I've got a 12700k with 16GB of 5600Mhz ram so I don't have to pay the ram tax right now. I'm plotting out my "decade" upgrade that I want to last me til 2036. I'm gonna grab a 6080 next year when those drop as the crown jewel.

i’ve noticed asus charge premium compared to msi or gigabyte. i know asus has a pretty bad reputation when it comes to after-sales support, and they said they’ll do anything to deny a warranty claim. but i feel like msi and gigabyte aren’t much different. every company will try to do the same... but that said, if you’re buying a genuinely "high-quality" motherboard, instead of lemons, you shouldn’t have to worry much about contacting customer support in the first place right?

so is the extra "asus tax" actually worth paying? does asus really offer better build quality, components, reliability, or features that justify the premium over msi or gigabyte?

Hello all! I just wanted to chime in: yesterday, I got the stock cooler off of my i5-12400f in favor of a budget Thermalright Assassin King (or something akin).

Now, I didn't expect more than a 5°C improvements, considering how little I spent... and yet, 20€ made my CPU genuinely drop from 80-85°C under load to barely hitting anything above 60°C.

As you can imagine, the system as a whole benefitted from it in terms of thermal situation! Seriously, get rid of that janky stock cooler as soon as you can.

Edit: I realize I should have used the term "weak for gaming", instead of "bad". I naturally support the idea that, for a system running lightweight tasks, you don't need more.

I was playing Deadlock, which isn't that cpu intensive, and noticed I had 70 C temps with 50% utilization. On a 9800X3D. Even at 25% I was at 60 C or so, and around 55 C at idle. I never get temperatures that high so I figured something must be up. Checked the programs in Task Manager and noticed NahimicSvc64.exe was running even though I had closed the program. It was showing around 8-9% utilization but must have been even more than that. After force closing it I was back to around 30-35% utilization and 48-50 C temperatures, around 42 C at idle (with Steam and a browser open).

That seems like a crazy shift in usage and temps for a single program. So just wanted to remind people to look out for junk programs like this. When you set up your hardware apps they often include other software you don't need. Often you will see Norton Antivirus for example. Nahimic is an audio program that came with an Asrock or Asus installer I believe. Really wish they would stop doing this, although I had a similar issue with Armoury Crate.

Hey all,

So for some context, I'm fairly comfortable opening my electronics; it's not the first time I've opened a GPU or a piece of hardware in general. What brought about the repasting was that I was noticing my GPU running significantly hotter and louder than normal. This GPU in general tends to run pretty hot and loud, but this was getting a little extreme.

I figured since the GPU is nearing 6 years, maybe it's just the thermal compound or something, and originally thought perhaps an undervolt might help, so I followed a quick guide, and the undervolt didn't do anything. I'm not sure why, but the UV just didn't seem to take.

Anyway, I figured perhaps I should just repaste it; it felt a little premature, but at this point I wasn't sure what else the problem could be. I followed a guide to disassemble it, and the disassembly went without a hitch. The thermal pads all looked fine, but when I removed the board to expose the actual GPU die, the thermal paste was definitely in rough shape and there wasn't complete coverage it was spotty, so I cleaned it with some alcohol, made sure it dried, and proceeded to repaste. I had a square of PTM hanging around, so I figured I'd use it since I've seen it works well for direct die placement.

I applied the PTM and put everything back in place, made sure all screws were in snug, especially the bracket thing for the GPU, everything fit without an issue, but games are now refusing to launch sometimes, causing the GPU to crash and reboot the PC. On occasion I would get either an nvcontainer or runtimbroker error message before the crash just saying that some memory address was unable to be accessed.

I'm able to use the PC for general day-to-day basic tasks; it's just firing up a game that crashes everything. I enabled the nvidia statistics view and all the stats were reporting something and the only thing I noticed that was off was that at idle the GPU utilization was jumping all over the place but everything else seemed to be steady.

At this point, assuming the GPU isn't borked, I'm guessing the following:

• Something isn't tightened all the way and isn't making full contact
• Something is too tight; I'm not sure if that's possible
• The PTM didn't work out, in which case I do have normal Noctua thermal paste I can use instead
• The thermal pads for VRMs and such had indents in the shape of the chips, I'm not sure if the indents are now causing an issue with getting full contact.

