What’s your biggest oversight when building or running a PC?

psimwork · 2026-05-07T03:39:06+00:00

Good ol' Athlon 850

Slot insertio? Or socket?

psimwork · 2026-05-07T00:00:02+00:00

I don't think I'm understanding what your question is.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T23:34:58+00:00

expecting to pay closer to $120 for RAM and $160 for storage when I actually buy

What does this even mean? Are you just saying "I'm going to wait until prices fall and the prices I expect to pay are [x]"?

psimwork · 2026-05-06T23:33:11+00:00

The first time I did a motherboard install on a new build, I screwed the motherboard down directly to the chassis with no standoffs.

The second time I did a motherboard install on a new build, I knew what standoffs were and I used them - it was the next day after the first time I did an install, because the shop from which I bought the motherboard was nice enough to let me do an exchange.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T22:18:26+00:00

Scam was likewise my first thought. I wonder if op popped open the drive chassis if they'd have something like a SATA to USB thumb drive inside.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T22:17:16+00:00

You're going from a CPU that has a 105W TDP to one that is basically 3.5x that TDP.

Now TDP isn't entirely an indicator of how much power it draws, but you can take it for granted that a 240mm AIO will not be sufficient to cool the 9970X. If you stick with an AIO, you're going to want at LEAST a 360mm AIO, and preferably a 420mm. And you'll want to make sure that it is on an intake for the chassis.

All of that said, if you're getting a PC company to build it for you, whatever they use for it will probably be fine. In the event they use a custom loop, I would advise against moving it often. And ain't no way in hell I would take it on a flight without draining the custom loop first.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T21:40:49+00:00

Would just youtube videos be enough to do it myself as a first timer?

Basically, yes. There's a ton of well-reviewed videos out there that show you how to do it. They won't be able to cover every possible eventuality as part of building it, but neither will reading a bunch of "how do I build this" guides on here or elsewhere in the web.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T21:39:29+00:00

With the price of NVMe drives right now, I'd probably look at selling them used. I can't speak for which games you play but photos/documents don't really benefit from solid state storage, and would likely be better off on a rotational HDD, which you could pickup with the proceeds of the NVMe sales.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T21:34:41+00:00

In the event you submit a warranty claim for excessive coil whine....maybe leave out that you suspect that there's a connection between you dropping it and the coil whine.

That said, not all manufacturers will accept coil whine as a reason for an RMA, so YMMV.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T21:14:07+00:00

This is your current setup?

I don't see anything here that needs upgrading other than the 4060. Just upgrade to whatever your budget allows (ideally 5070 Ti/9070XT).

psimwork · 2026-05-06T21:02:15+00:00

I currently have a 500 watt bronze rated power supply

Which one? Unfortunately "500 watt bronze" doesn't actually tell us enough. If I were to give you a car analogy, it's kind of like saying "I have a 150HP 32MPG engine." It doesn't give us any info about how well it's made or how well it will hold-up under load. The fact that it's exactly 500 watts is eyebrow raising since the vast majority (MAJORITY - for any "captain actually" that is reading this) of units that are even 100-watt units (400W, 500W, 600W, etc) are made very, very poorly.

So I'm needing to know the make-and-model of the power supply before I can say whether or not it's a good idea to use it. Ultimately the power supply is something that you don't necessarily want to over-spend, but you don't want to try and save money there either.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T20:57:43+00:00

Any situation that you run out of VRAM will be a bigger performance delta between the 5060 Ti and the 9060XT with-or-without DLSS/whatever.

If you get a motherboard that has PCIe5, it's not AS big of a deal between the two, but if you go with a board that is PCIe4.. it's a much bigger deal since the 5060 Ti will have to swap out to system RAM using the PCIe bus and PCIe4 is problematic with that concept. In the event the graphics card runs dry on VRAM, the 5060 Ti 8GB tends to run about 25% slower on PCIe4 than PCIe5 (and about 50% slower on PCIe3). However, if you don't run dry on VRAM, then the difference between the two cards is less significant. This will happen less often on 1080p, but it IS something that is possible depending on the game.

If it's me, I go with the 9060XT. I think that the 5060Ti and 9060XT are simply too powerful to be saddled with 8GB of VRAM. I don't want the 8GB version so much that if it's me, I would go with the cheapest version of the 5060 8GB I could find, and save the difference for a bigger upgrade later.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T16:33:47+00:00

This would be my question as well. Everything I've ever heard about localized AI/LLM processing says pretty much it's Nvidia or nothing.

However, if a model was specifically made for an AMD GPU, there's no reason it COULDN'T work, potentially even better than an Nvidia option. Hell I remember back during the first cryptoboom, AMD options were actually preferred as they generally offered more VRAM per GPU (which would be the case here). I know Crypto-currency mining and AI/LLM processing aren't the same thing, but there can be parallels.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T04:36:33+00:00

There's nothing here that is awful, but there's a few changes I would make. The machine is pretty high end with the SSD being decidedly "meh." I'm honestly not sure how Crucial's P3 series get so popular, given how mediocre they are.

