Looking for help/advice with building a new computer 2026 edition

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Hello guys.

Looking to build a new system, after 10 years, so pretty much all the info online about new platforms, PCI gen 5, DDR5 timings, etc, is almost new to me. Hope you can help out and guide me out of making any serious mistakes while building my PC.

Main purpose of this PC would be DaVinci Resolve video editing, short and long-ish format videos, 20-30 minutes tops, in 4k.

From what i was able to understand, DaVinci uses a lot of GPU processing power, and also CPU (if you go for the paid version, which i will be doing)

So i was thinking that a good setup would be as follows:

CPU - 9950x3d

AIO - Liquid Freezer 3 Black (the old version) 360 mm - much lower noise than the new “Pro” versions - i was able to source one still new and sealed, yeeeey !!!

Motherboard - was thinking about the Asrock x870e Taichi lite - but got scared to see all the negative feedback with the CPU’s that were blown up

If anyone can suggest a better option than the Taichi around the same price and features, i’m all ears

DDR5 - open to any suggestions, was thinking Corsair or G Skill, 64 GB dual channel kit 6000

Boot/work drive - Samsung 9100 4TB m.2 ssd - just one should suffice for the moment, though i would love to run two in the future at max speeds if possible - here, i would need some help in choosing a motherboard that can do this, suggestions much appreciated.

Main storage - 22 TB WD Ultrastar DC HC570 hdd

Video card - was looking at a 5080, but due to its insane current pricing, i am willing to sacrifice a bit of speed for a much lower purchase price, so i was thinking at a 9070xt.

This would be upgraded in the future, hopefully, when video card prices are not on par with a good used car…

Powersupply : Corsair RM1000x

Case : Fractal North XL Black Mesh

So with all that out of the way, what would you suggest in terms of alternative motherboard ?

Should i risk it and get the Asrock anyways and keep my fingers crossed ? Or do you have any better/equivalent options that i should consider ?

Thanks for your time and help. Glad to be a part of the community.

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If your not gaming and just rendering video, Arc Pro series card (b50, b60, b70) will probably be better. Not sure how much better the 90 series are over the 70 but, The Arc B580 tied or beat the 7900XT in AV1 in every project I tested.

Both were in the shop temporarily, but convinced me when my Radeon GPU dies (it’s showing signs) I won’t be sticking team red the next replacement.

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So, presenting the PCPP build of your dreams:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D $573.99
CPU Cooler ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 -
Motherboard ASRock X870E Taichi Lite $299.99
Memory Silicon Power XPOWER Pulse Gaming 2x32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 $744.97
Storage Samsung 9100 PRO 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 $809.77
Storage Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC560 22 TB $829.99
Video Card MSI VENTUS 3X OC GeForce RTX 5070 Ti $979.99
Case Fractal Design North XL $194.99
Power Supply Corsair RM1000x (2024) 1000W Fully Modular $159.99
Total $4593.68

Not a bad setup, however, I do have some points to raise:

  1. The CPU is overkill for what you need it to do. It’s certainly not a bad CPU, but a 9900X can do the job within 5% the performance and $200 cheaper.
  2. The Taichi is certainly fine now, just make sure you update the UEFI / BIOS. That said, Asus ProArt is the main goto for decent motherboards. Then again, the price increase $150.
  3. RAM, I agree 64GB is the aim, but you might also want to consider a single 32GB and then buy another 32GB stick later on, when RAM prices have dropped a little more.
  4. Same with SSD storage, a 4TB drive might be overkill, especially if…
  5. Ditch the internal HDD and go full on NAS instead. Not only do you get a better and more powerful storage solution, you also get an expandable solution. A 10GB ethernet connection is slightly stronger than a NAS in either case.
  6. Get a 5070 Ti - a 9070 XT is a 15%-20% performance hit in DaVinci Resolve.

So, yeah. Let me know if I should pick some quality-but-less-costly components. As always though, your money, time, and effort, therefore also your decision(s). :slight_smile:

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If this machine is only for editing DaVinci Resolve you are overspending majorly. 4k video editing is not a hard use case anymore. I do it on my 16 GB Macbook Air M4, even though the RAM is a bit limiting.

Is it some extra challenging content that you plan to edit?

Is Mac an option? They offer the best value while being quiet under full load.

Have a look at pudget systems. https://www.pugetsystems.com/all-articles/?filter=davinci-resolve they have lots of data for Resolve on Windows.

