Hey, this will be the first time I’ll ever build a PC and I’m quite excited. But before I do, I’d like to discuss with resources in this forum. I’d like for it to be mostly gaming with the ability to also do 3D art programs like Modeling, Texturing, Game design, Etc.
The specs/Hardware I’m leaning towards is as follows but can be subject to change if there are better options available:
(via pcpartpicker)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
CPU Cooler: This I’ve been somewhat unsure of, I’ve been partial to AIO’s since they look nicer but a traditional air cooler may be easier to begin with. But so far’
Kraken Elite 360 RBG NZXT
Or
any other AIO/Air cooler.
Motherboard: X870 AORUS ELITE WIFIZ ICE ATX AM5 (The 870E doesn’t seem to offer anything that I would need, nor does it come with Wi-Fi on the board and I’m not buying an additional WiFi stick if it isn’t necessary)
Memory: Corsair Dominator Titanium 64 GB
Storage: Kingston NV2 1 TB
Video Card: N/A
I’ve browsed options but everything seems to be unavailable at the moment or is priced in a manner unbefitting of my station. I;e I’m not paying anything more than maybe 1-1.5K. If there’s one’s that are recommended and are within my budget (Which will go over a bit but that’s fine, shipping will obviously be a factor) I’d be more than happy. This is where half of the $ will go to probably.
Case: Lian Li 011 Vision ATX
Power Supply: GameMax RGB Pro 850 W
This looks a bit shady but it’s the cheapest one, if anyone could verify it that’d be great.
Skip the NZXT AIO for literally anything that doesn’t force you to use an internal USB header and proprietary software. It works, but it’s not my idea of a good setup. They’re also kind of huge on cost for performance that isn’t terribly noteworthy. Or go for a tower cooler, because they can’t fail.
Use the $150+ you’ve saved by pursuing perhaps an Arctic Freezer 360 instead and put it toward a 2TB SSD that isn’t terrible. Or a 4TB that is a little bit terrible but at least has enough space to make it worthwhile (TeamGroup MP44letters are like $55/TB).
The 9800X3D is an amazing gaming CPU. It gets distinctly less good the further you stray from gaming though; anything that benefits from core count sees it lose by near 50% margins to the (cheaper!) 9900X. Really kind of comes down to what you’re willing to spend on a GPU; below the ~$750 MSRP bracket, you’re really better off going for a non-X3D chip and more GPU (to use the same money).
Skip NZXT anything. Either get an air cooler or nearly any other AIO. NZXT has been doing some shady shit lately.
Ditto with that nvme. 1TB just isn’t enough these days.
Ditto again with that PSU. Get a good one, with a good warranty unless you want to be chasing gremlins that will appear to have nothing at all to do with the PSU, until the smoke gets out.
Buying a GPU right now is going to be difficult, maybe stick all your PC money in a savings account for a month or three and see how that shakes out in the next two months. Use the time to save more money if you have to.
I appreciate the reply. I’ll definitely keep it in mind. I agree that the NZXT or whatever is definitely overpriced from my own brief research. 9900X seems interesting, seeing how I won’t exclusively be doing gaming (like 90% might be though) but also digital art as well. Is 1TB not enough? I assume that’s a lot but might not be sufficient nowadays it seems.
1tb is enough for your OS plus 5 or 6 AAA titles. I like Crucial nvme drives, they aren’t particularly special, I just like that they are directly owned by Micron.
AMD is usually cheaper than Nvidia for equal, or sometimes better, raw performance but lacks some of the fancier software/features that nvidia can offer.
Thermalright has been pretty good recently, check out their AIO coolers.
I also think the 9900x is a better option. The price difference and performance drop outside of games is just not worth having an extra 3 to 5% fps bump.
1TB is sort of kind of “enough”, but NVMe SSDs lose a huge amount of their theoretical performance as they start to close in on being full, and the Kingston NV2 you referenced is basically Gen 4 in name only; this would conspire to create a noticeably worse experience than you could otherwise expect.
I wouldn’t jump to Gen 5 (though you certainly could with the rest of your planned system) simply because the cost associated is comical, but highish-end gen 4 stuff (SN850X, 990 Pro, etc) is still fairly reasonable on cost. Worth also noting that larger drives tend to have a longer lifetime than their smaller counterparts even given the same exact usecase. A 2TB drive is probably a comfortable level of overkill for OS + games + programs + projects, while a 4TB drive is starting to get into the realm of “could’ve just bought a 2TB and a 12TB HDD” most of the time.
Here is an all white build from pcpartpicker that I just put together, GPU included, with a good PSU as well as air cooler, for under your budget. If you played with it some, you could get it lower as well. I picked solid, reliable parts with a good reputation and warranty.
I use a Noctua NH-D15 G2 on my 7950X without complaint. You won’t be losing any performance by using a tower cooler versus an AIO.
edit: It got a bit more expensive when I remembered the GPU wasnt white.
GPU is a toughy, at this current time-- between the egregious pricing and paper launches
But most up-punchy GPUs, will host a white variant at jump [or shortly after]
exs- ASRocks B580 Steel Legend is white [would hope to see, an B770 in near future]
Powercolor - regularly been hosting whited-out variants of the Hellhound
Gigabyte - Vision series, makes use of white and aluminum
