Howdy Folks,
Kicking off December with a nice budget build. The new RTX 3060 8GB with the R5 5500 should get you rolling this Holiday season.
- Ryzen 5 5500
- RTX 3060 8GB LHR (Brand/model may vary)
- AMD A320 (B450 upgrade available)
- 16GB 3200MHz RAM (2x8GB, brand/model may vary)
- 500GB NVME SSD (brand/model may vary)
- 550W PSU (Likely Inwin)
- Leaper Maverick case
Cheers,
Caleb and Luke
Sorry, we aren't currently offering the 5600 as an upgrade.
Soooo, is the deal about moving R5 5500s that are otherwise unsellable then? Could just put it as an expensive option otherwise, retail price difference looks to be about $50, just make it an $80-100 upgrade no?
Could just put it as an expensive option otherwise
the deal about moving R5 5500 that are otherwise unsellable
Would contradict the motive of getting rid of 5500s
Soooo, is the deal about moving R5 5500s that are otherwise unsellable then?
That's basically all prebuilts, companies trying to sell off bad parts that don't move stock. That way they can show a pcpartpicker table, point at it and say 'look we're cheaper!!!' even though no one was buying those items at those prices. Example being the exploding gigabyte psus techfast were using in their prebuilts, unsellable (even if they were fixed) because of the massive (and deserved) negative stigma around them.
That aside the BPC deal is still better though since it has a 15% faster gpu, it comes with Callisto Protocol+Dead Island 2, a mouse and has an extra year of warranty.
@JerraJones: Correction - this deal comes with the 3060 8GB, not 3060 12GB, so the BPC deal has a 27% faster GPU @1080 putting the BPC deal way ahead.
So the next question I didn't get answered last time…. can we have an option to deduct an amount to not have CPU… so we put our own CPU in? (with B450)
Where's the mid tier systems!?! :D :D
I'm waiting on this too!
As am I
Me tooooo
I think all the Christmas and holiday food will get me rolling pretty quickly…
Hi Luke,
With the reduced Covid restrictions, are you allowing pick up yet?
COVID excuses at this point are a joke and have been for over a year. Businesses should just admit that they don't want to or can't do something instead of the usual "Due to COVID-19…".
maybe they don't want to due to covid-19?
Thanks Captain Obvious, yes that is what they are claiming, you are correct. You seem to be missing my point that the excuse is usually a throw away line for people that don't want to or can't do something, not because there has been a genuine problem due to COVID-19.
My suggestion is that businesses stop treating people like idiots and just explain the actual reason for why something can't be done, or they aren't interested in doing it. My experience in business is that people generally prefer the latter instead of some half-baked excuse or story.
@olcrackerjack: a genuine problem is people coming in sick and spreading it to all the staff. they can't enforce masks, so this is unfortunately the next best option
@belongsinforums: Mate, people have been sick for 1000's of years, that's a staff shortage problem due to sickness, not a COVID-19 specific problem.
No, the next best option is to send those that are sick home on sick leave and find someone to cover and if you can't find someone to cover, then let customers know that you are short staffed and there will be slight delay. There's no need to blame it on COVID-19
@belongsinforums: "A genuine problem is people coming in sick" — my comment addressed this statement about sickness in the workplace, not equating COVID to every other illness. Nice way to try and change the subject though.
@olcrackerjack: "staff at TechFast should have to be exposed to my germs because I want to pick up my graphics card"
@belongsinforums: If staff being exposed to customer sickness was a genuine issue, how have businesses been dealing with sick customers for the last 10, 100 years, 1000 years?
If you don't want to be exposed to germs because you're a germaphobe, then just state simply we are an online business only. It has nothing to do with COVID-19 and that is my point.
No, they rather you pay for postage* and not have to deal with customers. Especially angry ones when the inevitable pc blows up. Covid-19 is just the perfect excuse
*they make extra money through shipping too
Question on the Drives
Operating System SSD - I understand this
what is the difference in the Additional Storage SSD and the Hard Disk Drive? Is it just SSD v Spinny?
Yeah that is pretty much the difference. SSD VS HDD(the spinner)
Thanks :)
Yep
Isn't the 3060 a 12gb card?
Did you click on the link?
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 8GB Graphics Card
A new 8GB variant was released by NVIDIA not long ago: https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-officially-introduces-gef…
Who would have thought? I wonder how they were able to fit 8gb memory on a 3060 die, when it was designed for 6/12/18, etc.
Probably just an underpowered 3060ti - wonder if there's a way to hack into it and regain its original features at a lower cost?
That sounds like a question for the December Hardware Unboxed Q&A!
