Decided to splurge and get a new gaming PC.

[NewF]

My old one was like 4 years old. Time for an upgrade.
Let me know if this was a decent deal and if the parts are good or not!

Processor: 3.40 gigahertz AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Eight-Core
Board: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd X370 GAMING PRO CARBON (MS-7A32) 1.0
16GB Gskill TridentZ RGB series ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
Coolermaster Dual fan liquid cooler
500GB SSD. (One of those little tiny ones on the motherboard or whatever. Never seen it before)
2.5TB Sata drives (1x2TB, 1x500GB)
All for $1300. Decent deal or no?
And how are the parts? Good quality/long lasting or what?

[Bobbias]

I recently put together a new PC.

Processor: Ryzen 1600 6 Core
Board: Asus B350M Gaming-Plus
16GB Gskill ram (no RGB, but it's running at 3200)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Stock cooling
Same M.2 style SSD (Evo Pro 960 250gb)
Misc old drives from my old laptops (1tb and 650gb, 650 GB is in poor health with plenty of bad sectors)
And an Acer Predator 1440p Gsync 144hz (OC'd to 165hz) monitor.

I paid significantly more than that price. Good find there.

The processor you have is a pretty big step up from what I have, while the GPU is a pretty big step down from what I have.

I can push games like Borderlands 2 at 1440p to 165hz on... high settings, I think (I don't know how high I can actually push it, since it was limited by vsync). I can run Far Cry 5 on High at 55-65 fps roughly. A 1050 Ti would definitely need lower settings to reach playable framerates on most games. The rig you listed is not particularly powerful when it comes to gaming thanks to the overpowered CPU and underpowered GPU. But for anything that requires some good processing power, you have a pretty beefy CPU. I'd say dropping the CPU down a bit and using that money towards a better GPU would have gotten you some performance in games, but if you're not planning on gaming too hard, and you want the beefier CPU for other workloads then this is good.

[NewF]

Fuck! I thought the 1050TI was way better than that! :-/

[Bobbias]

I can't say exactly how well it will do. I'm not overly familiar with these cards because I spent the last like 10 years on laptops, so it may do better than I'm giving it credit for. I nearly went with a 1060 instead of 1070, but the 1070 I found was a decent price, so I figured why not.

But yeah your CPU is pretty damn good. I cheaped out on my CPU because I was impatient and didn't want to wait even longer to build the thing, and I figured I could always upgrade later. I don't know if it's gonna be a bottleneck for my system or not. Haven't really tested everything that much.

I'd be interested in what spectere thinks since he's more knowledgeable than I am on this stuff. I might be slightly off on my assessment of things.

[NewF]

Also, what would you suggest for a new monitor? I wanna get one of those 144hz or whatever they are, I hear they are amazing. Just dunno which one I should get.

[Bobbias]

Honestly I was just going for the cheapest 144hz gsync monitor that was at least 1080p. I just happened to check the prices on pcpartpicker and it showed the one I got was 500, which was slightly cheaper tha most 1080p 144hz gsync screens (they seem to start around 550 right now).

If you dont wany gsync, that should shave off around 200 from the price. As for which brands to look for, I really dont know. I know acer predator screens have a pretty good reputation from the bit I've seen out there but I couldnt really recommend anything.

[NewF]

I was looking at these.
$200 difference between 1080p and 1440p. Not sure which to get though or how much a difference the 1400p and 1080p make.

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824475004&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwordsCA-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwordsCA-PC-_-pla-_-Monitors+-+LCD+Flat+Panel-_-N82E16824475004&gclid=Cj0KCQiA2o_fBRC8ARIsAIOyQ-mt_RCsdrUPzZ4mM0_l3als6yZblGXxqpA5_LFY1fBqj5gDpVKPU4saAmtiEALw_wcB


https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9H57N03176&Description=1440p%20144hz&cm_re=1440p_144hz-_-24-475-015-_-Product

[Bobbias]

My first 2 laptops were both 1366x768, which I used for many years. More recently I was using my GF's laptop which has 1080p and was quite noticeably better, and I noticed immediately just how much nicer it looked. But the move to 1440p just didn't seem to make as much difference as 1366x768 to 1080p did.

