Current sweet-spot for price/performance on a PC build
Discussion
I'm definitely getting old, as for the first time in my life I don't know what to build and can't easily navigate a configurator - I've built my own PCs since I moved from Amiga to a Pentium Pro 200 circa 1995! I'm also an ex-professional hacker, work in big tech and am deeply technical. I use a Mac for work and do everything on Linux but I still quite like Windows for home use and don't want to spend the fortunes on a Mac. The explosion of "gaming PC" etc really seems to have distorted all the marketing. A PC is quite simple, a motherboard, CPU, RAM and storage ... but it feels harder to navigate due to explosion of choice
My PC is used pretty much just to make music at the heart of my analogue studio. Win7-64 as it's stable but can move to Win10 on a newbuild now as I can see I can get all my drivers to work. It's got a PCI scsi card and a firewire card stuck in it as well (I use SCSI with an old Akai sampler and Firewire for an older RME FF800 interface, as well as needing decent USB for an RME UFX - I have 32 audio inputs!). So I need a decent number of cores as well as decent single core performance, and 16GB RAM is probably still enough, but RAM is RAM anyway and doesn't make any difference to CPU/motherboard options, but I get there are many differenet RAM speeds now
I haven't been keeping up for the last 10 years so I don't know where the decent CPU/motherboard/chipset balance is these days. When I built my current PC in 2012 I stuck an i5 2500K in it with a massive cooler so I could overclock it up and it's been solid and reliable ever since. Intel flaws have taken their toll and it struggles under some of the load from multiple VSTs these days.
Onboard graphics are fine but I do see the GFX market in transition post etherium move to proof of stake, so I can always add one when the price comes down, so my son can play some PC games, but that is completely secondary. Most gaming I do is Robotron on Mame
I look at most of the prebuilt options from Scan etc and none tickle me. I'd much rather buy the bits and self-assemble so I know everything that is going in it. Most of their definition of "professional audio" PC isn't really relevant either as nothing music does is that important. I do realise PCI is an issue now and I will have to get a PCI-PCIie adaptor. Quite fancy some NVME storage as well given how fast it seems. Lots of decent USB is also a priority - cheapo USB bridges aren't stable enough for audio and midi timing.
Happy with another tower but that's about it -where is the Intel price sweetspot on i9 at the moment? What's a decent motherboard? Is it feasible to hit a pricepoint of about a grand, without a GFX card and monitor? Should I be buying AMD (rather not, for historical reasons only though)?
Oh and I'd like something quite quiet as well.
Appreciate any insight from those still close to the ground!
My PC is used pretty much just to make music at the heart of my analogue studio. Win7-64 as it's stable but can move to Win10 on a newbuild now as I can see I can get all my drivers to work. It's got a PCI scsi card and a firewire card stuck in it as well (I use SCSI with an old Akai sampler and Firewire for an older RME FF800 interface, as well as needing decent USB for an RME UFX - I have 32 audio inputs!). So I need a decent number of cores as well as decent single core performance, and 16GB RAM is probably still enough, but RAM is RAM anyway and doesn't make any difference to CPU/motherboard options, but I get there are many differenet RAM speeds now
I haven't been keeping up for the last 10 years so I don't know where the decent CPU/motherboard/chipset balance is these days. When I built my current PC in 2012 I stuck an i5 2500K in it with a massive cooler so I could overclock it up and it's been solid and reliable ever since. Intel flaws have taken their toll and it struggles under some of the load from multiple VSTs these days.
Onboard graphics are fine but I do see the GFX market in transition post etherium move to proof of stake, so I can always add one when the price comes down, so my son can play some PC games, but that is completely secondary. Most gaming I do is Robotron on Mame
I look at most of the prebuilt options from Scan etc and none tickle me. I'd much rather buy the bits and self-assemble so I know everything that is going in it. Most of their definition of "professional audio" PC isn't really relevant either as nothing music does is that important. I do realise PCI is an issue now and I will have to get a PCI-PCIie adaptor. Quite fancy some NVME storage as well given how fast it seems. Lots of decent USB is also a priority - cheapo USB bridges aren't stable enough for audio and midi timing.
Happy with another tower but that's about it -where is the Intel price sweetspot on i9 at the moment? What's a decent motherboard? Is it feasible to hit a pricepoint of about a grand, without a GFX card and monitor? Should I be buying AMD (rather not, for historical reasons only though)?
