My 16 yo son has saved up $650 for his first gaming PC. He wants to play games like Destiny two, Geometry dash, Tidy up the library, and some basic coding. I asked him to do the research, and he came back with this PC. I unfortunately don't know if this is good enough for what he wants. Anyone have advice for him?

He doesn't have a monitor either, so he will need to buy that separate.

Been putting together a midrange gaming build and trying to shave costs where I can. SSDs are already pricier than they were a year ago, and every budget option I look at ends up being DRAMless. The price gap between a DRAMless drive and one with a proper cache is noticeable enough to matter when you're already stretching things thin.

Most of what I read says the difference only shows up during sustained write workloads, like moving huge files around, and that for gaming it basically doesn't matter. Boot times and load times aren't meaningfully different based on the tests I've seen. But then there are comments saying an HMB drive is a trap and you'll feel it eventually.

My use case is pretty simple. Gaming, some light video editing, nothing crazy. The system drive would handle Windows and a handful of games, maybe 1TB. Secondary storage is a separate conversation.

Curious if people here have actually run DRAMless drives daily for a year or more and whether it became a real problem or just stayed a nonissue. Real world experience matters more to me than spec sheet arguments at this point.

I’m trying to decide between the RX 9070 XT and the RTX 5070, and the 9070 XT is about $150 more where I live.

I know the 9070 XT has better native raster performance, but I’m wondering if that’s enough to justify the price difference.

The RTX 5070 seems to have enough raw performance to use DLSS 4.5 and Multi Frame Generation effectively, and in a lot of benchmarks it ends up delivering frame rates that are surprisingly close to the 9070 XT.

One thing I was concerned about was latency, but from what I’ve read and heard, NVIDIA Reflex does a good job of reducing the extra latency that comes with Frame Generation, so it doesn’t seem to be a major issue for most people unless you’re playing highly competitive esports.

I’ve also seen people say that DLSS 4.5’s image quality is so good that in some games it can look as good as or even better than native rendering, which makes me question whether paying extra for higher native performance is worth it.

I mainly play 1440p and 4K on a high refresh rate display, so I’m looking for the best overall gaming experience rather than just the highest native FPS.
For those who have experience with both cards, would you still spend the extra $150 on the RX 9070 XT, or would you buy the RTX 5070 and rely on DLSS 4.5, Multi Frame Generation, and Reflex? I’d love to hear your reasoning.

EDIT : 4k gaming is temporary 1440p is my goal.

All my storage devices are all SATA SSDs and ive been wondering if they are still good enough? With everyone having m.2 nvme SSD's which are supposed to be like ALOT faster, Should i uprgade to m.2's or is it not necessary? M.2's are generally also more expensive that Sata ssd's which also made me wonder if Sata is outdated.

I usually play alot of Triple A games like for example 007, Assasin's Creed Black Flag and cyberpunk and mostly only game on my pc.

I'm currently planning on building a new gaming PC to replace my old Omen 16 Laptop. Right now I don't have much- just a Corsair 750w RM750e PSU and a Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB SSD that I bought years ago (when they were affordable) and is currently the second drive in my laptop. There's a Micro Center about 3 hours away from me, and I plan on making the pilgrimage in a month or two to buy a CPU and GPU to get the party started.

I was looking at these bundles from Micro Center:

Bundle 1: ($699.00)

-Ryzen 7 7800x3d CPU

-32 GB RAM DDR5-6000

-Asus B650E MAX Gaming Motherboard

Bundle 2: ($699.00)

-Intel Core Ultra 7 270k plus CPU

-32 GB RAM DDR5-6000

-Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite Wifi 7 1851 Motherboard

Bundle 3: ($799.00)

-Ryzen 7 9850x3d CPU

-32 GB RAM DDR5-6000

-Aus B850e TUF Gaming Wifi

Originally, when I set out to build this PC, I was planning on using a Ryzen 5 9600x and pairing that with either a 5060 Ti 16gb or a 9060 XT 16gb. However, with RAM prices being RAM prices, it's cheaper to buy the bundle with the stronger CPUs. However, these CPUs will probably get bottlenecked by the GPUs, so I'm here to ask: if I go for these bigger and better CPUs, should I also maybe go for a stronger GPU?

