PC Build Advice/Review Thread

[Krandor]

The only Asus products I've ever had issues with have been GPUs, had nothing but good experiences with their laptops and mobos over the years. Onboard audio on most of their mobos suck raging dick, but I rarely use that anyways (Audioquest Dragonfly ftw)

[Kalmado]

The only Asus products I've ever had issues with have been GPUs, had nothing but good experiences with their laptops and mobos over the years. Onboard audio on most of their mobos suck raging dick, but I rarely use that anyways (Audioquest Dragonfly ftw)

In fairness to Asus as well, probably every brand has a product that has massive problems and the Z77V-LK was definitely an issue for Asus. I'm super disappointed right now that apparently Gigabyte's R9 390 run super hot and SUPER loud because I could snag one for around $240 give or take. I'll wait for either XFX, MSI, Sapphire, or PowerColor depending on the price.

[Senji]

ASUS makes great products, however dealing with them is horrible for issues/warranty. MSI/Gigabyte, then Zotax/EVGA are my go-to's. Great service and MSI/Giga/Zotac were ahead of the game as far GPU cooling for a while there. That said, I'm also on an ASUS Sabertooth board for my main PC atm.

[Hitoshura]

Honestly just want to get back into gaming on pc again. Not looking for anything too fancy or expensive. Is this decent enough?







Grand total: $667

[DrClout]

Make sure you get a PSU at least 550W. I've heard the 960 is a bit of a powerhog compared to its cheaper 950. Don't forget to think about fan system to keep everything happy.

Sent with Tapatalk via Samsung Galaxy 6 Edge with love

[Kalmado]

The parts themselves are fine, but a bit overpriced if just buying at newegg. I'm personally not a fan of the 960 because AMD can offer more power for less money at that price point. Also, do you live near a Micro Center? That would help tremendously with the cpu/mb cost. I've also heard that case is a little rough to work with. I haven't had the opportunity to test it myself. For around $50 there are plenty of really nice options for cases.

This tidbit is also for everyone looking here. When shopping at Jet.com you can use the 20% code 20now for your first purchase on a new account. Here is the kicker. If you create a new account but try to use the same card (say your debit) you will not get the discount. You must use a new method of payment to get the discount again. This can help save some good money when looking to buy pc parts or anything else on their site. For instance, that MSI GTX 960 listed above would be $160 from Jet.com using that promo code. https://jet.com/product/Msi-Gtx-960-...a8cee342e7345e

Also, certain rebates are valid buying from Jet.com even though it doesn't state it has a rebate. A little searching needs to be done, but if a product has a rebate elsewhere and the rebate form states "all retailers" or something similar then you will receive the rebate from a purchase at Jet.com as well. This can be a huge money saver.

[LinktheDeme]

I'm personally not a fan of the 960 because AMD can offer more power for less money at that price point

While this is technically true the difference tends to be negligible in terms of raw performance but then you have a lot of those gaming developers that tell AMD to go fuck themselves by not even remotely optimizing for them and offering little AMD support, like Ubisoft.

[tyven]

The parts themselves are fine, but a bit overpriced if just buying at newegg. I'm personally not a fan of the 960 because AMD can offer more power for less money at that price point. Also, do you live near a Micro Center? That would help tremendously with the cpu/mb cost. I've also heard that case is a little rough to work with. I haven't had the opportunity to test it myself. For around $50 there are plenty of really nice options for cases.

This tidbit is also for everyone looking here. When shopping at Jet.com you can use the 20% code 20now for your first purchase on a new account. Here is the kicker. If you create a new account but try to use the same card (say your debit) you will not get the discount. You must use a new method of payment to get the discount again. This can help save some good money when looking to buy pc parts or anything else on their site. For instance, that MSI GTX 960 listed above would be $160 from Jet.com using that promo code. https://jet.com/product/Msi-Gtx-960-...a8cee342e7345e

Also, certain rebates are valid buying from Jet.com even though it doesn't state it has a rebate. A little searching needs to be done, but if a product has a rebate elsewhere and the rebate form states "all retailers" or something similar then you will receive the rebate from a purchase at Jet.com as well. This can be a huge money saver.

wow that bit about Jet is a great tidbit. thanks

[Kalmado]

While this is technically true the difference tends to be negligible in terms of raw performance but then you have a lot of those gaming developers that tell AMD to go fuck themselves by not even remotely optimizing for them and offering little AMD support, like Ubisoft.