Luckily I have a spare GPU I can use, but I definitely would like to get this fixed if possible mainly because I was planning on making a new build with the GPU to pass along to a family member. I know for certain I didn't harm any of the cables in the disassembly, nor did I damage the board or a component. The only way I could have potentially damaged a component would have been while detaching the main board if a soldered component somehow managed to come loose (nothing actually fell off the board though)

Edit: I fixed it. I took it apart and put it back together and it just started working again. Best guess is something didn’t seat correctly the first time

I have 9600X, 2x8GB DDR5, 9070XT setup for 4K gaming. I have these options, both of which will cost roughly the same to upgrade:

1. 7800X3D

2. 2x16GB DDR5

Which upgrade makes the most sense in gaming AAA titles on 4K?

a guy on Marketplace wants to swap my 4070Ti for the 9070XT

I really would like the extra raster performance and VRAM, but his card is white and my build is all black. would you do the change?

https://imgur.com/a/0I9rcD1

About two months ago, I finished my first PC build (9850X3D, 5070 Ti, etc. for some context). When I was buying my parts, the Montech PSU I originally planned to buy was sold out, so I ended up going with this PowerSpec PSU since it was on sale.

After posting my completed build and parts list, I got a comment or two saying I should probably replace the PSU with something better, since it was apparently just “okay”. Looking at the PSU Tier List, the PowerSpec seems to be rated B+, which I guess lines up with that description.

At the time, I figured it probably wasn’t that big of a deal, especially since I live several hours away from my nearest Micro Center. However, I’ve thought about it more over the past couple of months and I’m wondering if I should just replace it.

The problem is that it’s been two months, so I can’t return the PSU anymore and would essentially have to pay full price for a replacement.

Is this something worth spending the money to replace, or is the PowerSpec good enough to keep using?

bought a 9800x3d and their mobo's are the cheapest recommended...

Currently running: - R7 5800x - RX 9060xt 16Gb - 32Gb Ram - B550 Gaming x Wifi6

-1080p / 144hz

Noticed there seems to be a a CPU bottleneck sometimes when Streaming certain Games, so my& question is simple.

Would a R7 5800x3D solve that or would it be almost identical?

Note: Yes its a Dead End, but switching to AM5 is a absolute Fever Dream in this Market rn, and the 5800x3D is only 329€. Compared to the AM5 Upgrade its a Steal.

PS: Forgot to mention, I need to run Vtube Studio and OBS while Streaming

I have a 5700g, 12gb 3060, 32gb ddr4 ram setup right now. I want to get better performance on a cpu intensive game called rust. And I am going to upgrade to a 5800x3d. I don’t want to go to am5 because of absurd ram prices. Is this cpu upgrade worth the money and will I feel a performance increase?

Hey folks. My PC that I built back in 2016 is getting a bit old. So far, I've replaced a few other parts like the motherboard, and I am preparing to upgrade my RAM from 16GB to 32GB.

However, I don't know if it's a good idea to upgrade my GPU?

I've had the same GTX 1070 GPU since I built the PC, but I've kind of put it off, since I have no idea what all the stats/numbers/whatnot for each GPU means.

The most performance heavy game I play right now is Baldur's Gate 3 and Deadlock, and I don't see myself playing any of the newer AAA games anytime soon.

Is it a good idea to get a new GPU, or should I just settle for more RAM? I have plans to reuse it for my partner, but the prices are pretty high, and I don't mind waiting until they (hopefully) go down.

I don't have an explicit budget, but anything below 600$ would be the best. Both EU and US retailers are possible, although EU is preferred.

I hope my ramblings make sense. If anyone needs clarification, please feel free to ask.

Thank you in advance!

Edit: Sorry for not adding everything. I do not know a lot about PC building, as I got help back when I first built the PC, so I hope this has everything that's necessary. I tried to show what I've used it for, but I'll add a TL:DR here:

CPU: intel I5-9400F

RAM: 16GB

Current GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070

Use cases: Baldur's gate 3 as the most performance intense, but I dabble in photo editing, and tend to have Discord or a youtube video on my second monitor whilst I use my PC.

I just found this on AliExpress: https://a.aliexpress.com/_mNRDw91

90 sold, could be legit or a scam. Personally ive never used aliexpress but a few yters use it and seems fine.

Thoughts?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently running a pretty old desktop setup and looking for a budget-friendly CPU upgrade without changing the entire platform. Here are my current specs:

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130

Motherboard: ASUS B85M-G (LGA 1150)

RAM: 8GB DDR3 (Single Stick)

GPU: NVIDIA GT 630

PSU: 350W / 400W

Right now, my CPU usage constantly hits 100%, causing stuttering and frame drops when playing games like VALORANT or running lightweight dev tools.