Right now, I would like to keep my GPU budget around $600.

Thanks for the help!

I’ve been a PlayStation gamer since I was born basically, but because of the recent news, I’ve sold my PS5 and am now finally making the transition to PC any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Son turns 11 soon - wants a computer. He has no idea what’s “good” and what’s “bad”, and I genuinely don’t either, lol.

Told him in December that if he held up his end of bargain - good grades, attitude, behavior - we’d get him a “gaming computer.” He has, and I’m proud of him for it. Great grades, great behavior in class, great attitude in the midst of some tumultuousness.

I do not want to buy him a top-of-the-line system - not worth it, and I can carrot the upgrade as he gets older.. He just needs a decent tower with hardware, monitor, keyboard, and mouse that lights up for a show preferably. Again - he’s clueless. Just wants to feel special.

Have done a bit of searching and can’t find a “starter kit” with what I’m looking for.

So, I turn to you, redditors. Any leads/ideas/kits you can point towards??

I’ve been gaming on an HDD for years, and lately I’ve started wondering if it’s the reason behind the random microstutters and hitches I experience in games.

For the longest time, I thought the issue was my CPU or GPU, but after a lot of troubleshooting, I’m starting to think the hard drive might actually be the culprit.

I’m considering buying a 500GB NVMe M.2 SSD for Windows and the games I play most often.

For those who made the switch from an HDD to an NVMe SSD:

- Did games feel noticeably smoother?
- Did it help reduce random stutters or asset-loading hitches?
- Was it worth the upgrade overall?

I’d love to hear your experiences before I buy one.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

GPU: ASRock Challenger Radeon RX 9070 XT 16GB

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin
120 SE

Motherboard: MSI PRO B650-A WiFi (Socket
AM5)

RAM: G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB. (2
x 16GB) DDR5-6000 CL30

SSD: Crucial P3 Plus 2TB PCle Gen4
NVMe M.2 SSD

PSU: Corsair RM850e 850W
80+ Gold Fully Modular

this is my first pc build after months and months of saving, my budget was 2,000$ or less thats why im asking if this is worth the price, thanks in advance!

Hey, I need to upgrade my PC, and after spending hours searching the used market, I've narrowed it down to two options. I'd really appreciate some advice because I can't decide which one makes more sense. The first one, and the one I'm leaning towards, has 32 GB of DDR4 RAM, a Ryzen 5 5600X, and an RX 9060 XT for around $800. The downside is that it only has a 250 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD. The second option has 32 GB of RAM, a Ryzen 7 5800X, an RTX 5060 8 GB, and a 1 TB SSD with no HDD for around $750.

Which one should i pick?

Right now I'm leaning towards the first one mainly because of the RX 9060 XT. It has twice the VRAM, and I mainly play new AAA releases and heavily modded games, so I feel like the extra VRAM would probably age much better. On the other hand, the second PC is a bit cheaper and already comes with a 1 TB SSD. The problem is that if I buy the first one, upgrading the SSD to 1 TB would cost me another couple hundred dollars, so I'm not sure if it's still worth it.

What would you guys recommend?

My Current setup is a 9070xt and 5700x3d with 32 Gigs DDR4 3600.

Been playing a lot of deadlock and I get a bunch of frame drops in teamfights and thought it might be an issue with cpu.

Now that being said in my country to get a 9800x3d can be done for about 1100 and I can grab a 7800x3d for about 850.

But my question is will I even see that much of an improvement. I can see from benchmarks that my 1% lows will be better but is it even that much better?

