LB & Sons New Build Prep

Hardware Hub Build a PC
1

Hello everyone, I’m Leon from the USA. I’m a Chef by trade. I have 2 sons, 11 & 7. My 11-year-old is getting ready to go to middle school next year and loves technology. I thought it would be fun, to build a computer with him for gaming and a bit of research and schoolwork. We’re not rich, but not poor. This being our first build, I would like to make it nice but not break the bank. I would like to be able to over build to make it possible for any upgrades or additions later on. I would like to make it water cooled, leaning toward AIO at the moment due to the price difference with the custom loop builds. Below, I will list our parts list so far. Please feel free, to give any advice as I am a novice and would love to make this an amazing project for my son and I. I’m leaning toward Intel CPU’s, just because that’s what I’ve always had in my computers. He wants a black build, so I’m trying to go that way to respect his wishes. I use dollar as currency, but I live in Poland so I do have some access to some other GPU’s that you can’t get in the US due to out of stock. I would like to make my budget under 3K. I’m leaning toward I9 processor but think I7 could be an option also. Please let me know all of your thoughts and guidance. Thanks

Case - Lian Li - 011 Vsion $100 FB or 011D EVO RGB Lamborghini or 011D EVO XL RGB $125 FB
CPU - Intel Core I9-Raptor Lake S Refresh 3.2 GHZ LGA 1700 $390
Motherboard - Asus-Z790-Plus Gaming WIFI D5 Intel LGA 1700 ATX $160
RAM - Corsair-Vengeance RGB 32GB (2*16) DDR5 6000 PC5 CL36 Dual Channel - $98
GPU - XFX-AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Speedster MERC 310 24GB GDDR6 Pcle 4.0 - $1200
M.2 - Samsung - 990 EVO Plus 2TB Samsung V NAND TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4 and PCIe Gen 5 x2 NVMe M.2 Internal SSD] - $130
M.2 -
Samsung - 990 EVO Plus 4TB Samsung V NAND TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4 and PCIe Gen 5 x2 NVMe M.2 Internal SSD] - $260
PSU - Lian Li Edge Series-1000W Full Modular Power Supply-80 Plus Platinum-ATX 3.0, 3.1-PCIE 5.1-L-Shape Design for Dual Chamber Case-120mm FDB Fan-Supports up to 4X USB $180
AIO - Hydro Shift LCD 360S 360mm Water Cooling Kit - Black - $ 180
Fans - Lian Li UNI Fan SL - Wireless 120 - Single Pack (Reverse Blade) ARGB Fan - Controller Not Included - 2.4 GHz Wireless Signal for RGB & Fan Control - Controller Required - Black (12RSL1W1B) - $28 * 2
Fans - Lian Li UNI Fan SL - Wireless 120 - Triple Pack (Reverse Blade) ARGB Fan - 2.4 GHz Wireless Signal for RGB & Fan Control - Controller Included and Required - Black (12RSL1W3B) - $95 * 2
Fans - Lian Li UNI Fan SL - LCD Wireless 120 - Triple Pack - ARGB Fan - 1.6" LCD Display - 2.4 GHz Wireless Signal for RGB & Fan Control - Controller Included and Required - Black (12SLLCD1W3B) - $150
OS - Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64 Bit FPP USB - $200

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Not a bad build though Intel and the LGA 1700 socket is a shitshow. You want to avoid the 13900K and 14900K like the plague as these have hardware flaws that melt capacitors on chip if you are not careful - even with adequate cooling. If you want Intel the 285 Ultra is the better choice, but still hot and loud.

Windows 11 Pro can be had for under $30 and Microsoft are pretty much giving away Windows for free, these days. The only bad thing about the $30 cost is that the key might not be transferrable.

Watercooling is not really any better than air cooling and has more maintenance, if you still want it more power to ya. :slight_smile:

This is what I would build. Not top-of-the-line, but definitely in the high end, this build should be capable of getting you to 4k@120 FPS in most titles. Using german prices, I did add quite a bit of cost. With regards to storage, if you really have need of more than 4TB of storage (and I can definitely say, I personally fit within 2TB comfortably, having 20-30 steam titles installed though only a couple exceed 100GB), I would absolutely recommend the 8TB Western Digital SN850X for ~€600.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 9900X €433.83
CPU Cooler Lian Li Galahad II Trinity SL-INF €189.90
Motherboard Gigabyte X870 GAMING X WIFI7 €255.92
Memory Corsair Vengeance RGB 2x32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 €218.90
Storage Kingston Fury Renegade 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 €275.00
Video Card XFX Mercury OC RGB Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB €798.00
Case Lian Li O11 VISION COMPACT €132.00
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 1000W 80+ Gold €127.66
Case Fan Lian Li Uni Fan SL-Infinity 61.3 CFM 120 mm Fan €34.89
Case Fan Lian Li Uni Fan SL-Infinity 61.3 CFM 120 mm Fan €34.89
Total €2500.99

Feel free to mix and match, the case can accomodate five fans in total. Although, if we are truly looking at a center showpiece, how about a white build?

