Literally the worst time ever to build a new PC

I guess I got lucky here. Well, not really. I put forth quite the effort to get my 3080 and 5950x.

All for Cyberpunk. So, I guess you can sort of tell how "lucky" that was.

But I do have to say I enjoy my upgrade - as my new gaming screen positively demands that level of hardware to function adequately.

Looks like graphic cards are getting slowly back on the market.

Seen this too, it's funny.

The GPU availability issues and shortages have been nothing short of extremely frustrating, but it's FINALLY HAPPENING! There are MAJOR graphics card stock and pricing IMPROVEMENTS on the horizon. The MSRP of graphics cards have reached insane levels, but we are finally starting to see pricing come down as more GPU stock becomes available to gamers, on both the Nvidia RTX 30 side and RX 6000 side.

But according to our EXCLUSIVE info, there is hope as we can expect major increases in the amount of graphics card stock available, and the pricing of the available GPUs to be much closer to the MSRP set for both RTX 30 and RDNA 2 graphics cards. This comes on the heels of a major CRACKDOWN from China on cryptocurrency mining, with major miner farms being shut down for Bitcoin, Ethereum and more. With crypto a major factor in driving up GPU prices and causing stock shortages and availability issues, this combined with an increase in supply could mean there is actual hope for gamers on the horizon.

We also have an update for AMD's upsampling tech, FSR (or FidelityFX Super Resolution if you prefer), with several game developers commenting on how easy AMD FSR was to implement into their games and game engines. AMD have also revealed how demanding FidelityFX Super Resolution is, and the "cost" in time delivery vs the improvements in resolution and framerate that FSR delivers to gamers. With Nvidia's DLSS boasting a huge library of games, ease of support and impressive performance and resolution gains are critical for the upsampling tech's success.

Meh it's cheaper to buy custom built/pre-built PC's on the web then buy parts separately nowadays. Never thought I would ever say that as it used to be the opposite.

In my experience, it's always been cheaper to buy a pre-built PC.

Of course it also depends on what kind of rig you're building. Since I've always built a system with the newest/fastest components at the time, the total cost ends up being more than something I could have purchased from Best Buy, etc.

Sadly that was not the case here for a long time.

In recent few years however, many online stores basically allow you to pick parts you want then they build a rig from those and ship it to your doorstep without any additional cost.
Which makes it cheaper (and less sweating) than buying an overpriced alienware that is expensive only because of it's brand sticker.

Have to admit I haven't checked prices for months so am not sure if shortages ended and crazy prices went away.

I have made the experience that going into a good shop and talk talk talk about what I want to have and what's possible results usually in the best results I can get for me.
My current PC has exactly what I wanted it to have.

I used to assemble PCs myself but it requires a lot of time to get up to speed with the current components, the gotchas of the moment, and finding the right component at a decent price. It's fun but I just don't have the time for it anymore, and it's expensive.

I'm usually happy with pre-built PCs. There are two types, the branded series like Dell, HP, Lenovo, or the PCs built by vendors of components like LDLC (that's in France).

Brands are usually OK because they have to sell something sound to reduce the cost of support and maintain their reputation. In my experience those systems are difficult to upgrade, cases rarely allow for any extension. The last PC I have bought was Lenovo, there was simply no other possibility because of the shortage. It's not as good as HP or even Dell, ventilation is bad, motherboard is unknown, graphics card is unknown, support is non-existent (but then it's Chinese). For example, there's an air intake for the power unit on the bottom side of the case! And no way to control the fans or even monitor them, nor to add a sound card or an optical drive. So they were good with laptops a few years ago, now I'm not sure they still do anything good.

At the end of the day, branded PCs require as much care as buying separate components. At the moment, I think HP is good for desktops, for Dell it depends.

I was luckier with PC built by component vendors, who have a good support and know what's inside. They give very good advise and are more flexible too, and the result is slightly less expensive than buying and assembling it oneself, though a bit more expensive than branded series. Of course, it must be a good vendor, but once you know one, it's less likely to change than brands.

Well, the iBuyPower PC I ordered a week or two ago that was supposed to get built in August is already on its way with a 3080RTX inside, so the builders are definitely getting some here in the States.

I was really impressed with iBuyPower's website! It actually told me that the video card wasn't going to fit inside the case I wanted. I found another case on their list that I liked and had enough space, but the case was actually smaller!? When I went to the websites for each part, though, the internal specs for the bigger case were about a centimeter smaller.

So, in a week's time, I should know whether I have an extra GPU to sell. MSI Gaming Trio 3070Ti, I will be paying $1065 (Best Buy) for it if I don't cancel.

In any case, if someone is desperate for a GPU, I could sell this for cost (once paypal charges and shipping is figured in). It would have to be to a long-time forum member and, again, I'm not sure if I'll have it available or not (depends on whether I sell another card for my asking price).

The GPU market does seem to be stabilizing now, no thanks to Nvidia or AMD really.

Got a good deal on an open boxed PC from NewEgg. Saved a few hundred dollars as well. Much cheaper then buying every part separate and building it myself at least.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Got a good deal on an open boxed PC from NewEgg. Saved a few hundred dollars as well. Much cheaper then buying every part separate and building it myself at least.

What did you get and for how much? My problem is that I only want a GPU and a new monitor. Monitor I can get for a reasonable price, but I want to buy a 3080 and the cheapest I can get it for is 1450e which I simply won't do. I'll wait until it's at least under 1000e.

