Let's make a gaming PC - The Bear and Badger

GooberTheHat

Doesn't your windows licence no attach to your Microsoft account? So I'd you already have a licenced copy it carries over?

GurtTractor

voices wrote:

Gurt, that's a nice build, but agree that 500gb will be a pain, and why not go with the evo plus instead of the evo? It's almost the same price. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MFBLN7K?tag=pcp0f-21&linkCode=ogi&th=1 2070S is a hard sell given we're expecting new cards in 2 months, but that's maybe more for someone that is interested in selling and upgrading. I don't know.

Didn't know about the 970 Plus, thanks. Seems like it's a pretty small difference but perhaps it makes sense if it's only a few quid cheaper.

Yeah new stuff will be out at some point this year presumably. It's always a little tricky recommending for people to wait for stuff though as release dates and initial value of parts are quite variable. That said if @Armitage_Shankburn is only planning to build in a couple of months anyway then it probably makes sense to hold off on some of the parts at least.

Looking at my list there the 16GB of RAM looks to be at a good price, and with RAM prices being so variable I would consider buying a kit now just in case it shoots up due to manufacturing bottlenecks from the pandemic reaching us. Other things could be snapped up if you see the prices are good, use the PCPartpicker pages to look at the pricing over time graphs for specific parts. The GPU and CPU might see newer versions in a few months, but I don't know if they'll drop before the release of Cyberpunk..

voices

There's always something to wait for. If you always waited, you'd never buy anything.

Nina

Who needs cases?

(We actually do but that won't be here till tomorrow, it's a small fractal node 202 thing).

Thanks again to Gurt and Cinty who both managed to convince B to go for the Ryzen with some excellent gif work.

Elmlea

What's the current "VR ready" spec that you're best looking at?

Tempted to get a PC in the near/medium future, but really just for a couple of exclusive VR things like Elite, and maybe the new Star Wars thing when it appears. No space or compulsion to put up another monitor somewhere, so definitely won't be playing anything general on it I imagine.

No idea what spec will get me the required grunt to run something like Elite with most of the shinies turned on. Any advice?

Speedhaak

Why no interest in migrating completely? If you're going to put the money into a PC might as well use it

I guarantee you once you play Destiny on PC you'll never be able to go back to console

LivDiv

Yeah I would seriously look into something that could sit by the TV and do the next gen thing, plus decent VR and maybe even look into it being a media server if you dont already do that thing.

GurtTractor

Elmlea wrote:

What's the current "VR ready" spec that you're best looking at? Tempted to get a PC in the near/medium future, but really just for a couple of exclusive VR things like Elite, and maybe the new Star Wars thing when it appears. No space or compulsion to put up another monitor somewhere, so definitely won't be playing anything general on it I imagine. No idea what spec will get me the required grunt to run something like Elite with most of the shinies turned on. Any advice?

I would think one of my usual Ryzen midrange builds would do just fine, but I have no experience with VR so I couldn't comment on that specifically. VR benchmarking is still a bit of a specialised thing to deal with though I'm sure there will be quality information out there somewhere. There will be new CPUs out by the end of the year I think so maybe hold off. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Nina

Trying to use Blender on a MacBook Pro isn't a very joyful experience, thanks to lack of a numpad.

Had a quick look around a simple numpad add-ons can be had for cheap enough, but I was wondering if there's anything else that's interesting and geeky that I could consider. Can't be a full keyboard as I use Blender with a wacom, so it's right hand - tablet, left hand - keyboard. Having a full keyboard on the table is just too much.

I'm sure there are things out there that have some more programmable keys on them and that might work well if I could put most used shortcuts on there. No price range I'm looking at, just curious. Can always get a $10-20 numpad if the geeky stuff isn't geeky enough.

GurtTractor

I use a small form factor keyboard, like a 75% or 66 key layout works great, tablet and numpad. Keyboard and tablet next to each other and the numpad just behind the right side of the keyboard on the desk. One of the most space efficient keyboards that still packs tons of functionality that I know of is the Vortex Race 3, barely existent bezels. There's many others that would be great too, perhaps a 60% with arrows would be good, bit more space to have the numpad or laptop closer. Most of these keyboards are programmable too, bunch of layers for various macros.

Not sure if that's of any help with your setup, I know how tricky it can be to get a bunch of control surfaces laid out ergonomically though. I don't think I'll ever bother with a fullsize keyboard again for that reason.

GurtTractor

A sidenote that I've talked about before: Getting a good quality mouse with an acceleration free sensor and a decent small form factor 'mechanical' keyboard so you can have your hands closer together for better ergonomics does wonders for the PC experience. I remember getting so frustrated in the past trying to play something like Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl with my naff 'gaming' mouse and my big cheap creaky 'gaming' keyboard, just aiming headshots consistently with a shit mouse sensor is a nightmare and using a rubber dome keyboard was very uncomfortable on the fingers after a short time. When I eventually got a proper keyboard and mouse it was a shocking difference.

