PC Upgrade - Thoughts?

Off Topic Totally Random
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So, finally I’ve given into the fact I need to upgrade to something newer, as my CPU and motherboard will be 10 years old this year. And of course, 2nd hand parts have become a bit of a crapshot because there’s barely any cheaper 5th gen intel stuff available at bellow NZ$300. And due to my circumstances I need to go with afterpay/part-pay payment systems, since I can use those to work around my depression and ADHD getting in the way of trying to save.

Luckily for me, one of the best PC shops in NZ now is offering Laybuy, wherein you pay for the item over 6 weeks in 6 payments. Which I can definitely make work, since I’ve been doing similar for afterpay (4 payments over 8 weeks) + Laybuy and will have managed to pay off ~$400 by next week.

So here’s the stuff I’m wanting to buy, and will reuse my current hard drives, any suggestions appreciated:

Case wise it’ll all go into my current Corsair 600T White, which will take everything nicely, but needs another hard drive cage, which I need to find (or just mod one to fit) and get more fans for. Also need to get a AM4 socket compatible cooler, but those are cheap enough I can pick one up easily.

May add a SSD eventually, but the fact they wear out quicker than HHD makes them hard to justify budget wise.

Monitor wise, I’ll use my current ancient viewsonic VG2012m or pick up a cheap 2nd one if the viewsonic dies on me. But will likely get this: https://www.computerlounge.co.nz/shop/peripherals/monitors/gaming/acer-sa270b-27-ips-4ms-freesync-gaming-monitor When I can squeeze it into the budget.

But for 2020 I’ve really got to get my tramping boots resoled so I can fluffing use them as my winter boots and get some walks in on the hills. Along with the usual bike stuff, since I’ve got tires that’ll wear out and put the bike in for a much need service.

And yes, NZ prices are stupidly high, welcome to the joys of living in an isolated island nation, where bloody high shipping costs means buying in from overseas can be very, very expensive. Which also means it’s a pain in the arse to RMA anything you buy in from overseas. Also, Computer Lounge has free, insured shipping on everything, which means if the courier steals the stuff, I get it resent free of charge, along with not fluffing around customer service wise. So the slightly more expensive costs make them worth using.

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looks good. With AMDs next generation cpu and gpus coming out in a couple weeks you may also see a price drop on you selected components.

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Prices probably wont drop, as NZ market is poop on supply. Except for sales of course, and since I’m locked into saving up $750 to help my neighbours next February (and behind, thanks depression) I can’t take advantage of any sales.

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Okay, looks like I’ll be swapping the Ryzen 2600 for a 3600 (and suitable motherboard @NZ$250 or lower), because come next year the 2600 will likely be no longer in stock. The upside is that the 3600 supports DDR4 3200MHz memory, where as the 2600 would run that memory at a lower speed. About ~2900MHz iirc.

Hopefully the 3600 will be similarly priced as the 2600, but even $20 wont matter too much.

Also, didn’t notice it, but CL now has requires you to pay for shipping, which would add $10-20 per item. But that shipping’s done through Courier Post who amoung NZ’s various Courier companies are lest likely to steal your sh*t. Which happen to me with their prior courier, Fastways. Would make buying a new case from them painful though, and speaking of that particular item, I’ve settled on this: https://www.computerlounge.co.nz/shop/components/cases/cases/fractal-design-define-r6-tg-mid-tower--white

Though this will only be brought if I can’t buy some new hard drive cages for my 2nd had Corsair 600T. As the guy I brought it off had lost the 2nd one and one of the hard drive caddies.

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That’s the rated spec yes, but most chips can run memory at 3200-3466 and some chips can run 3600 (with loose timings)

1 Like
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also if you want an alternative store to look at I can recommend pb tech

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I know PBTech is usually pretty good, but the fact they don’t have afterpay/laybuy means it’s harder for me to buy stuff from them. And sadly because I still don’t have my driver’s license (it’s too easy to bike in Christchurch + depression+ADHD = forget to do shit constantly) I can’t use oxipay since that requires a fluffing license or passport as ID.

Bah, I may just have to get my drivers license then, finally. Just wish we had a government issued photo ID card, since a drivers license costs NZ$90 last I checked. Might be able to fit it in in March though and since the road code is fully online I don’t also have to pay for a copy of the road code.

Oh and thanks for stuff on memory speeds, didn’t even know that, as I’m used to memory speed limits being hard unless you’re overclocking your RAM. Which is a massive nope.gif when it comes to older generic DDR2 and so I’ve never bothered to read up.

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/bump

…And the new 3000 series Ryzen CPU’s have come out, oh so tempted to get a 3700x. Of course, part of the problem is that I need NZ$250-300 DDR4 for the CPU to run properly and it’s NZ$600 at present :grimacing:. But who knows, with the current steady drop in DDR4 prices, and any drops in CPU prices, by next year it might just be viable. Otherwise I’ll probably just get the 3600x for obvious reasons.

Also, found a place to get the Fractal Design Define R6 for $3.50 shipping, making it semi-affordable. Though only Laybuy is available, so it’d be $50/week. But that 6 week payment period does have some advantages budget wise.

GPU wise the RX 5700 is looking very, very tempting, but I’ll see how far the price drops by 2021 versus getting a RX 580 8GB (or the RX 5600) and the price of 1440p monitors vs 1080p before I make my mind up. Also the XT version’s similarly tempting, but at NZ$700 it’s kind of hard to justify. Since I’d need to save up $300 ($20 for shipping) before hand as Laybuy has a payment limit of $420, and yet that brings down the per week payment to $70, which is sort of doable.

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The Fractal Design case is very very nice. :slight_smile:

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Especially with space for 10 HHD O_O Or 11 if you remove the 5.25 bay.

Because given my data hording ways I do actually need moar hard drives. Limited at the moment though by my ancient motherboard to 2TB drives, which sadly don’t work perfectly with the onboard SATA chipset and will disappear from windows (and the BIOS) if I have any virtual memory set on them. That and second hand 2TB drives are pretty cheap, so hello easily filling the 6 HHD bays it comes with before I upgrade next year. With Western Digital Black drives of course.

Of course though new HHD trays cost US$40/NZ$60+ for a set of 2 lawl.

Still cheaper than tracking down a second hand older Cosmos case and getting it shipped to NZ, or finding a 2nd case with plenty of 5.25 bays and converting them to 3x3.25.