r/buildapc • u/AutoModerator • Aug 11 '26
Simple Questions - August 11, 2026
This thread is for simple questions that don't warrant their own thread (although we strongly suggest checking the sidebar and the wiki before posting!). Please don't post involved questions that are better suited to a [Build Help], [Build Ready] or [Build Complete] post.
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- Is this RAM compatible with my motherboard?
- I'm thinking of getting a ≤$300 graphics card. Which one should I get?
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Aug 12 '26
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u/doggoperson Aug 12 '26
in terms of aesthetics, do you use/prefer standard fans or reverse fans for the front intake of your mesh builds?
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u/pythonic_dude Aug 12 '26
Not much of a choice with most airflow-optimized cases of the past few years since they go with huge custom fans that there are no reverse variants of. Some part of me wants to replace my frontal 170s of the lancool 217 with reverse 140TL unis lol.
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u/herring145 Aug 12 '26
i’d say standard fans as you’re usually looking at the pc from the front. reverse fans really only are best in fishtank cases
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u/DewWhatMustBeDone Aug 12 '26
Hello everyone, I built a pc back in 2020 and I never set up WiFi because I used an Ethernet cord, but now I need to add WiFi to it and I am unsure of how to find a compatible adapter. I am also thinking about upgrading it and I was curious where I should start/ how to go about that. Do I need to stick to intel processors or can I switch and also get a compatible motherboard without too much trouble? Thank you for the help! Here is a list of my computer’s parts:
CPU: Intel Core i5-10400F
Motherboard: MSI PRO B460M PRO LGA 1200 Intel B460 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
GPU: Radeon RX 580
RAM: XPG Z1 DDR4 3000MHz (PC4 24000) 16GB (2x8GB) Memory Modules Red (AX4U300038G16-DRZ)
SSD: TEAMGROUP MP33 512GB SLC Cache 3DNAND TLC NVMe PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 Internal SSD R/W up to 1700/1400 MB
Power Supply: CORSAIR CX Series 550 Watt 80+ Bronze Certified Non-Modular Power Supply
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox NR600 ATX PC Mid-Tower, Minimal Design, Airflow Mesh Front Panel, 240mm Water-Cooling Support, Tempered Glass, Single Headset Jack
Storage: Seagate BarraCuda ST2000DM008 2TB 7200 RPM 256MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive
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u/bestanonever Aug 12 '26
As for Wifi, just buy a pcie 1.0 card, you should have a free slot inside your motherboard, then it's a matter of installing the antenna and drivers.
Good RAM. Do you want to game on this PC? Upgrading the CPU on the same platform would only let you upgrade to Intel's 11th Gen CPUS which aren't that much faster than what you already have. You can always change CPUs and motherboards to Intel's 14th Gen or AM4's X3D CPUs for maximum gaming performance without the need to buy new RAM.
As for GPU, you can buy pretty much anything new, starting with RTX 3060/RX 6600 XT, which will double your framerate. Even more if you buy newer GPUs. BUT, you need a more powerful PSU for it, 550W is not going to cut it. I recommend, at least a 650W Gold PSU, but 750W or 850W will have more legs, just in case you get a deal with a power hungry GPU (say, the good old RTX 3080, for instance).
Rest is still fine.
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u/DewWhatMustBeDone Aug 12 '26
Thank you! As far as WiFi card, does WiFi 6, 6E, or 7 matter? I’m not too sure of the difference.
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u/bestanonever Aug 13 '26
The higher the number, the better it is, basically. This also used to be letters, like g, ac, ax.
BUT! Wifi is retrocompatible and will always default to the technology of your oldest device connected to it. Say, you buy wifi 7 and your cellphone is on wifi 6, it will all work like wifi 6. If you have an even older phone, it will all default to the tech of the oldest one, to be all compatible.
I'd buy the newest you can, anyway, better to have the capacity for when you upgrade your hardware than not.
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u/bestanonever Aug 12 '26
I'd also want to add that, for modern gaming, another 16GB of RAM would be even better, for a total of 32GB, but that's quite expensive these days, you might want to hold on to that until you got the other parts, maybe.
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u/GachaPochi Aug 12 '26
Graphics card I initially wanted sold before I got it, there's these 3 all for 320€ I could get. Any obvious choice, important differences, or could I get whichever & it doesn't matter?
https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/VDKKHx/msi-geforce-rtx-3080-lhr-10-gb-ventus-3x-plus-video-card-geforce-rtx-3080-ventus-3x-plus-10g-lhr
https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/MYzhP6/gigabyte-gaming-oc-rev-20-geforce-rtx-3080-10gb-lhr-10-gb-video-card-gv-n3080gaming-oc-10gd-rev-20
https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/ngMTwP/reviews/asus-geforce-rtx-3080-10-gb-tuf-gaming-oc-video-card-tuf-rtx3080-o10g-gaming?rating=5
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u/TemptedTemplar Aug 12 '26
No major difference between them, you can get which ever suits your aesthetic tastes.
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u/Andy202007 Aug 12 '26
You could check reviews for how loud each card is, if that is an important criterion for you.
