forum thread Posted by LovelyCheetah | Staff • Oct 20, 2023
Oct 20, 2023 9:08 PM
forum thread Posted by LovelyCheetah | Staff • Oct 20, 2023
Oct 20, 2023 9:08 PM
Skytech Gaming Chronos 2 Gaming PC Desktop: Ryzen 7 7700X, NVIDIA RTX 4070, 32GB DDR5 RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD $1450 + Free Shipping
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My breakdown below, YMMV depending on the brand - come out to be $1290 pre-tax plus time on the build and research.
i9-12900k cpu, 32gb ram, motherboard bundle $400 - there are microcenter bundle deal, newegg bunlde deal, and also MSI bundle deal (case instead of CPU)
850w gold PSU $77
case $90
AIO 360mm $63 - thermalright brand
2tb nvme ssd gen4 $90
4070 gpu $560
window key - $10
from my experience, these prebuilds emphasize and advertise on the CPU and the GPU.... and cheapen out on everything else.
The research on this company tends to lead towards them not using unknown parts in their machines a majority of the time(this is not always the case for a vast majority of prebuilts).
Before taxes I paid 1379.99$ (difference of 89.99$) from your suggestions (which are not bad ones at all) which 90$ bucks is more than worth it to me to not have to cable manage, install parts, troubleshoot potential bad parts, deal with potential broken or missing parts and software installs. While I agree that some people find this fun I do not and its a headache if you run into one hiccup. On top of all that I have one single source to head to for 1 year for any issues with a warranty.
While some love researching, building and installing their own stuff there is a bigger than people think population of people that do not and when deals like this float across that show a small less than 100$ fee to build, install and troubleshoot any issues before it even shows up to your door is normally a decent deal in my opinion.
I will for sure update this when I get the machine next week (its already shipped) to either double down on my opinion or let you know you were 1000% correct on the rubbish parts..
I'd save the money and opt for a 7600. Gaming performance is 5% difference between the two chips. The R5 will not bottleneck a 7800XT. Instead, go for the 7800X3D for $350 if you're looking at a 8-core Ryzen. RAM is another issue. 5200 is gimped and a sweet spot is 6000 CL30 for Zen 4.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor ($215.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin X Refined SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler ($19.69 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory ($104.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: TEAMGROUP Cardea Zero Z440 Graphene 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($45.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: ASRock Challenger OC Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB Video Card ($499.99 @ Newegg)
Case: DIYPC ARGB-Q3 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($53.94 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS GX 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($106.20 @ Amazon)
Total: $1196.78
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Everything was packaged well (box had damage from shipping)
Unpacked and nothing was loose or disconnected. I did have to redo the USB plug as I didn't like the stress their cable management did to the board.
The cable management was light years ahead of what I would ever do. The RGB had its own controller (I don't necessarily like the RGB stuff but whatever) The computer booted up fine first try, checked bios was up to date and all settings were set correctly. Limited bloatware installed (really just their service apps, even asked to reboot on first boot up to remove their stuff from install and testing)
Everything works great, no weird sounds and surprisingly limited generic parts. So what I get in parts? I went to pc parts picker and did a like to like build. I did run into a few items that didn't have prices listed. At current with adding minimum prices to the non priced items this machine cost less to buy than to build at current prices. I paid 1379.99 before taxes and shipping was free
Missing prices ( storage, ram, case, and WIN 11 home) not gonna list ewaste items as they are junk(ish) compared to what I already have but could account for another 20 bucks if you don't have a KB and mouse already
See link https://pcpartpicker.co
On another note, anybody know if the RTX 4070 and memory is upgradeable. My bad for not reading much on it.
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Everything was packaged well (box had damage from shipping)
Unpacked and nothing was loose or disconnected. I did have to redo the USB plug as I didn't like the stress their cable management did to the board.
The cable management was light years ahead of what I would ever do. The RGB had its own controller (I don't necessarily like the RGB stuff but whatever) The computer booted up fine first try, checked bios was up to date and all settings were set correctly. Limited bloatware installed (really just their service apps, even asked to reboot on first boot up to remove their stuff from install and testing)
Everything works great, no weird sounds and surprisingly limited generic parts. So what I get in parts? I went to pc parts picker and did a like to like build. I did run into a few items that didn't have prices listed. At current with adding minimum prices to the non priced items this machine cost less to buy than to build at current prices. I paid 1379.99 before taxes and shipping was free
Missing prices ( storage, ram, case, and WIN 11 home) not gonna list ewaste items as they are junk(ish) compared to what I already have but could account for another 20 bucks if you don't have a KB and mouse already
See link https://pcpartpicker.co
My breakdown below, YMMV depending on the brand - come out to be $1290 pre-tax plus time on the build and research.
i9-12900k cpu, 32gb ram, motherboard bundle $400 - there are microcenter bundle deal, newegg bunlde deal, and also MSI bundle deal (case instead of CPU)
850w gold PSU $77
case $90
AIO 360mm $63 - thermalright brand
2tb nvme ssd gen4 $90
4070 gpu $560
window key - $10
from my experience, these prebuilds emphasize and advertise on the CPU and the GPU.... and cheapen out on everything else.
Building yourself is cheaper if you get some bundles/deals and you pick the parts you want.
The main difference is time spent - though I'd say building your own PC is pretty fun and doesn't take long if you know what you're doing - and (not) having a warranty/returns on the system as a whole.