Review: Guru3D PC Buyers Guide Summer 2018

Hey, I'm a Nibble with a bit of Byte

 

Still waiting for a good GPU buy. but the 8400 is amazing.

 

Good stuff boss. Thank you.

 

Congratulations!

I have the money of a bit and the need of the megabyte.

With all honesty: More the need of the byte and budget of the nibble, to be fair.


EDIT: I just found a (custom) Vega64 from Gigabyte listed for 499€:
https://geizhals.eu/?cat=gra16_512&xf=6680_1
It's even cheaper than ALL other Vegas so far, except 1x a standard Vega56 for 494€.

I would call it a great deal, but I personally do not like Gigabyte so much. The Red Devil (64, sure) is what I want or a GTX1080.

 

my GPU is still under NDA. That toycard which is keeping dust out of PCIe slot is not even worth mentioning

 

UBIV9 or 10?
Intel, NVIDIA or AMD or ALL OF THEM??

Naaa, nevermind, I don't want you to break any NDA. How long is it valid? Mine was 5 years back then (2011 or 2012), I am finally allowed to talk about getting an Intel Ultrabook on base of Haswell for sending in a MS Paint image drawn in 5 minutes with one color and almost winning the Intel Ultrabook Software contest besides the fact I am unable to program HELLO WORLD in ANY language! *rofl* <- almost literally right now!
Let that sink in. And that was an official Intel campaign. I still have some emblem telling me "Your idea made a difference! Intel Ultrabook Software Contest" ... a Paint image! STICK FIGURES GOT ME AN 1500$ Ultrabook which was never released in any kind or form to the public, ever. Paint FTW!
Btw.: I must have scored at least in position 1 to 100 out of 1000, otherwise I wouldn't have got this emblem. And honestly ... what the actual frack did the others do? Other COMPANIES or at least PROFESSIONALS with years of background and programming knowledge.
>>> I owned over 900 of them, with a Paint image. <<<

Is yours as hilarious as mine? (I mean the way to get it?)

 

Even though I have the money for a X299 or X399 system, I currently own something more on the slower side of a "Nibble" system. I'd like to skip right over 2K and move to 4K, but I refuse to spend $500+ on just a GPU.

At least my 290 has been holding up very nicely with 1080p games.

 

I personally like the naming scheme you've always done. Adds more personality. I think you are pretty concise about what they mean.

 

I agree with schmidtbag, the "bit, nibble, etc." scheme sounds a bit better than the standard "entry-level, mainstream, gaming, high end, etc." stuff everybody is using. I personally like it because it is NOT 08/15 standard.
But if you would prefer it the other way, I can happily live with that, too. At the end, it is only a naming for different "classes" of invest and performance. I bet you could name it "A", "B", "C", "D" and so on and still everybody would be good with it.
But the nibble sounds way better, I FULLY agree.

- removed some unnecessary stuff -

 

Don Vito Corleone ! Good guide.

My Vega XTX + Freesync is a Beast...
Yes Freesync is Good & Plausible for the Free Price...
But when you Buy XTX (with 3 Yas warranty) like me for 622€ then ->
and No, it's Not a Power Hog at all....

 

The 8600 k has 6 cores 6 threads, not 6/12. Bit of a blooper there. Referring to "note, Intel's 8600k doesn't come with a cooler), 6 cores and 12 threads want cooling and can run warm and hungry"

Warm yes, really hot no. H7 deals with it just fine. People keep saying these chips are hot but in my experience, not the case. I guess I got a good chip. OC'd to 4.8ghz @1.265v It never goes over 75 (and that's rare, it's usually 60c when gaming.)

 

two things:

1 "The rest is ensuring you are truly in 2017 by having a PC that contains both..."
I was hoping I'd get to be in 2018. But hey. 2017 wasn't all that bad. ahah

2. Feels a bit silly to see this guide with B350 recommendations right next to the article where B450 is being announced. But hey. There is always next month.

Cheers

 

Well, it's a bit hard to make a recommendation for a product that isn't widely available yet. Also, the only advantage of B450 boards (that I'm aware of) is the XFR 2.0, which largely becomes irrelevant if you intend to overclock.

 

I'm all with you on that one. Although the second advantage of the B450 boards is that they now natively support Raven Ridge, I had to update my BIOS first when buying my ASrock B350 chipset board (which is something I didn't know before, and try to upgrade a BIOS without a CPU running... can be VERY tricky and bothersome).

I always found that naming good, imho keep it

 

I think it is still consequence of having happy memories from Sandy times. Good cooler could keep it under 65C under full load and OC.

Only Crazy OC got it to 75C and that required very uncomfortable voltage too.

 

Thanks for the roundup review, and I also appreciate the beach pic - it really does feel like Summer! Quite amazing that GTX 1070 is still being recommended, being more than 2 yrs old, but I don't mean that in a negative way - it's just testimony to the fact that Pascal has been with us for a long time and the next architecture is ripe for release; I can also testify to GTX 1070 for high refresh rate 1080p gaming - I have one and it's great for that.

 

I will revive this thread a bit.
Hilbert did put into list of PSUs: EVGA Supernova G2/G3 650-750W

I happen to have Supernova G3 750W. And I came upon very unpleasant realization that this PSU draws insane wattage even when PC is OFF. It is at least 50 Watts as it triggers master Switch inside my electric expansion block with multiple sockets. It is configurable from 8W trigger to 70W trigger on Master. Once Master power draw goes above set threshold Slaves are enabled.

I'll have to get one of those wall socket readers with display to get "exact" readings, but my 40W devices are not enough to trigger Master Switch unless I dial it down.
I have found quite a few people noticing same. And PSU which they sent as new after RMA displayed same behavior.

When I tried to find out reason, I disabled all standby features in BIOS including WOL, timer start. Fromm what people wrote this power consumption is passive even if nothing is plugged into PSU.

 

That is unusually high, but I wonder if there's more to it. Are you sure it's the PSU and not the motherboard? The motherboard still draws power from 5vSB pin (the purple wire on the main 20-pin connector). Though, usually that's no more than 15W. There are some things in BIOS you can't disable where the mobo will still draw power no matter what.

If you unplug everything, is the wattage still very high? I don't expect it to drop all the way, but a lot of it should.