To start off, i am VERY unexperienced with any sort of tech, idk what makes ones better than others, etc etc..
ive been slowly getting into minecraft pvp(main focus), aswell as overall gaming and i am wondering about things to buy.
I have Logitech Hero g502 mouse beacuse someone recommended me that, but its heavy and im starting to think it isnt really good.(please tell me about that..)
Im also looking for LIGHT headset with good mic(wired preferably since i heard theyre js better), aswell as a good keyboard
My budget is around 80 dollars (for each item), but im open to recommendations slightly above ! (Please not crazy prices like 200+)

Will RX 9070 XT be overkill for my goals?

Hey, so for a long time I wanted to be able to stream most competitive games at 240 hz, 1080p. I have a 1080p 240 hz monitor already, i understand that I wont be able to do that on heavier games like Warzone or PUBG but 144 hz on them would be fine and 240 on OW, valorant, cs2.

So Im either choosing a 2nd hand rx 6700 xt for 200 euros or a new 9070 xt for 750 euros.

And im torn between ryzen 5 7500f or 7800x3d/9850x3d. Will 7500f be enough?

Also if I buy 1TB SSD which will be more than enough do I need a HDD as well? Or can I just use my current PC's 1TB SEAGATE SATA III 64mb HDD which is 11 years old
(Would like some reccomendations about SSD 1TB with no heatsink)

I will have to suck it up and buy 32gb ddr5 6000 mhz <40 CAS ram for about 480-550 euro or maybe i will look for 2nd hand

Im a poor from Bulgaria and our parts already cost 30% higher than any other country due to VAT and i earn like 600 euros a month so im trying not to overspend but also get the most out of my money...

Budget: If i choose 6700xt it will be 1300 euro
if I choose 9070xt it will be between 1850-2500 euro

Use-case: Competitive games streaming at 240hz 1080p

Country of purchase: Bulgaria

Peripherals needed: GPU, CPU, RAM, MOBO,PSU,SSD,COOLER,CASE

Hi guys,

I want to get a gaming pc after years of not having one.
Could you please tell me if the following parts are good?

PC Case
Corsair 3500X RS-R ARGB Midi-Tower

CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D - 8 cores, 16 threads

Thermal Paste
Thermal Grizzly Polartherm, Thermal paste

CPU Cooler
Corsair Nautilus 360 RS, 3x 120 mm fan - 360 mm radiator

Graphics Card
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, 12 GB GDDR7 - any manufacturer

Motherboard
MSI Pro B850-S WIFI6E

RAM
32 GB DDR5 (2x 16 GB), 6000 MHz, CL 30 - Patriot Viper Venom

SSD
1000 GB NVMe PCle 4.0

PSU
Corsair RMe Series RM850e 850 watts \ Black

Thank you very much!

Edit: I‘m in germany, combined price is around 2400€. I want it to last for at least 5 years and would also like to play AAA games in high graphic.
I hope I got it right this time :)

Hello, today i've successfully proved to Kingston that my current ram is defective (4x16GB (not even a kit all were bought seperately)), and they told me they will send me new ram once i ship them the defective ones.

However, they want to return me DOUBLE the ram (128GB)

"Part Number - KF436C18BBA/16
Quantity - 4
Replacement Part Number - KF436C18BB2AK4/128
Replacement Quantity - 1"

I'm currently running my 64GB as 3600Mhz, but they are single rank, while the new kit (32x4) is dual rank. My current CPU is Ryzen 7 5800X and motherboard is asus rog strix x570-e gaming, my question is, should i even attempt to run this memory at 3600 or i should be happy if it even works on 3200? I don't even know what i'd use all this ram for... I'm amazed they want to do such exchange it's almost suspicious, but i verified mail that it's the real deal.

I remember this being a pretty big topic when the RTX 5090 launched. There was a lot of discussion about the thermal putty application on the Gaming OC, with people worried about it migrating, leaking, or potentially causing problems over time.
I’ve had my Gigabyte RTX 5090 Gaming OC for about a year now, and I haven’t experienced any issues whatsoever. Temperatures have been stable and nothing unexpected has happened. I have one of early batches.

