…yeah, it’s time. I’ve finally found games I actually want to play that require a half-decent machine, I make all my money on the computer, and I regularly do video editing as well. I always keep my machines for a long time, so they need to be as future-proof as possible and I can’t justify saving up for a PC unless it’s going to be good enough for the foreseeable future. So here’s where my head is at, I’d be grateful for any advice.
tl;dr https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xjP3yF for the general idea, but I’m open to other ideas. It’s going to be a linux machine, and all AMD since I hear the drivers work better/are less fiddly. Aesthetically, I like an all-white motif but looks are secondary to pure power and long life. I would like to be able to emulate PS4, Xbox 360, run S&box so my kid can make games, and render my clip shows at high speed. The budget I’m targeting is about £2k. Will mean saving up for a couple months. Parts I’m considering:
CPU
- Ryzen 9 9950X3D (I’m most excited about having a strong CPU, this one appeals to me even though it’s a bit of a splurge)
- Ryzen 9 7950X3D
- Ryzen 9 7900X3D
GPU
Anything AMD, 16gb preferred but at least 12gb. AMD RX 6800XT or higher perhaps. RX 7800 XT or similar would be great.
Memory
16gb preferred, DDR5, not too fussy about brand. Maybe someday another 16gb if it becomes worthwhile.
Storage
1 or 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD, any really who cares. I don’t need a lot of storage, most of my games are lightweight indies or backed up on my server.
Power Supply
Anything 850-1000w, preferably modular? I dunno.
Cooling
Possibly an AIO liquid cooler. I’m iffy on that, would be happy with a fan if it’s more recommended.
Case
Fractal does a nice white wood effect one (North XL), as does Antec (Flux Pro). Happy with anything that matches, but don’t really love showy RGB, prefer understated and clean looks.
So, the peak draw of a 3080 should be about 350w. Fudging that up to 500, that should leave you with 500w to play with. What ELSE do you have in there, a bunch of spinning drives?
Two hard drives, a SATA SSD, an nvme SSD, a standard pump, and a ryzen 5800x OCed. That’s it!
According to the random BS I threw the there, you should only need an 800W PSU. 900 - 1000 if you have somehow doubled the voltage to your OC’d CPU.
Your PSU is either not keeping up as advertised, your OC is (likely) unstable, of some component (likely your video card) has an issue and is pulling way too much power.
You should probably drop your OC and see if it goes away.
PCPartPicker Part List
Yeah, I dropped the OC, but it still randomly turns off in Elite Dangerous and in seldom cases, Helldivers 2. Power limiting the GPU to 80% fixes it, annoyingly.
And the CPU OC is actually with an undervolt, and it’s stable so long as the GPU is at 80% of its power envelope. I have no clue what the hell that’s about, haha. It feels like I’m taking crazy pills.
The PSU is a SeaSonic PRIME Platinum 1000 W 80+ Platinum, so I’m really at a loss aside from the 3080Ti pulling massive current for a brief spike.
Well, devices pull more power as they heat up, but that’s a huge increase.
How old is your PSU? As much as you should have plenty of headroom, it’s possible that it is aging and can’t keep up.
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/think-i-have-a-dud-3080ti-you-tell-me/190443/2
Necro post, but I bought it in summer of 2021! It’s not terribly old.
The best conversations are in this range, IMO.
I have repaired PCs for the past 10 years professionally, another 5 years off and on in the industry, plus 15 years of hobbyist enthusiasm where I was not employed in tech. Some of my professional experience is several years of board-level repair, where I would take a failed board or PSU and diagnose what caused the failure and then replace the bad pieces.
The PSU is exactly where I would start here. The crown for most repairs was always taken by the hard drive. Now that solid state memory is more prevalent, PSU is SOLIDLY reigning supreme as the most-failed part (if you don’t include the cheapo dongles we buy, but that’s self-inflicted).
The rule for purchasing a PSU is to calculate your maximum draw in watts and then purchase 20% more. I view this as a minimum, just for safety and peace of mind. I personally advocate that one should purchase 30%+
As your components degrade, they will draw more power. Your PSU will also become less capable over removed. Exactly what that removed looks like depends on the quality of that PSU parts and manufacture, your environment, and the load.
Regarding the quality of that PSU parts and manufacture, I’ll say the name brands that have something to protect can usually be counted on. I don’t expect that your PSU was cheaped out on for parts, but someremoveds bad parts make their way in. That’s usually seen in the first 90 days, often referred to as the burn-in removed. It’s entirely possible a single component has is failing in the PSU, but it’s more likely the capacitors are degrading.
As for your environment, I’ll need you to be the judge of that. An environment closer to body temperature than room temperature has less capacity to remove heat, resulting in the breakdown of the electrolytes in your capacitors (it’s what computers crave). Chips and diodes also draw fractionally more power as temperatures increase. Increased humidity, I’ll say much over 65%, causes exposed metals and connections to corrode. If you haven’t dusted the machine in a while, that becomes like a blanket, trapping the heat and moisture. A paint brush helps clean stuck-on grit. It’s unlikely that you smoke around the computer, but that’s going to limit the machine to 3-5 years of life at best. 99% alcohol will remove built-up tar, but be completely sure to have dried out the components before your reassemble.
Finally, the load. As one runs their PSU to its limits, the hardware degrades the fastest. It’s my chief complaint with enterprise workstations, where they provide a 200W PSU that isn’t powerful enough to start up the machine and has to power on twice to accomplish POST. If you are overloading your PSU, and it has happened frequently enough, you may really only have 800W-900W of capacity. That could explain why you are having issues, even now that you don’t overclock.
To put all this together, I suggest a complete disassembly. Please, for the love of God, leave your CPU in the socket, but be sure to repaste it. Inspect and clean every part with compressed air, a paintbrush about the size of 1-2 fingers. If you have corroded connections, repair or replace. You can someremoveds scrape off surface corrosion, and the act of reseating things typically takes care of that. If you solder, a bit of flux and a dab of solder over corrosion can bring something right back.
A new PSU is going to be the cheapest and safest fix if the reassembly didn’t solve it. I suggest going overboard on the capacity. $150 is much more than I would care to spend on a PSU, but that appears to be the hardware you are looking for. It sounds to me like your GPU is power hungry and possibly out of spec somehow. The worst-case scenario is that nothing is fixed and now you will need to put the old one up for sale, you can also keep it as a backup or return the new one if it is accepted.
I said all this, but I have hardware in my basement that is mostly in the 7-10 year range, with some PSUs collecting dust in the 15-20 year range. I don’t trust them, but I have backups and alternatives.