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 9900X €433.83
CPU Cooler Lian Li Galahad II Trinity SL-INF €189.90
Motherboard ASRock X870 Steel Legend WiFi €264.23
Memory Kingston FURY Beast RGB 2x32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 €221.90
Storage Kingston Fury Renegade 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 €275.00
Video Card XFX Mercury OC Magnetic Air RGB Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB €819.00
Case Lian Li O11 VISION COMPACT €134.88
Power Supply Lian Li EDGE GOLD 1000 W 80+ Gold Fully Modular €163.01
Case Fan Lian Li Uni Fan SL-Infinity €32.89
Case Fan Lian Li Uni Fan SL-Infinity €32.89
Total €2567.53
3

Hello Wertigon,

Thank you for taking the time to help us out especially with this detailed list. I had wanted to go with a white build, but my son wanted a black one! We may have to help change his mind a bit! LOL Thank you for the tip on Windows, I wasn’t sure how that worked but definitely worth looking into.

I am a total rookie and lean toward prices and looks at times! I’ll list a couple of options leaning toward the AMD build, but please tell me if the additional cost would actually be worth it.

CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 9950x Granite Ridge
$499.99

Motherboard - Gigabyte X870E AORUS Pro Ice AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard - Micro Center
$385.00

MSI X670E Gaming Plus WiFi AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard - Micro Center
$280.00

Everything else you selected was perfect, I just trying to compare these items. We will go with a white build. I’ll go with AIO or air cooler, we’ll decide on that later. I just thought the looks are pretty cool with the water coolers!

4

I listed 2 M.2 boards, to have one separate just for OS and booting. Is that necessary, in your opinion?

CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Granite Ridge AM5 4.30GHz 16-Core Boxed Processor - Heatsink Not Included - Micro Center

$500

CPU Cooler - Lian Li Galahad II Trinity SL INF 360mm All in One Liquid CPU Water Cooling Kit - White - Micro Center

$190

Motherboard - Gigabyte X870E AORUS Pro Ice AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard - Micro Center

$385.00

Memory - Amazon.com: Kingston FURY Beast White RGB 64GB (2x32GB) 6000MT/s CL36 DDR5 Expo DIMM | Infrared Syncing | FURY CTRL Software | Overclocking | Plug N Play | AMD Expo | Kit of 2 | KF560C36BWEAK2-64

$200.00

Storage - Amazon.com: Kingston FURY Renegade 4TB PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe M.2 Internal Gaming SSD | Up to 7300 MB/s | Graphene Heat Spreader | 3D TLC NAND | Works with PS5 | SFYRD/4000G : Electronics

$310.00

Video Card - XFX AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT SPEEDSTER MERC 310 Overclocked Triple Fan 20GB GDDR6 PCIe 4.0 Graphics Card - Micro Center

$880.00

Case - Amazon.com: Lian Li O11Vision Compact White-Steel-Tempered Glass ATX Mid Tower Computer Case-Back Connect Support-O11VPW : Electronics

$80-100 FaceBook Marketplace -

Power Supply - Lian Li EDGE GOLD 1000 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power Supply (White) - ATX 3.1 Compatible - Micro Center

$155

Case Fan - Amazon.com: Lian Li UNI Fan SL - LCD Wireless 120 (Reverse Blade) - ARGB Fan - 1.6" LCD Display - 2.4 GHz Wireless Signal for RGB & Fan Control - Controller NOT Included & Required - White (12RSLLCD1W1W) : Electronics

$28 * 2

Case Fan - Amazon.com: Lian Li UNI Fan SL - Wireless 120 - Triple Pack - ARGB Fan - 2.4 GHz Wireless Signal for RGB & Fan Control - Customizable Lighting Effects - Controller Required - White (12SL1W3W) : Electronics

$95.00

Total - $2,871

5

Let’s see…

Current going rate is €120 extra for something that will not improve gaming figures very much. That is a 25% increase for 4-5% extra gaming performance. If you plan to do a ton of multitasking or plan on having this system along for quite a while, then yes, but given that there will be an even better CPU coming out to that motherboard around 2026 (the 10950X? Sounds a bit lame) - Why not just save up to buy that in 2028 or so? It is a very easy swap to do.

The Aorus Pro ICE offers +1 PCIe slot, +1 m.2 slot, slightly better VRM cooling and has a better aesthetic look for €330, that is €65 extra. If you prefer the looks and can afford it, go right ahead. :slight_smile:

The MSI board is falling behind in pretty much everything, but it has one saving grace, 4 m.2 and 3 PCIe slots and all can be used without any interference. On the Steel Legend you have to choose between the PCIe 4.0 slot or the m.2 slot, and on the Aorus Pro you will halve your GPU bandwidth - not that it really matters when running a PCIe 5.0 card, like the 9070 XT, you will not be able to saturate that link.

It isn’t really necessary, no. If you want to dabble in Linux as well as Windows on the side, then yes, having a separate drive is quite nice, but a single 2TB or 4TB drive should be plenty of storage space.

Having a separate drive for OS and data is nice from a system architectural perspective, but the reason we did it that way before was that SSD storage was waaaay too expensive - most could afford $100 for a 120GB drive but not $1000 for a 1TB drive back then. Ever since 500 GB SSDs crept below $100, the practice of a separate drive is kinda unnecessary.

