Cumputer parts sourcing.

a reply to: chr0naut

Thanks for the advice. I know I've said I do whatever I can to buy American (which I figure is why you were pulling my leg), but ultimately I realize that with the way things are that there are going to be cases where that's simply not possible. In this case technology.

It's not like I can go some odd miles down the road and ask Farmer Joe to fire up his squeaky clean barn lab and build me what I want.

But yeah, I'll go to some repair shops in town and ask them which companies are at least based in the US. I know there are going to be parts from South Korea and Taiwan, but hey. At least it's not China!

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
a reply to: chr0naut

Thanks for the advice. I know I've said I do whatever I can to buy American (which I figure is why you were pulling my leg), but ultimately I realize that with the way things are that there are going to be cases where that's simply not possible. In this case technology.

It's not like I can go some odd miles down the road and ask Farmer Joe to fire up his squeaky clean barn lab and build me what I want.

But yeah, I'll go to some repair shops in town and ask them which companies are at least based in the US. I know there are going to be parts from South Korea and Taiwan, but hey. At least it's not China!

Cheers. And thanks for taking it as it was meant.

You may also find that the different shops don't know where the parts actually come from, it is just that they are more likely to tell you about their sources if they aren't afraid of you bypassing their business. It's hard times for everyone and I've had a hell of a time getting computer parts and accessories in the last month or so (we've had a few weeks of fairly tight lockdown and everyone has been set up to work from home, so stocks have been sold out and deliveries poor).

Although in NZ we are now ahead of this wave of the virus, I imagine that it will take a while for businesses to stabilize, and who knows what the future holds.

a reply to: chr0naut

Hmmmm. Well, I'll figure something out. I've been doing my research and I think I'll be able to pull something together.

It's not my first time, it's just that there's a lot of new stuff on the market. The specs are easy to understand, but when it comes to finding out the difference between to identical components, for instance ASUS, even within the same company it's kind of hard to know what the difference is other than some flashy "armor"

I haven't found many reviews that I trust, because a lot of them seem to be paid reviews, and the reviews themselves don't really go into any detail other than "how cool it looks," and a bunch of buzzwords.

I honestly could care less how cool something looks, and never cared about the rainbow glow thing.

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
a reply to: chr0naut

Hmmmm. Well, I'll figure something out. I've been doing my research and I think I'll be able to pull something together.

It's not my first time, it's just that there's a lot of new stuff on the market. The specs are easy to understand, but when it comes to finding out the difference between to identical components, for instance ASUS, even within the same company it's kind of hard to know what the difference is other than some flashy "armor"

I haven't found many reviews that I trust, because a lot of them seem to be paid reviews, and the reviews themselves don't really go into any detail other than "how cool it looks," and a bunch of buzzwords.

I honestly could care less how cool something looks, and never cared about the rainbow glow thing.

Yeah, I saw someone posting something about the new Ryzen and it does seem OK, but in all the performance benchmarking stuff, it's dam near impossible to get actual specs or 1 to 1 comparisons. I also got 'stung' with early generation Ryzens advertised as 6 core, which really meant 4 GPU cores and only 2 CPU cores, and it was a dog.

Also, with the RTX, I'd avoid the bleeding edge. I have seen some really lackluster render/FPS performance (but it looked beautiful) on early cards. I'm sure they'll fix it, but a 1080 Ti is nothing to be sneezed at. Also, all those Ryzen GPU cores do nothing much at all if you have an NVIDIA card.

LOL, lots of also's.

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
a reply to: chr0naut

Hmmmm. Well, I'll figure something out. I've been doing my research and I think I'll be able to pull something together.

It's not my first time, it's just that there's a lot of new stuff on the market. The specs are easy to understand, but when it comes to finding out the difference between to identical components, for instance ASUS, even within the same company it's kind of hard to know what the difference is other than some flashy "armor"

I haven't found many reviews that I trust, because a lot of them seem to be paid reviews, and the reviews themselves don't really go into any detail other than "how cool it looks," and a bunch of buzzwords.

I honestly could care less how cool something looks, and never cared about the rainbow glow thing.

