New Build - thought?

[ninjag]

Zotac are a solid company, with the longest Nvidia warranty of all the vendors and UK based support to boot.

I have a Zotac Twin Edge 4070 and 4070S and both have been flawless, I'd not buy a lesser card simply out of concern about them as a company.

I have no experience with them so thought I'd have a look around online and I kept coming across lots of very poor aftersales reports, although I did also see many comments about them having very good cooling. I suppose you will always see more bad reviews than good by the very nature of people. I suppose if there was a problem my contract is with OC and not Zotac anyway.

 

[ninjag]

You're correct in that people absolutely are far more likely to talk about a negative than they are a positive, you also need to remember that the internet is a global thing. When you look at places like Reddit or similar, you're going to see an overwhelming amount of people from North America posting rather than from the UK.

Customer support varies heavily across the globe, it's also worth noting that outside of enthusiast forums like this you'll often see user error described as a company related problem by angry and often clueless people, or worse fanboys for other companies talking nonsense (yes, they do exist unfortunately).

People still buy Asus in droves due to branding, but their customer support has been absolutely dire globally for years, on multiple levels. It can become very messy when looking for good information online for things like tech, damned shame tbh.

How's the coil whine? I keep coming across this issue across not just Zotac but also others. I'm not sure if FE suffer coil whine, my 3060 Ti FE doesn't seem to have any. Just doing some belt and braces diligence here! lol

 

[ninjag]

Take with a large pinch of salt, but from what I can recall reading posts on the forum, so called "lower-tier" manufacturers like Zotac usually have less coil whine than higher-end models from higher-tier brands, but their fan noise may be higher. The FE is generally good on coil whine and from what I'm aware, nvidia do accept an RMA for coil whine if you get a particularly bad one.

Thanks. I did notice posts about the fan noise, something about the fan profiles being baked into BIOS, so can't go below 30% except to fully off or something, but is that the same on other makes? I'm perhaps nit picking now, but when it's £550+ just for a card I really want to get this right first time!

Current build is now this, excluding card. Back to the originally suggested MB, as it does seem the best for features vs value.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 RGB Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7B8-LL) = £109.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 7600 Six Core 5.10GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DW-AM) = £182.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FF3D532G6000HC30DC01) (SKU: MY-0B8-TG) = £109.99
• 1 x Corsair RMe Series RM850e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply v2 (CP-9020263-UK) (SKU: CA-27N-CS) = £124.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 4500 Six Core 4.1GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3D4-AM) = £74.99
• 1 x MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-35A-MS) = £107.50
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (SKU: MY-0AK-TG) = £35.99
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £169.99
• 1 x Alpenfohn Dolomit Advanced 120mm ARGB CPU Cooler - Black (SKU: HS-05V-AL) = £34.99

Total: £959.41 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

 

[ninjag]

Ok, so this is becoming a little more urgent lol......

 

[ninjag]

That's the work one. It's been doing that sporadically for a while now, I've updated GPU drivers, checked cables etc. I don't want to change any hardware because the processor is so bad it's not worth throwing any money at it. There's also a strange noise emitting from it, I suspect CPU fan but I hate the thing so don't want to waste time investigating it.

 

[ninjag]

Yeah, unfortunately even though the prices have increased A LOT, the general build quality of these cards doesn't reflect their price, so £500 still just gets you a midrange card and that can easily be a whiner with noisy fans. That said, they're pretty efficient cards and the average cooler is overbuilt, so unless you're a noise aficionado you could pick anything off the shelf and it probably would be alright, unless you get one of those WHWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEE cards that pop up now and again. The bigger and more expensive cards (like a 4090) ironically seem more prone to being intolerable whiners than the small ones.

I do seem to zone in on noises, in particular I would tune into that idle state almost inaudible high pitched sound that my old 3770k used to emit! lol But on the flip side, I almost always use headphones when on the computer and I doubt I'll hear any whine when on the VR. I do use speakers with games like Manor Lords though, where directional doesn't matter.

Been working the grey matter a little more:

1. New gaming rig build for me (I've still to decide on the graphics card)
2. Use my current gaming rig for work because it has almost all of the software already installed, email accounts in place etc, but swap the 3060 Ti FE out with my son's 1660 Super
3. Upgrade my son's rig with the AM4 board and pop a Ryzen 5 5500 processor in which is only a touch more expensive than the 4500 but offers significantly better performance. I think I can reuse his RAM in the AM4 board, which helps offset the slight processor cost increase.

He's not running very much software, so if I do need to do a full reinstall it shouldn't be much to worry about, so the only big software part is the new gaming rig, which will always be the case.

Annoyingly, the Liam-Li 216 is out of stock now at OC.

New basket for dissection:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 RGB Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7B8-LL) = £109.99
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £169.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 7600 Six Core 5.10GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DW-AM) = £182.99
• 1 x Alpenfohn Dolomit Advanced 120mm ARGB CPU Cooler - Black (SKU: HS-05V-AL) = £34.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FF3D532G6000HC30DC01) (SKU: MY-0B8-TG) = £109.99
• 1 x Corsair RMe Series RM850e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply v2 (CP-9020263-UK) (SKU: CA-27N-CS) = £124.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5500 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3D3-AM) = £89.99
• 1 x MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-35A-MS) = £107.50

Total: £938.42 (includes delivery: £7.99)​