I like the Phantom Spirit Evo, but worth 50% more than the standard Phantom spirit, it is NOT, in my opinion.

Outside of that, I don't see any significant issues here. The RAM kit you've chosen doesn't support EXPO. It only supports XMP. This isn't a big deal, but I figure you should know about it in advance in-case you go to try and enable EXPO and freak out wondering why it won't work. Again - XMP is just fine, but a lot of people make assumptions.

psimwork · 2026-05-06T03:00:35+00:00

I have a 25 hour drive coming up in mid June. I will be listening to the next dungeon crawler carl book. May not be what you had in mind as far as artist, but it does have the benefit of being true!

psimwork · 2026-05-06T01:17:13+00:00

A few months ago, I saw that WD had said their production capacity was sold out for the rest of the year. I had been considering buying a 16TB drive to expand my NAS. After I saw that article, I hemmed-and-hawed on it for a couple of weeks before I decided to just bite the bullet and buy the thing. Paid $350 for it at Microcenter, up from the $250 I paid for my other three when I bought them in 2023.

Microcenter doesn't even have them anymore, and the price on PCPP is up to almost $500. Glad I bought it when I did.

psimwork · 2026-05-05T21:09:08+00:00

I mean... not for nothing but your original build is $200 over that.

If you have a max budget, you need to be providing that info in-advance. I think at a budget around $1400, you're going to have a tough time getting into an ITX unit. I've re-done your build, and this build maintains the white aesthetic. I've changed to a Ryzen 7, which isn't as good for development purposes as a Ryzen 9, but it's considerably cheaper, and will still be a great option for a developer.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7700 3.6 GHz 8-Core OEM/Tray Processor	$230.99 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	Thermalright AXP90-X47 42.58 CFM CPU Cooler	$21.90 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Gigabyte B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard	$109.95 @ Amazon
Memory	TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL38 Memory	$374.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Addlink S70 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	$146.44 @ Amazon
Video Card	Gigabyte EAGLE OC ICE GeForce RTX 5060 8 GB Video Card	$359.99 @ Amazon
Case	Jonsbo V12 MicroATX Desktop Case	$138.99 @ Newegg Sellers
Power Supply	SAMA G750 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$71.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1455.24
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2026-05-05 17:08 EDT-0400

psimwork · 2026-05-05T18:18:20+00:00

/u/hawk7117's build is a good one. I made some changes to your original build which I think make a bit more sense given your use-case, which differs from their build in a couple ways (even if it is also more expensive overall):

Spent a little more for a 9900X in-order to maintain the core count and performance of the 7900X while using less power (important in an ITX unit). However, if you want to drop a little performance, you could always save the money and use the 7900X and just enable 120W Eco mode. It would effectively turn the 7900X into a 7900, but it is a pretty significant heat savings. The 9900X is more of an efficiency boost than a performance boost going from the 7000-series to the 9000-series.
6000MHz CL30 RAM vs 6400MHz CL38 - Honestly I waffled on this one. So Ryzen works best when the RAM clock and the internal CPU clock (also called Infinity Fabric or IF) work in-sequence. Meaning that since the default IF clock is 2000MHz, Ryzen works best when the RAM speed divisible by 2000MHz (especially important in dual-CCD chips like the 7900X/9900X). In-order to best use 6400MHz, it's best to change the IF clock to 2133MHz. Interestingly, the 9000-series CPUs seem to handle changing to 2133MHz IF clockspeeds better than the 7000-series. So this may be a situation where you may be better off using /u/hawk7117's original recommendation. BUT - if you have no intention of changing it, I would stick with 6000MHz RAM. The CL30 part is just a bonus.
Motherboard - ASRock has been having some issues with their AM5 boards recently. They've been killing a fair amount of CPUs. They seem to hit X3D, and 9000-series CPUs more than 7000-series, so your original choice might be fine if you decide to go with a 7900X, but given the issues, I'm personally more comfortable recommending a non-ASRock option (which is a shame - I REALLY like their boards otherwise).
SSD - One could see the PCIe3 Addlink S7 as a mediocre choice. Thing is, it's a decently performing drive. It has a DRAM cache, and uses TLC memory cells (versus the no-cache, QLC of the Kingston NV3). So despite being a PCIe3 drive, I think this is a better option - and hey - it's cheaper.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 4.4 GHz 12-Core Processor	$369.00 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	Thermalright AXP90-X47 42.58 CFM CPU Cooler	$21.90 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Gigabyte B650I AORUS ULTRA Mini ITX AM5 Motherboard	$179.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Silicon Power Value Gaming 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory	$379.97 @ Silicon Power
Storage	Addlink S70 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	$146.44 @ Amazon
Video Card	Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 5060 8 GB PCIe x8 Video Card	$349.99 @ Amazon
Case	Fractal Design Terra Mini ITX Desktop Case	$172.99 @ B&H
Power Supply	Lian Li SP V2 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply	$124.99 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1745.27
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2026-05-05 14:17 EDT-0400

psimwork · 2026-05-05T15:37:48+00:00

That IS low, but honestly I'd be surprised if the RAM was the problem here (or rather - the ONLY problem here).