Yeah, I saw someone posting something about the new Ryzen and it does seem OK, but in all the performance benchmarking stuff, it's dam near impossible to get actual specs or 1 to 1 comparisons. I also got 'stung' with early generation Ryzens advertised as 6 core, which really meant 4 GPU cores and only 2 CPU cores, and it was a dog.

Also, with the RTX, I'd avoid the bleeding edge. I have seen some really lackluster render/FPS performance (but it looked beautiful) on early cards. I'm sure they'll fix it, but a 1080 Ti is nothing to be sneezed at. Also, all those Ryzen GPU cores do nothing much at all if you have an NVIDIA card.

LOL, lots of also's.

Right, right. That's why I'm being careful.

It's going to be a really tough choice. I may just have to bite the bullet and just choose one. It's going to suck, because I won't have anything to compare it to.

Its pretty much impossible to find anything PC related that doesn't have some link to China as its the goto place for he really small parts like resistors and caps due to their ability to make them cheap as the raw materials are local.

A 6 core part with 4 cores for graphics sounds like some sort of Athlon processor which are generally their cheaper end range for those who don't need much more than to watch cat videos on YT and the box the chip comes in will be plastered with text saying 'integrated radeon/vega graphics' so no chance of one of those sneaking past. Intel chips other than the top end also come with integrated graphics other than chips ending in a code letter F.

More expansion slots will mean you'll want an ATX board and case and then you can throw extra networking/storage/whatever at it.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Okay, sorry.

Honestly though, you can get Amazon Prime free for one month and get next day delivery on all the parts you need.

That's what I did and had a new PC ready in 2 days.

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

you can get Amazon Prime free for one month and get next day delivery on all the parts you need.

I've built my own PC's since the intel 286 and coaxial 2 player doom!!!
This last PC, I did as exactly as you did after using PC partpicker to choose parts.

To the OP, PC partpicker is a good site as it allows you to create a list of parts and checks compatibility and power, well worth checking it out.

originally posted by: Maxatoria
Its pretty much impossible to find anything PC related that doesn't have some link to China as its the goto place for he really small parts like resistors and caps due to their ability to make them cheap as the raw materials are local.

A 6 core part with 4 cores for graphics sounds like some sort of Athlon processor which are generally their cheaper end range for those who don't need much more than to watch cat videos on YT and the box the chip comes in will be plastered with text saying 'integrated radeon/vega graphics' so no chance of one of those sneaking past. Intel chips other than the top end also come with integrated graphics other than chips ending in a code letter F.

More expansion slots will mean you'll want an ATX board and case and then you can throw extra networking/storage/whatever at it.

Ryzen 5

AMD Ryzen™ Desktop Processors - AMD

a reply to: chr0naut

Yeah, I'm starting to lean more towards using an AMD chip.

I've been looking into them, and apparently/supposedly they handle multi-tasking a lot better than the Intel chips.

That may solve the issues I've always run into.

It's also nice that they're not as pricey.

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
a reply to: chr0naut

Yeah, I'm starting to lean more towards using an AMD chip.

I've been looking into them, and apparently/supposedly they handle multi-tasking a lot better than the Intel chips.

That may solve the issues I've always run into.

It's also nice that they're not as pricey.

I was pointing out that the "6 core" Ryzen 5 series are the ones that actually only have 2 CPU cores. They are like Intel Celerons, especially if you use a non-Radeon video chipset.

However, the higher core count Ryzens would perform admirably, I suspect.

The AMD Athlons, upon which the Ryzen family were built, often had superior floating point power than similarly clocked Intel chips, but the multi threading capability and multi-tasking optimizations of the Intel chips still gave them an edge in real-world usage. Of course, that was ages ago and both AMD and Intel have lifted their game, somewhat.

Intels lineup with the 10 series are looking better since they have put hyperthreading into pretty much everything but you need a 490 series motherboard and some reports are saying that theres going to be a good few bios revisions as things are rather flakey at the moment and also who knows when the chips will actually hit retail.

Least with AMD the stuff out now has had time to cut its teeth and once the supply lines get back to normal it'll be a good time to see how the field lines up.