End of Year PC Build

The way I see it is, I do voluntary work for the community. And probably because I quit IT in 2008, and kind of miss the tech job.

About EB's USB problems, they have been

Well, maybe not mendacious.

That's the one!

Hi!

People's opinions vary, but I like the MSI Tomahawk series of boards. My recommendation would be the MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk WiFi. It ticks some of your boxes:


Yes, there's Wi-Fi and whatnot, but you can always disable them from BIOS.

Not sure how reliable PCGamer is these days, but here's the review: MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk WiFi

Naturally that's one of the most expensive right now, lol. I'm hoping to get a deal around 200€.

I think I jumped the gun on the RAM. The one I ordered is 5600 CL36. I could get 6000 CL30 for just a few bucks more. (And then I'd have to use XMP and hope for the best.) And apparently latency matters the most. (Yes, I'm still somewhat computer illiterate, lol.) I could still return it (Amazon) without opening it. Should I? Or will the difference in fps be so negligible at 1440p I shouldn't sweat it?

I keep reading that DDR5 isn't worth it for gaming. But will be useful for the video editing I do. So I'm going with DDR5 anyway.
I bought the slowest DDR3 RAM in 2015. No idea how much it held me back. Friend bought a DDR4 system but it was a 200€ difference at the time,so I chose DDR3. I never felt I chose wrong. But I don't want to buy at the tail end again and regret it this time. RAM prices have really come done this year. The 32GB kit I ordered is 109€. That's acceptable to me. 115€ for the faster kit.

I've been meaning to rewatch, but haven't had the time. Soon.

Yep and Yep. (jep )
I'd go for either largest Noctua or some 360 or 420 sized pump for either one of the CPU's. 12th/13th gen i7/i9's are hot hot HOT! AMD is way cooler atm. and can run nice even at 65W!

I also added some links to previous post.

Just a very quick look-see....I found this:


GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 Intel 12th/13th Gen Ready, ATX Motherboard with DDR5, Quad M.2, PCIe 5.0, USB 3.2 Gen 2X2 Type-C, WiFi 6, 2.5GbE LAN
Here in Canada it is retailing for $269.99 CAD

And this is a newer 790 chipset you might be interested in:   GIGABYTE Z790 GAMING X AX LGA 1700 Intel Z790 ATX Motherboard with DDR5, M.2, PCIe 5.0, USB 3.2 Gen2X2 Type-C, Intel Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5GbE LAN, Q-Flash Plus, EZ-Latch Plus

*this second board retails here for 349.00 Reg MSRP.    (not sure what your budget is, but I thought those pieces might be of interest or at least taking a look at).

On the GPU side of things....iF they still existed I would recommend EVGA *paws downs* no questions asked.   But as their GPU division is now defunct, my next GPU brand recommendation would be Gigabyte.

As for Power Supplies.....This is one thing that EVGA is concentrating on.  In my opinion and experience their PSUs are equal to Silverstone, and they have an industry leading 10 year warranty.  The 850 P2 is an excellent unit.

And lastly, you mentioned you might want to use an M.2 drive this time around......If your motherboard of choice supports it, I say go for it.  So much faster and takes up even less space than a 2.5 inch SSD.   My two recommendations for brands are:  1-  Samsung EVO (the 970 or 980 would be an excellent choice if paired with a 13700)    and 2) I've heard good things about Western Digital Black series.


Hope this helps!

So had the company I have had make my last 3 gaming PC's build this for and got it just over a week ago.



All is good except after activating Windows 11 and installing Office 365 it installed the trial version and installed everything on One Drive which I really did not want. Used the Microsoft Support and Recovery tool to undo that and install the full licensed version of Office 365 and got that all set up.

Noticed that the documents folder was installed on One Drive still so stupidly in hindsight set up a new Documents folder on the C:\ and copied all my backed files to that location including gaming stuff for the EA App, Ubisoft Connect and Steam.

Installed Ubisoft Connect and AC Odyssey and it all worked wonderfully as Saves were all on the Cloud.

Installed the EA App and MEA and the fun began as when I opened the game it couldn't find my old saves 1,800+ hours of gaming. This is when I discovered that Ubi Connect and the EA App had been installed in the One Drive "Documents" folder and my saves were of course in the Documents folder I created on C:\Users

Moved the saves and all was well with the world but I am hating having my documents file on One Drive and it being the default location for things to install (and I cannot change it after many different attempts) so was looking for a way to fix this.

I found there is an option in Windows Update to do a "Fresh Start" and as I have delinked One Drive now hopefully, I can reinstall everything locally rather than involving One Drive at all.

Has anyone used the Fresh Start option? It is no real hassle for me to back everything up (documents etc.) to my external drive but it also says it will keep personal files. Again wondered if anyone has used Fresh Start and that option.

I can live with how it as it is now if it's a big deal or a risk but otherwise I'd like to fix it and not have it nagging me all the time.

Any advice/help appreciated.

I would not recommend a Z690 for a 13700k build unless you feel comfortable updating the BIOS. A lot of Z690 motherboards still require a BIOS update to use 13th-gen Intel chips.

So just get a Z790, H770, or B760 motherboard if you plan on using a 13700k.

Sorry, can't help you there. I detest cloud services: my data is mine, and mine alone. No peeking!

So ... depends. On my work laptop its hybrid rendering with CPU+GPU, but on my work desktop its only using GPU. It being Premiere Pro.