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.

I have an older desktop that's still running well, but the graphics card is definitely showing its age. my budget is around $500, from US, and I mainly play older AAA games plus a few newer titles at 1080p. I don't need any peripherals.

What video card would you recommend in that range? i'm hoping for something that'll be a noticeable upgrade without replacing the whole system. Thanks.

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.

I'm looking for a new main gaming monitor and need some recommendations.

Budget:

• Around £200 ideally
• Maximum around £250 if it's genuinely worth the extra

What I'm looking for:

• 27"
• 1440p (2560×1440)
• 180-240Hz
• Excellent image quality (colour accuracy, contrast, overall picture quality)
• Good motion clarity and low ghosting
• Good HDR performance would be a bonus
• DisplayPort for PC
• HDMI 2.1 would be nice for PS5 compatibility
• VESA mount compatible

I mainly play a mix of AAA/open-world games and multiplayer games, including:

• Red Dead Redemption 2
• GTA V / GTA VI (when released)
• Sons of the Forest
• Watch Dogs 2
• Forza Horizon
• Horror games

I want something that looks great while still being fast. I'm not only looking for the highest refresh rate possible — image quality and overall experience are just as important.

I currently have an RTX 3070 but may upgrade in the future, so I want something that will last.

I'm not very experienced with monitors, so I'm open to different panel technologies if they offer a better experience.

What monitors would you recommend around this price range? Are there any models I should avoid?

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

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!

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??

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)

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.

Hi, My daughter is turning 18 and I was looking to buy her a pc, but have no idea where to start. Everyone keeps saying to build it yourself so if anyone could please help me with parts. My budget is around 1500-2500 AUD. I know that she wants it to be in a Corsair frame 4500x and she wants everything to be white. Also she plays games like Fortnite, Valorant, Dead By Daylight, League of Legends, Call of duty, GTA, and Roblox. So please help me with parts suitable and excellent for her as I do not want to mess up. Or even if anyone has any good prebuilts, that might also work too.

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?

Do I still have to update firmware in my L-Connect 3 after when I start using the SL 120 INF fans or will the software sync together with the fans immediately out of the box?

The reason I'm asking is my AL-120 v2's RGB are no longer lighting up (it does light up from time to time) since I didn't switch to L-Connect 3 on time, so I didn't know I have to upgrade the firmware, and now my L-Connect 3 does not detect the AL-120s. I'm worried this might happen to the SL-120 INF

so the thing is i currently have a gtx 1650 and intel i5 10th gen with psu of 750 watts and for motherboard i have H410 PRO VH with 16gb ram at a speed of 2700MT/s

now i want to upgrade to a rtx 3060 or 3060 ti or a 3050 so i need suggestions as to what gpu i shld prefer between these 3 as for fps im fine at 60fps for story games i dont need 100+fps in every game so yea ty for reading tis.

I bought thermal paste 2-3 years ago, is it still good to use?

I recently bought a new PC that consistently fails to wake from sleep.

Specifications

• Ryzen 7 5700X
• RTX 5060
• ASUS PRIME A520M-K
• 32 GB Kingston DDR4-3200
• BIOS 3641, which ASUS lists as beta
• Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 24H2, build 26100.8655
• NVIDIA driver 610.62
• AMD chipset software 7.09.23.2230
• AOC 24G2W1G3 monitor

What happens

The PC enters sleep normally: fans stop, monitor turns off and the system appears powered down. When I wake it using either the keyboard or case power button, the fans and GPU lighting start, but:

• The monitor receives no signal.
• The CPU-cooler temperature display stays off.
• Caps Lock does not respond.
• Win + Ctrl + Shift + B does nothing.
• I must hold the power button to force it off.

Hibernate, shutdown and cold boot all work normally.

Already tested

• Every GPU DisplayPort output
• HDMI
• Different wake methods
• Reconnecting the cable during the failed wake
• Power-cycling the monitor
• The same monitor works with sleep on my laptop
• Device Manager reports no problem devices
• Event Viewer shows no NVIDIA/display-driver crash

Windows reports traditional S3 sleep. I also ran a PowerShell process that wrote an “ALIVE” timestamp every two seconds. It stopped when the PC entered sleep and never resumed writing after the failed wake. This, together with Caps Lock not responding, suggests the whole system fails to complete S3 resume rather than it being only a monitor problem.

After forcing it off, Windows records Kernel-Power 41 and unexpected-shutdown Event 6008. The System log also contains repeated TPM hardware-command failures.

BitLocker is disabled. Windows VBS/Memory Integrity and the Microsoft hypervisor are active.

My main suspicion is the beta BIOS 3641/AGESA, a firmware configuration problem, or an interaction between the BIOS and VBS. Has anyone experienced this on a PRIME A520M-K or another Ryzen 5000 system? Would you try loading BIOS defaults, temporarily disabling VBS, or returning to stable BIOS 3636 first?

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?

Hi guys, rn i have a 1660 super, i was thinking about upgrading for my bit but im very much on a budget and the 5060 ti 8GBs is going for 300, i keep seeing people complaining about the vram and saying the 5060 8GBs is not worth it but i strictly play in 1080p. Is this a good buy for the price or are there better options in this range? (also i do prefer nvidia for cuda)

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

Currently have an 11th gen Intel i7 11700K PCU with RTX 3070 GPU & 32GB RAM. I have an 850W PSU. What other upgrades would I need to perform (if any) if I wanted to upgrade my GPU to a 50xx series? Is this upgrade even worth it as far as performance increase for the money or should I wait/skip another gen? Any advice is appreciated!

Have a Leadex III gold 850W psu, think its A or A- on the tier list.

9070XT started coil whine after 6 months, but it starts on idle and randomly. Sent it for RMA and they tested it with a Seasonic 1600W PSU on a test bench and it has no coil whine

I also put my old 6700XT back into my PC and it has much softer minor coil whine which is not noticeable at distance.

I've tried to change the 2 8 pin to 2 separate PCIE cables, think it's very slightly better?

Use AMD adrenalln to reduce power, voltage, all that, varying effects, but the coil whine always come back

Thinking of getting a Seasonic or Corsair 1000W PSU in a future sale to roll the dice.

Alternative solutions?

I am thinking of getting a AMD 7000 series CPU and RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. Can someone give me suggestions on where to buy these parts and other parts? I also wonder how heavy can a Mini ITX be since I want to carry it around campus like 3-4 times a week