I would go:
270K
32 or 64 GB ram
SSD speeds does not really matter for video editing, size is more important.
HDD is to slow to work from, and has to high latency.
You would probably be fine to work from iGPU if you codec is supported by Intel Quick Sync

Edit: forgot to include link for codec support What H.264 and H.265 Hardware Decoding is Supported in DaVinci Resolve Studio? | Puget Systems

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Thanks for the reply.

I forgot to mention an important fact, that i am based in EU, not in the US unfortunately, so i do not have access to some of your awesome resellers…

This will sound really silly, but i am not on a big budget for this build. Would love to have the money for a NAS, but i don’t at the moment.
I was thinking of building a great “skeleton” for this PC, as in Processor, motherboard, ram and m.2 ssd work drive, and the rest - video card and hdd would be parts that i can upgrade/add in later in 1 year or two when prices will become more reasonable… maybe…

That was the reason for the 9070xt in the first place, because in Europe, a 5080 (or 5070 for that matter) is over 1000 Euro, some 5080’s are 1300-1500 even… but if i get a good deal on a 9070xt, those can get as low as 600-700 Euro, so for half the price, i know i will be losing 15-20% speed, but the savings are worth it for now. And i can always upgrade to something better as soon as pricing approaches something resembling normality again.

The main point of concern for me was the motherboard, as i was looking at Wendell’s review of the Taichi lite, and was thinking that i finally found the board that would be a good choice for the system, reasonable price and full of all the features that i would need even down the line, and then, i looked at Gamers Nexus’s reviews of the problems that these boards have, and that put a serious damper on my enthusiasm for the board, hence my forum entry here, to try and find an alternative to the Taichi lite, around the same price, with none of the reliability concerns, as this would be a part of the PC build that i do not intend to change for 3-5 years.

I already have sourced the computer case, AIO, HDD, at very resonable prices.

I was lucky enough to find all of them on offer, so the AIO was around 110 USD (i know it’s above MSRP but for the performance on offer i think it’s well worth it), the case was 140 USD, “used” purchase, online seller had it in a sealed box, never opened, so that’s cool, and the HDD i was able to source at around 680 USD, which given the current market prices i think is a steal - bran new - some company in EU had it still in stock from a while ago and they kept it at its “normal” 1 year ago almost, pricing. Yeeey !!! Will be looking at that reseller in the future as well, just to see if i can get my hands on another one or two of these HDD’s after the build is complete, just for storage in general.

So it’s not all bad… i just need to settle on a motherboard and videocard now, as the processor and m.2 drive are set in stone, i do want the very best even if i will not using them at their full potential for now (maybe i will in the future, hence the overspend on them initially)

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I appreciate your suggestions, but Mac was never a consideration due to its lack of upgrading options later down the line, hence why i am building a desktop system to begin with.

I want to go AMD this time around, because of its future options in terms of upgrading the CPU and keeping the rest of the system largely the same, and Intel has a nasty habit of changing their socket with almost every cpu generation, so additional spending would be required for a simple CPU upgrade later down the line, so.. yeah… not a fan.

I am familiar with that clip, i already watched it, thanks for the link.

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I think your logic is very inconsistent. You want to buy a worse CPU for your task that costs more. CPU price difference is 300 euros. That is money you don’t have to spend today and can put in to your next PC upgrade in 5 years. If AMD Zen 7 Cpus are amazing and you need to upgrade. You can keep the RAM and use the 300 euro for a new MB.

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If i understand things correctly, the extra cores and cache of the 9950x3d will help me with a smoother timeline playback, adding of effects, filters, and so on, so it would make for a smoother and faster editing experience (rendering times aside) - as 80-90% of the time spent editing will be in the timeline page, adding effects and filters, where the extra cache of the X3D processor should smooth things out. So yes, it would be more expensive, but for a smoother (and a bit faster) overall experience

Am i wrong ?

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If you already got the HDD, buying a NAS is not that much more expensive and trust me, you will appreciate it. Since you said EU I will assume Germany. Here is a good bare bone NAS with a 2.5G interface:

Here is a current PCPP based on German prices, that is as budget friendly as I dared:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 9900X €352.18
Motherboard Gigabyte B850 AORUS ELITE WIFI7 €169.00
Memory Kingston FURY Beast RGB 1x32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 €172.05
Storage Kingston KC3000 4.096 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 €462.00
Video Card Palit GamingPro-S GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB Video Card €899.00
Power Supply Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 ARGB 750 W 80+ Gold Fully Modular €79.90
Total €2134.13

This system should perform reasonably well, if it does not you can always upgrade. B850 is perfectly fine for all but dual GPU setups, pretty much.