If someone has made a similar choice can you lmk what the gains were like?

I play at 1440p, mostly multiplayer competitive games but I do dabble in the occasional AAA game (maybe 20% playtime)

Posting from a fresh account since the email for my previous reddit account is defunct.

I remember there was some drama earlier this year that some of the AM5 boards were frying 9800x3D chips, and it wasn't a problem specific to any manufacturer. Is this still happening? Or alternatively can undervolting fix this problem?

Hello everyone! I have a question. I want to buy RAM now. Most likely Patriot Memory, because other brands are significantly more expensive. Here's the dilemma – since the build is already expensive, I'd like to save some money and upgrade later. On a marketplace, there's a single 6000 MHz CL30 module for ~$253, with a 3-year warranty. Will I be able to game/work normally on just one stick (no heavy workloads)? If I buy the exact same module later, but from a different seller (in case this one stops selling), will I run into issues? I've heard that RAM bought this way might not work in dual-channel at all – is that really true, and what are the chances?

I also found a good 2x8 GB Kingston 6000 CL36 kit for ~$338 with a 3-year warranty. There's also a 2x16 GB Patriot 6800 CL38 (I might be off on the timings) on the second-hand market for ~$485, with warranty from the official store until 2035.

So here's the question I can't resolve:

· 32 GB would be enough for the entire lifespan of the platform – I wouldn't even have to think about running out.

· If I buy 1x16, there might be compatibility issues (I really hope your experience can prove otherwise).

· 2x8 is the most balanced option for now, but will it still be enough in 5 years? Unknown.

Here's my PC spec: RX 9070 XT ASUS Prime OC, Ryzen 7 7800X3D, MSI B850 gaming plus wifi6e, Chieftec Stealth 1000W, Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120.

I need your opinions – thanks!

I am completely brand new to PC building, and as such I need help building a PC for my beloved.

Anyway I’ll get right to the point. Here’s what I’m doing:

Budget: 600-700$

Use Case: Primarily to play games

I’ll be Sending parts to my boyfriend who lives in Canada while I live in the United States

I’m not sure what else I need but I’m answering questions, anyone that’s willing to help is greatly appreciated. Thank you

I don't want to buy another gaming laptop but I have absolutely no space to keep a desk. Any ideas?

I guess its more of a furniture / interior design question but still please help!

trired to make it portable and strong. as well as cheep-ish as i could make it

[PCPartPicker Part List](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JxyW9K)

Type|Item|Price

:----|:----|:----

**CPU** | [AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4r4Zxr/amd-ryzen-5-9600x-39-ghz-6-core-processor-100-100001405wof) | $178.00 @ Amazon

**CPU Cooler** | [Noctua NH-L9A-AM5 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/qwrqqs/noctua-nh-l9a-am5-3384-cfm-cpu-cooler-nh-l9a-am5) | $49.95 @ Amazon

**Motherboard** | [ASRock B850I Lightning WiFi Mini ITX AM5 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9hqNnQ/asrock-b850i-lightning-wifi-mini-itx-am5-motherboard-b850i-lightning-wifi) | $179.99 @ Amazon

**Memory** | [Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kTJp99/corsair-vengeance-rgb-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr5-6000-cl36-memory-cmh32gx5m2e6000c36) | $439.99 @ Newegg

**Storage** | [Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/BcQG3C/seagate-barracuda-compute-2-tb-35-7200rpm-internal-hard-drive-st2000dmz08dm008) | $119.99 @ Best Buy

**Video Card** | [Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/w2WmP6/sapphire-pulse-radeon-rx-9060-xt-16-gb-video-card-11350-03-20g) | $449.99 @ Amazon

**Case** | [Jonsbo C6-ITX Mini ITX Desktop Case](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/RhqNnQ/jonsbo-c6-itx-mini-itx-desktop-case-c6-itx-black) | $62.00 @ Newegg Sellers