Oh and I'd like something quite quiet as well.
Appreciate any insight from those still close to the ground!
Edited by nebpor on Wednesday 21st September 13:16
The new CPUs from AMD are just around the corner (27th September - the main reason for mentioning this is the current line-up which is very capable will drop in price). The intel 12th Gen chips, after some initial problems with their "performance core/efficiency core" hybrid, are good in the mid-high end (the top end are power hungry for the slight performance bump) but the 13th gen will be released soon as well (end October IIRC).
I would wait a week for the AMD chips to be available as that should effect the prices of both the current 5000 series and the 12th Gen Intel (especially if AMD beats intel on performance).
I would wait a week for the AMD chips to be available as that should effect the prices of both the current 5000 series and the 12th Gen Intel (especially if AMD beats intel on performance).
I'm a bit like you, in that I've fallen behind in m/board/cpu tech, so I won't offer any advice on that.
But I would recommend putting whatever you do get in one of these.
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/be-quiet!-pure-bas...
There are several BeQuiet cases to choose from, but they are brilliant.
I got one 5 years ago. It's basically silent. If you strain to listen, you still can't hear it.
I also have one of these cpu coolers
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/be-quiet!-dark-roc...
Possibly overkill unless you're really stressing the cpu
They might seem expensive, but remember - a case is for life, not just for Christmas. I'm on my second system in this case.
An additional advantage is it's also just a really well designed case for building and cable management.
I've no affiliation to BeQuiet - just very impressed with them
But I would recommend putting whatever you do get in one of these.
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/be-quiet!-pure-bas...
There are several BeQuiet cases to choose from, but they are brilliant.
I got one 5 years ago. It's basically silent. If you strain to listen, you still can't hear it.
I also have one of these cpu coolers
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/be-quiet!-dark-roc...
Possibly overkill unless you're really stressing the cpu
They might seem expensive, but remember - a case is for life, not just for Christmas. I'm on my second system in this case.
An additional advantage is it's also just a really well designed case for building and cable management.
I've no affiliation to BeQuiet - just very impressed with them
Case wise I'd suggest something with better frontal airflow, this is the case I have
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/fractal-design-mesh...
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/fractal-design-mesh...
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ is well worth a look as they have lots of example builds people have posted, will flag up part compatibility issues, and and will tell you were are the cheapest places to buy the components.
Haha, you'll not get what you're looking for posting on here. All you'll get are 'opinions' on individual items -"get this", "get that", "wait for this new thing coz it's better".
If you want to know the price point you'll have to do the grunt work and knock up a spreadsheet with price versus grunt (by whatever technical attributes you need and therefore value) and then you can easily see where any item sits on the curve, be that new or old. If you still work in a large tech company then your procurement department might have this already - it's a relatively standard thing in big IT procurement, the shape of the curve has not changed for 40 years, just the numbers on the axis. There's always a 'sweet spot' in price per grunt.
I've done this a few times myself over the years, both for personal and work (don't work in procurement, but often have to explain to customers why we're not specifying the highest spec item on the market). It's also possible to do the same type of exercise for cost of power consumption, something usually only done in large IT, but I wonder if this will become more interesting to heavy usage consumers with the cost of energy.
If you want to know the price point you'll have to do the grunt work and knock up a spreadsheet with price versus grunt (by whatever technical attributes you need and therefore value) and then you can easily see where any item sits on the curve, be that new or old. If you still work in a large tech company then your procurement department might have this already - it's a relatively standard thing in big IT procurement, the shape of the curve has not changed for 40 years, just the numbers on the axis. There's always a 'sweet spot' in price per grunt.
I've done this a few times myself over the years, both for personal and work (don't work in procurement, but often have to explain to customers why we're not specifying the highest spec item on the market). It's also possible to do the same type of exercise for cost of power consumption, something usually only done in large IT, but I wonder if this will become more interesting to heavy usage consumers with the cost of energy.
I like this site for picking components at a given price point / target.....
https://www.logicalincrements.com/
https://www.logicalincrements.com/
eein said:
Haha, you'll not get what you're looking for posting on here. All you'll get are 'opinions' on individual items -"get this", "get that", "wait for this new thing coz it's better".
