PC Pc Gaming/building thread

[dwwaino]

1440 is still the sweet spot and I noticed some 1440 results of favourable games where the 9070xt was drawing near or level to the 5080. However once RT was introduced then it got creamed and with RT becoming mandatory in many new games going forward it's why I wouldn't overpay for one and rather think of it as a good step for the next 2-3 years.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Good point on RT performance. Something I'll have to put some time into researching.

 

[dwwaino]

People are complaining about the AU pricing but I don't think it looks that bad. Red Devil is still one of my favourite designs too, I wish there was something like that for an NVIDIA partner.

 

[biaseddustyfan]

PCCG has had a TUF 5080 in stock all week, seems like people aren't really buying at $2,900 for a 5080?

4 days until I reach another ETA haha

 

[dwwaino]

PCCG has had a TUF 5080 in stock all week, seems like people aren't really buying at $2,900 for a 5080?

4 days until I reach another ETA haha

Probably plenty of stock and that's a little high. Both PLE and PCCG have been listing that as in stock for a while but even when I gave up the 5090 dream I thought that was still a little much for a TUF. Umart have had Gigabyte 5080s in stock for about two weeks but mostly shit SKUs (except for Gaming OC which isn't shit but not premium) for $2800. They've also had the Astral 5080 but at $3500 that's just insane. I paid $3000 for the Aorus Master which is definitely overs but I definitely wouldn't pay $2800 for the Windforce OC.

5090s have climbed into the $7000s. It's absolutely absurd at this point.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

So what's the difference between the brands if they're all 5080s? Some use shit parts or something?

 

[dwwaino]

So what's the difference between the brands if they're all 5080s? Some use shit parts or something?

Cooler designs. Some are noisy due to fan types and headsink designs, some don't cool very well so don't hit their OC targets, thermal compound differences from paste to pads to liquid metal etc. The TUF was always good because Asus originally intended it as a budget option verse their more premium Strix but now they have deleted the Strix, introduced the Astral as a halo product and slapped a premium price tag on the TUF.

 

[dwwaino]

Assembling a compact keyboard from a full size keycap set actually takes longer than I thought lol. The rows don't always match despite being organised in the box so lots of trial and error. Also a tip: make sure to buy way more switches than you need . The pins are so delicate that if they're not bent out of the package then they're easily bent when inserting. Guess I'll have to do a key check tomorrow!

 

[dwwaino]

I love doing this. If it paid half decently I'd do it as a job. I think it's why I elect to unnecessarily do new builds every 3-4 years as well as offer to build for friends and family because I just enjoy it. Wish I did it more though to get more practice at cable management and stuff.

Next time I choose fans that daisy chain (NZXT's previous aero RGB did, not sure why these don't). New 12v-2x6 ATX 3.1 update kind of sucks too. Cable was an absolute bitch to plug in and even though the plug was flush with the flange face of the socket the clip still wouldn't spring down. Ended up using a screwdriver to prod each side and eventually got the clip to latch. Don't like the cable going over the graphics card either but it looked really poo going underneath. Hopefully it posts. Kind of nervous because when I got the motherboard out of the box the corner of the IO panel had taken a knock that I had to straighten out. Probably from factory because the box was undamaged. Also what is it with graphics card radiator fins being crooked? Noticing this on lots of other people's the last 12 or months and on this one I straightened out a few shockers. It's still not perfect but better than what it was. PC parts QC is surely at an all time low.

Also wish me luck I have all my ROPs.

 

[dwwaino]

Well I'm installing Windows which I guess is a good sign

 

[dwwaino]

Grrr Glorious keyboard has a busted socket on the PCB so have to return it. Other than that everything else seems to be setting up fine. Also have all my ROPs phew.

 

[dwwaino]

Damn it, most of my Steam wishlist is on sale. Decisions decisions.

 

[gaskin]

Damn it, most of my Steam wishlist is on sale. Decisions decisions.

Same. I can't work out how much I want to spend.

 

[dwwaino]

Same. I can't work out how much I want to spend.

I've got stuff that hardly goes on sale and I check every week swearing that I'll buy it as soon as it does. Now it is and I'm hesitating.

I think I'll finally get System Shock. That's regularly on sale but I think it's finally time. I really really want to play Silent Hill 2 remake. It isn't on sale often which has been my excuse but now I feel like I'm whimping out. Lots of other stuff I'm still considering.

I'm torn between just buying what I'm going to play in the immediate future vs digging deeper and having the games for a rainy day. But that's already 80% of my library and how our piles of of shame started.

 

[gaskin]

I've been waiting for Cities Skylines 2, Horizon Forbidden West, God of War Ragnarok, and Phantom Liberty to go on sale and they are all on sale at the same time.