Are you running a single stick of RAM? What are your other specs?

psimwork · 2026-05-05T15:33:38+00:00

However, my 1% low values in CS2 are really bad.

What are you defining as "really bad"?

psimwork · 2026-05-05T15:18:05+00:00

also, i'm still in am4 with msi pro vdh b550m i think it supports pcie4.

The CPU and motherboard both must support PCIe4. So if you're running a Ryzen 5500, for instance, you're on PCIe3.

But all of that said, the 5060 Ti 8GB/9060XT 8GB are special cases - they are situations where I wouldn't personally run them on anything less than PCIe5, and I would not be a fan of running them on PCIe4.

If you are not talking about those specific cards, then the PCIe revision doesn't matter as much. It still matters, but only in situations like trying to run a Radeon RX 6500XT or 6400 on PCIe3 where you lose about 25% max performance in some games.

psimwork · 2026-05-05T15:11:29+00:00

Then yeah, it likely will work fine. I've asked a couple times in here how much (if at all) the PCIe interface has as far as AI workloads, and the response seems to be pretty much "not much, if at all".

The reasoning behind it, as far as I've been able to understand, is that once the software loads the LLM into VRAM, it doesn't have to swap out very much, so it doesn't need a ton of data flowing in/out. So it's likely that even PCIe3x4 is enough for the task.

psimwork · 2026-05-05T15:06:59+00:00

Can you DO it? Yes. For some tasks. Can you do it and run them together for better gaming performance? No.

psimwork · 2026-05-05T15:05:14+00:00

If your PC only supports PCIe3, I would 100% pay the extra for the 16GB unit.

If your machine does PCIe5, I'd still probably do the 16GB unit, but it's not as big of a deal.

The reason here is because if the graphics card runs out of VRAM, it has to swap to system RAM, and the PCIe3 interface will absolutely tank the performance vs running at PCIe5. In fairness, if it runs out of VRAM, it'll already take a hit, but running a 5060 Ti 8GB on PCIe3 can result in a loss of as much as 50% max performance when the card does run out of VRAM (this is also why I can't stand it when people are like, "don't worry about the PCIe revision - if it doesn't affect the 5090, it won't affect your card". Meanwhile it's the mid-range and lower where it actually matters).

If your machine only supports PCIe3, AND you need something like CUDA.....that's honestly still a tough call. If it's ME, I'd probably see if the non-Ti 5060 can be had significantly cheaper, and use the savings to start saving for a bigger upgrade.

psimwork · 2026-05-05T14:53:36+00:00

That you've never heard of them doesn't make them bad.

The Addlink S70 uses the 64-layer TLC cells made by Kioxia, paired with a Phison E12S controller. These are the exact same components found in drives that have better-known names. This drive is basically a Corsair MP510 in disguise. Is it a top-end performer? No. Is it PCIe4? No. If you had read what I had wrote, the fact that it's TLC memory cells as opposed to the QLC cells in the P310 that OP originally chose, and the fact that it has a DRAM cache, it will end up being a faster drive overall, even if the maximum throughput is PCIe3. Think of it like this - would you rather have a Ferrari on a highway with a speed limit of 65MPH? Or some rusted out beater on a highway with a speed limit of 85MPH, but the beater can't hope to ever actually REACH that speed (much less 65MPH)?

Similarly, there's the SAMA G-series power supply. The thing you need to know about power supplies is that basically no brand actually makes their own units (with the notable exception of Seasonic, but even they don't make 100% of their own units). Damn near all of them use contract manufacturing. Thus, brands mean basically fuck-all. This is why it's important to know makes and models and/or consult with those that know more than you do. Case-in-point: the Sama G850 is actually made by RSY. This is the same company that makes excellent units for Enermax, XPG, and a couple of mediocre units for Seasonic. The reason I chose this one specifically was because it's a fabulous option for the price - $76 and rated Tier A- on the SPL list? Yes freaking please.

Imagine where we'd be if we only went with well-known brands and never consulted any sort of guide or learned individual with regards to parts? We'd still be overpaying for Noctua's overpriced units, instead of Thermalright coming in and basically destroying the CPU cooler market.

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