Off Topic So slow I'm ashamed...

Sure, $1099.99 with free shipping so $1165.99 after PA sales tax. I didn't think that was bad at all.

His money, so all I can do is advise. Have to say that I am rather proud though. Earlier he texted me asking my thoughts on returning it. Went on to say that he saw the sales price and got very excited and wasn't thinking of the rest of the build to accommodate this GPU as he has been building around a 3070Ti. Once he sat down and started to build around it, he realized it was going to be way to much money for all of the other components. So, I just dropped it off with UPS for the return and pick up an Nvidia 3070Ti Founders Edition from Best Buy next week which was $599.
Nice, probably learned a lesson there.
 
I've been building computers since the first Pentium chips were introduced in the early '90's. I was going to build a new i9 machine with a 2080 Super a couple years ago and started pricing things. The processor and video card were going for around $1,500 combined. After adding the motherboard, case, HD, PSU and RAM, I was just under $2,500. I decided to look into prebuilt computers, just for comparison. I found a Lenovo Legion with a liquid cooled i9, 2080 Super 2TB HD (1TB SS and 1TB spinner) with 32GB RAM for $1,450. Needless to say, it was a no brainer to just fork over the cash and buy the prebuilt.

While I did miss the hours of building and configuring my new system, I did not miss spending the extra $1k on it. I figured worst case, I buy a different MB and case and just swap in the parts if I had an issue with the generic build. After almost 3 years, I couldn't be happier with my decision.

I haven't been looking at prices much lately. Has the gap between building and buying prebuilt narrowed since the pandemic and chip shortage issues? Or, are some people just totally against buying a prebuilt?
I'm not against buying a pre-built, not necessarily for me personally as I like building and watercooling. I just don't like prebuilt from the likes of Dell, HP, etc. because they usually look flashy, but inside is often a lack of cooling/airflow and sometimes proprietary boards and such or dumb design decisions like only 1 stick of RAM which kills RAM performance (single channel vs dual channel). Pre-builds that use off the shelf, standard parts, and don't do silly things like the 1 RAM stick, are ok with me.

But pre-builds that use proprietary motherboards, daughter boards, and cooling solutions can go to hell. Its just planned obsolescence and not user replaceable parts, so just doomed for e-waste when it breaks.

In fact, wife is next up for an upgrade. We are fortunate to have a Micro Center here, so we plan to get her one of their pre-built PowerSpecs.
 
@Sig cx-5 I haven't priced prebuilt lately so can't talk about pricing. However back in 2014 when I built him his first rig, I was looking at prebuilt machines. I was told they could be a good value but they could not be upgraded by the end user? I didn't bother researching more into it as I thought it would be a cool experience to build one. Sadly, I built it and never really kept up with how much the tech changed until recently.
Yeah, I was a little worried about being able to upgrade if needed, but when it got here I saw that it had an actual slotted GeForce video card, along with a removable standard processor. Like I mentioned, the cost of just those 2 parts purchased separately was more than the whole system. My upgrade plans were to use the parts on an Asus MB. Once it got here, I couldn't really justify doing that, so I just upgraded RAM from 32GB to 64GB. The MB only had 2 slots that were already used, so I just needed to get 2 matching 32GB sticks and sell the old ones. I think the cost of the upgrade was around $50, since the original Lenovo branded RAM seemed to have some value.
 
The gap has not narrowed if you buy a brand name PC. You WILL save money building your own. But then places like Intel Core i7 Gaming PC popped up. I built my rig through them. It cost me just over $100 more then doing it on my own.
And that was years ago. I still have the case and mobo + proccy from them. Everything else is upgraded, nothing proprietary. Next is Proccy + mobo.
 
Damn. EVGA is exiting the graphics card business. Huge news as they are the biggest Nvidia partner in the US and probably the best in terms of warranty support, etc.
 
I recently did a review of some fans for a tech forum/site I am on. I also had a new flow meter/sensor for much more accurate flow and coolant temp data that I could feed as a data input into my fan profiles on my fan controller and fan curve.

Anyway, beauty shot from that.