Treat getting a good M&KB for a PC like having the nice official controller on a console, as opposed to using some horrible cheap 3rd party rubbish. The peripherals that are the primary interface between you and the machine should take up a substantial fraction of your total budget IMO. Like I would sacrifice a GPU tier if it meant I could have better input and display.

Nina

Some of the smaller keyboards are probably still too big for me, preferably anything would be within reach of one hand. I do have the MacBook Pro keyboard, can't really get rid of that (unless I add monitors etc).

Searching for small form keyboards I did stumble onto this: https://olkb.com/collections/planck
which might actually be close to what I was looking for, need to investigate a bit more.

GurtTractor

Nina wrote:

Trying to use Blender on a MacBook Pro isn't a very joyful experience, thanks to lack of a numpad. Had a quick look around a simple numpad add-ons can be had for cheap enough, but I was wondering if there's anything else that's interesting and geeky that I could consider. Can't be a full keyboard as I use Blender with a wacom, so it's right hand - tablet, left hand - keyboard. Having a full keyboard on the table is just too much. I'm sure there are things out there that have some more programmable keys on them and that might work well if I could put most used shortcuts on there. No price range I'm looking at, just curious. Can always get a $10-20 numpad if the geeky stuff isn't geeky enough.

Oh I just remembered that Blender has a mode that moves most of the numpad functions to the main number row, not sure if you are already doing that or if that would help.

Nina

Yeah I've done the emulate numpad, but I doesn't seem to put "." in that row, which is zoom on selected. I've put that on a wacom key for now, but that's also not in a comfortable position.

GurtTractor

It depends on how much you want it to function as a normal keyboard, as opposed to something that is more of a dedicated macro pad. Something like a Planck packs a lot of keys in a small space but can be awkward to use for certain combinations, you might have to hold down several keys to access various layers to pull off various combinations. It can be quite the learning curve to get into using one.

Another option if you want a really sleek tablet-focused setup might be to use one half of a split keyboard, such as this -

That's the Ergodox, which can be quite expensive but is pretty good I think. I built one half of this kit a while back, it's what I use for twitchy FPS games where I need to make really big swing mouse movements. There's probably other kits or prebuilts out there for quite cheap, should be fully reprogrammable with QMK firmware or something. One thing with the split boards I've found is that you want a thumb key pretty close, the one on the Zen split that I made is just a little too far for comfortable space bar tapping.

Nina

Those look pretty good, I'll have a look at the ergodex options. So you're using just one half while playing fps-es? Had a go at Doom (2016 I think) on the new pc and that felt pretty good, small keyboard might be useful for that as well, as I'm playing sitting on the ground and using the coffee table.

SpaceGazelle

That is ace.

GurtTractor

Nina wrote:

Those look pretty good, I'll have a look at the ergodex options. So you're using just one half while playing fps-es? Had a go at Doom (2016 I think) on the new pc and that felt pretty good, small keyboard might be useful for that as well, as I'm playing sitting on the ground and using the coffee table.

Yeah mainly for things like Doom or Overwatch etc. It means I can set the game mouse sensitivity really low so you get more fine grained control over aiming, need a big mouse mat for it though.

I think there are a bunch of options for split boards and kits, Ergodox seems like a good option though, QMK allows you to fully reprogram everything to do what you need too. I do kind of wish they would but another row of keys on the top though, for F1-F12 or something.

If you haven't already, check out the mechanical keyboards reddit to see what is possible, ergonomic and split type boards pop up regularly. Like this sort of thing -

There's also a massive wiki for where to buy things from - https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/index#wiki_where_to_buy_and_sell_keyboards_and_keys

GurtTractor

Some interesting split kits here - https://mechboards.co.uk/product-category/kits/

n0face

Do you know what I hate about mechanical keyboards? Everything is always out of stock, any kit, keys or board I've ever been interested in has always sold through.

GurtTractor

Yeah I've noticed they can be a bit fleeting, so many models and it's quite a saturated market in some ways, so manufacturers will constantly update and bring out new features and designs to keep enthusiasts buying. There are some designs that stay pretty steady, though you still have issues with manufacturing runs selling out. I recommend using the email alert feature on websites like Mykeyboard.eu and others, popular boards will come back in stock more often than you would think.

n0face

I'm waiting for an Akko 3068 at the moment, Bluetooth keyboard to go with my surface pro

b0r1s

I’ve got that. Clicky clicky

bad_hair_day

I like it. Gorgeous in fact.

b0r1s

Very immersive for Emily is Away and Her Story.

Hodge360

If you bought a 2nd hand PC/Laptop with a clean install, is there anything in particular you should run? I'm thinking health checks and making sure there's nothing spying hidden away.

LivDiv

Personally I would buy a new HDD or SSD.

Hodge360

If I got one without a HDD, could I transfer the one from my old PC or would that confuse Windows?

GurtTractor

If you're not sure how clean the install is, I would just do a full reinstall anyway. I would also just do a fresh install if moving a drive over, backing up files before obviously.

LivDiv

@Hodge
Should be able to.
You may have to install and uninstall new and old drivers.
Make sure you do a backup though.

Edit: yeah a good opportunity for a clean install of things as much of a long winded process as that can be.

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