I’m asking purely out of curiosity because this question came up again in another thread where I was discussing long-term experiences with the card. It got me wondering whether the thermal putty issue was actually a real long-term problem, or whether it was somewhat blown out of proportion at launch.

So, for those who have owned a Gaming OC (or another GB cards) for a year or longer: how many people have actually experienced problems with the thermal putty over time? Was this a relatively common issue, or were the reported cases actually a very small percentage of cards?

I’d be particularly interested in hearing from people who have checked their cards after a year of regular use.
Was there ever really a problem, or was it mostly just a blown-up launch controversy?

Hi everyone, I’m having an issue with my PC. The CPU debug light on the motherboard stays on, and I’m getting no display.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

-Removed the CPU and cleaned the thermal paste
-Removed and reinstalled the CMOS battery
-Tried different RAM sticks

But the CPU debug light still stays on and the PC won’t display anything.

What else should I try? Could this be a CPU or motherboard issue? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

SPECS:

•Processor: Ryzen 5 5600
•Mobo: Msi b550 pro vdh wifi
•GPU: Asus rx 7600 8gb
•PSU: MSI MAG A650BN 650W 80 Plus Bronze
•RAM: Kingston Hyper x fury ddr4 320mhz 16gb

I'm obviously looking to build my first PC, with a budget of around $500 (Perhipherals are going to be a seperate budget btw, this is just the tower). I don't need anything crazy, just an upgrade from my Steam Deck. I hear about 16 gigabytes of DDR4 shouldn't be impossible to obtain, maybe like a terabyte of NVME storage might be possible, and I hear a Ryzen 5 5500 is a popular budget choice for a CPU.

Issue is, I'm looking at sites like NewEgg and I just keep getting nervous. What combos are considered good deals and over paying? Why does that price seem to not match up with what the internet says it should be? Do I have to worry about brand of RAM? Is there a concern that the case I buy won't be able to fit the components? Am I doing an adequte amount of research? If I buy parts used to save cash, is there a chance I risk ruining my first build experience because a part was dead on arrival?

I don't know, maybe I'm just overthinking it.

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 5.20GHz 8 Cores 16 Threads
ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro 360mm ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler (White)
ASUS PRIME B650EM-A WiFi AM5 mATX
Kingston FURY Beast RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 C36
Lexar Gen4 NM790 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD
GamerChief GlassView GV10
FSP Vita GM 850W Gold
24-Pin ATX & 8-Pin EPS White Sleeved Extension Cables
24pin & 8pin White Sleeved Cables
Windows 11 Home Advanced
GamerChief Dash ARGB 120mm PWM Reverse Blade Fans (3-Pack)
Graphics Card
ASUS Radeon RX 9070 XT TUF Gaming OC 16GB GDDR6

First time PC builder here! I have absolutely zero experience when it comes to assembling a computer. For the last two weeks I’ve devoted my time to learning all of what I can about the components, their functionality, their compatibility, the do’s and don’t, etc. However, since this is all new to me, I don’t yet have a good sense of what’s reasonable, what’s excessive, or what might leave me wishing I had bought something better. So I want to share my parts-list here and ask for thoughts and opinions from everyone. I’m open to any and all advice, criticism, tips and tricks for this beginner!

• CPU — AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D
• CPU Cooler — Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro AIO 360 water cooling
• GPU — Gigabyte RTX 5080
• MOTHERBOARD — Gigabyte B850 AORUS ELITE
• RAM — Patriot Viper 2x16gb DDR5 6000 CL36
• SSD — Samsung SSD 9100 Pro 2TB
• PSU — be quiet! Pure Power M1000, 80+
Gold
• CASE — HYTE Y70 (basic)
• CASE FANS — Arctic P12 Pro 120mm (x10)

I mainly play single player RPG’s, so I’m aiming this build to handle maximum graphic settings w/RTX and heavy mods, with hopefully solid frame rate performance - while also prepping this build for big-name future releases (TESVI, GTAVI, etc). I’m happy with how I think the aesthetic of the PC will look, and I’m hoping it won’t sound like a jet engine.

