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Yeah there is also a 2070 Super Mini now. Last I heard people were expecting a 2080 Super Mini soonish as well.

I guess it doesn't matter too much anyway. If you are waiting for the newer cards then you won't want one of the last Gen's minis. You'll just need to make sure whatever case you get can handle the new ones.

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This is exactly why I’ve never been into PC gaming. As soon as I feel like I’m one step in it all seems so confusing. It’s also why I worry about building my own machine, as I really don’t feel confident about buying the right thing. I do really appreciate the advice from everyone, I’m going to put together a shopping list and will post it up here for review by you guys. Thank God I have you all to help!

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To be honest once you are in you'll be fine. It's just that initial build and there are loads of people who love to help to make the best PCs they can along with websites that if you decide to build have checkers built in to help.

I know a lot of PC enthusiasts feel differently but I also think if you see a PC you like the look of then there's no issue just buying a pre-built system.

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And if you don't feel up to building yourself, I believe @RedShell bought a pre-built system quite recently so he may have some good pointers there!

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37 minutes ago, will' said:

This is exactly why I’ve never been into PC gaming. As soon as I feel like I’m one step in it all seems so confusing. It’s also why I worry about building my own machine, as I really don’t feel confident about buying the right thing. I do really appreciate the advice from everyone, I’m going to put together a shopping list and will post it up here for review by you guys. Thank God I have you all to help!

Honestly I felt exactly the same. It's daunting.

Do your research, watch plenty of build / part tips on YT, read reviews, understand how stuff works and what you need to get what you want.

Once your self-built PC is sat running F1 in 4K, it'll have all been worth it. 

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My advise would be decide on a CPU and case because those will dictate what Motherboard you need (sockets for CPU and size ATX/ATX-Mini). Power supply would probably come last as you need one powerful enough to power all your components.

Just search amazon or something for motherboards that will suit your CPU and then try to work out what features you want on it/read reviews.

Building it yourself is more fun/works out cheaper.

You can use https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ to add your components and it should tell you if anything is incompatible. You can also find other people's builds for inspiration if you want.

I want to upgrade my graphics card, currently running a  GTX 1070 Ti. My monitor is only 1080p but I want to be able to at least run games a little better at 1440p and supersample and get some higher framerates since my monitor supports 144hz. Waiting to see what these new cards bring.

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46 minutes ago, Vileplume2000 said:

And if you don't feel up to building yourself, I believe @RedShell bought a pre-built system quite recently so he may have some good pointers there!

Just what has already been recommended really, which is to do as much research as possible. And get some advice from the experts on here too of course. ;) 

Also, while buying a pre-built system will get you out of having to mess around with the hardware side of things, don’t assume it’ll be plain sailing from there. As I’ve rediscovered recently, PC gaming can be a right faff to get setup and running correctly on the software side too, so expect to have to do some tinkering now and then. :hehe: 

But yeah, I have no regrets with going the pre-built route so far, and have been enjoying loads of games this month thanks to Game Pass! :) @will', definitely check out Game Pass once you get a PC, it is insane! :cool: 

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I imagine if@will' has a budget of £5k, he isn't that worried about building it on the cheap. Just buy a pre-built one and let some other chump do all the work.

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My PC was one I bought from a site and got to choose a few upgrades but one thing I'll recommend if you do go the pre-built route is just think about future proofing it. I mentioned before that I have the 2060 Super Mini and that's because my case is too small for newer cards and to be honest for most other upgrades now. I was looking to add some USB C ports recently and I don't think I'm going to be able to.

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I'll chime in on this discussion too :) For my part, I started out with buying a pre-built PC with okay-ish components a good 7 years ago. I then started upgrading each part as I wanted a better system. That's a way to go too, which gives you quite a smooth entry into the crazy world of PC. 

If you decide to go and build a system from scratch though, there's been a lot of good advice here already. Read @Ike's post, that's solid advice. Choose a cabinet of your liking, and decide on a good CPU. That way you know a lot of what to look for in the other components. 

And if you're gonna be mainly playing racing and flight sims, do keep in mind to go with a VR-ready setup. Playing sim games in VR is insane. It. Will. Blow. Your. Mind!

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On 8/28/2020 at 11:55 PM, Ike said:

My advise would be decide on a CPU and case because those will dictate what Motherboard you need (sockets for CPU and size ATX/ATX-Mini). Power supply would probably come last as you need one powerful enough to power all your components.

