Hi all, I’m moving away to college in the spring and I’m trying to decide whether or not to bring my PC (pictured above). It has a Ryzen 7 3800x and RTX 3070 with 32gb 3200mhz RAM. Anyways if I bring it I don’t want to risk moving it all around and potentially damaging the intricate water cooling parts causing a leak.
If I do bring it these are the options I can think of:
Option A: I will transfer everything into an ITX case for easier transport and storage. On that note however, I’ll have to buy a new mobo. Does it make sense to buy another AM4 mobo? Or as long as I’m replacing the mobo, I might as well upgrade to ddr5 and go with a newer chip? I’m torn either way. Additionally, If anyone knows of a good itx case that supports a full sized PSU could you let me know what you think of it because I really don’t want to spend money on an sfx PSU.
Option B: I take my 3070 out and drop my 1660 ti into the build now and sell that. Then take the money I get from that to build a sff pc from scratch using the 3070.
I appreciate any input.
45 Comments
Are you going to be staying in the dorm? If so, I can promise you it’s not going to be locked the majority of the time. On top of the fact that you never know what your dorm partners are going to be like.
Personally, if you have anything expensive or delicate, I would wait a semester before bringing it to college with you, regardless of the actual how you would make it work.
I cannot argue against dorm security-issues, but I wouldnt take apart this beauty. Just take out the GPU and water for the transport and bring some paper for leak-tests.
No
No. Dorm rooms are small (usually) and even my velka 3 build just barely fits on my desk and I have nowhere else to put it. Plus a water loop is such a pain in the ass to repair if anything goes wrong during shipping or while you’re away.
I’d bring a sleeper in an old prebuilt case. Or a laptop that you can lock away.
This thing screams, ” Steal me, make some money.”
OT: Nice build!
Nah it’ll break plus you should be meeting people in your class more than playing video games your first semester. Thats your time to really find your clique before later years when coursework takes up the majority of your time.
If you’re in a dorm, I’d recommend scaling down to mini ITX or just doing a laptop.
Probably better off spending the money on a steam deck or laptop honestly. Keep the PC at home, it’s nice and will get damaged/stolen for sure. Dorms aren’t somewhere you want to keep very valuable things that aren’t necessities. When you move into your own place, then think about bringing it.
Gaming laptops are much better for the dorm and college life in general.
Why not just get a laptop and use parsec to connect to your pc remotely? You won’t have to worry about having your computer stolen and parsec is good enough for anything that isn’t sensitive to latency.
Leave it at home you can always ship it later once you feel the situation out. It will also give you more time to focus on school and more importantly meeting new friends and stuff.
Yeah, think of all the girl’s you’ll get.
Nah bro, i got hammered one night and ended up sleep walking and pissing all over my computer desk. Learn from my mistakes, and if not you, can end up with a room mate like me.
This pc looks way better than the specs ..
Leave at home, that is for gaming. Get a suitable laptop or tablet you can take to classes and write papers. You hopefully won’t be spending much time gaming but rather going out and meeting ppl in person!
If you’re smart enough, you can bring an old laptop that gets your work done to your dorm room, then connect to your desktop using RDP, probably hosted somewhere like home.
I’d just bring it. If you’re feel apprehensive buy a cheap air cooler for the cpu.
laptop
Just buy a cheap tower or AIO and a CHEAP case. Should be able to sleeperizer it for under $100
Just turn it towards the wall. I brought my whole setup to college, just don’t bring sketchy weirdos in ur room and keep it locked. Also remember you’re more likely to be robbed by friends than you are enemies.
Will you have a room to yourself? Wouldn’t want anyone messing with it.
You want the bomb squad knocking on your door?🤣🤣🤣
Laptop, partner.
Meet the guy/guys you will be staying with first. Then decide to bring the PC on next trip from back home.
When I was in college, I knew the guy who was my room mate beforehand. Nice guy overall, but sometimes he would get up middle of the night and unplug my pc’s powercable. I kid you not, he had no clue what he was doing, he would still be asleep, I had to take him back to bed 1-2times a month.
