For those of you who have built a pc lately???

As others have said it seems impossible to buy the latest graphic cards without spending 3x retail.

To build a PC to last 3-4 years what components do you recommend that are avail today at retail prices? When building a PC what kind of ground school did you use? I know there are some good YouTube’s but wondering if there was a specific Jedi out there you guys are being mentored by?

thanks!

btw thanks mod for dedicating new thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/ is a good place to start. They are helpful and usually have good advice.

Graphics cards are overpriced right now, so hopefully they'll go down as supply increases.

You can buy the latest in retail price, but you need to be aggressively tracking discord and different sources.

It seems to me that the 3090 (which is very expesive, it’s easier to get when there’s drops).

I had a friend that was able to get a 3080 in Best Buy online. But you gotta play the game, even the 3070 is 50% better than the 2080 Super from last year.

CPUs are easier to get, you can get a Ryzen 3900X or a intel 10900k in stock. But the Ryzen Zen 3 5xxx are hard to come by. The problem is that the difference in price between last and new gen is about $50 retail, but the performance is noticeable.

I personally, will wait until the Zen4 is out, so I can buy the 5900X for my PC and call it a day for a couple of years. You can use the same motherboard for Zen 2 and Zen 3.

Or you can wait for 4-6 more months when the market should be more stable.

If you happen to have a Micro Center in your town, you could try stopping by early in the morning before open to see if you can get a voucher for that day's graphics card deliveries. They're pretty good about letting anyone in line know the status as soon as possible. That's how I was able to get a Radeon RX 6800 and Ryzen 5600X at MSRP with minimal effort.

Components depend greatly on budget and what you want to do with the system. There are some build guides arranged by budget on pcpartspicker.com and logicalincrements.com that might give you a starting point. I've been burned trying to future proof with bleeding edge stuff before, so I tend to look for good deals on upper mid-range to lower high-end components. You won't be finding deals on graphics cards right now, but deals are out there for motherboards, RAM, PSU, etc.

For building tips, the university of YouTube is likely all you need. There are plenty of build videos by popular channels such as JayzTwoCents, Linus Tech Tips, Bitwit, etc. I'd recommend watching a couple to get a general idea for build sequence, then RTFM for your specific components. It is usually a straightforward and fun project if you do the research and don't rush the build.

Guys we fly airplanes for a living. MS Flight sim is cool, but check out iRacing.com. It’s amazing. Very realistic racing sim.

I’ll take a look into it.

Ive been playing F1 2020. I also got yesterday Star Wars Squadrons, it reminded me X-Wing Alliance.

If you learned to fly at Meigs Field without ever having stepped in Chicago, raise your hand.

:D hahahaha many of us did.

I'll just add pcpartpicker is a great tool for checking stock and compatability.

Paul's Hardware is probably the best to watch for first time builders. He's pretty chill and talks like a normal shmoe. And for more in-the-weeds topics I'd recommend Gamers Nexus.

Flight sim peripherals prices are completely out of control.

The higher end joystick/throttle combos are over $1k, if you can even find them. Insane.