Of course, more storage space is always nice, and if you want to do 8TB at once I recommend doing the 8TB drive I linked above rather than 2x4TB - reason being, then you can add up to 2x8TB of m.2 storage eventually instead of 2x4TB.

That said, if you want to do Linux+Windows dual boot, a 2x4TB setup make sense, too - although given Linux has modest space requirements, Linux would be more than fine with 500GB of storage. Linux distros do not need more than 50GB in total for the entire system partition, and if you run Debian or Arch, 30GB is rarely exceeded (as opposed to Windows which take 25GB of storage on a fresh install). Yes, you could run Linux and all it’s programs completely from a 32GB RAMdisk.

Careful with the timings of the memory… 6000 MT @ CL36 is not the same as 6000 MT @ CL30. It will run without problems ofc, but why not just spend another $5 on a 6000 @ CL30? The difference in first word latency is 10ns vs 12ns, in practice it doesn’t matter that much, both are blazingly fast :slight_smile:

6

You are amazing, thank you so much for your help. I’ll stick with the AORUS Pro Ice, for the motherboard. I’ll go with the 4TB M.2 card, that should be plenty of storage. The 8 TB will definitely be way too much! I was able to find the memory that you mentioned, the CL30 on New Egg so I’ll go with that. The way we have it set now, it should be right about $2,800. I’m trying to make it pretty exciting for my 11-year-old! I’m trying justifying this to the wife; by saying he can also do his schoolwork on it! LOL

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Yep, the Wife factor is a bit of a thing. I can recommend these cost cutting measures if you need to compromise, please note the Galahad II already comes with three Uni fans so you only need two more as the case can only fit 5 fans total.

  1. GPU - Not really worth downgrading, it’s hard to beat the perf/dollar of the 9070 XT right now. Still, the 7800 XT is still a decent budget option and the Arc B580 is the best budget option - but you save half the money for a 60% gaming performance hit. (~$400 savings)
  2. Cooler and fans - Arctic has a good 360 for around half the price, as well as three fans for $40 (~$150 savings)
  3. Storage - 2TB is enough to comfortably play games in 2025, if we are being honest. (~$150 savings)
  4. RAM - 64GB is awesome, but realistically 32GB is good enough. (~$100 savings)
  5. CPU - Stepping down to the 9700X is an option (~$80 savings)
  6. Motherboard - The aforementioned Steel Legend costs a bit less (~$50 savings)
  7. Case - A Fractal Design Focus II is a good budget case that could save you quite a few pennies (~$50 savings)
  8. PSU - You could go down to an 850W (~$50 savings)

So you could possibly save ~$1000-$1100 by going with less premium parts, and still having a decent gaming experience. If you just want to cost optimize without sacrificing performance, as long as you have 32GB RAM the GPU and CPU are the only two parts that has a direct effect on performance. So, in theory you could shave off around $500 without really compromising on gaming performance. That said, you’d lose the wow factor of the showman piece, and the quality of life from the added RAM and storage.

It all depends on what your priorities are of course. :slight_smile:

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I think I found a happy medium! I wanted to do a custom water system so bad, but I’ll save that for another build maybe for me! LOL I downgraded the ram and the memory as you suggested, I also changed the fans to asiahorse which have the same look as the lian li’s that I like.

Memory
Amazon.com: Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe M.2 Internal Gaming SSD | Up to 7300 MB/s | Graphene Heat Spreader | 3D TLC NAND | Works with PS5 | SFYRD/2000G, Solid State Drive : Electronics

Saved about $160

Ram
Kingston Fury Beast White RGB XMP 32GB 6000MT/s DDR5 CL30 DIMM Desktop Gaming Memory Kit of 2 - KF560C30BWAK2-32 at Amazon.com

saved about $100

Fans

Amazon.com: AsiaHorse COSMIQ 120mm PC RGB Computer Case Fans, 5V 3-PIN Connector Daisy Chain PWM Cooling With Controller for Cases CPU Liquid Coolers : Electronics

Saed probably around $ 250 and able to do 3 additional fans for push pull on the radiator. Please let me know if you think this is actually needed or overkill.

A few of the items are on sale, saving almost another. I’m going to start ordering this week!

CPU $ 360
Motherboard - $ 355
PS - $155

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Push-pull is overkill, but it is your build. Maybe you can get temps down from 55° to 53° or so. If doing Push/Pull, a cheaper brand of fans make sense as three fans will be covered by the radiator and out of sight, so doesn’t really matter if they are “ugly”.

Otherwise, looking good! :slight_smile:

Also something to consider is a soft-tube custom loop, you can get a full starter kit for pretty cheap (€299.98). Personally I find it to be a lot less hassle with aircooling but you do you! :slight_smile:

Those hardline tube systems are pretty slick looking, not gonna lie… But it almost requires a custom job, and you can barely reuse anything from the old system once it is time to upgrade. Switching things out does become a bit messy with hardline, especially the parts under water.

10

I was able to plug everything into the USA pcpartpicker for pricing and such. I think this is her! LOL

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