Just search amazon or something for motherboards that will suit your CPU and then try to work out what features you want on it/read reviews.

That’s a great starting point, still running through ideas that are all over the place - will use this to narrow things down.

On 8/29/2020 at 1:10 AM, RedShell said:

But yeah, I have no regrets with going the pre-built route so far, and have been enjoying loads of games this month thanks to Game Pass! :) @will', definitely check out Game Pass once you get a PC, it is insane! :cool: 

Will definitely do this! I guess a secondary benefit of going the PC route is it will serve me instead of buying a new XBox for the exclusive content not on PS5.

On 8/30/2020 at 4:00 AM, ArtMediocre said:

And if you're gonna be mainly playing racing and flight sims, do keep in mind to go with a VR-ready setup. Playing sim games in VR is insane. It. Will. Blow. Your. Mind!

Will definitely build it with this in mind. Love PSVR so if I can have something playing the content I really love in VR it will be a winner.

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I've been watching some YouTube videos and attempting to keep researching this, currently I'm looking at something like this. Two differences would be that I'll go for one of the new 3080 cards because it seems pretty great considering the price POINT. I also think I prefer the NZXT H1 case but it didn't seem to be listed there.

What do you guys think? Anything I should reconsider before I continue on this path? I know there are other bits I need but these seemed like the ones I need to get locked down first.

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Does PCPartPicker take into account physical sizes? Just want to make sure that 2080 will fit. That was the problem I had and was why I went with the 2060 Super Mini in the end as I have an ITX mini tower case.

One thing that’s also worth looking into is future proofing with usb c ports. 

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1 hour ago, will' said:

I've been watching some YouTube videos and attempting to keep researching this, currently I'm looking at something like this. Two differences would be that I'll go for one of the new 3080 cards because it seems pretty great considering the price POINT. I also think I prefer the NZXT H1 case but it didn't seem to be listed there.

What do you guys think? Anything I should reconsider before I continue on this path? I know there are other bits I need but these seemed like the ones I need to get locked down first.

I think it looks decent, nice one!

2TB SSD drive is a great idea, I'd suggest getting a beefy regular one for movies, music etc. 4TB won't cost much these days but it's useful to have it for tons of small files and extra space if you need it. Also recommend adding a M2 drive to that for your OS, most used programs and a few select games as even that will be much better than an SSD with loading. 512gb would be more than enough for that and a few games on rotation. 

I have an NZXT case, and honestly, I wouldn't recommend them. Cable management is shit. Mine gets quite hot because they are designed to be "quiet" (i.e. bad cooling). They are not that quiet when the GPU is at full whack, so pretty redundant. Sturdy AF but doesn't really do what it advertises very well. I have a Radeon GPU though which generally runs hotter than a NVidia so you might be OK on that front. 

That processor is an absolute beast, I'm so jealous :bowdown:

1 hour ago, Happenstance said:

One thing that’s also worth looking into is future proofing with usb c ports. 

Just had a look at that motherboard and it has two. Most of the ASUS ROG-Strix ones do.

The graphics card will need to be ITX compatible, that's right. No way the standard 3080 will fit in that system. Might not be one available immediately after it launches so keep an eye out for any companies doing a mini version in the next few weeks / months. You might be waiting a while to be honest, given the size of the heat sink on the regular card.

There's some dimensions of the different cards available here: 

 



 

Edited by Nicktendo
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Dimensions for the Founder Editions are here:

zaz57oacflk51.jpg?width=2525&format=pjpg

3rd party cards might be different.

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17 hours ago, Happenstance said:

Does PCPartPicker take into account physical sizes? Just want to make sure that 2080 will fit. That was the problem I had and was why I went with the 2060 Super Mini in the end as I have an ITX mini tower case.

Good point. It seems that it does for graphics cards but not for some other things. Will keep in mind to use this as a starting point but fully check it out before I buy anything.

17 hours ago, Happenstance said:

One thing that’s also worth looking into is future proofing with usb c ports. 

Definitely planning on doing this, seems the motherboard I’ve got down at the moment has some.

16 hours ago, Nicktendo said:

2TB SSD drive is a great idea, I'd suggest getting a beefy regular one for movies, music etc. 4TB won't cost much these days but it's useful to have it for tons of small files and extra space if you need it. Also recommend adding a M2 drive to that for your OS, most used programs and a few select games as even that will be much better than an SSD with loading. 512gb would be more than enough for that and a few games on rotation. 