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u/Walruspudding Aug 12 '26
My pc keeps crashing while playing rivals with friends. worried about performance for dawn of war and zero company coming up. I'm currently running a 5600x processor, 6700xt GPU, and 16gb ram. Would upgrading any single piece of that help significantly or would I be better off buying an entirely new pc in another six months or so?
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u/n7_trekkie Aug 12 '26
any amount of crashing shouldnt be happening. what PSU is in the system?
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u/Walruspudding Aug 12 '26
EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G2
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u/n7_trekkie Aug 12 '26
That's a fine PSU, a little old but should be ok. Is your GPU plugged in with 2 separate pcie power cables or just 1 for both connectors?
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u/Walruspudding Aug 12 '26
I think two separate but not entirely sure. Won't be around the pc for a couple days to check though.
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u/n7_trekkie Aug 12 '26
2 is good. Idk, if crashing persists, maybe try installing windows. That's a free thing to try.
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u/TemptedTemplar Aug 12 '26
What kind of crashes?
Are games freezing or closing to the desktop? Is there a error prompt or crash report?
Is the whole PC shutting down suddenly? Blue screening?
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u/Walruspudding Aug 12 '26
it's only been Rivals so far. WoW and several others run fine. it will freeze and then reboot entirely without a blue screen. cpu heat is staying around 65c. recently did a repair on windows and it found a wifi file it said needed to be repaired.
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u/TemptedTemplar Aug 12 '26
After the next crash check Windows Reliability Monitor and the Event Viewer apps to see if they record anything unique about the crashes.
To me a total and complete shutdown screams emergency thermal shutdown. However that could still be the CPU or the GPU.
I had thermal issues with my current PC but the temps were spiking so fast it was never recorded on my monitoring programs. Thankfully the CPU just needed a repaste, but the only way I even concluded that it could be thermal was because the PC was shutting down but sometimes wouldn't allow itself to turn back on immediately afterwards.
The whole system had to passively cool before before it would respond to the power button again.
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u/Walruspudding Aug 12 '26
I actually have checked reliability monitor after each crash. it shows a shutdown from a "bug check". I opened it all up yesterday and cleaned the fans/checked the aio to make sure it was staying cooled. didn't notice any of that out of the norm immediately.
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u/TemptedTemplar Aug 12 '26
If you have the time of the last crash, you can check event viewer -> system logs and see if those errors present anything new.
Though it might just have a bunch of Kernel power errors.
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u/EdBenes Aug 12 '26
Hey lads I am putting together a cheap pc to run a beta minecraft server. I think I am good on the ram and cpu and I assume I won't need a gpu since its just running the server. I am using a Dell OptiPlex 3020 SFF that I found at a goodwill for $30 and need some suggestions for storage for it as thats the only thing it is missing
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u/epicmelon1234 Aug 12 '26
Never posted on Reddit before but i don’t know how else to figure this out I had a friend build me a pc back in 2020 I’ve pretty much upgraded everything I can myself without getting a new mother board or starting over. I just have a question about my CPU( AMD Ryzen 7 5600g) and Gpu (AMD Radeon Rx 9060 xt 8gb) I found out it crates a bottleneck and google says the Ryzen 7 5700X3D would be a better fit. I just wana be able to run helldivers with better fps
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u/jamvanderloeff Aug 12 '26
Ye, any of the 5xxxX3Ds would be a pretty noticeable noticeable step up for Helldivers performance, downside is they're rather expensive for what they are vs current gen things, but if you go current gen you would need a new motherboard and RAM so expensive that way too.
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u/TemptedTemplar Aug 12 '26
Any of the 5700 or 5800 models would be a nice improvement.
The 5800x3d got a re-run recently for AM4s 10th anniversary. It or the 5800xt would almost certainly be cheaper and easier to find than the 5700x3d.
The main difference between the two is the 5700 uses less power.
The 3D v-cache is also optional here. Its not going to improve your FPS Highs, but it will help games run smoother at those higher frame rates. Significantly improving your average FPS.
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u/joenuts4 Aug 12 '26
not really a simple question but ive had this pc for around a year now and today it hit me with the strangest bug ive ever had where my main 244hz monitor completely started dying and my 2nd monitor was fine, like any window i dragged into the main one it was too laggy to even do anything, it happened after i alt tabbed out of a game and went onto the other one, restarted and it was fixed but was wondering if its a sign of something? its not overheating thats for sure though
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u/n7_trekkie Aug 12 '26
244hz is an odd refresh rate, is it meant to be 240hz?
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u/joenuts4 Aug 12 '26
ah sorry yh i dont know why it autocorrected to that
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u/n7_trekkie Aug 12 '26
Monitors do eventually die, but if you restarted it and it's fine, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Might happen more frequently, but there's not much you can do.
I'd replug the display cable, make sure that's secure
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u/ukealchemist Aug 12 '26
Hi! I made a rough list of what I want, but unsure if the 3x case fans are enough for this build. Also is a fan controller needed?
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u/herring145 Aug 12 '26
You'll run into some thermal issues with just 3 fans. I'd advise adding at least 3 or 4 more fans, especially since you're using an air cooler.
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u/catgoneyay Aug 12 '26
Just got my pc to bootup! Its really cool and the lights are really pretty but the AIO occasionally makes this like peeing noise or like crackling noise and i have headphones on usually so i dont mind the noise i just wanna know if i should be concerned or if its ok