Online barebone or custom PC company suggestions

[Draco1962]

I am leaning toward a custom system build from Magic Micro - have you heard of them?

The configuration below sells for $1532.00:

 

APEVIA Crusader White Frostblade RGB, Tempered Glass Window, USB 2.0 & 3.0 (no DVD bay)

Intel Core i7-13700k Raptor Lake 3.4GHz (5.4GHz Turbo) 16-Core

Corsair Hydro Series H100i ARGB PLATINUM High Performance 240mm, extra quiet Liquid Cooling System

GIGABYTE B760M DS3H AX, DDR5, Dual M.2, PCIe 4.0, USB 3.2, USB Type-C, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0

MEMORY DDR5 32GB (2x16GB) PC5-38400/4800MHz Dual Channel

1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO m.2 Solid State Drive, PCI-Express 4.0, 7000MB/s

Realtek HD digital audio (onboard)

Ethernet network adapter 10/100/1000 (onboard)

EVGA SuperNOVA 1000W GQ, 80 Plus Gold, Extra Quiet Modular Power Supply

The benchmarks for the Raptor Lake i7-13700k are significantly better than the Comet Lake i9-10900K 3 gens prior and should serve me well for the upcoming 5 years or so.

 

I be adding a Gigabyte RTX 3070 and some drives from my old system to round it out. I am still exploring but there are not as many barebones system builders as there used to be locally and online.

[Draco1962]

CLX Gaming

I have seen quite a few of the pre-configured PCs at Best Buy and Amazon. A little more expensive than the first post, yet the reputation seems a bit more steady.

[Draco1962]

Thanks to @tthurman I decided to go with his referral to Cyberpower. 

I compared it to the others and it comes very close at several hundreds below without many reports of customer service or quality drama or losses. Below is what I ordered and should ship by 5/15:

XTREME 3060 TI GAMING PC

Operating System: Windows 11 Home

Gaming Chassis: CyberpowerPC Eclipse P428X DRGB ATX Mid-Tower High Air Flow Gaming Case + 3x 120mm ARGB Fans (Black Color)

Extra Case Fans: Default case fans

CPU: Intel® Core™ Processor i7-13700KF 8P/16 + 8E 3.40GHz [Turbo 5.4GHz] 30MB Cache LGA1700 [w/o Integrated Graphic]

CPU / Processor Cooling Fan: CyberPowerPC DEEPCOOL Castle 240EX ARGB 240mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ Copper Cold Plate (2 x Standard 120MM Fans)

Video Card: GeForce RTX™ 3060 Ti 8GB GDDR6 Video Card (Ampere) [VR Ready] (Single Card)

Power Supply: 800 Watts - Standard 80 Plus Gold Certified Power Supply

Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z790-P WIFI D5 DDR5 ATX w/ Wi-Fi, 2.5GbT LAN, (4)PCIe x16,(1)PCIe x1, (3)M.2, (4)SATA

RAM / System Memory: 32GB (16GBx2) DDR5/6000MHz Dual Channel Memory (Team T-Delta RGB)

Primary Hard Drive: 1TB Kingston SNV2S/1000G SSD (PCIe Gen4) NVMe M.2 SSD - Seq R/W: Up to 3,500/2,800 MB/s (Single Drive)

Sound: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

Internal Network Card: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network

Keyboard: CyberPowerPC Multimedia USB Gaming Keyboard

Mouse: CyberPowerPC Lyra 01 RGB 6-Color w/ 7 Button USB wired, 4200DPI Optical Gaming Mouse

Warranty: STANDARD WARRANTY: 1 Year Parts WARRANTY

Service: 3 Years FREE Service Plan (INCLUDES LABOR AND LIFETIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT)

 

[ClassicGMR]

I hadn't seen this until now (gotta love 3rd shift)  but I bought from XoticPC and, although it was a bit high, I would buy from them again without hesitation. Customer service was fabulous.

[Draco1962]

12 hours ago, ClassicGMR said:

I hadn't seen this until now (gotta love 3rd shift)  but I bought from XoticPC and, although it was a bit high, I would buy from them again without hesitation. Customer service was fabulous.

I came across them after my initial post and they seem to have a good following with great support.

In the end, cost was a deciding factor for me as I had my wife's blessing to proceed as I wanted without breaking the bank. Updated the kit stats in the Cyberpower post.