I hear what you're saying and this is what has me on the fence for my next gpu purchase. I'm selling my crossfire 290x and am debating going with crossfire 390 for the 8gb or spending more for one 980 ti with possibly SLI in the future. Difference in price is likely to be about $100 more for the ti for less performance, but less possible issues. Not sure what to do.

[Hitoshura]

It's not letting me finish my order.. seems kinda too good to be true either way.

[Mrbeansman]

While this is technically true the difference tends to be negligible in terms of raw performance but then you have a lot of those gaming developers that tell AMD to go fuck themselves by not even remotely optimizing for them and offering little AMD support, like Ubisoft.

Was gonna say don't know why you would go AMD after the events of this year.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kalmado]

It's not letting me finish my order.. seems kinda too good to be true either way.

Jet for the MSI 960?

[Kalmado]

Was gonna say don't know why you would go AMD after the events of this year.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Because cost to performance for anything sans single card high end AMD wins? And after Nvidia has done so much cockblocking on games and has stupid shit like attempting to force you to go through experience for drivers (I may be a tad off on that) and the 970 bullshit why should I support them?

[Krandor]

The events of this year? You mean Nvidia lying about the VRAM on the 970, lying about the compatibility of their cards with DirectX 12, and their general business practices via Gameworks shit?

Unfortunately the last one does kind of force you into using Nvidia for good performance in some games, but Nvidia is a fucking horrible company. The GeForce Experience one can be circumvented by getting drivers from an alternate site (I just get them off guru3D) because that program is a steaming pile of hot garbage.

[Kalmado]

And fml my local Micro Center has a XFX 390x for $300 out the door.

[Cyn]

I can understand not liking nVidia for their business practices, because, yeah, they're kind of tools. But the reason they're tools is because they gained a pretty clear edge in hardware that caused developers to drift toward optimizing games to their GPUs. AMD would have done the same thing if their cards had gained the momentum in the early Fermi days.

I can see sort of sticking it to the man and trying to avoid a monopoly, but the solid fact remains that at this point, nVidia has software developer support in the gaming industry, AMD does not. And honestly, in my experience, nVidia has good quality control on the production end of their hardware. I've never had to send one of their cards back (used a GTX 470 for about 6 years, despite all of the claims that they burned themselves out), but I've done it twice with AMD cards.

[Krandor]

When AMD introduced features specifically optimized for their hardware (like TressFX) they made the code readily available for Nvidia to work it out on their stuff. Meanwhile Gameworks is still locked away intentionally coded to run inferior on non-Nvidia hardware (and even older Nvidia cards).

And alot of it runs like shit anyways even on 900 series cards (Fallout 4 God Rays, Hairworks in Witcher 3)

[DrClout]

And fml my local Micro Center has a XFX 390x for $300 out the door.

$384 in store here in Long Island. Asked them to call the one in Brooklyn. . . . $404 lol

[Kalmado]

And to pile on to what Krandor said, why did Nvidia purposely cripple Keplar gpus? Gee I wonder. Business is business so don't get it twisted, but in my opinion it is completely idiotic to stick only to one thing because this one time this one thing happened and now this other thing is good so I'm only going with that. I say all the time I do not like Asus and I won't buy from them if I can ever help it, but if the price and performance is right then that is the way to go. Same with AMD vs. Nvidia regarding graphics cards. As I said, single card high end the winner is Nvidia hands down. But when you factor in price to performance, especially in the mid gpu range, it's AMD hands down no questions. The only thing Nvidia unequivocally dominates AMD at is temps. Even the power consumption argument gap has shortened considerably, especially when factoring in overclocking. The blanket driver complaint is dead. Crying about crossfire is dead. Nvidia in the last year has ran into the exact same issues as AMD.

Moving forward people need to think with their heads and their wallets and quit having a blind following to any company period. They do not care about you. You are not special to them. All that matters is the bottom line. All that should ever matter to yourself is your bottom line. Do not be for Team Red or Team Green. Be for Team Wallet only and always.

[Kalmado]

$384 in store here in Long Island. Asked them to call the one in Brooklyn. . . . $404 lol

I just got home from checking on it. It had just passed the one month so they had recently knocked it down another 20%. I can't stomach it right this minute. I still am preparing to drop $490 on a monitor this week.