@Asterpin: Thanks for this - I was an unsuspecting consumer about to be stung by nVidia's deceptive practices
I wonder how they were able to fit 8gb memory on a 3060 die
Easily. VRAM on a gpu is soldered to the board like on thin laptops. Doing less VRAM is as easy as just putting less VRAM chips on the board
Its like taking a stick of ram out of your mobo. It means the memory bandwidth reduces proportionally too unless they increase the frequency of the remaining memory modules
@Lief: I remember reading that there needs to be some specific number of memory bus bit lanes or some crap to accommodate aa specific amount of vram.
For example the 3060 in my laptop has 6gb but the desktop one has 12gb… the reason they don't have 8gb is due to the memory bus lane or something.
@BargainHunterJohnnyB: Only if you care about fully populating all the available connections.
The 3080 silicon had the lane width for 12 memory modules but it lanched with 10 1gb modules to result in 10gb.
You can see the missing spaces on some cards like the zotac trinity here
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTjjxPB…
@Lief: If it's as simple as, pick a number and solder it to the board, why did they put 12GB in the 3060, and not in the 3060Ti and 3070/Ti? There's got to be more to it
@TimR31: The 3070/3060ti has a memory bus wide enough to support up to 8 VRAM modules
They have to work with 8 or less chips. If they wanted to do 12gb, that would mean 6 2gb chips, so a reduction in bandwidth would be in order so it probably would have been slightly slower, and it would still cost more.
Only nvidia knows why theyre fine with slightly hampering some products but not others but if i had to guess it was because it was just cheaper to do 8gb and they figured that was barely enough vram for that class of gpu
@Lief: Okay cheers, that does make sense, cards at that end of the market are more sensitive to bandwidth decreases I guess
@TimR31: From memory the 3060 had a different bus width or something so it got more memory modules to get to a useful bandwidth, not driven by the capacity.
What the frick, those cards are getting stitched up with reduced bandwidth and memory bus. I didn't even know this existed.
I did find some gaming comparisons between 3060 8gb vs 12gb, there is only marginal performance loss even those the bus is reduced substantially.
Games at 1080p performance in favour of 12gb 3060
Uncharted +1%, Spiderman +0%, Forza Horizon +4%, New World +3%, Farcy 0%, Pubg +3%, Fortnite +1%
So Pubg has 100fps at 1080p ultra with the 3060 8gb and 103 fps with the 12gb model (ish)
12GB version likely wasn't pushing the bus limits I guess
Looks like Hardware Unboxed have found a fair few games with big performance differences: https://youtu.be/tPbIsxIQb8M
@TimR31: Yeah that's worse than the benchmark I saw, it's basically in the middle of the 3050 and 3060, and tbh the 3050 is a pretty horrible card. No card should be compared to it.
good entry level option for a gaming pc. I will not buy it.
No one asked or offered it to you anyway lol
550W Bronze… Upgrade will be left nearly no option
With a low power CPU like an AMD 65W unit, you could easily go up to a xx70 with this unit. Real world usage vs what Nvidia recommend, when they have to account for someone running it with a 12900K etc; 550W is not as inadequate as it seems
Just for safety not to fry up any crucial parts in the system. Better surplus than replacement.
An underpowered PSU will not fry anything in your computer. It will just shut down when you push it over its OPP limit. You'll lose your progress back to your last save game, but that's about it
The fact that it's bronze doesn't make any difference what it can run. Power supplies are measured by their output. It just means it will pull more from the wall to achieve the same output as a gold PSU for example.
The motherboard should offer an option that have PCIE wifi slot upgrade, not alot of people is using LAN/ Ethernet port nowadays and the USB wifi dongle sucks!
not alot of people is using LAN/ Ethernet port nowadays
You maybe surprised.
I use ethernet.
I get a max of 160Mbps (down) on Wifi and 270Mbs on Ethernet. Guess which one Im using?
That's obvious, pretty sure it's dial-up.
Hmmh don’t think everyone understand the statement well, according to statistics there are more people using wifi than Ethernet.
I AM NOT saying no one is using it but it’s just lesser and am suggesting if Luke can include an option for PCIE WIFI upgrade just so there will be more interest on this
Lmao not sure what has gotten to y’all but cool
according to statistics
What statistics?
Agree with you. Wifi shouldn't even be optional IMO.
A 5500 CPU on a A320? Cool! Is that by any chance a Biostar motherboard? I'm trying to get a 5500 working on a A320 motherboard and I have a Techfast Biostar motherboard here but I thought maybe they hadn't released bios to make it work yet, anyone know?
If it's not there on Biostar's site, could always try the russian communities for hacked bios. Had to get some BIOS updates for some old AMD Biostar cards.
Is the B450 motherboard compatible with Ryzen 7 CPUs, I gather it's a little weak for a later upgrade?
Hey Luke when will you come out with a 3070 gaming PC? I've been waiting for weeks.
