I’m going to preface this with this computer will last quite a while, but you won’t have nearly as much of an upgrade path if you went with an AM5 platform (latest AMD CPU socket) on DDR5 (latest generation of RAM). With that said, your use case seems to be one that will not require keeping up with the latest games, so if you want to save some money this is what I would do.
NOTE: Prices are from Amazon, you can likely find a few components cheaper elsewhere.
CPU: You don’t need an R5 7600. I was running an R5 3600 up until a few months ago and the only reason I upgraded was I found a 5800X3D for a good price. I’d go for an R5 5600X which is $60 cheaper than the 7600 and will be more than enough for City Skylines 2
Motherboard: You can now get a B450DS3H board for that CPU for $40 cheaper
RAM: You’ll now be on DDR4. Get a 16GB kit of CL16 DDR4, will be about the same price as the DDR5 you have. May want to go for 32GB of RAM because sim games eat RAM, but ultimately up to you. You can always buy more down the road if needed as a 32GB kit is like $5 less than 2 16GB kits.
Case: The no-name brand cases on Amazon are actually quite good. You can get a nice case for ~$50. Hell, I just found a Thermaltake Versa H18 for that price. Another $55 saved.
GPU: I haven’t kept up to date on GPUs, but I’ve heard good things about the 6700XT, and benchmarks look respectable for BG3 and City Skylines 2. You could likely get away with something a bit less powerful, but price to performance seems to side with the 6700XT.
This brings the price down to $831. You could ditch the aftermarket cooler and get it under $800 as the 5600X comes with a cooler, but I’m never going to knock aftermarket coolers as they tend to be much quieter and less whiny than stock.
I also went down the “is AM4 still good?” Rabitthole and decided because I don’t have a Microcenter near me, I could not get a 5800X3D, so I didn’t want to build it. After watching many videos though, AM4 is a mature platform and so thoroughly developed. Sales are on fantastic products, and the GPU and RAM will remain upgradeable for years, just that upgrading the CPU would require a new MOBO as well. Building AM5, seems OP already knows a great deal, but the news is that it can be finicky and returning products because they don’t work so well is more common than usual.
I only grabbed a 5800x3D at boxing day last year, because I’m running an AM4 board and it was one less thing I’d need to update, well that and I’d have to also buy all new ram and buy in at the peak of pricing.
If I was building from scratch today, I would unquestionably do an AM5 build. If I had an AM4 board and I was otherwise happy with my RAM setup, it’s still a pretty tough choice. You aren’t going to get as much time out of it at this point vs AM5, at least I don’t think. It also means your next build is going to almost for sure need to be entirely a new build, save for the case, the power supply (if it’s big enough) and maybe the storage (which hopefully will be larger and cheaper by then). The hard part, too, is they are already talking about a release window for AM6. So maybe AM5 doesn’t last as long as AM4 does, making this all moot. But you’d probably still have a refresh window with AM5 at that point, and not be totally obsolete.
I was pretty frustrated reading about the Microcenter 5800x3D situation. I am so jealous of city dwellers lately, I’m looking for reasons to seethe about living in the middle of nowhere.
To play devils advocate, I think on a budget Am5 mobo (b650) Pcie 4 x 4 is the main or only storage choice? I think my mobo came with one pcie 5 x 4 m.2 slot, or maybe it didn’t even. And then graphics cards might be on pcie4 for much longer yet as they use 4 x 8 lanes while using a 4x16 slot. There’s been a leak that a Pcie5 card from AMD MAY release soon. Neither OP or I will need it for a 1080p monitor though 😆
I honestly let fears about upgradeability get to me a lot more than I hope OP does. I think there is a sub-$1000 Am5 build that can make a terrific value/longevity out of this situation. But when I did, I talked myself into spending a lot more. 😅
Bringing up AM6 is a terrific point! AM5 high end has some really bad issues right now, and AMD very well might to redesign the chip and/or socket to get better performance.