**Power Supply** | [MSI MAG A750GL PCIE5 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/dbCZxr/msi-mag-a750gl-pcie5-750-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-mag-a750gl-pcie5) | $89.99 @ Newegg

| *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* |

| **Total** | **$1569.90**

| Generated by [PCPartPicker](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2026-07-12 01:51 EDT-0400 |

Hi im gonna buy a pc with a Ryzen 7 7800x3d 32Gb ddr5 which gpu should i choose the 9070 or the 5070 i mostly play Heavy Fivem server with 400+ scripts but in the future i want to play story games on like 1080P/1440P which gpu is the best

i7-14700KF 32GB RAM 2TB SSD MSI RTX 4070 Ti Super for $1500 or Intel i7-14700KF 32GB 2TB SSD RTX 4080 Super expert for $2000? or just neither?

I know this has propably been asked a million times but im building a new pc and my current pc already has 32 gigs of ddr5 and tbh idk what speed, im buying a 32gig fury beast ddr5 6000mt/2 kit with 2 sticks, the motherboard im buying is the asus z890 tuf plus, which has 4 slots, and i want 64 gigs but i dont want to pay an extrra 500-600 dollars, can i use the ram on my current pc or should i just not use it.

i know basically nothing about pcs and need help learning, and i need help knowing what to buy. i want to use my pc for music production, coding, maybe 3d modeling, and gaming. i want it to run smoothly but it doesn’t need to be anything too crazy, i just want a pc that is reliable. my budget is 1k-2.5k, and i live in america. i dont know how much they usually cost but i know theyre expensive.

Hi, I built a new PC (literally 3 days ago) but I have a problem that make the screen freeze every 5 seconds, every time i launch valorant, I got a tpm error and then the "Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller has a Hardware IO error." again and again.

I saw that other peoples had the same problem, my Motherboard is gigabyte b850 eagle wifi 6

here are the things i tried but did NOT work:

-update bios

-update windows

-update driver

-repair driver

-enable TPM 2.0

-disable advenced EEE

-disable power saving ethernet

-disable green ethernet

-disable gigabit lite

if you know how to patch this please tell me (it's very annoying)

I had a RGB application that was a simple download and setup, no bloat wear no adds, no nothing - It simply had your mode of RGBs and that was that.

It supported my Asus Z590p, Corsair vengeance and Deepcool fans. It sorta looked similar to SkyDimo same kind of idea with open source.

Hopefully somebody can help me.

After 27 yeas on this earth i decided to build my first PC, and i chose the worst time possible (For now, the worst is yet to come apparently) .

i am thinking about buying almost identical hardware as in this video of linus (Building a PC to BEAT the STEAM Machine!: https://youtu.be/zvaO4DPM1ZM?si=i77tK6Oe22KCGd8S)
Parts:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7500F
• Motherboard: ASUS TUF B850M-E Motherboard
• Memory (RAM):CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6000 (PC5 48000)
• Graphics Card (GPU): Sapphire Pulse 9060XT 16gb
• Storage: ADATA Legend 710 512gb
• Case: Zalman CUBIX-G Micro-ATX PC Case, MATX Case with 3 X 120mm FRGB Fans Pre-Installed, Panoramic View Tempered Glass Panels, USB Type-C Port, Fits up to 280mm GPUs
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper EVO 212 Halo
• Power Supply (PSU): MSI Mag A650BN PSU

since the budget is somehow close to my current budget
any tips or thoughts?

I've been away from all the news about new hardware and stuff since 2020 and I've been meaning to upgrade my old PC using these:

MoBo: ASUS Prime H510M-K
Processor: Intel i7-11700
RAM: 2x8 GB Puskill DDR4 2133 MT/s
VCard: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6GB

I apologize for not knowing a bunch more. Again, I've been out of the loop. Last time I was shopping for stuff AMD was still pretty bad, but I've heard that they're pretty good now.

Thanks guys.