Official Building/Upgrading thread

[Razor Ramon HG]

I just checked and the Logitech G305 I am using is 3 and a half years old, and still ticking away strong. Just had to replace the feet pads a year ago.

My previous mouse was a Mionix and it was double clicking after 2 years.

Kinda surprising considering the amount of gaming I did during COVID, lmao.

[underscore]

I had the left click die on my Logitech G500 after something like 15 years of pretty heavy use, and I think the top button doesn't work on my G600 because I dropped it a bunch of times. Other than that I don't think I've had anything break/wear out.

[bcrdukes]

Impressive

On the low end, bundled Logitech mice that come with keyboards, they die within a year or so for me. I haven't considered a higher end mouse from Logitech so I may consider one in the near future.

[Vansterdam]

I had a Corsair RGB keyboard die on me once.. tried to get a replacement since I had the memory express extended warranty or whatever and they could only give me a certain credit amount, tried to clean it as best as I could before bringing it in, but forgot that I spilled a bunch of codeine and it went underneath the keys and got all sticky lol

[bcrdukes]

Cough syrup, eh?

[punkwax]

I’m looking to surprise my son with a gaming PC for his bday. He’s been asking for years but already has a PS5, a switch, iPhone etc so I’ve taken the hard no stance for a while. Now my daughters have more need for a PC as well for school as my company locked down simple things like saving PPTs etc to a USB which they used to do on my laptop for homework. So I figure this might be a sneaky way to make the boy happy while also providing a tool for the whole family to use.

My brother is far more educated on PC’s than I and recommended this one while it was on sale for Black Friday: https://www.canadacomputers.com/prod...item_id=243212 I was saving for a family trip at the time so didn’t pull the trigger but am prepared to buy something this month/early March.

I don’t mind the $2500 price tag but figured I’d check in here to see if anyone knows of a better deal for something equivalent or perhaps more bang for the buck at that price point. He’ll want the LED lit keyboard and everything else to make him feel like a famous YouTuber so savings is ideal, but I’m also the kinda person who prefers to buy once and cry once so I’m open to suggestions if the value is there.

Any input/advice would be appreciated.

TIA

[Razor Ramon HG]

For the price, it's pretty reasonable and has the look that a teenager would like.

They skimp out a bit on the case and power supply from the looks of it, but no big glaring issues overall.

This is what I got for about the same price fully installed with a copy of legit Windows. There are places to save a few bucks, but wanted to stick to $2500 for comparison purposes.



No RGB bling, just a straight up black system though.

[Manic!]

Have your kid do some research, make it a project. Built the computer yourselves. You do it once it's a skill both of you will never forget. Also get some RGB. Kids love RGB,

[bcrdukes]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

Well, shit. Just my luck.

My Microsoft Ergonomic mouse has issues with the scroll wheel now. Whenever I scroll up or down, the page bounces up or down, depending on the direction, and sometimes, it just doesn't respond at all. I just replaced the batteries too. Good god.

Any recommendations on good mice to get? Wireless and able to connect up to three devices is key.

So just an update: I took out some plastic trim removal tools and cracked open my mouse and took out the wheel. Sure enough, there was just a lot of dust and junk stuck in there so I cleaned it out. As good as new!

[Razor Ramon HG]

Did a NAS swap from a Fractal Design Node 804 to a Jonsbo N2.

Look at that size difference. mATX with 10x 3.5" drive support to ITX with 5x 3.5" drive support.

[Klondike]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

So just an update: I took out some plastic trim removal tools and cracked open my mouse and took out the wheel. Sure enough, there was just a lot of dust and junk stuck in there so I cleaned it out. As good as new!

For a second I thought you were rocking one of these bad boys.

Update on my rig: Fried my motherboard doing some stupid shit.

I upgraded to a Ryzen 7 5800x. Canada Computers had a CPU+mobo promo for $299

[Traum]

Originally Posted by Klondike

I love this mouse! More comfortable than at least 70% of the crap that M$ still make now, and it actually works in either hand despite being asymmetrical.

I wish M$ had made a modernized version of it.

[bcrdukes]

Sooo....time to revive this thread.

Alright, gents. My work from home setup is starting to not be so happy with Microsoft Teams being so memory-hungry, and I'm going back to school full-time while juggling my job this upcoming January.

With that, I need to dedicate my current Microsoft Surface Pro 6 for just schoolwork and the travel that comes with it. Over the course of the summer, I started to capture my track day footage using a GoPro Hero 11 and when post processing the videos with software to show the GPS data, it takes 6+ hours, and this is no way to do things efficiently.

I'm looking to see if you guys have a recommendation on a desktop computer (not a laptop) or a micro /mini PC that has the processing power, RAM, and whether or not an on-board graphics card or a seperate one is recommended, and what.

For what it's worth, my Surface Pro 6 is an i5-8500T with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD. The videos take up way too much space, so I need the storage. I find the RAM is not enough to run Teams, especially on conference and video calls.

I was thinking of something like this - https://www.canadacomputers.com/en/r...816434905.html

Will this work? I will need WiFi connectivity. I know nothing about computers, so talk to me like I'm 5 years old. Thanks.