If its coed, stay away from the girls who let anyone in their room.
Oh yes also use a fake mac address with a good paid VPN. You will thank me later. Best of luck for college.
I took mine but this was like 10+ (~2007ish) years ago… I didn’t worry about all the stuff I’m reading in the comments here. But also didn’t hear about anything stolen from my floor, so maybe times have changed. It also took up like a third of my desk but really, who cares. I didn’t really need to spread out all that much and when I needed to study with people, we generally went to the library nearby or the rooms on the floor designated for this. Otherwise, unlike what others said, I did game quite a bit, and so did my roommate at the time. It was worth it to me and I enjoyed it but it is what it is.
I’d say buy a gaming laptop
No, my one regret was bringing mine. Go do stuff. You pay a ton of money, go get your money’s worth with clubs, friends, etc
I’m going to say no. Take a laptop. There’s too much risk for theft or damage unless you’re going to have a private room. You never know how much your potential roommate(s) will respect your property
You can always remote into it
Not in a case like that. You’re gonna be better off hiding the internals if you even bring it at all. Don’t EVER trust dorm locks.
My wife had a roommate kick a soccer ball in the room and knock over a full cup of Gatorade on her laptop like week 2 of college lol I’d cool it for a semester so you can make sure your roommate is solid and nobody is going to fuck with your stuff
I have very found memories of pc gaming in college dorms. I would 100% recommend bringing it but just use it in moderation as your studies are far more important.
As cool as your setup it, I wouldn’t take it to college. I say get something cheaper pc or laptop so you won’t be gutted if something happens to it.
Nope, definitely gonna get stolen. I wouldn’t bring anything of real value that can’t be easily concealed or carried at all time. This is regardless of where you live but as long as you live with more than one other person you should assume anything regularly visible and of value is potentially going to get stolen.
I had roommates or was borderline homeless from 18 to 28, it wasn’t til I was 28 that I even built my second PC due to frequent moves and having roommates; let alone not much of anything, at all lol
I’ll hold on to it for you while you decide
I brought my computer day one of college and it survived all 4 years. My roommates my sophomore year were lunatics in hindsight im fortunate it survived lol
No. Spend your time studying and with friends. I know a ton of people who brought a PC/console to college and they either A. Didn’t socialize and made no friends during their first year. B. Let videogames distract them from their studies and didn’t do well in school, or C. Both.
I’m just over here wondering how the hell a high school student got a hard line waterloop build.
yes
Personally, I had a gaming laptop and a Macbook for my first 3 years. Senior year when I got my own apartment is when I finally brought my setup from home.
others have brought up good points but another is that dorm electrical can sometimes be ancient and not accustomed to high power devices (ive had dorms limit microwaves and flat out ban portable hvac due to power draw and breaker issues)
Same situation, I have been using parsec to remotely access and game on my pc for a year now. With an old laptop/pc.My latency usually hovers between 25-35ms
I hope you dont suddenly see no gpu in the case
As a former RA I can confidently tell you it all depends on your roommate. If you have one that likes to have people over all the time, then it’s anyone’s guess how their friends will treat your room and anything in it. I’ve dealt with too many drunk people to feel safe with anything too expensive left in the open. If your roommate prefers to go out, or doesn’t usually have friends over, then it all depends if you trust your roommate to not steal or fuck with it. I’d give benefit of the doubt to a decent roommate before you meet them. After all, a rando you may only see once, but your roommate you’ll likely see almost every day.
My advise, if you can hold off for a month, bring it then. Wait until you get a feel for your roommate and their habits. The decision and PC is entirely yours to make. I’d support the decision to switch cases if not too much of a hassle, just for the sake of being more like a “sleeper” pc.
Cheaper to get another AM4 mobo, but in the long run the AM5 platform will get you more down the road if you choose to upgrade. However, that 5800X3D is a nice upgrade when you think about it!
If you are staying on campus/dorm then it’s going to get stolen, it’s too pretty