Don't Give Up on Pre-Built

J

jeff1959

Member
There seem to be a lot of negative comments about pre-built gaming desktops. I would like to disagree and make a suggestion for folks to consider. I just finished setting up my new off-the-shelf desktop that I purchased from NewEgg. It is currently on sale for $1199 with free shipping. I am EXTREMELY happy with it.
MSI Aegis RS
i7-13700F
32 GB DDR5 RAM
RTX 4060
NVM 2 TB SSD
Win 11 Home
Included a wired keyboard and wired gaming mouse.

Trainz + is installed on the main C: drive. The data is on a USB 2TB HDD. It runs at 60 fps at the highest settings. The difference between my old (dinosaur) computer and this one is like going from a 2 cylinder moped to a Ferrari. After an initial slow load, the program opens almost instantaneously. It downloads from the DLS in the blink of an eye. I am not sure I care for Windows 11 Home, but getting used to Win 8 and 10 took a while. The only trouble I had was figuring out how to turn off the LEDS on the case and keyboard. They were driving me crazy. The biggest issue now is reinstalling all my other programs. It's not hard, just time-intensive.
 
Yes you did get a very good Super Computer there.
That seems to be a very good Purchase price with the 4060 included.
That RTX 4060 is what make it perform so well.
jjeff1955
 
Yes I have literally just bought a pre-built gaming PC although a lower budget here so I went for an RTX 3060 and 1 Tb SSD, which is fine as I put the HDDs and SSD from my old PC in the new one. Looking forward to putting Trainz and Blender (Cycles render) through its paces. My old rig was 10 years old and had a GTX 660 so the 3060 should be much faster and powerful.
I have always built PCs myself in the past but this time, a prebuilt machine seems a much better deal, I would have paid £300 for the graphics card alone plus motherboard CPU and RAM would have cost probably over £300 so a DIY job works out probably more expensive plus so paying £720 for a complete machine including great case and SSD, plus Windows seemed like a great deal. This is Ebuyer's own make, Alpha Sync.
 
I went with a Dell prebuilt machine in early 2021. My older machine decided to die at the point where hardware was at the record highest prices ever and it was less expensive buying a complete system than it was to build one.

I have an i9-12900K
64 GB RAM (I upgraded it myself from 32GB)
1-TB SSD
RTX-3080

My data hard drives are housed in an Oyen 5-bay external USB enclosure. The drive bays are hot swappable, but I never bother with that and the throughput is the same or a bit faster over USB-C than it is via the standard SATA connections inside the PC

I have since put in a second 1TB HD for the swap file after moving my Trainz data-drive to the enclosure.

After removing the Dell installed McAfee antivirus (it's like malware), I tweaked the system and it's been rock solid ever since. My only complaint is the cooling and I've opted to keep my case open for that while Trainzing because that really heats up the GPU and everything else inside.

If I were to replace the system, I'd go with another prebuild. As much as I liked building computers, I find the prebuilds, while limited to a certain extent, are really so much easier to deal with. I must be getting old. ;-)
 
I agree about the pricing. I wouldn’t own my PC if not for my VERY gracious cousin who built it. Against $1,199 @jjeff1959, he paid well over $1,500. He built his current machine contains a RTX 4090, and that costs over $1000 alone. If I had to buy a PC myself, prebuilt would be the only way to go because I can’t spend that much.
Good luck with your new PC! 😉
Tony
 
I have an Alienware that I got at Best Buy in 2019 (before the tornado of 2020 destroyed our beautiful Mall) And I am extremely happy with it. No stutter or lag with any of the games I play. Trainz 19, American Truck Simulator, FarCry, Ultimate Epic Battle Sim 2, Train Sim World 4, etc. etc.
 
JCitron said:
I went with a Dell prebuilt machine in early 2021. My older machine decided to die at the point where hardware was at the record highest prices ever and it was less expensive buying a complete system than it was to build one.