[Traum]

I'll let the pros give you the real technical recommendations, but I'll mention a couple pieces of background info for you to keep in mind.

Your Surface Pro 6 is running with a 6 years old processer and not a lot of RAM or hard drive space. That amount of RAM and disk space is really inadequate for running Windows (10 or 11) nowadays. To make matters worse, video processing is extra, extra resource intensive.

For video work, I think you're gonna want at least 32GB RAM, if not 64GB. SSDs tend to start slowing down when they are over half full, so if you want to maintain file read/write speed, you want to make sure the drive has the available capacity. While you are at it, I'd at a minimum insist on getting a Gen4 NVMe SSD with a motherboard that is capable of supporting a Gen4 NVMe SSD drive, both for the OS drive as well as the drive where you do your video processing work on. A Gen5 NVMe SSD with a supporting motherboard would be even better, but that'd get expensive real fast.

Also, what software are you using to do your video editing? I rarely do video editing myself, but I do a lot of photo editing using Lightroom and Photoshop. Since the recent editions started supporting video card hardware-accelerated processing, there has been a noticeable difference in terms of how fast certain processing work becomes. Applying a noise reduction filter, for example, takes ~10 secs on my PC for a single photo, but people without video card hardware-accelerated processing seems to need somewhere between 3 - 5 min. And in this space, nVidia video cards seem to be the preferred choice over AMD, even though AMD video cards are still supported.

Naturally, the crucial thing is -- you need to make sure that the video editing software you use supports video card hardware acceleration. If it doesn't, then none of what I've talked about for the video card situation would apply.

[Razor Ramon HG]

The new Mac Mini might be up your alley.

I've pretty much stopped gaming on the computer, so I just converted over to one for my daily driver.

[roastpuff]

The Apple M-series chips are stupidly good for video editing - even my iPad Pro M1 is faster than my desktop (i5-10600k, 32GB RAM, multiple NVME SSDs, RTX3070) for video editing 4k GoPro videos.

[Traum]

I agree with that pros that bcrdukes should consider switching to the Mac camp if you plan on doing a lot of video editing. A friend that does photo and video work has made the switch some time earlier this year, and he kept bragging to me how much faster his processing workflow has become since the switch.

I'm both a dinosaur and a stubborn mule that refuses to give into the Mac environment even when it is noticeably better LOL~ But obviously I am not going to recommend others to follow my own stupidity LOL~

[underscore]

Generally speaking aim for something that isn't maxed out on RAM and SSD/HDD slots right off the bat. Being able to just plug more in and not be copying disc images or taking the speed drop of an external drive is a big plus in the long run.

[Klondike]

Originally Posted by Razor Ramon HG

The new Mac Mini might be up your alley.

I've pretty much stopped gaming on the computer, so I just converted over to one for my daily driver.

Yea it's actually not a bad deal in base trim. But once you start adding shit, it gets very expensive.

Base model + external SSD and you're good to go.

[Razor Ramon HG]

Originally Posted by Klondike

Yea it's actually not a bad deal in base trim. But once you start adding shit, it gets very expensive.

Base model + external SSD and you're good to go.

Yep, the Mac Mini is a no brainer if you don't have a crazy need for resources.

https://www.amazon.ca/Enclosure-Adap.../dp/B0B71H1QC5

I bought this 10Gbps enclosure for use with my 4TB NVMe and it works great. I get only around 8Gbps (1000MB/s) but I'm assuming that it's due to overhead.

There's a Thunderbolt one to get 40Gbps speeds, but not worth spending an extra 4x, lol.

Hotkeys are a bit of a mess though since I RDP into my Windows work laptop.

[TypeRNammer]

Originally Posted by Razor Ramon HG

The new Mac Mini might be up your alley.

I've pretty much stopped gaming on the computer, so I just converted over to one for my daily driver.

https://forums.redflagdeals.com/appl...ge-up-2722794/

Make sure you use the education discount, supposedly they don't check

[bcrdukes]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies.

I'm on the road so I'll keep my replies brief. I had a quick chat with roastpuff offline and I think the Mac Mini may be the best option. Base model + storage = I agree with you guys.

I'm not doing "real" video editing of that sort. The software I use (Race Technology) has a Windows-only application that takes GoPro GPS data from my GoPro Hero 11 and it renders the video with all your track data so I can do a post track day analysis. Other than that, I'm not using professional-grade tools to do anything else.

If there are other options to render my track day videos that can take GPS data from GoPro cameras, I'm open to switching to that, and to a Mac, if both work.

Re: Education discount - Thanks for the tip. I don't have my student ID yet but I do have confirmation of enrollment and start date of January 2025.
Thanks!

[coneZONE]

Originally Posted by Traum

I love this mouse! More comfortable than at least 70% of the crap that M$ still make now, and it actually works in either hand despite being asymmetrical.

I wish M$ had made a modernized version of it.

I found two at home, sans scroll wheel
One has PS2 and the other has serial port
If i had the scroll wheel one i’d be trying to use it