If you want to know the price point you'll have to do the grunt work and knock up a spreadsheet with price versus grunt (by whatever technical attributes you need and therefore value) and then you can easily see where any item sits on the curve, be that new or old. If you still work in a large tech company then your procurement department might have this already - it's a relatively standard thing in big IT procurement, the shape of the curve has not changed for 40 years, just the numbers on the axis. There's always a 'sweet spot' in price per grunt.
I've done this a few times myself over the years, both for personal and work (don't work in procurement, but often have to explain to customers why we're not specifying the highest spec item on the market). It's also possible to do the same type of exercise for cost of power consumption, something usually only done in large IT, but I wonder if this will become more interesting to heavy usage consumers with the cost of energy.
Eein, I work for big tech, not large IT If you want to know the price point you'll have to do the grunt work and knock up a spreadsheet with price versus grunt (by whatever technical attributes you need and therefore value) and then you can easily see where any item sits on the curve, be that new or old. If you still work in a large tech company then your procurement department might have this already - it's a relatively standard thing in big IT procurement, the shape of the curve has not changed for 40 years, just the numbers on the axis. There's always a 'sweet spot' in price per grunt.
I've done this a few times myself over the years, both for personal and work (don't work in procurement, but often have to explain to customers why we're not specifying the highest spec item on the market). It's also possible to do the same type of exercise for cost of power consumption, something usually only done in large IT, but I wonder if this will become more interesting to heavy usage consumers with the cost of energy.
I hear you, but in this instance I got the info I need (I also phoned an old pal) - I just wanted someone with their head in the details of the market to give me guidance and I got some good stuff!
I replace bits of my computer as and when. I joke that I've had the same computer for 20 years and, to an extent, it's true, but, of course, I've changed everything. I tended to update a bit of my computer each year, but my GPU is now ancient as I await the promised drop below RRP. I've bought nothing for it in the last three years, so I'm well behind tech know-how.
For advice I go to Ebuyer.com. I've had no problem with the items they recommend. My experience is that they don't push items on price. You have to be accurate on what you want from the device/computer, but that's the only drawback. I can often get it a pound or two cheaper elsewhere, but service is great. I can't remember ever having to return an item but I have phoned on a couple of occasion with regards technical problems, once on a recalcitrant HDD that didn't want to be recognised, and they got one of the tech staff to phone me.
I've no connection with the company of course, despite being a customer, on and off, for years.
For advice I go to Ebuyer.com. I've had no problem with the items they recommend. My experience is that they don't push items on price. You have to be accurate on what you want from the device/computer, but that's the only drawback. I can often get it a pound or two cheaper elsewhere, but service is great. I can't remember ever having to return an item but I have phoned on a couple of occasion with regards technical problems, once on a recalcitrant HDD that didn't want to be recognised, and they got one of the tech staff to phone me.
I've no connection with the company of course, despite being a customer, on and off, for years.
OK, so a photo is on this thread, not that you can see much more than my cat!
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Case: IONZ KZ08B V2 PC COMPUTER MIDI TOWER CASE M/ATX BLACK TEMPERED GLASS £30 - no 5.25" drive bays mind you but I don't use my bluray etc any more so threw out.
Proc: Intel S1700 CORE i5 12400 BOX 6x2,5 65W GEN12 £182 - most forums tell you this processor IS the sweet spot for price/performance. I was astonished I was going from an i7 "down" to an i5 until I realised I was going from Gen 2 to Gen 12. Incomparable. I assumed I would be getting an i9 etc, but for the money, the i5 is a stonker.
Mobo: ASUS B660-PLUS D4 - everyone recommends it.
NVME: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (MZ-V7S1T0) - for my OS - its as fast as a fast thing.
NVME: WD Blue SN570 2TB High-Performance M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, with up to 3500MB/s read speed - for data - bigger, cheaper and only a fraction slower
RAM: Corsair CMK32GX4M2Z3600C18 VENGEANCE LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 DRAM 3600MHz C18 AMD Ryzen - fast and good value. 32 Gb
Proc fan: ID-COOLING SE-214-XT ARGB WHITE CPU Cooler 4 Heatpipes CPU Air Cooler Addressable RGB Light Sync with Motherboard(5V 3-PIN Connector) CPU Fan for Intel/AMD, LGA 1700 Compatible - £20 and utterly silent! This fan is a steal. I very nearly spent £100 on a fan until I discovered this.