I have an i9-12900K
64 GB RAM (I upgraded it myself from 32GB)
1-TB SSD
RTX-3080

My data hard drives are housed in an Oyen 5-bay external USB enclosure. The drive bays are hot swappable, but I never bother with that and the throughput is the same or a bit faster over USB-C than it is via the standard SATA connections inside the PC

I have since put in a second 1TB HD for the swap file after moving my Trainz data-drive to the enclosure.

After removing the Dell installed McAfee antivirus (it's like malware), I tweaked the system and it's been rock solid ever since. My only complaint is the cooling and I've opted to keep my case open for that while Trainzing because that really heats up the GPU and everything else inside.

If I were to replace the system, I'd go with another prebuild. As much as I liked building computers, I find the prebuilds, while limited to a certain extent, are really so much easier to deal with. I must be getting old. ;-)
Click to expand...
I have tweaked many home computer to make it better over the Decades.

Have also ran with one of my Computers Doors off back in the day when I Gaming. Yes I have to confess, I was Pinball Wizard and heavy Gamer when time permitted. Not so much now.

But to get to my point: Have you looked inside to see how your internal Fans are setup, Water Cooling Etc, is there anything to improve the Cooling of your CPU and GPU, let it be known, just like our Radiators in Autos under cooled always more often than not. There maybe a good aftermarket Cooler for both items. :unsure:
 
blueodessey said:
I have tweaked many home computer to make it better over the Decades.

Have also ran with one of my Computers Doors off back in the day when I Gaming. Yes I have to confess, I was Pinball Wizard and heavy Gamer when time permitted. Not so much now.

But to get to my point: Have you looked inside to see how your internal Fans are setup, Water Cooling Etc, is there anything to improve the Cooling of your CPU and GPU, let it be known, just like our Radiators in Autos under cooled always more often than not. There maybe a good aftermarket Cooler for both items. :unsure:
Click to expand...
The CPU is water cooled. There's a fan on the AIO that pulls the air inward instead of blowing outward, which means that the hot air has nowhere to go. With a single additional intake fan in the front that's covered over with a front cover that has holes in it, but with the front cover and metal chassis in between the fan and the outside, the airflow is hampered. The only other cooling is a two-inch slice on the cover with holes just about where the video card is located. This design is fine for internal video or a very low-end video card, but doesn't work well with more demanding hardware such as the hot-running RTX series.

When I first powered up the system and tried Trainz, the RTX3080 temps skyrocketed to the maximum of 83C and immediately started throttling back with the video card fans screaming away at 100% as they tried so hard to cool the GPU down. This caused stutters as the GPU would cool down just below the threshold and then heat up again only to repeat the cycle.

I then tried various power settings using MSI Afterburner by lowering the power and increasing the fans. This helped a bit but there was an obvious lag from running the card at less-than-optimal power.

I then mounted a small fan located inside, positioned in front of the video card and oriented to blow the hot air out of the case. The small fan lined up perfectly with the holes which made mounting it to the case very easy! This helped a smidge more, but anytime the system was under load, the fan couldn't cope either. Since then, using MSI Afterburner along with the case side off, the fan profiles keep the RTX3080 around 73C maximum when under real load when using Cities: Skylines 2 and Trainz now only hits 65 C max.

I inquired about this issue on Dell's support forums and it turns out I wasn't the only one with this issue and many people were complaining loudly about it. Since then, Dell has updated the case with their latest generation of this system, the 8960 that appears to solve the cooling issue with its better front cover with more air flow.

The thing is the previous generation of the system had an awesome cooling system with a large fan mounted inside the top of the case. If they had continued with that case design, in addition to the rest of the setup, this would have allowed the heat to escape rather than end up trapped inside. It's obvious that the case wasn't designed by engineers and more likely by conceptual artists working in the marketing department.
 
Last edited:
That is an interesting setup, @JCitron. Glad to hear you improved on it. 👍🏼 Mine has Corsair equipment for cooling, and the intake fans mounted at the “front” end of the case, with the GPU sitting horizontally in the middle. The CPU water cooler is mounted just above with the exhaust fans blowing out the top grill. There is another fan blowing out the top back, for the motherboard and CPU I believe (they are placed in the top back corner). The GPU‘s fans face downward and intake air from the bottom of the case, over the power supply. The setup never gave my cousin any problems, and Trainz has only maxed out the GPU temp at 74C. I use iCUE to manage the fans, and set them to the Extreme preset. In Afterburner, I leave the control to automatic. I feel the temperature of the exhaust every so often to gauge the temperature, and so far I’ve never felt really hot air, only warm.

