PC build under $1,800?

Hey there.

I need to pull together a PC build ASAP—budgeting around $1,800, just the tower, no peripherals. I’m trying to get this sorted before the holiday rush kicks in.
Mainly, I'll be grinding in the Adobe Suite (mostly After Effects), plus some heavy lifting in Adobe Premiere Pro since it's super GPU intensive, and maybe a little bit of 3D work on the side.

This is for a company expense, so I don't mind pulling parts from different retailers to make it happen.

Cheers and thanks.

I’m not sure if you’ve been following the news regarding the supply shortages, but the next generation of graphics cards hasn't even hit the shelves in decent quantities yet. Every time stock becomes available, it vanishes instantly, which usually drives prices through the roof because demand far outweighs what's sitting in the warehouse. From what I've seen, Best Buy occasionally gets them at reasonable prices, but you have to be incredibly fast to snag one.

In my opinion, your best bet is to try and hunt down an RTX 3060 Ti for roughly $400-$$1333 (you'll mostly see NVIDIA brands like Palit or Gainward at Best Buy) or perhaps an RTX 3070 for around $1667. If you can manage to pull that off, building out the rest of the rig around those specs will be a breeze.

What’s the deal with those NVIDIA graphics cards anyway? I honestly haven't heard a peep about them—not that I've been keeping up with GPU manufacturers for ages, truth be told.

Timothy Kim60 said:I don't know if you're fully caught up on the whole supply chain mess, but honestly, the new generation of graphics cards hasn't even hit the shelves in any decent amounts. Every time a few units actually show up, they vanish instantly, and the prices get totally inflated because demand is just way higher than what's sitting in stock. From what I've seen, Best Buy might occasionally have them at somewhat sane prices, but man, you really gotta be fast.

If you ask me, just try to hunt down an RTX 3060 Ti for somewhere around $390-$1333 (you can usually find NVIDIA or Gainward brands over at Best Buy) or maybe an RTX 3070 for about $1667. If you can actually snag one of those, then putting together the rest of the build around it should be pretty straightforward

I think they might have some in stock at Best Buy.

Lawrence Garcia89 said:What's the deal with those Palit graphics cards anyway? I haven't really heard of them (to be honest, I haven't followed GPU manufacturers in quite a while).

It really comes down to the specific cooler design and which particular model you're looking at.

Basically, they are one of the largest vendors for NVIDIA GPUs—they actually oversee several brands, including Gainward, NVIDIA, and KFA.

Generally speaking, their coolers are solid to excellent, especially over the last four or five years. If we're specifically talking about the 3060Ti, you can feel very confident picking up those Palit or Gainward models.

https://www.bestbuy.com/graphics-card-example-ddr6-051800714
https://www.bestbuy.com/graphics-card-example-ddr6-051800738

Timothy Kim60 said:Basically, they're one of the biggest vendors for NVIDIA GPUs—they’ve got a whole lineup of sub-brands under their umbrella, including names like Gainward, NVIDIA, and KFA.

I actually had no clue about that, so I guess you could say they're pretty solid. I only asked because their stuff seemed to be all over the place on the Links, especially when looking for a decent graphics card. Thanks for clearing that up.

A brand name alone isn't a guarantee of quality or failure. Every manufacturer has their hits and their misses. For instance, last generation, Dell had some seriously subpar cooling solutions (especially on their Intel-based builds), and the ROG Zephyrus line often struggled with thermal issues. However, this latest generation of ROG Zephyrus models actually features excellent cooling. That's why you have to evaluate every single product on its own merits by digging into actual reviews. There are no perfect products out there.

I honestly don't get why the quality is such a roller coaster. IBM had some terrible motherboards once, and then there was that absolute disaster of a gaming laptop—the one that looks like a total steal on paper but is actually trash. I wouldn't suggest an IBM product to anyone without seeing a solid review first.