Similar for me, looking for a 3080 or 3090 deal. Deals have been either top of the range (rtx 4090) or lower tier such as here.
yeap, waiting in line for a 3070/ti/3080 build too @luketechfast and @Being Askhole
Wanting to buy my mate a PC for Christmas… Is there such a thing as a budget one around $700?
this is about as good as you would want for a new pc around that ballpark, more than capable machine for basic gaming etc
A lot of these deals lately pushing 5500 CPU & 3060 GPU
Must be hard to move these items given the large performance spikes you get from upgrading to 5600/X & 3060ti for a very minimal amount.
Absolutely. This, although okay value against market prices for these components, seems a poor build against a 3060 Ti and 5600.
The 5600 might just be an extra $50 or so, but the Ti is about $200 more than a plain 3060. And you’d probably want the motherboard upgrade as well for that. That’s substantial for a system in this price range.
Hi Luke,
I'll try my question again, worded slightly differently.
Do you allow for pick up again yet?
I am happy to wear a mask and socially distance whilst payment/pickup occurs.
What I am not happy about is trusting a transport company to deliver a pair of assembled PC's (Xmas for grandkids)!
Hi Zero0101,
Unfortunately, local pick up is not something we are offering at this time.
Thank you for understanding.
I want to buy a PC for my 11 year son who wants to try MS Flight Sim (non-VR). Will it work on this at basic-intermediate performance?
Also, can GPU be upgraded to better grunt considering its PSU/motherboard/case after couple of years?
He currently uses old SFF Optiplex for minecraft/roblox stuff. I was looking at option of upgrading old HP/Dell workstation/tower models but they all have old CPU or hungry PSUs so looking at "new" category rather than used/refurb.
Thanks
What is your budget?
For Flight Simulator you would want a stronger CPU/GPU for a smoother experience.
$700 - $1000 ? Smoother "enough" for child coming from roblox ;)
Look up youtube vids what to expect for certain combinations. I dont play flight sims but I'd be looking at what gets you "low" settings and what gets you "medium" settings. I know low would be better than roblox.
This is a good benchmark with 5500 and 3060 (12gb tho) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36FynijDvY8
I am guessing there is a reasonable demand in my category as I understand from other parents, hope shops have an offering for this segment…
Yes, but it's a lot of trade offs. It'll be a bit miserable.
PSU - no. Motherboard - end of shelf. Case - that completely depends on your upgrade dimensions.
You are correct on not looking for old old old office refurbs, but I wouldn't discount some of the recent refurbished/gpu harvested dell G-series prebuilts as a 'throw a gpu in it option', just remember the PSU, Motherboard, Case is proprietary as always.
This is looking interesting with better PSU and option to upgradable CPU?
Waiting for all-AMD special, say 5600/B550/RX6700.
Getting to the point where I might as well keep waiting until RX7600/7700 arrives.
Warning to anyone concerned about privacy/spam.
I previously placed an order with TechFast using a unique email address (via gmail alias) and did not opt-in to marketing emails - Over a year later, I began receiving marketing emails to that unique address from another brand.
I contacted TechFast for an explanation but never heard back.
Ah, the salted + gmail trick? Yeah I've done this with a few accounts: Microsoft, Uber Eats, etc. The ozb usuals.
They all get onto a spam mailing list somehow.
If they didn't refute it, It's them haha.
Yup, that's the one. This is the first time I've actually picked up on one getting spammed.
Can the RGB in case be turned off?
why would you want to limit your FPS
How does the RGB light in the case related to FPS?
Whoosh
hey man when are the 3080 deals coming?
Warning: Coupon is either invalid, expired or reached its usage limit!
Just checked, still working on my end. Maybe try a different browser?
A320 ….. ooooooffff
This comes with the 3060 8GB not the normal 12GB.
Summary, same price but the 3060 12GB is about 17% faster on average and some cases 35% faster - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPbIsxIQb8M
was about to post this haha
Would have been fantastic were it not for the absolutely woeful 8GB 3060 - it's daylight robbery as was shown just recently on Hardware Unboxed's channel. Performance halfway between a 3050 and 3060 - actually far closer to a 3050, and for not that much less money. Actually pathetic move from NVIDIA. Very disappointing.
You've been warned by the others. This is a glorified 3050 GPU rebranded as a 3060 8gb because Nvidia can't get rid of their 3050 silicon stockpile. Entirely anti-consumer and misleading. Avoid youtube.com/watch?v=tPbIsxIQb8M
It's way stronger than a 3050, but that says more about the weakness of the 3050, than it does about how good this one is
Trying to offload the crippled 3060s before the negative press gets out ?? ;)
This is not good value, as others have said the 3060 8GB is notably slower than the original 3060 12GB (due to restricted VRAM bandwidth not VRAM amount). Also bundled with a slower R5 5500 instead of a R5 5600 which is only $50 more, and an ancient A320 motherboard (can you even buy these new anymore ??) Looks like hodgepodge of all the undesirable parts in the market.
… I guess I'll ask the inevitable question Cracks knuckles
Is a Ryzen 5600 CPU upgrade option possible?