End of Year PC Build

Kappa Neko
I updated with the link and tried to make post clearer to understand.
Hope it helps.

Explain. 

The V5 Bad Gateway page? 
I think its the BSN website backing up data.
Seems to happen on the half hour every twelve hours. 
I got it too. 
I ended up with a double post but fixed that. 

True.
Undervolting is the new overclocking, so there's that, yes. But I'd rather undervolt and underclock, than use your OS method. Nothing wrong with it per se, that's just me.
True.
Which is why I go for the OC boards; they've been tested to the death. Sometimes literally.
Thanks. It's been one of those weeks, and there's worse to come.

We all have those weeks but I always try to make time for bugs people have here.
Except this can put boards into to expensive of a price range -especially if you don't realize your going to need to do this in the first place.

To complex of an procedure? If so there are some that would actually considering undervolting just as complex -especially if not sure about how much the offsets need to be. Also if the motherboard will not save the underclock or the undervoltage from stock then my way may be the last recourse anyway unless you get another motherboard and by the time this rears its head it may be to late for said refund.

So what you're saying is create the new account first and verify it, attaching it to my EA and Steam accounts.....THEN delete the (current/old) one.....right?

So it's time. I need to have the ability to develop photos on a big computer, so I'll head Adobes detestable advice: "Upgrade your PC. Good luck. Bye".

I'll build a new desktop. I'm 12 years out of touch with the process. My main areas of concern/uncertainty:
Why don't cases have front accessible bays any longer? I need to have a card reader/writer.
It's even hard to find cases with a reasonable number of 3½ HD bays. I need at least 3.
It seems most cases these days have the power supply at the bottom. Why?
The SSD drive should be connected to a "M.2" interface?

My last 5 PC builds have all had Zalman coolers. They were highly engineered and worked exceptionally well. But Zalman fell victim to a fraud many years ago and don't exist any longer (someone did a hostile takeover, took a monumental loan and disappeared with the money, leaving Zalman to bankruptcy). So what cooler do I buy instead?

I'm thinking 12-core Ryzen 9 7900, but the 9700X is almost the same price but but comes without cooler. Also, it's 170W instead of 65W.
I understand that metallic cooling paste is not used anymore? Why?

B650 or X670 MB? What's the difference? I have little interest in anything else than letting the CPU driver manage clocks at default settings.

What the hell is M.2 key E and Key M? And what are they used to besides the SSD? i.e. why do the MBs have 4 of them?

Geforce RTX 4060, Radeon RX 7600 or Radeon RX 6750? Or should I step up, RTX 4070 or RX7900?

Hi Hieronymus.  There's some good questions here, good points as well...I will address what I can.  Drive bays aren't really a thing anymore because of form factor and size making them unnecessary (though I agree, if you're old school like me and a few others...they're handy to have.  I was pissed that the H500M I have didn't come with a 5.25 inch bay for a Blu-ray player) but after a while I thought about it and realized I rarely used it anyway even when I had it) so I got used to not having it.  Secondy, the absence of a drive bay even a tooless removable drivebay not only creates a cleaner aesthetic, but also improves airflow.

forums.tomshardware.com/threads/psu-bottom-vs-top.239411/#:~:text=There%20are%20pro%27s%20and%20con%27s%3A%20Bottom%20mounted%201%29,at%20the%20expense%20of%20a%20hotter%20running%20psu.

Card readers were a hot item for a while, but they became a fad, and mostly unnecessary to have on most cases for such a niche market of Users who would actually use them.  And then for those purposes you could simply buy an external plug-in and be done with it.

Bottom mounted PSUs are often more effecient as they don't add hot air directly onto the CPU, plus a bottom mounted PSU helps stablize the weight of the case more efficiently.

Bseries Motherboards (ie those from Gigabyte) are for Intel builds and they are your bare bones basic motherboards, nothing fancy.  the more expensive Z series are your high end Creator and Gaming focused Motherboards.  As for the X lineup....Those are AMD, I belieive, which I'm not that familar with so perhaps someone else here with an AMD build can answer your questions about that more specifically.