Just did a quick look on the panel type (I didn't know anything about VA panels) and it looks like they're not 100% ideal for gaming, at least according to this article. Response time seems to be the real issue with those in regards to gaming. But I wouldn't be surprised if 144/160hz on a VA panel is still a better experience than 60hz on and IPS/PLS panel.

Another thing to point out is that they support freesync, which is AMD only (well, more or less, there's a hacky way that you can technically get freesync using a combination of both amd and nvidia cards together), which would end up going to waste since you've got an nvidia card.

And I definitely overestimated my card's power in terms of my borderlands 2 FPS. That said, I have it running at 3620x2036 and downscaling with everything on high and I'm getting like 70-90 fps just walking around (which actually kinda blows my mind).

I just did some quick calculations and this explains why the jump to 1440p for me wasn't something I noticed too much. 1080p on a 17inch screen has a dot pitch of 0.196mm, while 1440p on 23.8inch is 0.206mm. So my GF's laptop actually has a finer dot pitch than my fancy new screen. By a pretty small margin, meaning they're basically the same in terms of sharpness visually. With a larger monitor like those it might actually be worth it to go for the 1440p.

[NewF]

Well..What would you suggest for an ideal monitor for myself then?

[Bobbias]

I wish I could help more, but all I did was pick the cheapest screen that met my criteria on pcpartpicker. I just told it to show me the cheapest screen that was 24inch+, 1080p+, 144hz+ and gsync.

I'd heard some decent things about the predator line from linux tech tips, so I was familiar with the name, but beyond that I haven't used a proper monitor for probably more than 10 years, so there's really not much I can suggest, beyond making a firm decision on which features you feel are the minimum for what you want.

[Spectere]

Looks sharp! And hey, you have my RAM.

The only real issue that I can see is that your CPU and GPU are a bit mismatched. If you can, I'd try to trade up the 1050 Ti for at least a 1070/2070. Still, not bad for the price, and you have a solid platform for additional upgrades.

Also, what would you suggest for a new monitor? I wanna get one of those 144hz or whatever they are, I hear they are amazing. Just dunno which one I should get.

144hz displays are really nice if you like smooth gameplay experiences. Even the cursor in Windows looks noticeably smoother at that refresh rate.

Just make sure that you get one that supports G-Sync. 144hz is a hard target to consistently hit, especially on 1440p and up (even with higher end cards) and that feature ensures that you can have tear-free rendering without having to deal with frame rate halving like you would on a standard display with vsync.

I'm a bit too far removed from displays to make an informed recommendation at this time, though. Sorry!

[NewF]

A 2070? I ain't dropping no $800 on a gfx card anytime soon.
And I'm still unsure of the monitor. Ugh. There's different ones, but not all what I'm wanting.
Looking for something similar to those MSI monitors, 31.5" with gsync, 144Hz. I'm mainly seeing 27" for it :/

[Spectere]

A 2070? I ain't dropping no $800 on a gfx card anytime soon.

Right, I didn't factor in the conversion rate. It's USD$600—still expensive, but not horrible for a solid performing new card.

[NewF]

Yeah. As of now, the card I got is doing alright with what I play in the meantime. My main focus is the monitor though.....If i were to switch my card to an MSI card, would that MSI monitor be proper for it, or should I still go for that gsync stuff and what not.

[NewF]

Looking at this one now...Not sure how good it would be.

https://www.amazon.ca/Acer-XB252Q-bmiprz-24-5-inch-1920x1080/dp/B01N34Q6CI?tag=tomshardware-geoca-20&th=1
Acer Predator XB281HK bmiprz 28-inch UHD (3840x2160) NVIDIA G-SYNC Monitor (Display Port & HDMI Port)

Weird thing is....I got to amazon.com for the same monitor and it's even cheaper with the exchange rate.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-XB252Q-bmiprz-24-5-inch-1920x1080/dp/B01N34Q6CI?SubscriptionId=AKIAIPHVZTVH6LZ5BFZA&tag=hawk-future-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B01N34Q6LF&ascsubtag=tomshardware-2975408581792588991-20&th=1

479.99 USD = 631.11CAD, yet, on the amazon.ca, it's 799.99. How the fuck does that make sense.