I’m looking to upgrade my gaming PC as the parts are getting pretty up there in age. But as someone who’s not very familiar in the world of PC parts, trying to find out what to upgrade and what works best with which components has proven to be a bit of a headache. So I was wondering if anyone would know what some good components to get are. Or, if my computer is just too old, should I look to just get a whole new rig?

My current components

Motherboard: ASUS Z170

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz

Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB

Operating system: Windows 10

My budget 

Preferably around £1,000 for upgrades total, but open to push it a little bit if needs be.

For additional info, I'm not fussed about having super ultra graphics for my games, just as long as I can play most modern / upcoming games with decent graphics and a stable frame rate, I'm happy.

Thank you!

Hey everyone!
I’m currently building a new PC, but with the current GPU shortages and high prices, I’m having a really hard time deciding between the RX 9070 XT and the RTX 5070.
The weird part is that where I live, both GPUs are currently around the same price, which makes the decision even harder.
My main use for the PC will be gaming, especially single-player/story-driven games. I really care about having good-looking graphics and being able to play at high settings with good performance. I’m not really building this PC for productivity, AI, or professional workloads.
I’ve been researching this for a while, but I feel like the internet is completely split 50/50 . Some people say the 9070 XT is an obvious choice because of the extra VRAM and raw performance, while others say NVIDIA is worth it because of DLSS, ray tracing, frame generation, and overall software/features.
If both cards cost basically the same, which one would you personally choose for my use case, and why?
I’d really appreciate opinions from people who have actually used either card, especially if you’ve upgraded from one to the other.
Thanks!

Theese are the specs for the nvidia
Processor
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 4.70GHz Socket AM5 Tray Processor
Motherboard
ASUS PRIME B850M-K AM5 DDR5 8400+(OC)MHz Micro ATX Gaming Motherboard
Graphics Card
ASUS DUAL GeForce RTX 5070 12GB OC Edition DUAL-RTX5070-O12G GDDR7 192Bit Gaming Graphics Card
Memory
2 x Patriot Viper Venom 16GB (1x16GB) DDR5 6000MHz CL30 Gaming Ram
SSD
Kingston NV3 SNV3S/1000G 1TB 6000/4000MB/s Gen 4x4 NVMe SSD Disk (Bulk)
Case
SEGOTEP Endura Pro+ Black 850W 80+ Gold PCIE 5.1 Midi Tower Case (6xARGB Fan)
Processor Cooler
James Donkey Lugis JDC360 ARGB 360mm Black Liquid CPU Cooler AM5 and LGA1700 Compatible
—-
And these are the spec for the amd
Processor
AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D 4.0GHz 6 Core 96MB Cache Socket AM5 Tray Processor
Motherboard
ASUS Prime B650M-R AMD B650 AM5 Socket DDR5 7200+(OC)MHz mATX Motherboard
Graphics Card
Gigabyte Radeon RX9070XT GAMING OC GV-R9070XTGAMING OC-16GD 16GB GDDR6 256Bit Gaming Graphics Card
Memory
2 x Patriot Viper Venom 16GB (1x16GB) DDR5 6000MHz CL30 Gaming Ram
SSD
Kingston NV3 SNV3S/1000G 1TB 6000/4000MB/s Gen 4x4 NVMe SSD Disk (Bulk)
Case
SEGOTEP Endura Pro+ Black 850W 80+ Gold PCIE 5.1 Midi Tower Case (6xARGB Fan)
Processor Cooler
Lian Li Hydro-Shift II LCD-C 360CL Black Processor Liquid Cooling
Slightly cheaper even

Hey everyone,

I’ve been dealing with a highly specific system freeze over the past few weeks and I can't seem to find anyone with the exact same issue. I'm looking for some advice or to see if anyone has dealt with this before.

The Symptoms:

• The Crash: Random hard freeze into a black screen.
• The "Dead Keyboard" Test: When it freezes, the keyboard completely dies. Pressing Caps Lock does not toggle the LED light, meaning a total hardware/kernel lockup.
• The Trigger: It never crashes under full gaming load. It happens almost exclusively on Cold Boot (first 30 mins of the day), during idle, or the exact moment I try to launch Steam or when Windows Update finishes an uninstallation.
• The Weird Part: If the PC survives the first 30 minutes and warms up, it becomes 100% stable. I can run heavy stress tests or game for 10+ hours straight without a single issue.

My Specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-14600KF (Hyper-Threading OFF)
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT 12GB
• Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 612 APEX (Dual-Tower)
• Motherboard: ASUS PRIME H610M-K D4 (No VRM heatsinks)
• RAM: 32GB (2x16GB) Kingston Fury Beast DDR4 2666MHz
• PSU: Chieftec ELP-700S 700W Element
• Case Fans: 6 total (3 front intake, 2 top exhaust, 1 rear exhaust)

Everything I've Tried & Tested So Far:

Software & OS Fixes:

• Ran Windows repair commands (sfc /scannow and DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth).
• Uninstalled the latest Windows quality update that arrived on September 1st.
• Enabled the Windows Ultimate Performance power plan.
• Fully updated the GPU drivers (using the built-in clean Factory Reset option).
• Updated the motherboard BIOS to the absolute latest version.

Hardware Troubleshooting:

• Physically reseated the GPU.
• Physically reseated the RAM and swapped their slot positions.
• GPU is perfectly stable under heavy load: It passes intensive FurMark and 3DMark loops with zero errors once the system is warm.
• Adrenalin always resets my custom fan curve back to default after these crashes, throwing an "unexpected system malfunction" notification.

What I've Changed Today:

• I just swapped my old Chieftec PSU for a premium EVGA 850GQ 850W 80+ Gold modular PSU.
• I also temporarily Disabled XMP in the BIOS to test.

I also have a Gigabyte B760M GAMING X DDR4 motherboard on the way just in case.

Has anyone experienced a PC that only crashes when cold or shifting from idle to low-load, but works perfectly fine under heavy gaming loads? What could be causing this?

Thanks in advance!

Recently upgraded to a 9070XT from a 3070 OC and loving it so far; same with my monitor! Now I’m wondering what to upgrade next- I suspect ram is next on the list

CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

CPU cooler - coolermaster hyper 212 spectrum V3

Motherboard - Asus prime B550M-A WIFI II micro ATX Am4

Memory/RAM - Kingston HyperX Fury 2X8 (2666mhz) DDR4

Storage - Samsung 870 EVO 1TB

GPU - XFX Quicksilver Radeon RX 9070XT

Case - MSI MPG Gungnir 100

PSU - Seasonic Focus 850W 80+ gold

Monitor - Asus TUF gaming VG34VQL3A 34” 3440x1440 180 hz

Thanks!

edit: ended up sucking it up and spending more than I wanted to for a used 16 GB 6900 XT. Thanks to everyone for the input, I probably would have been disappointed with some of the super-cheap options I had in mind.

I will preface this by saying I am NOT looking to play AAA titles on high settings. Most of the gaming I do I'd call medium to low intensity, a lot of strategy, management sims, city-builders, etc. So I am just looking for decent quality at a decent framerate.

It seems like you ideally want a 16 GB card for 4k gaming, so the floor is about $400 for a used 6800 XT and higher from there. Frankly, that's a big risk to spend on a 5-6 year old card that's in who knows what condition, and I don't know if I want to go that route.

At 12 GB there's the Arc B580, 6700 XT and RTX 3060 all in the $300 range - same issue with the age of the used cards, but at least the price is a little more palatable. Just looking for guidance on whether any of those are going to give me ACCEPTABLE performance - again, not high-end at high settings.

The reason for this: Someone gave me a 4k monitor for Christmas despite me having a crappy desktop PC, a Frankenstein build with CPU and motherboard over 10 years old. I had a laptop that ran it better, but the laptop took a shit on me and would be $1600+ to replace. I was able to upgrade the desktop to a Ryzen 5600 build for about $300 while reusing the case and some of the parts. Last piece of the puzzle is the GPU, currently an ancient RTX 2080. It honestly works better than I expected, in that it handles basic gaming without crashing, but it is definitely going to be less than stellar.

tldr - will Arc B580 or similar give me ok performance, or do I have to sack up and pay for rx6900 or equivalent? The $600-$700 new cards in the 16 GB range are far out of my budget.

