[dougms3]

Question for you guys.

I'm building a gaming pc for a friend's son.

What is the best value video card? Price to performance.

I was looking at the 4060ti or maybe 4070.

Its been a while since I built a gaming pc. These cards are enormous, do they need some kind of support to hold them up?

 

[SilverEars]

Question for you guys.

I'm building a gaming pc for a friend's son.

What is the best value video card? Price to performance.

I was looking at the 4060ti or maybe 4070.

Its been a while since I built a gaming pc. These cards are enormous, do they need some kind of support to hold them up?

Probably 6700XT or 6800XT. Yes, they need support. Mine came with a bracket already on there and screwed onto the case since it was prebuilt, but somebody that build their computer would know better.

 

[OCC7N]

@dougms3 4060

However the sweetspot is always the 70

 

[dougms3]

Got one of these for the gaming pc build.

Maingear platinum 1200w PS. This is the biggest PS I've ever seen.

 

[Landis]

Holy moly! 1200W might be overkill, but overkill is the Head-Fi way.

 

[dougms3]

Holy moly! 1200W might be overkill, but overkill is the Head-Fi way.

Yep, way overkill, considering its probably gonna used to play roblox or minecraft.

It was on sale for $100, haven't tried this brand before but the price was right.

 

[Landis]

I did a bit of Googling as I hadn't heard of them either. Maingear, as in the well regarded PC pre-built company, seems like a newer white label partnership for the PSUs. Over the past few years, a couple of alleged spicy cases (Reviews on Micro Center and an alleged case on Reddit). In the mildly well regarded LTT forum PSU Tier List, it's ranked a B, untested.

While I don't love high powered components without a lot of testing, it doesn't seem terrible overall and in fact better than most. But as a rule of thumb, a PSU controls the life and death of your other components, so always good to play it safe.

 

[OCC7N]

Got one of these for the gaming pc build.

Maingear platinum 1200w PS. This is the biggest PS I've ever seen.

Looks like a good psu. Build by same factory as EVGA.

The Ignition model?

 

[dougms3]

Yep the ignition model.

Normally, I don't like to buy tested and proven gear but I figured it should be ok since it has a 10 year warranty.

 

[OCC7N]

To the AMD AM4/5 owners in this thread. I encourage you to read up on the block diagrams of your motherboards and choose the USB port on the IO backpanel that goes straight to the CPU.

Put you files or portable/musicplayer on a USB stick and use one of these ports. Also you USB DAC/DDC.

Gigabyte and MSI are really good at providing information. Asus sucks as always. Stay away from their AMD motherboards imo.

Asrock, Gigabytes and MSI is my next AMD motherboard.

As you all may know the official issues with AM5 socket I even had to switch 3-4 motherboards on AM4...... Asus Strix B550-F is working like a charm though and I like it!

 

[KcMsterpce]

I am not an Asus fanboi, but I will say that their ROG series hardware frequently employs top-of-the-line features.
Thus, I have the Asus ROG X670E Extreme motherboard. That was the ONLY motherboard that had Wifi 6E, USB 5.0, as well as the lanes available for 4x M.2 Gen 4 drives, and Gen 5 M.2 options, etc... The next on the list would have been the MSI GODLIKE, but that lacks some of the newest adoption options. Additionally, the VRMs are not as efficient, it's tremendously overpriced, and one of the more embarrassing releases from MSI over the years. With that said, it's a first-gen early adoption board that will have hiccups and troubleshooting needs. The X700-series will most likely incorporate a lot of what this board offers in a wider selection, and at lower prices. My attempt at spending more up front was meant to counterbalance the need for upgrades in the future. Don't know how much of a difference it'll make, but i hope this lasts me a couple generational upgrades.
I worked really really hard to find a motherboard that WASN'T Asus with the same features. It didn't exist. I was even going so low as to look at ASRock options :O :O
I guess what I'm getting at is yeah, sure, if you want that best performance from your USB port of choice (I assume your comment is about the least amount of noise/interference for more pure audio?), it kind of boils down to what features matter most to you at time of purchase.

 

[OCC7N]

I divided my priorities to INTEL/ASUS.....AMD every other brand. However my next build is gonna base on the CPU pcie lanes. Im gonna eliminate the PCH totally. I am depended on them for my next build since I take up 16 lanes for my GPU. I would like to run 4-5 NVMs on atleast 3 lanes each. thats already 12-15lanes.

