With all the builds lately, I was interested to hear what PC part you tried or had to save a buck on and had it backfire or just regret buying?
What PC Part Did You Cheap out on and Regret?
Pace210 on 17/10/2020 - 18:30
Last edited 17/10/2020 - 19:05 by 1 other user
Last edited 17/10/2020 - 19:05 by 1 other user
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PSU. Twice. Learned my lesson eventually. Only Seasonic for me now.
Probably the case. Corsair 780t, still a great case by todays standards and couldn't see anything worth upgrading to for a full tower. Have a MSI 3090, x570 aorus master, have a pair of 980 pros in the mail. Just waiting on the 5900x to release.
Didn't cheap out, but I now wish I bought an 850w PSU instead of a 750. Currently have two 390s and an overclocked 4690k and I want to upgrade to a ryzen 9.
I'm not a heavy gamer but there were a few things I wish I had bought instead 4 years ago. I did move from a 13inch macbook pro so everything was an improvement but looking back these are the things I would have gotten instead.
- Wireless gaming keyboard and gaming mouse. Cables are a pain!
- Not sure if this was available 4 years ago - pci-e wifi card that had bluetooth, 2.4ghz, and 5ghz. This is not an issue right now since I have my computer connected via ethernet.
- 29inch UW wide instead of 25inch UW
I can easily replace these but I don't need spares…
One word: Cyrix.
didn’t cheap out on anything, i wish there were more useful reviews about the case I got though as it’s bit painful to add/ remove things (nzxt h210) and that my psu came with longer cables (not kuxury you have with sfx - sf600 plat).
Quite happy with what it delivers.
My motherboard - doesn't allow headroom for overclocking so when I upgraded my CPU to a K model, I was sad :(
i bort a cheap keeboard. no ragrets.
But seriously, a spinny disk hard drive. It's only used for junk/non critical apps, but should have just got a super large SSD. The noise is noticeable.
On my first build back in the 00s I bought one of those firecracker psus apower or something like that and it popped within 15 minutes.
Has anyone bought a UPS ( uniterruptable Power Supply ) for their PC, or is this going to far?
great if you have solar and a timer, then you get free power when the sun goes down because you're not sucking off the grid.
I'm sure someone's already said it somewhere above, but a PSU.
Bought a cheap one that had more than enough power for all bits and pieces, but bloody hell was it loud. Sounded like a vacuum every time the fan engaged.
Changed it to a modular exxy one and fan noise? What fan?
TBH, at first I thought it was the CPU fan, but I changed that over to a quiet one and it didn't make a difference.
No idea brand or cost - this was many moons ago.
A long time ago, maybe Pentium 2 days, I needed a 3.5 floppy drive for some specific reason. Cheap as chips from local PC stores but I found an old 286/386 system in my garage and ripped out the 3.5 drive. Plugged it into my main rig. Plug didn't quite fit. Turned it on. Floppy drive connector started smoking. PSU cable caught on fire.
There were regrets that afternoon.
My case not so much that i cheaped out rather its bad value. I feel spending around $100 on a case should be fine and net you a decent return on value for money. After my first case had issues, i had all my parts and no case so i went to MSY and bought a case without doing research.
I dun fudged up and bought this case.
https://www.msy.com.au/rotanium-temper-tg302-rgb-black-4x-rg…Now i have changed all the stock fans as they are crap. I have a mix of fans in the PC now but connected to my mobo unlike the stock fans. I took of the front glass and replaced it with fly screen so i can have actual airflow. Airflow in this case stock is horrible. I removed pieces of siding and placed fly screen there also.
https://imgur.com/urJlOGx
https://imgur.com/sjDvg54The front looks fine and could pass as being stock but the sides look crap as the shape of the case made it hard to stick the fly screen down. I could make it look better by sanding it flat but not sure how much work i want to put into the case lol.
The case still had issues but by this point i had already modded so i can't return it. The 2 front USB ports didn't work i had to solder a new ground cable on. Plus front audio out doesn't work properly. I should have taken it back straight away but that would mean taking the PC apart and having to find time to make it to MSY. Only close one to me open now is the Ultimo store.
My son's really happy with his case except the audio part but he plugs his speakers to monitor. The dans do not connect to Mobo but they are not loud either. The RGB is actually nicer the RGB on mobo. We bough some additional strip lights that connect to
Mobo but it's a pain to operate through the app whereas the fans have remote control. Also the lights are not as nice and di not match the fan's rgb. Nice size, easy to build.It looks so good in all colours, purple, blue, red etc
The case is not that cheap either. $99
But the best type of case are the ones with a glass door. Easy access.