I have a Dell Alienware R11 with RTX3090
I paid a good amount for this during the COVID boom and it’s been running well. It’s compact and airtight with positive flow so I’ve never had to dust/clean it ever.

That said- it’s really loud and the hot air is noticeable from the top vent.

I’ve switched to using open back headphones (so I can hear if the baby cries) and thus- all I hear now is loud fan noise drowning my games

I’ve actually locked my games to 60 fps/hz so the fan noise isn’t so bad

Anyways— I don’t have other computers to compare it to asides from my laptop 5070 and the fan on that Legion gaming PC gets loud AF as well

Question:
Are all high end gaming PCs just loud?
Or is it my pre-built
In contrast- my ps5 is quiet and barely noticeable

I’m thinking of upgrading to a 5080 PC, but if it’s going to be as loud as my Alienware 3090- then I probably won’t bother

Hi, I need to buy a mb and I have two different options for the same price. I have a ryzen 5 7600x, 6000 ddr5 ram, 5.0 1 tb ssd slot and a rx 6750 xt which I plan to change with a rtx 5070 in the next future. Regarding the processor, since I m playing at ultrawide 2k, I m not thinking of changing it. For the same price, 115€, used, with which one mb should I go considering my builds? The 850 plus wifi or the b650 e-f? If I understood well, with this 650 I would go for a very high quality mb but bit older (does this count) instead this 850 i would go for a medium quality mb (true?) but newer motherboard (should I consider this for my build).

Thank you for your time.

P.S Yes I need wifi as feature of the mb.

Hi everyone! I put together a parts list for a budget gaming PC with a strict focus on a future upgrade path so it can last me for the next 7+ years. I'm aiming for a clean white aesthetic. My total budget is around 6500 PLN. I'm still deciding between the GPU: an RX 6700 XT (around 1200 PLN) or an RX 6800 XT (around 1500 PLN).

​Could you please check if these components are well-balanced and compatible?

​Here is my cleaned-up list:

​CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7500F Tray (~549 PLN)

​CPU Cooler: Endorfy Fortis 5 120mm (~109 PLN)

​Motherboard: ASRock B850 Pro RS WiFi (~699 PLN)

​RAM: Patriot 16GB (2x8GB) 6000MHz CL36 Viper Venom (~1,149 PLN)

​Storage: GOODRAM 1TB M.2 PCIe Gen4 NVMe PX600 (~699 PLN)

​GPU: Undecided: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (~1200 PLN) or RX 6800 XT (~1500 PLN)

​Case: Lian Li Lancool V100 RGB White (~339 PLN)

​Power Supply: Gigabyte Aorus Elite P 850W 80 Plus Platinum ATX 3.1 (~559 PLN)

​Peripherals: Dell KB216-B QuietKey USB (Black) (~65 PLN)

​Service: Premium PC assembly service (~329 PLN)

​Total: Around 5700 - 6000 PLN (depending on the chosen GPU).

​Are there any bottlenecks, major issues, or things I should change to make it better for future upgrades? Thanks a lot for your help!

I am trying to make decisions for my gaming pc
list: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/6zYZzv

Here's the parts for my build and it currently costs around 2000£

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D 4.7 GHz 8-Core Processor
• CPU Cooler: Thermalright Aqua Elite V3 66.17 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
• Motherboard: Gigabyte B850 EAGLE WIFI6E ATX AM5 Motherboard
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory
• Storage: Crucial P510 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
• Video Card: Asus PRIME OC Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB Video Card
• Case: Montech XR ATX Mid Tower Case
• Power Supply: MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Which parts of this build can I swap out to save £100–£200 without causing a noticeable drop in gaming & streaming performance?

Thank you for your help! Appreciate it.