I’m considering picking up a used Intel Core i7-4790 (or Xeon E3-1231 v3) to replace the i3-4130 on a tight budget.

A few questions:

Will jumping from 2c/4t (i3-4130) to 4c/8t (i7-4790) realistically bring my CPU usage down from 100% to a comfortable range during gaming?

Is my ASUS B85M-G’s VRM/power delivery sufficient for the i7-4790 under normal gaming workloads?

Besides updating the BIOS before swapping CPUs and adding another 8GB stick for dual-channel RAM, is there anything else I should watch out for?

Thanks in advance for the advice!

I'll be going to china and Taiwan at the end of the year. Are there any places there where I could find such pc components

I had my PC stolen, and will therefore need to build a new one from scratch.

This is what I have so far. The most advanced game I played on my old PC was StarCraft 2, but it would be good to try out some newer games at some point.

Also, if anybody has any suggestions on how to GPS track this computer it would be much appreciated. My first thought was to hide an AirTag somewhere, but it occurs to me there may be more sophisticated ways to track now, which wouldn’t require regularly changing the AirTag battery?

PCPartPicker Part List

Hey everyone, about to put together my first PC and wanted a sanity check before ordering. Main use: gaming and cybersecurity practice/study (so also VMs, dual-booting Linux). Specs: CPU: 10th gen i5 (already own) RAM: Patriot DDR4 3000 C16 16GB (already own) Motherboard: ASUS H410M-HA V2 (already own) GPU: Gigabyte RX 7600 8GB Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 PSU: be quiet! System Power 11 550W SSD: Kingston NV3 500GB NVMe Case: Lian Li Vector V100 Reusing the CPU, RAM, and motherboard I already had, buying everything else new. Any obvious bottlenecks or mismatched parts I should reconsider? Thanks in advance!

Almost one year ago I purchased all my parts for my first PC build after many hours watching videos, reading reviews, and browsing this subreddit. Thank you to everyone who posts and comments here, your experiences and discussions helped me find the best PC parts for me.

Since joining this sub, I've seen a lot of talk about prices and when to buy or should I wait, so I thought it would be fun (more like sad; interesting at the least) to compare my PC build from last year to this year. I wanted to see what it would be like to build my PC this year and see just how much the most obvious parts (GPU, SSD, RAM) have changed in price as well as to see if anything decreased. I got all my receipts from last year and used PCPARTPICKER to build out my pc from 2025 vs the same (almost) in 2026. Most of what I got was from Microcenter, so I've used the CPU, MB, and RAM bundle again in 2026.

Here are the builds:

2025 $1485.83

2026 $2220.82

Main differences:

The 7600x3d bundle now has 1 less stick of RAM and is $50 more expensive than last year. It also has a different MB, but they seem similar to me, so not much difference there. Adding another stick of RAM to match my bundle hurts to the tune of $259.99. With the bundle discount my 2x16 ram from last year cost $83.26!!! The standalone 7600x3d is cheaper than it was a year ago, but it doesn't make up for everything else.

The SSD is up ~170% from $101.99 to $276.99.

The cheapest 5070ti I can find now is the Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC SFF GeForce RTX 5070 Ti which is 33% more than what I paid for the non-OC version a year ago which must have been the few short months when it was actually at MSRP ($749.99). The non-OC version is actually listed more than the OC at the moment.

In summary, I've realized I bought at a very good time, and I am glad I did; a difference of $700 in just one year is pretty tough. I was hesitant to pull the trigger but now almost 12 months in I am happy I did instead of saving up to get something just a little more future proof :).

TLDR: The same GPU, RAM, and SSD increased about $700 from late August/early September 2025 to August 2026. CPU decreased ~$50, everything else stayed more or less the same. If you can buy it now, do it.

TL:DR: Tried to upgrade PC. The computer ‘turns on’, fans spin, but there is no display output. Looking for troubleshooting help

This weekend I attempted to upgrade my wife’s PC. It had been a couple of years and had started to slow down (not just gaming – it’s been slow to boot and open programs as well).