The new AMD 8000 series should break the 30s pcie lane before I go all-in.

The question is would AMD 8000 implement ethernet lanes to the CPU. This could be good news for streamers.

Imagine seing motherboards without the PCH bridge?

From my own experience NVME beats the SATA, and the USB connected to the PCH is irrelevant. I don´t see a need for it. AM5 has already implemented the sound chip lanes also, even the ESS on the highend boards.

Im saying it will definitly before 2030, but I want it before 2025

 

[dougms3]

I divided my priorities to INTEL/ASUS.....AMD every other brand. However my next build is gonna base on the CPU pcie lanes. Im gonna eliminate the PCH totally. I am depended on them for my next build since I take up 16 lanes for my GPU. I would like to run 4-5 NVMs on atleast 3 lanes each. thats already 12-15lanes.

The new AMD 8000 series should break the 30s pcie lane before I go all-in.

The question is would AMD 8000 implement ethernet lanes to the CPU. This could be good news for streamers.

Imagine seing motherboards without the PCH bridge?

From my own experience NVME beats the SATA, and the USB connected to the PCH is irrelevant. I don´t see a need for it. AM5 has already implemented the sound chip lanes also, even the ESS on the highend boards.

Im saying it will definitly before 2030, but I want it before 2025

It'll definitely be interesting.

Intel took the lead back with the 13th and 14th gen chips, amd slipped up with the last generation and have been having all kinds of glitches and software bugs with the am5 platform.

They still dominate the commercial line with server and datacenter chips but either way both companies being competetive means faster advances in tech and better prices, consumers benefit the most.

I'm still running a ryzen 5 3600 so I'm probably due for an upgrade in a year or two. I'm not looking forward to it since I have a ton of gear in my pc, fan filters, sata filters, jcat card, power filter card, mag lev fans, I don't even want to think about it.

 

[dougms3]

As I was shopping for motherboard, I've noticed they've started to get serious about the audio chips on these high end mobos.

I haven't kept up, is this a common thing now?

I believe this is from the flagship gigabyte lga1700 mobo

DTS:X® Ultra Audio：ESS ES9280A DAC and ESS ES9080A with Front ESSential USB DAC Bundled

Asus flagship mobo is using an ess9218 quad dac setup.

ROG SupremeFX 7.1 Surround Sound High Definition Audio CODEC ALC4082*
- Impedance sense for front and rear headphone outputs
- Supports: Jack-detection, Multi-streaming, Front Panel Jack-retasking
- High quality 120 dB SNR stereo playback output and 110 dB SNR recording input
- Supports up to 32-Bit/384 kHz playback
Audio Features
- SupremeFX Shielding Technology
- ESS® ES9218 QUAD DAC
- Gold-plated audio jacks
- Rear optical S/PDIF out port
- Premium audio capacitors

 

[OCC7N]

As I was shopping for motherboard, I've noticed they've started to get serious about the audio chips on these high end mobos.

I haven't kept up, is this a common thing now?

I believe this is from the flagship gigabyte lga1700 mobo

DTS:X® Ultra Audio：ESS ES9280A DAC and ESS ES9080A with Front ESSential USB DAC Bundled

Asus flagship mobo is using an ess9218 quad dac setup.

ROG SupremeFX 7.1 Surround Sound High Definition Audio CODEC ALC4082*
- Impedance sense for front and rear headphone outputs
- Supports: Jack-detection, Multi-streaming, Front Panel Jack-retasking
- High quality 120 dB SNR stereo playback output and 110 dB SNR recording input
- Supports up to 32-Bit/384 kHz playback
Audio Features
- SupremeFX Shielding Technology
- ESS® ES9218 QUAD DAC
- Gold-plated audio jacks
- Rear optical S/PDIF out port
- Premium audio capacitors

The best part is, it is implemented on the CPU side on AM5

Intel is still PCH

Look at the highend model from Gigabyte which is the best of providing informations and block diagrams.

Asus only sends their diagrams to reviewers if I remember correctly.

Asus wont even mention what side the USB ports are on which is basic on MSI manual or spec sheet.

Asrock is also not very good with information, equally as Asus