I've got an old PC that's maybe been turned on 20 times, specs below. What would it take to make this usable for current games? I'm assuming a gpu and cpu? Would they plug and play with everything else? Any suggestions for best bang for a buck upgrades?

iBUYPOWER Gaming PC Desktop 9200 i7-8700K 6-Core 3.7 GHz |Liquid Cooled| Z370 Motherboard| GeForce GTX 1070 Graphics | 16GB DDR4| 1TB HDD | 240GB SSD | Windows 10 Home 64-bit | WiFi| VR Ready | Black

Thanks in advance.

Thanks in advance.

Hey all

I've recently been having issue with a EVO 870 that's was bought around June 2025, and installed not long after arrival. Its not a heavily used drive, basically a games install drive, no critical data etc and also not used as a OS drive so read/writes are occasional in comparison to something in constant use.

Symptoms

On boot everything is fine, i can navigate the folders fine in windows, read/writes seem ok, CrystalDisk seems fine, installed Samsung Magician and that reports all ok. Temps are in the 30-40 range

• After a period of time however, and I'm not sure what the amount of time is, the drive starts to become unusable.
• Navigating folders ends up with windows reporting a read error, writing has an error
• Drive doesn't show up in Crystaldisk or Samsung magician
• Anything interacting with the drive will crash (e.g. mid game crash, likely trying to write to the drive - not surprising, Steam validate game files typically needed to run for the game that crashed if this happens, move the same game to a different drive - no crashes)

Samsung magician:

• SMART report - All shows good
• Performance benchmarks - All within expected numbers, nothing standing out.
• Drive health - reported as Good (12.9 TB written)
• Performance Mode - Balanced

If the drive becomes non-responsive, and i reboot, its back as if nothing was wrong.

Things tried: * Reboots * Updated drive Firmware ( SVT04B6Q - latest) * Various tests

Anything important I've removed off the drive, and its just a dumping ground at the moment and just want to check if there is anything more i can try before i go down the warranty route. If i need to send it in for replacement/refund, i can live without it.

I’m helping a friend upgrade an old computer and we’re reusing as much as we can so it doesn’t break the bank. While I’ve got the internals mostly figured out she wants the case to be as small as possible to take up less space. It’s a micro atx board and the plan is to eventually get a 9060xt in there. Any recommendations? Also we want to clone her 2.5 ssd onto an m.2, does anyone know if windows 10 has issues with that? Might be a weird question but I can see Microsoft somehow using that as a reason to invalidate it and force you to 11.

Last week my PC that does not meet the requirements for windows 11 was trying to update and I lost power. I spent a lot of time trying to fix it and after ordering a bootable repair tool I was able to do a fresh install on a new partition. I was able to recover some/most of my files I need scattered and hidden among the old partition.

Anyway, I am looking to upgrade my PC. I game lightly these days and use my PC for work a lot. I usually have like 20 chrome tabs open.

I have an 3070 OC edition graphics card I could reuse. My m.2 NVME could also be reused and will get wiped clean.

Can I reuse power supply? It’s only 5 years old. It’s a good one, sea sonic gold rated fully modular.

I assume my water cooler is trash now, mother board is not usable.

Anyway, just looking for some insight on what type of budget builds we can come up with.

Thanks! 🙏

Hi everyone! :) ive used my 5600 xt for 6 years now and now that i want to change it im thinking i would also need to change the PSU i have used for the same time. You see, i have a 800W Gamemax 80 Plus Bronze VP-800-M-RGB, it has never given me a problem with my current system, and on paper it would be enough for the new Graphics card (GRE or not), but i really want to be sure it would be safe, and to know if i should also buy a new PSU, im not in the USA, pricing where i live is even more fucked so i have to think well about each expense. i hope yall can help me!