I went full AMD once again. I know many don't like their CPU and GPU's on this board, but the value out-ways the price for a new Intel and NVIDIA machine at this time.

Total was a little over $1,200 with taxes, shipping and a new monitor as well.

It's a nice MSI gaming Desktop.

• Ryzen 7 3rd Gen 3700X (3.60 GHz)
• 16 GB DDR4
• 1 TB HDD 512 GB SSD
• Windows 10 Home 64-bit
• AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I went full AMD once again. I know many don't like their CPU and GPU's on this board, but the value out-ways the price for a new Intel and NVIDIA machine at this time.

AMD is full steam ahead these days for CPU; neck and neck with Nvidia on GPU. Next generation's line of AMD GPUs are hyped to even take the crown outright. Very much an AMD fan these days - their R&D finally paid off in the face of Intel complacency.

Grats on the new computer! Pre-built was definitely the way to go in today's market! Things are stabilizing somewhat, with the China crackdown on crypto, but it's still a stressful nightmare if you want a top-end GPU near MSRP.

I wanted to go one tier higher with the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X and Radeon RX 6800 XT but the pre-builts started getting to pricey at that range. Almost $2,300 or more.

Originally Posted by Drithius
AMD is full steam ahead these days for CPU; neck and neck with Nvidia on GPU. Next generation's line of AMD GPUs are hyped to even take the crown outright.

Idk.. I feel like I've been hearing that same hype every generation for a very long time.

If you live near a microcenter they have full availability on Amd proc/MB’s. Also have some AMD video cards in stock but limited and pricey. In store only though.

I’ve never bought a prebuilt. I always have too many components I can carry over so buying a full prebuilt has never been a cheaper option for me. At least not for the components that I want.

I miss Microcenter. There's one in the Detroit metro area I used to go to. They don't have them in Florida or at least I've never seen one. The closest thing I had was a Fry's Electronics a little north of me, but that closed a few years back. Now the only places within reasonable driving distance are a Best Buy and some small mom & pop stores. Suffice to say, I purchase PC stuff almost exclusively online now.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I went full AMD once again. I know many don't like their CPU and GPU's on this board, but the value out-ways the price for a new Intel and NVIDIA machine at this time.

Total was a little over $1,200 with taxes, shipping and a new monitor as well.

It's a nice MSI gaming Desktop.

• Ryzen 7 3rd Gen 3700X (3.60 GHz)
• 16 GB DDR4
• 1 TB HDD 512 GB SSD
• Windows 10 Home 64-bit
• AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB

That's a sweet deal! 5700XT is a great card if you don't care for raytracing (which I kind of do). Especially since AMD released their supersampling thingy, whatsitcalled. FSR I think.

On the topic of AMD, in the CPU department they are the way to go. There are still a few scenarios where Intel has a very slight lead but that is in very, very high FPS situations on certain games. Certainly nothing people on this forum will be bothered. For anything else, especially if you need some multithreaded work done, AMD is the way to go.

In the GPU department, they have made a huge progress both in term of performance and features, but I wouldn't call it neck and neck with Nvidia solely on the fact that Nvidia is full of cash and can just release a new batch of slightly better cards whenever AMD gets close (Ti and Super cards) and simply be a better value than AMD. I hear they are planning to release super cards for the 3000 series.

That being said, I certainly hope Intel gets themselves sorted and release something competitive so the prices can get down (like we've seen them slash their prices when Ryzen 3000 and 5000 came out).

I saw a review on the gamersnexus youtube of a low end GPU from Intel. They make all their own chips so wouldn't have to get in line with TSMC or Samsung.

It was very low end, something to compete with the 1030. It seemed to be a little jittery with performance and had some pretty bad low FPS in some scenes.

But Intel could pack a LOT more hardware onto the card and the FPS highs seemed pretty competitive with the other low end cards. Am interested to see what their gaming cards are like.

I think its safe to say Intel is pretty far behind on the software side of things and their drivers couldn't possibly be as well refined as Nvidia.

But, yeah, as for the AMD vs Nvidia current gen I'd say it's more about the DLSS race, at this point. Raytracing really hasn't been widely adopted and most people would take the performance of having it disabled over the nice shadows of on. AMD has its DLSS competitor called Fidelity FX super-resolution or something so now it's all about who supports the most games with theirs. Plus, you pretty much need DLSS on to get decent performance with your raytracing, anyway, so it's gotta be more important.

Also, I'd say you can't go wrong with CPUs. Even if you get an intel 10th gen or 3000 series its pretty unlikely you'll hit a CPU bottleneck. If you have the money for a top end GPU i doubt spending a fraction of the price on a nice CPU will be any obstacle.

I don't think driver development will be too much of an issue for Intel. With DX12 and Vulkan, the drivers are much smaller and simpler. When they talk about those APIs being "close to the metal", what that essentially means is that a lot of work that would have been done in the driver is now handled explicitly by the game engine (which has its pros and cons).

With RTX, DLSS and so forth, I think they will become increasingly significant. It's not so much that users are crying out for fancy reflections and so on, but that if developers can rely on realtime GI and such, it gives them way more freedom, and can let them work more efficiently. The trouble is, that stuff is performance hungry, but I think they'll be keen to push for it now the new consoles can handle it.