M-Key and E-Key, and B-Key, what's the difference? :  Refers to the formfactor of the M.2 and also the interface.  Drives called M-Keys supports both Sata and PCIE connections and are typically found in Drives that support NVMe such as Samsung's EVO lineup or more recently Western Digital's Black series, while the E-Key designates are specifically designed for Wireless LAN Cards and are usualy more of a plug-in fashion like a SATA card would be.   More over, the number of pins is different, which impacts the number of PCIE lanes each Drive type can support.  M-Keys can typically support up to 4 PCIE lanes while the E-Key designates can only support a single lane.  There are also B-Keys which are typically found as traditional 2.5 inch SSDs.   Newer motherboards have as many as 4 (usually M-Key M.2 slots in a form factor/size of 22110, 2240, 2260 2280; length in milimeters) because they are incredibly space-saving when connected to their dedicated slots, and they're blisteringly fast.  Much, much, much faster than even the fastest 2.5 inch SSD on the market.

As for your last question....only you can answer that one truthfully for yourself as it is a matter of personal preference.  If it were me, I would go with the Nvidia-based 4060 or 4070 as I have never really had any luck at all with any AMD/ATI card....even when they were truly just ATI (before the merger). I supported them because they were a wholly Canadian company and because (at the time) they offered reasonably comparable performance for a smaller cost....But the QUALITY was never there.  The only cards that have lasted me and served me well were Nvidia (specifically the now defunct EVGA line-up).  But that's just my own experience.   This last part....that's entirely up to you, my friend for many reasons.


I hope I have answered these questions and points to your satisfaction and helped give you some clarity on certain topics.

True enough its generation by generation and getting a crappy card from either manufacturer. 
In the past three generations Nvidia has held the gaming benchmark while in AI assisted programs AMD GPUS have the benefit. 

Since most buy GPU's for elite gaming Nvidia could hold a monopoly on GPUs and price accordingly. 
That and AMD till recently didn't really care much about their GPU department but since Ryzen they have come along way. 
For a more in depth backstory on 4000 series and its annoyance to some:

Though to reiterate Gamers Nexus did solve the melting connectors. 


Nvidia drivers in my opinion have actually slid a bit these past few years -sometimes buggy but just getting more and more massive. 
While AMD drivers have become more streamlined and more stable and with sequel releases actually increasing performance. 
AMD has stated that they never intended to contend with Nvidia's 4090 but their top card was to only contend against the 4070/ti I believe. 
That however has aged badly -since some of the newer AMD GPU drivers actually are putting their 7900XTX into 4080 territory in realm of performance.

That said for what your doing -I would need a lot more data on what your needing to designate which you should go. 
You software -some software function better with different GPU's and even CPU's. 
Do you need a lot of GPU memory or system memory or both? 

Check out Fractal Design Define 7. There's one 5" bay and several 3" bays (two in the rack, but more can be added, up to six, I believe). That's the case I chose.
M.2 is the bee's knees atm.
Zalman was great; I've had several over the years. But fret not, Noctua is the new Zalman.
It's still quite popular, in fact. It's just, that it doesn't go well with aluminium.

Thanks, I'm trying this now! Set it to 99%. I also have the Core Temp app. The PC guy installed it. But I want to try the other method first so I don't have to run that app forever.

Yesterday I had own of the system reboot black screen freezes again for the first time since I got it back from the shop. Which may or may not be serious overheating compared to the spike (?) overheating that only results on game crashes.
I had the game crash twice too at 69C though. So there seems to be also something going on with the game not liking my PC. My card is definitely not overheating. 70C max.

Who knows, maybe all these issues go away with a different game, no idea. My sample of two games doesn't tell me anything. FO4 doesn't overheat but it's an old game, so. I'll see what happens once I start playing Starfield.

I'll report back on the undervolting workaround!

OK. so to combat the rise of extortion type emails I have been getting to the email account that was linked to all my Gaming services and Newsletters, I have successfully created another and made damn sure it was totally verified and attached to such things as Steam, EA, Apple iTunes etc BEFORE deleting the old one. Then I just a moment ago slated my first email account for deletion because I was getting an obscene amount of extortion type emails. They were obviously false (and so what if they copied my email into their bogus lettter as "proof" of the hack) but still it was damned annoying, and just to take precautions if t was indeed true....I shoved my drumstick up their asses by deleting that older account and creating a new one.