Virtualization might just be disabled in the BIOS. But honestly you'll only need it if you plan to run virtual machines on it.

I didn't think to check there. Yeah, it is unlikely to be needed unless/until it passes into my hands. I don't use it much anymore anyway, except for occasional testing.

You burned a DVD to transfer her documents? Really?
You picked that option over a network share or USB drive/stick?

It made a 'hard copy' backup and I thought the file copy might be faster than over our 100 Mbs lan. The dvd read was so slow on the new pc I would up going over the lan. Got the backup though.

I've only skimmed the thread so excuse me if I say stuff that has already been said. Maybe you've already bought a new PC by now. WHO CAN POSSIBLY KNOW without reading.

Yeah AMD's better than Intel for CPUs right now. Partly just because they've got better, partly because multi-core stuff is starting to matter more and also in large part because they're not as susceptible to the speculative execution/prediction vulnerabilities that have been discovered lately (and thus don't require the costly mitigations).

GPU wise, last time I looked, AMD's better (value for money) at the bottom end and in the middle, Nvidia's better at the top. Also AMD cards tend to be power hungry if that's a concern. If you're going to be running Linux, go AMD cos their open source drivers are really good now.

For your main drive *totally* go with NVMe for your system drive. They're about the same price as normal SSDs now and *much* faster.

This is pretty much the best one and not that pricey: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MZ-V7S1T0BW-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B07MBQPQ62/

This cheaper one is still going to be miles faster than a normal SSD: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT1000P1SSD8-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B07J2Q4SWZ/

I've got a mini-ITX PC currently and it's fine. You do have to pick your graphics card carefully but other than that it's been no different to a full-size thing.

And yeah, might as well go 32GB and all that blah blah blah.

Hello.

 

{{{Xen}}}

You alright chief?

Aye, reet. Thasen?

(hug)

Aye.

Well then. That's that, see you in a few years?

Might stay for a cuppa...

kinell. it's thee. !!

Ahreet lad!

Helloaeteaoaoaia!

I haven't bought anything yet - I'm waiting until I know I've got a few weekends at home when I can take the time to properly faff. From what I've seen, the Ryzen 5 3600 seems to be the popular choice of CPU just now, although I need to figure out the appropriate motherboard, and take into account if it needs flashed or not. GPU, I'm looking at splashing out on an NVidia, but haven't fully made up my mind. I can afford to, so why not, eh?

I'll be taking your advice on the SSD.

Going to go ATX, as I've got space for it.

But it'll be a few weeks before I'm in a position to buy. Possibly even a month. How did I get so busy!?

Eyup Xen. Muffin?

Ooh, love one. English with butter please.

CHRIST, don't startle me like that¬!

Oh yeah, PC... I don't care so much about size but I do care about noise, so I have one of those totes ridic Noctua NH-D15 coolers the size of a small house, a big Fractal Design Define case, and about 4 or 5 case fans running very, very slowly. No spinny drives (just SSDs), decently cooled model of GPU, and it's all shockingly quiet.

I'd definitely recommend a Ryzen 2 (3xxx) of some sort, with at least 3200MHz RAM, and whatever GPU you want. Nice thing about AMD is that nowadays socket AM4 is used on all of their standard CPUs - you can get a B450 motherboard for a lot less than X570, and it'll do essentially the same stuff.

 (cheer)

Also, found this when reading about Ryzen 2 and memory ranks and speed and stuff:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-3000-best-memory-timings,6310-2.html

Basically, get 4x 8GB single rank, and make it fast. I've already got two sets of this stuff, and as far as I've read it'll also overclock to 3600MHz which seems to be a good point for Ryzen 2.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ballistix-BLS2K8G4D30AESCK-PC4-24000-Single-288-Pin/dp/B07MD3W585

Ta Serg, this is all good info. Any reason for not going for a Ryzen 5? Most of the build lists that I've been looking at (my budget's up to a grand) have been going with that.

Absolutely no reason not to. I've currently got an X99 (Intel HEDT, "high end desktop") system with an i7-6800K (6 core, blah blah), and while it's absolutely fine for everything I do, I know that its value will only go down... So last night I caved and ordered a Ryzen 3600 (non X) and an MSI Tomahawk Max, and I'll sell the current bits soon while they still have some decent value. I expect no genuinely visible preformance gains, but it should run cooler and allow me to swap for an 8+ core CPU on the same motherboard in 2-3 years for not much, whereas X99 has been a dead platform for a while.

In terms of which Ryzen CPU, as long as you go for a Zen 2 chip (confusingly, the Ryzen 3xxx CPUs) with at least 6 physical cores, there isn't much difference for most users. The 3600 is the sweet spot, as you go up the range you gain barely a few percent in games or "normal use", BUT you do gain in direct proportion if you run tasks that parallelise well - encoding, compression, maybe compiling, etc. Are the extra cores and parallel preformance worth it? That's a question only you can answer!

The 3600X and the 3600 offer, for most intents and proposes, the same performance. The 95W vs 65W TDP ratings are hugely misleading - they can both easily end up drawing closer to 100W. What Ryzen essentially does is, working with the motherboard, try to clock up one or more cores (depending on the nature of the load) as much as it can until it hits thermal or power limits.

This explains it all far better than I could:
https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3491-explaining-precision-boost-overdrive-benchmarks-auto-oc

Basically:
- get a Ryzen 3xxx with as many cores as you think you need / can afford, depending on your kind of workload
- get a good cooler (hooooje air, or decent water AIO)
- pick a motherboard that has a decent power delivery system (the B450 is perfectly decent, unless you want/need the extra features from one of the better chipsets); if you're going for a 3900X or 3950X you might as well get the top X570 chipset though. Yeah, lol, the prices...
- get decent RAM; Ryzen loves fast RAM, 3600MHz is a great point, some modules easily overclock to that too, a cheaper option (like the ones I linked to)

That's it, really. The RX5700 is a pretty darn good choice for a GPU. The Sapphire Pulse and Powecolor Red Devil are, AFAIK, pretty much the best choices in terms of quality, cooling, etc.

Something like this, plus case, PSU, cooler and whatever else you need:
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/cM9Lwh