Case fans x 2 - Noctua NF-P12 redux-1300 PWM, Quiet Fan, 4-Pin, 1300 RPM (120mm, Grey) = I spent a bit on these (£13 each - which is pricey for case fans) btu they are worth their weight in gold - they are utterly silent. Redux are their "budget" line - trust me, they are far from budget. I use on eon the front blowing in, and one on the back at the top, blowing out. Temps are all rock solid.
PSU - RM850 - I got it off Facebook marketplace for £30. Buying new I'd not spend £100 on a PSU mind you. But, make sure you get one with unpluggable individual cables so you only install what you need. Its quite common now.
The CPU has onboard graphics. Just be aware of one thing. I could not get the UEFI bios to boot with legacy support (CSM) for my existing 2 x SSD drives and my existing win 10 install. This was because, astonishingly, the chipset needed for the legacy support / CSM resides on external graphics cards and not on the Intel chip! I found this out from googling. The CSM option was greyed out.
Turns out the Intel GPU does not support CSM. As soon as I plugged in my RTX 3070 the option was not greyed out and I could boot straight into my existing Win 10 install. How the hell you'd trouble shoot this without the internet god only knows!!
I then did a super easy migration to the NVME with the free Samsung tool (worth buying a Sammy NVME for this free app alone).
I have a silent PC that runs Cyberpunk 2077 on the most Ultra (insane?) Ray tracing setting, everything maxed out, at 2K res, with not a hickup. Smooth as silk. Obviosuly "office" working is fast too!
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Case: IONZ KZ08B V2 PC COMPUTER MIDI TOWER CASE M/ATX BLACK TEMPERED GLASS £30 - no 5.25" drive bays mind you but I don't use my bluray etc any more so threw out.
Proc: Intel S1700 CORE i5 12400 BOX 6x2,5 65W GEN12 £182 - most forums tell you this processor IS the sweet spot for price/performance. I was astonished I was going from an i7 "down" to an i5 until I realised I was going from Gen 2 to Gen 12. Incomparable. I assumed I would be getting an i9 etc, but for the money, the i5 is a stonker.
Mobo: ASUS B660-PLUS D4 - everyone recommends it.
NVME: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (MZ-V7S1T0) - for my OS - its as fast as a fast thing.
NVME: WD Blue SN570 2TB High-Performance M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, with up to 3500MB/s read speed - for data - bigger, cheaper and only a fraction slower
RAM: Corsair CMK32GX4M2Z3600C18 VENGEANCE LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 DRAM 3600MHz C18 AMD Ryzen - fast and good value. 32 Gb
Proc fan: ID-COOLING SE-214-XT ARGB WHITE CPU Cooler 4 Heatpipes CPU Air Cooler Addressable RGB Light Sync with Motherboard(5V 3-PIN Connector) CPU Fan for Intel/AMD, LGA 1700 Compatible - £20 and utterly silent! This fan is a steal. I very nearly spent £100 on a fan until I discovered this.
Case fans x 2 - Noctua NF-P12 redux-1300 PWM, Quiet Fan, 4-Pin, 1300 RPM (120mm, Grey) = I spent a bit on these (£13 each - which is pricey for case fans) btu they are worth their weight in gold - they are utterly silent. Redux are their "budget" line - trust me, they are far from budget. I use on eon the front blowing in, and one on the back at the top, blowing out. Temps are all rock solid.
PSU - RM850 - I got it off Facebook marketplace for £30. Buying new I'd not spend £100 on a PSU mind you. But, make sure you get one with unpluggable individual cables so you only install what you need. Its quite common now.
The CPU has onboard graphics. Just be aware of one thing. I could not get the UEFI bios to boot with legacy support (CSM) for my existing 2 x SSD drives and my existing win 10 install. This was because, astonishingly, the chipset needed for the legacy support / CSM resides on external graphics cards and not on the Intel chip! I found this out from googling. The CSM option was greyed out.
Turns out the Intel GPU does not support CSM. As soon as I plugged in my RTX 3070 the option was not greyed out and I could boot straight into my existing Win 10 install. How the hell you'd trouble shoot this without the internet god only knows!!
I then did a super easy migration to the NVME with the free Samsung tool (worth buying a Sammy NVME for this free app alone).
I have a silent PC that runs Cyberpunk 2077 on the most Ultra (insane?) Ray tracing setting, everything maxed out, at 2K res, with not a hickup. Smooth as silk. Obviosuly "office" working is fast too!