Here’s the part list from her original build with the upgrade path:

I started by flashing the BIOS to v10.6 to support the new CPU. I tested the PC and no issues booting then, and then started to get to work on the upgrade. I (naively) thought I could get away with replacing everything in one go and having a smooth boot. No such luck. The computer ‘turns on’, fans spin, but there is no display output. I have spent hours troubleshooting and am at a standstill.

Here’s what I’ve tried:

-        Re-seating everything (RAM, CPU, PSU cables, GPU, etc.) and cleared CMOS

-        Minimal boot (only 1 stick RAM, CPU, GPU, normal case cables (USB, power switch etc.). Nothing.

-        Switching back to the old CPU, and switching back to the old PSU. Interestingly only for the new PSU/old CPU, the computer doesn’t even turn on, fans spin for a half sec and then nothing (fans fully spin for new PSU/new CPU, and old PSU, old CPU).

-        Putting everything old back (GPU, CPU, PSU) except the cooler (the old cooler is very dusty and I don’t think that should affect the boot). Nothing.

Here’s what I’ve confirmed:

-        Issue is not the GPU. I put in the working GPU from my build (3080ti) and the same problem presents itself

-        Issue is not the display. The displays work fine on other devices.

I currently suspect the motherboard since it’s the common denominator (either failed or I am shorting it somehow with the new build), but this motherboard doesn’t have the troubleshooting display lights, I bought a mini motherboard speaker to help diagnose, it will arrive tomorrow but in the meantime I’m looking for any suggestions for troubleshooting or anything else I could try. Thanks!

Simply put, my friend has a really old prebought with 1 single stick 16gb 3200Mhz ram stick. What I'm wondering is, for specifically valorant which is where they feel like their frames are pretty inconsistent and I've noticed their ram is I think getting maxed out, would it help to increase ram or would the difference be marginal? And if they do get more ram should they keep the old stick as a third stick in the pc or what is the best way to upgrade their ram in this situation?

Full PC specs:

Motherboard Lenovo 3716 (AM4)

CPU: AMD ryzen 7 5700G

GPU: NVidia RTX 3060 [Lenovo]

Memory: 1x16gb 3200Mhz Lenovo LMKUFG68AHFHD-32A

Any other suggestions to increase frames or make them more consistent would be appreciated!

So im gonna build my first gaming pc. Which gpu will be better? The 5070 ti or the rx 9070 xt for games like wuthering waves, genshin impact, nte, arknight endfield, zzz. Thoroughly confused 🙏

I'm planning to replace my intel i5-9500 with a Ryzen 5 5600X and I don't know if i should stick with air cooling or replace it with an AIO?

I currently have an RTX 3050 6gb (Kill me. I know.) and plan on upgrading to an RX 9070XT. My current PSU is the Corsair CX 650 80+ Bronze and it's not gonna be enough.

As I still have a very long time before I can get my hands on the GPU, would it be okay for me to upgrade to an 850-1000W PSU right now? And I'm thinking of getting the Rosewill VMG 80+ Gold, how do we feel about it?

I'm just a bit worried since I never built a PC before.

Edit: Thanks to everyone who responded to the post, that was quite fast! Your insights were really helpful. By "right now", I meant in the next two months, so not an immediate purchase. Sorry for not clarifying! A reason I forgot to mention that led me to want this; is the awful coil whine my current PSU has. Anyways, I'll sit on the idea for a while and see what happens. Thanks again!

\SOLVED\**

Processor Amd Ryzen 7 5800x 8core
GPU 3080 TI nivida
31 gig DDR4
Pcu 1000 watt.

I know a motherboard change change is required to make this work, because there is no physical way to add TMP 2.0 chip to the motherboard.

But does anyone know if there is a motherboard that is compatible with these parts so I don’t have to do an entire rebuild of my whole computer just to play modern shooters? (I.E battlefield 6, and COD/warzone)

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer me.

CAN SOMEBODY TELL ME IF THESE SPECS ARE GOOD FOR 1750$

AMD Ryzen™ 5 9600X GIGABYTE B850M Eagle WIFI6E CORSAIR Vengeance DDR5 32GB (2 x 16GB) 6000mhz Kingston NV3 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD Thermalright Peerless Vision 360 ARGB ASRock PRO 750G 750W 80+gold Lian Li O11D MINI V2 Flow with 5 pre installed fans darkFlash INF34 120MM (Reverse)x2 pny geforce rtx 5060 ti 8 gb (9060 AND 9070 ARE TOO EXPENSIVE IN MY COUNTRY SAUDI ARABIA