (unless of course you want to break 250fps in Cyberpunk 2077). If you're going Youtuber then fine... For the best results video editing and processing requires a lot of RAM a lot of disk space and a very hefty CPU. For gaming, 128 GB is completely unnecessary, and pricey (32GB is just fine and you can always upgrade later if you feel the need). An i9 is debatable; you'd certainly get more for your buck with an i5 or i7 (the i5 13600K is the best ratio price/perf currently on Intel side). Current games barely know how to use 8 cores efficiently and all of them rely more on the graphic card than the CPU anyway (with all the Ray-tracing this and DLSS that -- or AMD DLSS equivalent). But again that depends on what you intend to do with your computer.

[Silver Sorrow]

I plan to land a rover on one of Pluto's moons. Well...you get that impression, anyway.    I think it's just a case of me not wanting to ever buy another computer...

But you're right. Since I'm not doing a lot of heavy lifting with this thing in any scenario I can imagine and I'm not interested in running the latest games all maxed out, I don't need all that muscle. (And I have no desire to go beyond 1920x1080, either.)

So I think I'll drop down to the RTX 3090 (is there really any need for a 4080? Cripes, the most modern thing I've played lately was Stray and it runs perfectly well on my current system...as does Cyberpunk!), cut the RAM, take a look at the i5...harness my enthusiasm over wattage...

Thank you all...I'll make some adjustments, look at a couple of other places, and so on. I'll come back in a bit with the results of my innate inability to ever make a decision on anything.

analysis paralysis

That happens to me a lot. Does anyone else lock up when simply grocery shopping? Just me? Oh.

[Silver Sorrow]

It's just past 3:30am and the thing I'm most concerned about right now is:

I'm considering a GTX 3060ti...should cut the price by about a thousand bucks.

Actually, a pre-configured system wouldn't be so bad, really. I don't think I need to micromanage each and every piece, especially as I have a tenuous grasp at best on these things.

Ah, well. Back to glaring at this dumb ol' match-3 game I'm currently enjoying.

[Starfox]

I plan to land a rover on one of Pluto's moons. Well...you get that impression, anyway. 

You wouldn't need all that power. Perseverance runs on a mid 2000s computer (actually the same than Curiosity, it's 10 years older sister). Exploring planets is apparently much less power hungry than playing games 

Actually, a pre-configured system wouldn't be so bad, really. I don't think I need to micromanage each and every piece, especially as I have a tenuous grasp at best on these things.

The advantage of a pre-built system is that the price is in general on the low side compared to buying the pieces separately. The disadvantage is that you generally can't decide to swap a piece you don't like (like the graphic card) for another. You can have the builder add pieces though (for example if you need additional SSD space or memory).

For gaming, a very decent pre-built shouldn't run you more than $2000-$2500 and that's mainly because of the current stupid pricing of graphic cards (thanks nVidia and the lack of competition for that -- AMD has been sucking for several years, and now that they finally got some decent cards out, they cost as much as nVidia) where a card that should cost $700 ends up being sold $1200 or more.

There's no idividual prices in your config but I bet you'd end up paying the RYX 3090 Ti more than the new RTX 4080 and it's stupid $1200 price tag, and for less performance as the RTX 40 series support DLSS3, the RTX 30 series doesn't (not that it couldn't, but nVidia doesn't want it to -- it's all about pushing the new product).

That said nVidia bit more than it could chew this time because comparatively, the RTX 4080 sells much less than the RTX 3080 did. I guess people finally realized they're taken for a ride paying $1200 for a graphic card. Took them some time 

[Doc_Brown]

That happens to me a lot.  Does anyone else lock up when simply grocery shopping? Just me? Oh.

If I don't know exactly what I'm getting, then yeah.  I usually get around it by finding a way to turn my OCD against itself--can't decide between two choices?  Get both.  Too many options to justify buying them all?  Commit to buying one this time, the next one the next time, etc., until I've gotten through all of them. 

When it comes to comparison shopping for your new computer, I'd suggest taking a broad view rather than spending the time trying to recreate the exact same configuration.  Either see what other sites offer at a similar price point, or find a similar build and see how much it costs.  Once you've narrowed it down, then you can see how exact a match you can create on those other sites to find the best offer.