 

[dwwaino]

I've been playing Cities 2 on Game Pass but want to get it on Steam at some point. Just waiting for a better deal on the expansion pass as $60 is still a bit steep for what's in it.

 

[dwwaino]

Is the second hand market moving much for full builds at the moment? I can search but can't see if anything is selling. I know my old graphics card would sell but I'd rather not toss the rest of it so thinking of replacing the motherboard as it looks like I can still find b550, and chucking in a new SSD and CPU air cooler and try to flog off the whole thing.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Given the crazy prices of PCs these days and after speaking to Mrs Burnside, going to spread out the cost a bit by picking up things like a new monitor now-ish and the actual PC later rather than all in one hit.

Got my eye on this. Any thoughts?

ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL3A Gaming Monitor – 27-inch, QHD(2560x1440), 180Hz

 

[dwwaino]

Given the crazy prices of PCs these days and after speaking to Mrs Burnside, going to spread out the cost a bit by picking up things like a new monitor now-ish and the actual PC later rather than all in one hit.

Got my eye on this. Any thoughts?

ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL3A Gaming Monitor – 27-inch, QHD(2560x1440), 180Hz

This is the best approach. You can also get exactly what you want because it's easier to go slightly over budget to get the exact thing you want when you spread the cost.

On paper the specs of those monitor look like everything you'd be looking for but you'll probably have to go check out some new reviews. Being a budget IPS maybe there is some bad IPS bleed or something that you'll need to research. I also just looked it up and it's an Innolux panel. 95% of monitor panels are made by either Innolux, LG Display or Samsung. So if you find a monitor you really like sometimes it's worth searching for other brands using the same panel for a better price. Sometimes you can find the same panel but with more features like USB ports or something on another brand.

 

[dwwaino]

Just got my FTTP upgrade today. Pretty decent at 6pm when it's the 250 tier. Didn't go 1000 because with Telstra it's just too expensive at the moment. Considered some other options like Aussie but as the missus works from home and relies on the internet so I didn't want to risk unreliable service when Telstra have been rock solid. I think I read last year that NBN will be shuffling the tiers this year or next anyway so I'm assuming the 250 tier will get bumped to 400 or 500. 3ms ping is tidy too. On my previous FTTC connection my best ping was usually 6 or 7.




edit: just downloading Alan Wake 2 again and that has translated to about 33mb sec woo

 

[biaseddustyfan]

Just got my FTTP upgrade today. Pretty decent at 6pm when it's the 250 tier. Didn't go 1000 because with Telstra it's just too expensive at the moment. Considered some other options like Aussie but as the missus works from home and relies on the internet so I didn't want to risk unreliable service when Telstra have been rock solid. I think I read last year that NBN will be shuffling the tiers this year or next anyway so I'm assuming the 250 tier will get bumped to 400 or 500. 3ms ping is tidy too. On my previous FTTC connection my best ping was usually 6 or 7.


View attachment 2254683

edit: just downloading Alan Wake 2 again and that has translated to about 33mb sec woo

I've had a good time with Superloop 250mbps where I live currently with an Asus router I bought myself, usually sits around 270 too. Has gone down once in 12 months at like 5am, back by 6am. Five days a month you can upgrade it to the next tier which is 1000 but gets me around 700-800mbps on Steam downloads

I lived rural until recently, still had ADSL2. The other night in preparation for my GPU maybe arriving one day, I downloaded a heap of games, hundreds of gigs. Would've taken literal weeks with the ADSL being unusable for anything else, but it took 3 hours lol

 

[dwwaino]

I've had a good time with Superloop 250mbps where I live currently with an Asus router I bought myself, usually sits around 270 too. Has gone down once in 12 months at like 5am, back by 6am. Five days a month you can upgrade it to the next tier which is 1000 but gets me around 700-800mbps on Steam downloads

I lived rural until recently, still had ADSL2. The other night in preparation for my GPU maybe arriving one day, I downloaded a heap of games, hundreds of gigs. Would've taken literal weeks with the ADSL being unusable for anything else, but it took 3 hours lol

Speaking of rural I played a heap of Destiny with guys from outside Canberra and around Nowra and stuff. They all went to Starlink and had a great experience compared to the shitty fixed lines they had even if some were technically on NBN.

I had to reset my NTD tonight which was weird. Net completely stopped but I just checked my emails and it looks like it was exactly around the time I got an email from Telstra to say my old connection has been disconnected so maybe there was some sort of reset on the back end. The email also seems to be having a dig at me because it says they detected I'm using my own modem (router technically) lol. Well I have told them before that my Telstra Smart Modem stopped working so I replaced it with a router that better suites my needs and that they're more than welcome to send me a new one and no I'm not going to call to trouble shoot the old one when it simply doesn't work (it does but regularly freezes and requires a power cycle).