I think in this case AM4 is fine. I recommended it because OP mentioned the price was a bit much, and AM4 at the moment gets you a lot of value. Especially given they are someone who plays indie games primarily with some heavier games occasionally and isn’t on all the latest AAA games. I’m actually very similar to them where I’ll play the occasional AAA game, but I mainly stick to Minecraft and KSP (which is stupid CPU intensive). My R5 3600 was more than enough for this and my upgrade was 100% unnecessary, so the 5600X should last them quite a while. There is also a decent upgrade path from a 5600X to a 5800X3D or 5900X3D.
We’re starting to see gaps between generations get smaller as Moore’s law fails, so I think parts are going to start lasting a bit longer now anyway. Hell, my 4970k lasted me almost 7 years, and my mom ran it in her work PC I built her for another 3 after that.
I honestly don’t think either path is a bad one, just up to them if they want to save some money or get a little bit more upgradability.
Actual Sunlight. It has one achievement, “Actual Sunlight”, whose description is “Thank you.” It’s awarded at the end of the game. 37.8% of players have the achievement.
It’s a short RPG Maker game about depression that probably resonates a bit too much with a bit too much of it’s base. It’s bleak, and inane, and all the other sorts of ways that life generally sucks, especially for lonely, introverted, geeky 30-somethings. And the ending of the game is
spoilerchoosing suicide.
I wouldn’t be shocked if a good half or more of players can’t bring themselves to drag through it, and some number further just shut the game down and quit when they reach
spoilerthe prompt: “Go to the roof of the building and jump off?” and both options are Yes.
I am on the exact same boat as you. 9yo daughter keeps asking to download a bunch of crap with in app purchases or ads. The problem is that there’s so much crap for mobile. I almost never play anything on my phone, but her at her age and the current times of short attention span being bored for longer than a second seems.like a taboo, she needs to have stuff on her phone, even though we have a Switch at home with loads of good quality games.
I agree there’s a lot of crap, and it takes some time and conversation. Lots of tips in this topic as well. Eg Play Pass looks pretty cool so far, and I’m going to look at F Droid and installing an emulator.
I’m also explaining to her why I reject some apps. She seems to understand it better and better.
I’m also going to look at using Tasker to set it to airplane mode on all apps except Play Store and Chrome.
I had a list of some flash games I used to obsess over, but I can’t find it right now. I’ll throw Sonny 2 as my recommendation, I beat that game many times and I still come back to it every now and then. It’s a top-tier RPG.
I would also recommend Gemcraft and Bloons TD, but they have premium sequels now that are way better than the web games.
I remember a time when I would finish an AC game in like one weekend, but after black flags the series just became boring. Seems like open world slop is what ubisoft is going for.
Same. Unless I hear otherwise I’ll probably skip this one as, like you, I enjoyed the recent direction of the last 3 installments more than previous ones.
I like factory or management games, even ones where it is expected you will fail, like Dwarf Fortress, because it’s not about winning or getting a high score. It’s about going in with an idea and setting it through to fruition. I like seeing things I spent a bunch of time on as a large concrete thing I can go back and look at again, and actually have it provide meaningful value in a direct way instead of just incrementing some number in the engine somewhere.
I still play some roguelites that are like that, but there is something nice about sandbox games where progress isn’t directly quantifiable.
I finished the story in TOTK on Sunday, and I just started Baldur’s Gate 3. But I’m starting to wonder if I should pause BG3 for a minute and play through something a little smaller rather than going from one huge game to another.
I’m just amazed that prey 2006 is still hilariously cheap on those gray Market sites, cuz that’s the only way to get it now
One day I’ll give the game with the same name an actual shot, because I’m sure it’s good on its own merits, but it will always be a reminder that Prey 2. The REAL Prey 2 was stolen from us
I still need to play it, been meaning to go a playthrough on my Steam Deck but every time I hear about Prey someone is always saying it’s a great game.
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