Cheers
Tony
 
JCitron said:
The CPU is water cooled. There's a fan on the AIO that pulls the air inward instead of blowing outward, which means that the hot air has nowhere to go. With a single additional intake fan in the front that's covered over with a front cover that has holes in it, but with the front cover and metal chassis in between the fan and the outside, the airflow is hampered. The only other cooling is a two-inch slice on the cover with holes just about where the video card is located. This design is fine for internal video or a very low-end video card, but doesn't work well with more demanding hardware such as the hot-running RTX series.

When I first powered up the system and tried Trainz, the RTX3080 temps skyrocketed to the maximum of 83C and immediately started throttling back with the video card fans screaming away at 100% as they tried so hard to cool the GPU down. This caused stutters as the GPU would cool down just below the threshold and then heat up again only to repeat the cycle.

I then tried various power settings using MSI Afterburner by lowering the power and increasing the fans. This helped a bit but there was an obvious lag from running the card at less-than-optimal power.

I then mounted a small fan located inside, positioned in front of the video card and oriented to blow the hot air out of the case. The small fan lined up perfectly with the holes which made mounting it to the case very easy! This helped a smidge more, but anytime the system was under load, the fan couldn't cope either. Since then, using MSI Afterburner along with the case side off, the fan profiles keep the RTX3080 around 73C maximum when under real load when using Cities: Skylines 2 and Trainz now only hits 65 C max.

I inquired about this issue on Dell's support forums and it turns out I wasn't the only one with this issue and many people were complaining loudly about it. Since then, Dell has updated the case with their latest generation of this system, the 8960 that appears to solve the cooling issue with its better front cover with more air flow.

The thing is the previous generation of the system had an awesome cooling system with a large fan mounted inside the top of the case. If they had continued with that case design, in addition to the rest of the setup, this would have allowed the heat to escape rather than end up trapped inside. It's obvious that the case wasn't designed by engineers and more likely by conceptual artists working in the marketing department.
Click to expand...
John,

I have run into that problem over the Decades of building, modifying problem system, glad you were able to troubleshoot your way out it and make some much needed adjustments.


Overheating, bad exhaust or no exhaust is the death call for MOB and other components if not that, lifespan especially the Hard Drives will take the fatal hit when its most inconvenient.

Thank you for sharing Sir. ;)
 
blueodessey said:
John,

I have run into that problem over the Decades of building, modifying problem system, glad you were able to troubleshoot your way out it and make some much needed adjustments.


Overheating, bad exhaust or no exhaust is the death call for MOB and other components if not that, lifespan especially the Hard Drives will take the fatal hit when its most inconvenient.

Thank you for sharing Sir. ;)
Click to expand...
It sure is. I've seen many components die due to heat. When I was a board technician, we would get boxes of failed circuit boards that had gone through the burn-in oven. There would be hundreds of bad chips pulled from the boards in a day plus a countless number of bad solder joints repaired. While this is a good way to flush out the failures in the beginning, components running in constant heat all the time will fail and I've seen that too with intermittent failures that occur when a system has been running for a while.

Given the cost of my system, I was in no uncertain terms going to let my components die and I've gone through great lengths to ensure the parts will continue to work for a very long time. I noticed that Dell does the same thing with their Alienware R15. The bad part with that model is that it uses the same chassis as mine except they tip it on end and put a bunch of plastic shrouds all around it.
 
JCitron said:
It sure is. I've seen many components die due to heat. When I was a board technician, we would get boxes of failed circuit boards that had gone through the burn-in oven. There would be hundreds of bad chips pulled from the boards in a day plus a countless number of bad solder joints repaired. While this is a good way to flush out the failures in the beginning, components running in constant heat all the time will fail and I've seen that too with intermittent failures that occur when a system has been running for a while.