20220917_115645.jpg
 
Absolutely stunning yet so minimal, love it!

And another update. I am returning the 3070Ti Founders Edition after work. We were talking last night and he is going to sit tight and await the release of the 40 series and newer CPUs dropping in a few months. His current plan is to make a build next summer, of course this could change within the hour. ;) It took some time but he is listening to dear old dad and making the smarter choice.
 
Absolutely stunning yet so minimal, love it!

And another update. I am returning the 3070Ti Founders Edition after work. We were talking last night and he is going to sit tight and await the release of the 40 series and newer CPUs dropping in a few months. His current plan is to make a build next summer, of course this could change within the hour. ;) It took some time but he is listening to dear old dad and making the smarter choice.
Thanks so much!

What tier 40-series card is he looking at. I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia refrains from releasing anything below what they announced yesterday given they still have a year's worth of 30-series cards.

Theory for me is that this is part of the reason for both branding and pricing. The 4080 12GB was clearly supposed to be the 4070.

I admire you CD. I could never put that kind of effort into a build. It is abso-*******-lutely stunning.
Thanks man! Just a hobby I don't get to indulge that often, and really this is the first one I am super proud of.
 
Thanks so much!

What tier 40-series card is he looking at. I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia refrains from releasing anything below what they announced yesterday given they still have a year's worth of 30-series cards.

Theory for me is that this is part of the reason for both branding and pricing. The 4080 12GB was clearly supposed to be the 4070.


Thanks man! Just a hobby I don't get to indulge that often, and really this is the first one I am super proud of.
Most welcome and well deserved!

It was going to be the 4070 but he told me exactly what you said about Nvidia pulling the old switcheroo and calling it the 4080 for the money grab. He is also happy he waited as he is going to keep an eye on the new AMD GPUs dropping. To potentially buy or see how their pricing affects Nvidia's.
 
Most welcome and well deserved!

It was going to be the 4070 but he told me exactly what you said about Nvidia pulling the old switcheroo and calling it the 4080 for the money grab. He is also happy he waited as he is going to keep an eye on the new AMD GPUs dropping. To potentially buy or see how their pricing affects Nvidia's.
Smart. AMD will supposedly be using the chiplet design with their GPUs with RDNA3, so theoretically, should be much cheaper to make. Whether that translates to much lower cost relative to Nvidia's offerings, or a game of just undercutting their high prices with still high prices remains to be seen.

Zen 4 release is a bit of a dud in my opinion and completely 0 value to be had with that platform right now. Hopefully that is limited to that space.
 
And now Intel wants to get into the (mid range) game? Interesting times...
This has been brewing for a couple years. I expect the driver side to still be a bit of a mess starting out, but I am hoping by 3rd gen Celestial or 4th gen Druid, that they have it down and are solidly competitive even above low to mid-range. Doubt we'll see that on 1st gen Alchemist and 2nd gen Battlemage though.

Really it seems to have been the software/driver side holding back Intel's offerings so far, but it makes sense. Nvidia and AMD (and ATI before them) have been in the game for 30 years. I just hope Intel sticks with it. Having a competent and competitive 3rd contender would be a great thing for the market.
 
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I think my next upgrade might have to be a desk.
Before and after.
 

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So AMD announced their stuff last week. I am glad they are not increasing prices, but I am still sort of disappointed.

The RTX 4080 16GB is massively overpriced at $1200. It's memory configuration and die size are in line with cards that historically maxed out around $700ish.

The RX 7900 XTX was announced for $999, which on paper looks good compared to $1600 or $1200, but since then we got confirmation its competitor is the 4080, not the 4090. So to me, I feel like this card should be a price-point replacement for the 6800 XT which was a $649 MSRP card and therefore really shouldn't have been more than say $700-$800.

I don't know, just feels like they are trying to make $1k look "reasonable" for a card only because Nvidia is even worse. This new generation of cards just feels like a disaster all around to me anyway.
 
Update.....his 2060 is running 94%, 76 degrees (where it maxed) at idle on Valorant on lowest settings. He checked his fan curve and said it looked good. I told him to remove the side of the case to see if that has any effect.
 
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