Griffith4ever said:
OK, so a photo is on this thread, not that you can see much more than my cat!
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&... ..... lots of good bits...
Nice list. Probably for the OP's use case (not much gaming) I would downgrade the GPU and spend the difference on a Z690 motherboard (more PCIE lanes for storage) and get the i7-12700 (and look at DDR5). https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&... ..... lots of good bits...
I'd still wait until next week before pulling the trigger as the AMD 7000 series release will effect prices.
Griffith4ever said:
I've literally just done this a few weeks ago. And I always buy at the price tipping point , where you get the best bang for your buck. I'll list all the parts shortly. It's silent as well. Proper silent until you push it gaming and then it's just a gentle blowing sound.
Best bang for buck is gamer kids old machines on Gumtree the day after Christmas.Griffith4ever said:
I've literally just done this a few weeks ago. And I always buy at the price tipping point , where you get the best bang for your buck. I'll list all the parts shortly. It's silent as well. Proper silent until you push it gaming and then it's just a gentle blowing sound.
Thanks for the big post - really useful and full of the info that's important, i.e. an i5 on the latest litho is actually pretty potent ... like you, I was thinking it was ancient!Jinx said:
Nice list. Probably for the OP's use case (not much gaming) I would downgrade the GPU and spend the difference on a Z690 motherboard (more PCIE lanes for storage) and get the i7-12700 (and look at DDR5).
I'd still wait until next week before pulling the trigger as the AMD 7000 series release will effect prices.
Absolutely not doing anything at the moment following your earlier advice, and i'm also listening to this bit!I'd still wait until next week before pulling the trigger as the AMD 7000 series release will effect prices.
You are welcome.
All good advice above, not to mention Nvidia cards are about to take a tumble too with Crypto changing to result-based, and the new 4000 series. Not that you are a gamer, but stil...
I just could not wait, and I figure my i5 will look after me for a while. I made the i7 Gen 2 last 10 years! (I always put occasional game slow-down down to my RTX2060 but I think my ancient CPU prob played a large part too!)
All good advice above, not to mention Nvidia cards are about to take a tumble too with Crypto changing to result-based, and the new 4000 series. Not that you are a gamer, but stil...
I just could not wait, and I figure my i5 will look after me for a while. I made the i7 Gen 2 last 10 years! (I always put occasional game slow-down down to my RTX2060 but I think my ancient CPU prob played a large part too!)
Start having a look at hotdeals, couple of days ago you could have found
Lenovo IdeaCentre Gaming PC 5i - i5 11400F, 8GB Ram, 512GB HD, GTX 1650 Super & Win 11 Home - £374.99
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/bargain-budget-ga...
Lenovo IdeaCentre Gaming PC 5i - i5 11400F, 8GB Ram, 512GB HD, GTX 1650 Super & Win 11 Home - £374.99
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/bargain-budget-ga...
the-photographer said:
Start having a look at hotdeals, couple of days ago you could have found
Lenovo IdeaCentre Gaming PC 5i - i5 11400F, 8GB Ram, 512GB HD, GTX 1650 Super & Win 11 Home - £374.99
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/bargain-budget-ga...
Cheers but for my needs that wouldn't last very long before needing replacement and has likely has corners cut all over the place that I would notice. I get that some people are happy buying big manufacturer PCs, but I'm not one of them Lenovo IdeaCentre Gaming PC 5i - i5 11400F, 8GB Ram, 512GB HD, GTX 1650 Super & Win 11 Home - £374.99
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/bargain-budget-ga...
But point taken on the deals site
nebpor said:
the-photographer said:
Start having a look at hotdeals, couple of days ago you could have found
Lenovo IdeaCentre Gaming PC 5i - i5 11400F, 8GB Ram, 512GB HD, GTX 1650 Super & Win 11 Home - £374.99
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/bargain-budget-ga...
Cheers but for my needs that wouldn't last very long before needing replacement and has likely has corners cut all over the place that I would notice. I get that some people are happy buying big manufacturer PCs, but I'm not one of them Lenovo IdeaCentre Gaming PC 5i - i5 11400F, 8GB Ram, 512GB HD, GTX 1650 Super & Win 11 Home - £374.99
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/bargain-budget-ga...
But point taken on the deals site
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