Totally understand the concept of just having a massive drive to store other stuff on. Not sure I’ll need it but storage is always one of those things I wish I had more of.

On the smaller M2 for the OS what is the difference between that and the SSD I have listed? Is it just the case of smaller is cheaper and it’s good to have a ridiculously fast drive for loading times? With rotating games is it just a case of drag and drop the files across or would it need more work?

16 hours ago, Nicktendo said:

I have an NZXT case, and honestly, I wouldn't recommend them. Cable management is shit. Mine gets quite hot because they are designed to be "quiet" (i.e. bad cooling). They are not that quiet when the GPU is at full whack, so pretty redundant. Sturdy AF but doesn't really do what it advertises very well. I have a Radeon GPU though which generally runs hotter than a NVidia so you might be OK on that front. 

Good to know, I’ve been looking at a lot of videos of H1 builds and it’s right at the top of my wishlist. Will keep an eye out for anything that might improve the form factor.

16 hours ago, Nicktendo said:

That processor is an absolute beast, I'm so jealous :bowdown:

Great to know, I was worried I’d dropped too far from the top end stuff I looked at. A friend recommended an 8 core 16 thread intel CPU might be better for gaming as most stuff is designed to take advantage of the configuration better - any thoughts on that?

16 hours ago, Nicktendo said:

The graphics card will need to be ITX compatible, that's right. No way the standard 3080 will fit in that system. Might not be one available immediately after it launches so keep an eye out for any companies doing a mini version in the next few weeks / months. You might be waiting a while to be honest, given the size of the heat sink on the regular card.

Ah that’s a shame, will keep an eye on what happens with this. I’m OK to wait a while as I’m thinking I’ll just stick with a PS5 this year and get the PC early next.

11 hours ago, Ike said:

3rd party cards might be different.

This 3rd party card stuff... How does it work? Other companies just buy the internals, repackage it and sell it on? What are the advantages and disadvantages of getting something direct vs the 3rd party versions? Do they end up with compatibility issues or are they generally the same thing?

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9 hours ago, will' said:

This 3rd party card stuff... How does it work? Other companies just buy the internals, repackage it and sell it on? What are the advantages and disadvantages of getting something direct vs the 3rd party versions? Do they end up with compatibility issues or are they generally the same thing?

Basically what happens is Nvidia brings out the reference card, and says alright this is the new graphics card. Usually it is not the best performing/most quiet model. Other brands then get the PCB/chip and make their own versions. Some choose to put on quiet fans, others go for higher clock speed, or put out mini versions or water cooled versions of the card. 

I personally would never get the Nvidia reference model but go for a 3rd party one from for example Asus or MSI, as they are usually clocked faster and cooled better.

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1 hour ago, Vileplume2000 said:

Basically what happens is Nvidia brings out the reference card, and says alright this is the new graphics card. Usually it is not the best performing/most quiet model. Other brands then get the PCB/chip and make their own versions. Some choose to put on quiet fans, others go for higher clock speed, or put out mini versions or water cooled versions of the card. 

I personally would never get the Nvidia reference model but go for a 3rd party one from for example Asus or MSI, as they are usually clocked faster and cooled better.

Got it! Thanks, I feel like I’ve been learning a lot just looking into all of this stuff.

With these new NVIDIA cards when should we expect to see 3rd party cards available? Is there a good reference site to check the differences between cards and pick out the one that’s most suited?

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I'm not sure when, but we will probably see reviews pop up quite soon. I usually use a Dutch website who posted the line up of the brands without pricing:

https://tweakers.net/nieuws/171676/fabrikanten-kondigen-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3000-videokaarten-aan.html

I think this English site usually is also quite up to date with news, might be worth checking that from time to time: https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3090-rtx-3080-and-rtx-3070-custom-model-pricing-in-uk

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Apparently the embargo for reviews of the new NVIDIA series is September 14th, so I guess we'll be seeing a lot of news about them next week.

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Thanks for the heads up, @Vileplume2000. I'm glad that the embargo lifts a few days before the cards launch, because I'm not sure if I would've bought the cards going in blind (probably would've though...). It will be nice to see some actual numbers from youtubers and tech nerds. 

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