I regret believing tech reporters on overclocking, back when I built my system with 4770k many tech outlets were reporting 4.7ghz OC. But it was quickly evident Intel had been sending cherry picked cpu's to them all. I bought two 4770k and both could only hit 4.3ghz stable.
For me, personally, Peripherals. Mouse, keyboard, monitor, mousepad, desk, chair etc. Always had a pretty reasonable rig relative to my budget, but the rest suffered along the way.
Tech advance too quickly I already given up of building ten years ago. I was a pc enthusiast
These days I just use company provided laptop for general use and I buy a laptop for casual gaming every couple of years (4-5) I don't look for performance I play older games. I already got console to cover gaming including switch, PS4 pro, Wii, Wii U, PS3, PSTV, 3DS XL, DS. For mobile got Android tablet, iPad, phone
I have no need to build a pc anymore and I don't regret it.
I got too many devices already so I don't see a point
IMO console gaming is cheaper these days you get several years out of PS4 unlike PC
All of it. Bought a techfast build and ended up having to replace most of the components manually. Still using their case though…
Ahhh so they aren’t good after all. Always wonder about the quality with their ridiculous prices.
psu - got it from that gaming pc deal about 2 years ago techfast deals. its still a very decent capable gaming pc, anyways on really hot summer days on a gaming session you start hearing clicking noises from the psu, and loud fans. very loud fans idk if its the 2 extra cooling tower fans, or its the psu fan, or the twin gpu fan, or the CPU fan. maybe a combination of all the fans on a hot summer day trying to cool the system. it sounds like a hair dryer
this isn't unique to techfast builds you're going to have problems during summer if you don't have aircon in the room, i've had a top tier psu blow up during summer
you can try downclock/downvolt to use less power, open side panel for more airflow, but when the air is hot you lose cooling effectiveness quickly. loud fans don't contribute much to cooling at all
Bought a CPU instead of APU for a headless server facepalm. Had to get a cheap graphics card to right my wrongs.
Haha, same. I've done this twice.
Packard bell pc with a Cyrix 300 CPU, 4MB ram and a 14" crt
Monitor. In like 2015 after buying all these impressive PC parts I realised that all I had was a cheap 60Hz IPS monitor for a rig that could easily run most games >60fps at 1080p.
Monitor tech has come a long way since then. You can now buy relatively cheap 144Hz IPS panels with 5ms refresh times for a very reasonable price.
Cheap ergonomic mouse from Amazon. Not for gaming just for work. Feels great in hand but sh!thouse wireless connectivity.
At the beginning of my learning how to build a PC (Mar '20) .. I got a cheap PC case. $10 second hand (but it was new cause the seller wanted a ATX).
Now I understand about CPU / GPU heat etc etc and realised I should have got a better case. My R5 1600 was hitting 89deg max temp.
Normal solution is to get some fans for the case … but I cheaped out and just used a mini desk fan (hey it was sitting there doing nothing anyway). It now reads 75deg max temp.
So i'll upgrade the case when I upgrade the CPU/Mobo next.
Approaching this question from the other side, I have definitely never regretted spending money on quality PSU.
Not talking 900-1000+, just top quality 650-750w units.
Last few I remember:
Corsair unit from 2009, PC still runs now.
EVGA unit from 2016, PC on 24/7. Still runs to this day.I cheaper out on the money, I can't get it back 😭
Nothing at all.
A 700W Coolerpower PSU that eventually gave up the ghost and smoked when it did in October last year in a custom built PC eventually had to buy a Acer Predator desktop.
Conclusion first: you will always have some regrets when you build a PC, no parts are perfect.
e.g. you bought a Nuctua D15 fan cooler, and when you trying to OC you find out it few degree warmer than the previous watercooler you had.
then you regret and got yourself a 360 AIO, you starting to miss the D15 with no water pump noise even if it's a few degree worse
regret I had last PC: 3700x/X370 Taichi/8G*4 ADATA D80 3600c17/1070 — custom loop
I then sold the entire PC second hand and got 10700k + Z490 Tomahawk using a ThermalRight cooler very similar as D15, I kept the same RAM since those are B-Die. I thought now that I have a decent 6 layer PCB Mobo, I can OC the RAM like hell
I binned the 4 stick from best to worst, and I put the best stick to the worst slot etc… now I could OC the RAM to 4000C17 and pass p95/TM5 all day long, soon found out playing COD will make the GPU heat up the RAM and cause problem.
after all the experiment I found that I need to use XMP, and keep all secondary timing loose (especially tRFC) in order to never crash.
what should I regret? not getting 4 stick of RAM? not getting a tower cooler which sits on top of the ram? not use a hot graphic card?