Given the cost of my system, I was in no uncertain terms going to let my components die and I've gone through great lengths to ensure the parts will continue to work for a very long time. I noticed that Dell does the same thing with their Alienware R15. The bad part with that model is that it uses the same chassis as mine except they tip it on end and put a bunch of plastic shrouds all around it.
Click to expand...
Speaking of heat issues. I wonder how many folks know about not ever putting a Computer onto Carpet while it's running? :oops:

techreviewadvisor.com

Placing a PC on a Carpet: The Risks and Alternatives

Explore the pros and cons of placing a PC on a carpet and discover how to prevent common issues such as overheating and static build-up.
techreviewadvisor.com techreviewadvisor.com

I think I found a fairly extensive Article that reveals some interesting Factoids. ;)
 
blueodessey said:
Speaking of heat issues. I wonder how many folks know about not ever putting a Computer onto Carpet while it's running? :oops:

techreviewadvisor.com

Placing a PC on a Carpet: The Risks and Alternatives

Explore the pros and cons of placing a PC on a carpet and discover how to prevent common issues such as overheating and static build-up.
techreviewadvisor.com techreviewadvisor.com

I think I found a fairly extensive Article that reveals some interesting Factoids. ;)
Click to expand...
Yikes and yup. I've run into more than one computer that was completely stuffed with dirt. The inside of one system had to be peeled clean, literally. The fuzz, dust, and dog hair were like a carpet placed over the components. I grabbed one end and wrapped it around my screwdriver and pulled, and the fuzzy blanket peeled off the motherboard. The fans, including those on the CPU and video card, were the same. I was surprised the system was operational at all.

That's an interesting article too. Thanks for sharing.
 
I once did some upgrades on some computers in our plywood mill. Holy cow! I don't think my predecessor had ever bothered to clean them out. They were pretty much as you describe John. Worst I ever saw. But they were good Dells and still running!
 
JCitron said:
Yikes and yup. I've run into more than one computer that was completely stuffed with dirt. The inside of one system had to be peeled clean, literally. The fuzz, dust, and dog hair were like a carpet placed over the components. I grabbed one end and wrapped it around my screwdriver and pulled, and the fuzzy blanket peeled off the motherboard. The fans, including those on the CPU and video card, were the same. I was surprised the system was operational at all.

That's an interesting article too. Thanks for sharing.
Click to expand...
In my much younger days, I was having a Tech teach me about proper repair techniques for faulty MOB and slide in cards and we got into this discussion about proper placement of Desktops etc, this topic came up, and I started laughing, couldn't believe what he was telling me. I naively asked is this really true, he then went to to the back of shop and showed what a Desktop looked like when sitting on Carpet for extended time. All I have to say, I was astonished and apologized for my rudeness.
 
blueodessey said:
In my much younger days, I was having a Tech teach me about proper repair techniques for faulty MOB and slide in cards and we got into this discussion about proper placement of Desktops etc, this topic came up, and I started laughing, couldn't believe what he was telling me. I naively asked is this really true, he then went to to the back of shop and showed what a Desktop looked like when sitting on Carpet for extended time. All I have to say, I was astonished and apologized for my rudeness.
Click to expand...
It really is amazing and shocking what that does to a desktop computer. When I was in field service, I would receive corporate machines from various places around the world. One of the old Ontel Op1/64s came from the De Beers Diamond mines in South Africa. The machine wouldn't power up at all and when I took the cover off, the chassis was completely filled with conductive reddish-brown dust from the mining operation. I took the machine apart right down to the chassis and then washed the boards in De-Sol. The keyboard too got the same treatment and everything came back to life after the deep clean.

That De-Sol cleaner was nice and safe. It was Trichlorethylene in a bottle. We had gallons of this stuff with deep tanks for washing circuit boards coming off of wave solder to small desktop dispensers for dipping pig hair brushes into for washing off flux off of solder joints. No wonder many circuit-board techs ended up with neurological issues and cancers.

I would have apologized too. It's the only way we learn.
 
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