Looking for a decent CPU+Board+Ram for gaming ONLY

So recently switched over to a Xeon 6230 from my Threadripper 2970wx and in my work usecases the xeon is alot nicer than the TR, but in gaming its a complete other story due to low clock speed of this chip underload. so now looking for a dedicated gaming rig, so i can have best of both worlds, the minimum requirements im looking at is:

  • At least 8 cores @5GHZ
  • At least 64GB ram, as my previous system when i have chrome+discord+gaming+OBS+music i could easilly eat up 40gb so 64gb would be nice so im not worrying
  • a board that i can fit 3x 980 PRO 2TB NVME and 3x SATA drives on so i can reuse my old drives

the games i tend to play are mainly Watch Dogs 2/Legion/Teardown and Anno 1800/CK3

budget is around $1100 CAD in total, already have a GPU thats the Titan V, id use for gaming as its my old work GPU and can still play my games fine at 3440x1440

I would probably go intel in this case.

cpu: intel core i7-12700KF.
board: Msi Z690 Tomahawk Wifi DDR4.
memory: A kit of Crucial Balistix 2x16GB DDR4 CL16.

Or you could go with a DDR5 motherboard with an eye on the future.
But that will add a little bit extra to the cost because DDR5 memory is more expensive currently.
Oh yeah and a cpu cooler of course. :slight_smile:

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Is the 5GHz necessary from experience? Or looking at some future prepping?

AMD X570 will have 3 NVMe slots available*
[read manual of mainboard, for which SATA ports are not usable, with 3rd M.2 use]

Intel Z690, will have 3NVMe(+) slots available*
The mainboard will indicate NVMe speed ratings, of each respective slot
Do take note, that the Z690 boards are either DDR4 or DDR5 support

Either way you go, make way for a beefy CPU cooler solution

… Are you using an existing Case/PSU, for this package?

Is the 5GHz necessary from experience?
yes and no, it seems that some of my games like Anno/city skylines and Teardown love clockspeed, so would be a nice target to get as i know 5Ghz is getting more and more common on chips these days, not the end all be all but would be nice and for some more Future sim games id like to play

and yes sorry forgot to mention that i already have a Fractal Pop air case + RM1000x id be using for them.

EDIT:
the 64gb ram may seem overkill to some, but atm im using 40gb just with city skylines open + chrome tabs + music, tend to use alot of memory so 64gb is the min id probably go as i hate closing things and then digging around trying to find the info and sites i was looking at before

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Seconded. Purely for gaming since you already have a workstation, I’d just get an i7-12700, a DDR4 motherboard, and a 2x32GB kit of G.Skill TridentZ if it were me.

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The Intel P-class chips will hit past 5GHz, whether basic mode or with manual tuning
Either would be looking at, the i7 or i9 series, to assure 8-P cores included
… A bit, being at the cost of bigg thermal buildup / power demands
feedme
*Get the Thermal Grizzly LGA1700 socket plate, along with Intel mainboard

Ryzen Zen 3, are typically running in high 4s / sub-5GHz [at a better efficiency]
I don’t imagine their be much [manual] headroom left? 5800X(+) to assure core ct.
… A real curveball option within AMD, would be their 5800X-3D
Clocks are down/fixed, but L3 cache is dumm high [idk how Anno would fair out]

I would suggest against any i9’s if you really want/need 5ghz primarily because of thermals.

The i7’s are going to be your best bet IF you require 8 core + 5ghz, otherwise I think the i5-12400F paired with the right motherboard that will still let you overclock non k processors is a crazy good deal with 6p cores at 4.8ghz.

Personally I think AMD is still the best bet for performance today, but the value of the 5700x or 5800x are questionable vs an i7 (outside of power/heat) and the 5800x3D is amazing but $$$$$ for the last performance chip of the generation and no overclocking.

My two cents for ram, for both Intel and AMD I would recommend 3600mhz ram
Most Intel i7s can hit 3600mhz gear 1 which means lower latency and your imc and L3 cache are fairly high clocked

Same for AMD, it’ll keep your L and F clock high with no latency penalty running 1:1

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There are some 2x32GB DDR5 kits available with 5600MT/s. With 1DPC, this is what I would go with. And there are 2 slots left for expansion although speed will degrade quite considerable in a 2DPC configuration (~4400MT/s). Bandwidth of DDR5 will be more in line with what you had with Xeon/TR. That’s what I would use in a consumer board.
Sadly, the promised 64GB DIMMs of DDR5 are nowhere to be seen yet, so 32GB DIMMs is all we got.

Here is a contrarian view;

CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D for ~$450
Mobo - Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master for ~$275
RAM - 4x32 GB @ 3600 Mhz for ~$400

Rationale; X570 has close to nothing over B550, the motherboard has godlike VRMs, and 4 NVMe slots. The only two problems I can see are VFIO and PCIe 3.0 on most NVMe drives. 5800X3D is the fastest gaming CPU you can buy for money.

My main thought process is that this is a system
that should last until at least 2027, possibly 2030 depending on your willingness to go with medium settings.

However, AMD is most probably going to announce Zen 4 in less than 10 weeks, with Intel around 5 weeks after that. So, if you can now might be a great time to wait a little while longer, if possible.

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Not recommended for Gaming as you can’t overclock memory as much in 2DPC config, especially with 4xDR. Expect below average clocks and timings compared to 1DPC

While you are not wrong, I do not think this will matter that much either for gaming. Maybe 1-2% of a performance hit?

Oh yeah 64GB of memory indeed. :woman:
I could not really find 2x32GB DDR4 kits in Canada for reasonable prices.
The Hardware prices in CAD are higher then USD in certain cases.
But of course 2x 32GB memory kit options are also available for TS.

Of course AMD Ryzen 5800X3D is also a strong option in regards to gaming performance.
According to the 12700KF the 5800X3D is only a few bucks more expensive.
But a decent X570 or good B550 board is of course cheaper then a good Z690 board.
But since the 5800X3D is locked it won´t the 5Ghz mark that OP wants.

Your suggestion for the 12700 is also an interesting one given that you don´t,
need a expensive Z-series chip set board perse.

I don’t think 5ghz is really going to matter as much here. From what I’ve read online, anyway, Cities Skylines really like that extra cache a lot more than any reasonable overclock.
I can’t find good information relating directly to Anno, but if it’s similar in performance characteristics, then 5800X3D would probably be the best choice on a budget, clockspeed be damned, with 12900k taking the absolute top spot by a smallish margin.

That said, value wise, I think a 5700X makes more sense. Not as fast in gaming, but less than 3/5ths the price for 4/5ths the performance or more.

Might want to work in a better cooler or some such, but I think this is probably a decent starting point.

Looks like 12700KF build is a lot cheaper, though, with the requirement of 3 M.2 slots. Seems to be unreasonably rare on X570 and nonexistent on B550.

So much so that you could almost squeeze a DDR5 board/ram into the list, before tax.

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not really adding much by saying this. but using GHz as a requirement is just silly.

From what I recall the 5800x3D is the “best” performing cpu for city skylines due to the L3 cache.

As for the required m.2 slots, if the board you’re considering doesn’t have enough built in slots, getting pcie to m.2 adapters are cheap enough.

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