[tthurman]

I honestly never spent much time looking at pre-built gaming rigs, as I never actually considered them being available. Having recently met people who bought them along with this thread certainly opened my eyes. Looks like a nice setup you got on the way!

 

 

[Draco1962]

23 minutes ago, tthurman said:

I honestly never spent much time looking at pre-built gaming rigs, as I never actually considered them being available. Having recently met people who bought them along with this thread certainly opened my eyes. Looks like a nice setup you got on the way!

 

 

I've gone both ways depending upon the economics of time vs. retail cost for components. Since we no longer have any computer stores other than Best Buy around here (no - Micro Center, CompUSA, Computer Superstore or the like) to buy from locally. that leaves Amazon and New Egg as the largest for sourcing individual components or the builder sites for purchase and doing the build for you. Since things were almost coming out the same either way, I figured I'd leverage their time and effort and hope for the best.

[Draco1962]

I'm not excited or anything...

[tthurman]

New rig pics soon! 

[Draco1962]

6 hours ago, tthurman said:

New rig pics soon! 

Expected Tuesday!

As part of my 10 year full time work  anniversary, I had points to spend from an online catalog - typically have seen things like desk clocks and exercise step counters, which were there, but they also had electronics, including SSDs! So one of my first upgrades will be to add a 2nd NVMe drive:

Samsung - 980 PRO Heatsink 1TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe

[tthurman]

Sweet.

 

Funny you say that, I noticed my 1TB games drive in the red last night.

[ClassicGMR]

2 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

So one of my first upgrades will be to add a 2nd NVMe drive:

Check the motherboard specifications. Most motherboards still disable SATA if a 2nd M.2 slot is filled - but not always. It's a little weird. The 2nd M.2 slot usually overlaps with the SATA/PCI channels. I'm not saying this well but here's one article on this I read recently:

https://www.techoverwrite.com/m-2-nvme-disabling-sata-ports/

[Draco1962]

6 hours ago, ClassicGMR said:

Check the motherboard specifications. Most motherboards still disable SATA if a 2nd M.2 slot is filled - but not always. It's a little weird. The 2nd M.2 slot usually overlaps with the SATA/PCI channels. I'm not saying this well but here's one article on this I read recently:

https://www.techoverwrite.com/m-2-nvme-disabling-sata-ports/

I was not aware of this - thanks! If I don't have enough lanes available with the 2nd M.2 installed, I may have to forego the 2nd M.2 as the drives moving from my older rig are much larger in capacity and needed for the additional storage requirements for sim content.

[Draco1962]

I checked the User Manual and it was useless. Found some more info here about the types of ports under Storage for the Asus PRIME Z790-P :

Total supports 3 x M.2 slots and 4 x SATA 6Gb/s ports*
Intel® 13th & 12th Gen Processors
M.2_1 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode)
Intel® Z790 Chipset
M.2_2 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode)
M.2_3 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 & SATA modes)
4 x SATA 6Gb/s ports
* Intel® Rapid Storage Technology supports PCIe RAID 0/1/5/10, SATA RAID 0/1/5/10.

So far nothing about any SATA port contention with NVMe on this so more digging to come... sigh.

[Draco1962]

Spoke too soon - this may be what I am looking for.

 

[ClassicGMR]

23 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

M.2_3 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 & SATA modes)

Based on this I would **think** that you have 2 good M.2 channels and the third overlaps with the SATA channels. I’d hazard a guess that they recognized this and have updated the boards with more compatibility. Just my unscientific $0.02.

EDIT: at worst you just test it when you get it. It certainly won’t hurt. The BIOS won’t recognize the drives if it’s not compatible. 

[Draco1962]

We shall see soon enough. If all works out I will have a more robust machine all around with the following for storage:

Primary Hard Drive (M.2 NVMe Slot 1): 1TB Kingston SNV2S/1000G SSD (PCIe Gen4) NVMe M.2 SSD - Seq R/W: Up to 3,500/2,800 MB/s (Single Drive)

Secondary Hard Drive (M.2 NVMe Slot 2): Samsung - 980 PRO Heatsink 1TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe

Third Hard Drive (SATA III):: Western Digital Velociraptor 1TB 10K RPM SATA III 2.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive (WD1000CHTZ)

Fourth Hard Drive (SATA III): WD RE 2 TB Enterprise Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM, SATA III, 64 MB Cache (WD2000FYYZ)

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