Those speeds you are getting sound pretty standard for the tiers then. My bro in law is on Aussie's 1000 plan and gets around 800 too. Telstra also advertise an average speed of 850 on their 1000 too. It's just so expensive on Telstra which is why I wanted to shift but the wife was paranoid about it impacting her work so I decided to stay with Telstra. Had to call 3 times though to get the new customer deal. First two times they flat out refused and said the best they were allowed to do was a $10 discount for 6 months and I said it wasn't good enough for how long I've been a customer. Maybe someone put a note on my account because the third time I called and asked politely the nice lady said she'd check my account and instantly said she could apply the new customer discount lol. It's only for 6 months though and then it goes back to $130 which I think is what my bro in law is paying for 1000 through Aussie, but I'm sweating on the NBN tiers shifting up and the 250 tier becomes 400-500. I can't remember where I read it but I swear I did. It was the same article I was reading that they were phasing out FTTC and the 100 tier hence the free upgrades for FTTC customers to FTTP.

Still extremely happy with this speed. To be honest 100 wasn't bad. However new games could take most of the evening to download which was poo and I noticed if I watched 4K cricket on Foxtel (I have IQ 4 box) it could stutter if I did anything else like try to watch YouTube on my computer or download something. I don't know how long Alan Wake 2 took to download but it was done by the time I finished dinner and 4K streaming should be a breeze now.

 

[omgfridge]

Given the crazy prices of PCs these days and after speaking to Mrs Burnside, going to spread out the cost a bit by picking up things like a new monitor now-ish and the actual PC later rather than all in one hit.

Got my eye on this. Any thoughts?

ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL3A Gaming Monitor – 27-inch, QHD(2560x1440), 180Hz

If thats this one

ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQ3A - 27" 1440p 180Hz IPS Monitor

The 27-inch TUF Gaming VG27AQ3A QHD gaming monitor featuring a IPS panel for blistering-fast 180 Hz gaming. ASUS Extreme Low Motion Blur Sync (ELMB Sync) and AMD FreeSync Premium, G-SYNC compatible, VESA Adaptive-Sync technologies enables buttery-smooth gaming. In addition, it supports HDR and...

www.ple.com.au

Then I have two of those right now, My PC setup is about 4 years old now, I game a shit tonne and haven't had any issues.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

If thats this one

ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQ3A - 27" 1440p 180Hz IPS Monitor

The 27-inch TUF Gaming VG27AQ3A QHD gaming monitor featuring a IPS panel for blistering-fast 180 Hz gaming. ASUS Extreme Low Motion Blur Sync (ELMB Sync) and AMD FreeSync Premium, G-SYNC compatible, VESA Adaptive-Sync technologies enables buttery-smooth gaming. In addition, it supports HDR and...

www.ple.com.au

Then I have two of those right now, My PC setup is about 4 years old now, I game a shit tonne and haven't had any issues.

That's the one! Only thing I'm not sure of is if a new model will come out this year. But all the reviews I've read have been glowing.

 

[dwwaino]

4K OLED life update: finally learnt what VRR flicker is. Didn't experience it on the AW3423DW because that is as far as I know the only OLED monitor with the Gsync module which must does something to combat VRR flicker like LG OLED TVs with their black level adjuster thingy. I've only noticed it in Alan Wake 2 due to how dark the game is (apparently Cyberpunk is the other main culprit but I'm yet to test it). When it comes to Gsync/VRR I've been still in the mindset of like 2017 when it was pretty much required. I've been reluctant to disable VRR because I've been in the mindset that it was essential. Firstly I tried stabilising the frame rate but it was still prone to occasional flicker due to the way the Gamma curve works in OLEDs. Now I've learnt that with massive refresh rates on monitors you can brute force your way through it. With the 5080 I ended up disabling Gsync in the Nvidia app for Alan Wake 2 and then I set frame gen to 4x. At 4K output with DLSS performance (1080 input) on the new transformer model, everything maxed, RT including ray reconstruction, and then Path Tracing to low (still a brutal setting) the output FPS is anywhere from about 175 to 230ish so anytime a frame maybe is going to tear a new one is simply going to be drawn. Also enabling any form of frame gen on an Nvidia card automatically enables Reflex* so you don't need to set Vsync or an FPS cap.


*this is what is written and has been true in every game except for Indiana Jones. I don't know why but it kept wanting to push 300-400+ fps with 4x frame gen and I needed to set a 237 fps cap for my 240hz monitor. It means the GPU is often being under utilised but there is still black magic going on because the game is maxed out besides Path Tracing and absolutely hard locked on the 237 cap I set without exception and running like an absolute dream.