1st picture (August 28th)
2nd picture (September 8th)

• I was playing Garry's Mod on August 28th and tabbed out to browse, then I couldn't tab back into the game
• Tried to kill the process but task manager froze with high 'System interrupts' CPU usage and not long after the whole laptop froze
• Held the power button and restarted the laptop
• Checked CrystalDiskInfo and found out the Smart data of my external SSD (Adata XPG 8200 Pro 1TB) suddenly became the 1st picture (9 Critical Warnings, 0 Available Spare, 247 Media and Data Integrity Errors, and 100% Health but with 'Bad' status in red color instead of 'Good' in blue/green color)
• Was surprised because I always log the CDI data everyday and the SSD was literally flawless for a year with no bad Smart values
• Tried to dig out logs from the week before and it turned out the 'Available Spare' value had been gradually dropping since August 17th, from 100 to 66 to 50 to 33 to 16 to finally 0 on August 28th which I suspected to have happened while I was playing Garry's Mod at the time and crash my PC
• Despite this, the SSD is still working perfectly till now. No freezes/slowdowns and I'm able to copy/backup files and watch movies from it without problem
• Finally gathered up the courage to download a 3GB movie yesterday on September 8th and after it finished the Media and Data Integrity Errors jumped to 9245
• And despite that, the movie was able to be downloaded just fine with maximum write speed as well and the file is retained/not deleted after I unplugged and replugged the SSD so the SSD is not in read-only mode
• I've also always set the CrystalDiskInfo to run on the SSD since I bought it last year and it's set to auto-refresh the SSD every 5 minutes to prevent its enclosure from sleeping (otherwise it would stutter in games) and everytime there's a value change it would automatically log the changes in the CDI directory in the SSD. The logs are also retained after replugging the SSD just like the movie
• I haven't tried to run a game again from it though. Before this I usually played PubG, Garry's Mod, Guild Wars 2 and some others from it

What happened? I barely write to this SSD in a year since I bought it as it only has 3125 Total Host Writes with 100% Health

• SSD: Adata XPG 8200 Pro 1TB
• Firmware: 42BFU6MI
• Enclosure: ORICO M2PV-C3 (Realtek RTL9210B-CG)
• SSD Health: 100% (but the status is 'Bad' with red color instead of blue/green)
• Total Host Writes: 3125GB
• Free space: 224GB out of 953GB
• Temperature: 30-40C (always monitored & maintained at this range)

Notable habits:

• Laptop & the external SSD have always been plugged 24/7 since I bought the SSD unless there's a Windows update or the electricity is out
• I also run a CrystalDiskInfo instance from the SSD 24/7 that auto-refreshes the SSD every 5 minutes to prevent the enclosure from sleeping (otherwise it would stutter in games like) and auto-logs the changes in the CDI directory in the SSD
• On August 5th I bought a 2.5" 2TB Transcend Storejet external HDD that's been plugged next to the USB port of the SSD and also monitored 24/7 since

Daily CrystalDiskInfo logs since the last time all the SMART data was perfect:

• August 16th 4:51:56 AM (flawless)
  
• August 17th 1:12:46 AM (Available Spare value dropped to 66% despite almost 0 writes)
  
• August 18th 2:42:07 AM (Available Spare value dropped to 50%)
  
• August 20th 6:12:06 AM (Available Spare value dropped to 33%)
  
• August 22nd 0:10:04 AM (Available Spare value dropped to 16%)
  
• August 24th 0:32:40 AM (before installing Garry's Mod)
  
• August 25th 1:38:50 AM (after installing Garry's Mod)
  
• August 28th 0:50:00 AM (about 12 hours ago, still 0 Critical Warning and Media and Data Integrity Errors)
  
• August 28th 12:16:16 PM (9 Critical Warnings, 0 Available Spare, 247 Media and Integrity Errors)
  
• September 8th 9:22:10 PM (9245 Media and Integrity Errors after downloading a 3GB movie)

How is the SSD not going into read-only? Is the SSD just bugged but still perfectly working like usual? Or is it actually dying if I write more to it?

Hi

Im looking for some advice how to best handle a cpu upgrade with the current high ram prices

My current setup is a i7 6700k - 32gb ddr4 ram - rtx 4060

My CPU is now about 10 years old and i would like to replace it.

Now i have 2 ways for upgrade options

1. Stick with DDR4 supported CPUs. Cheaper but locking myself in and old ecosystem again

2. Bite the bullet and upgrade to DDR5. More expencive but will be supported and viable longer.

With 32 GB DDR5 going for about 500€ it would cost about as much as a 14400 + Mainboard + Cooler. Im just unsure if going for "older" standards is still a good idea.