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The easy answer is that is depends.

The correct answer is that you are putting the cart in front of the horse.

Resolve is workflow dependent. Setting up the correct workflow can give you four times the performance. Worrying about L3 before thinking about what video you will actually work with is the wrong way to go about it.

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It is INSANE what is happening. I was doing a little research for my PC and …. well.. i am in SHOCK !!!

I was looking at Wendell’s MSI Godlike build he did, and looked at the G Skill ram pricing in Europe for 64 GB DDR5 of the Trident Z5 Neo.

Care to take a guess anyone ? Let me save you the trouble. It costs about the same as the MSI x870e GODLIKE motherboard. The price for a single 2x32 GB of DDR5 6000 is….. wait for it…. 1000 EURO.

The Godlike motherboard is 1100 Euro, so about the same, give or take.

And to think that i was trying to save 100 here, 100 there, to afford a better graphics card, only to find out that it would all amount to nothing compared to the overspend i need to do to get 64 GB of ram. Insane.

I will be looking at the used market as well, as long as i can find them sealed, with an invoice, from a seller with good reviews, i will go that route.

I was already able to find the 9950x3d at around 500 Euros, sealed with invoice and warranty, so a nice discount from its 700+ Euro retail price.

But still, it’s insane what is happening with RAM prices.

2 sticks of 32 GB of ram are priced as high as the most expensive and over the top motherboard that you can find for AM5 ??? INSANE !!!

In terms of motherboard, i think i will not go the AsRock way, i don’t want to risk it, as i still keep finding clips on youtube dated 2-3-4 months old with CPU’s still being damaged, so i was thinking maybe Asus x870e ProArt would be fine.

It looks like a good board for what i will need, with a very good IO, and also with 10 Gig connection, for when i will add the NAS to the system as well. Pricing in Europe is around 420 Euro, so resonable for what you are getting.

If you guys have any other suggestions, i am open to them. So far, this is how my system would look

AMD 9950x3d Processor

Asus x870e ProArt motherboard

Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 Black

Samsung 9100 m.2 ssd ( OS drive )

WD Ultrastar DC HC570 22 TB main storage drive

9070XT - do be determined what version i can find

Corsair RM1000x

Fractal Norh XL Black Mesh

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The build is solid, but you do know it is allowed to not go for god tier parts to save money, right? :slight_smile:

For computers, after you spend a certain amount you are really paying more for the bragging rights than anything else - especially so when it comes to things that can easily swap out. The X870E ProArt is a fantastic board but will you really stress that board out that much? If not, that is $300 extra over a more-than-decent B850 board.

RAM - is 64 GB really what you require, and does it really have to be expensive ECC Server RAM? Will someone die or will it cost you a lot more than the RAM if you get a bit flip in your system? See if 32GB is enough, you can always upgrade it later.

SSD - Can you do a two-tiered system with a great €50 512 GB SSD for the system but a much cheaper 4TB QLC for mass storage? For instance, you could use a 512 GB ADATA XPG sx8100 combined with a 4TB Western Digital WD_BLACK SN7100. Total package, ~€500.

Do you need a god tier PSU or is it okay if it is somewhat basic but functional with 10 year warranty? Because you can find a lot of sub-€100 in this Google Spreadsheet…

Your wallet might not need to be completely gutted like a fish, after all! Weee! :smiley:

3 Likes
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You make some good points.

So far, i have already sourced - the case, the HDD and the AIO. So those, i cannot change anymore.

In terms of parts, you are right, there is always a way to get the same (or 90%) performance, with a big saving in terms of cash. I am looking into it, as i have also gone to the used market to lookup as many parts as i can “second hand”.

The case and the AIO were both “used” pricing, but i was lucky enough to find them in sealed, in brand new boxes at discounted prices (110 USD for the AIO and 130ish for the case - Fractal North XL mesh with the fans included, so not bad so far).

The HDD was brand new, and again, the price i found it to be very competitive at around 680 USD, which for a 22 TB Ultrastar 570, is really really good these days. (i really want the reliability of a server grade part, and am willing to pay a premium for it, even if right now it might sting a bit).

To your point with the motherboard, i don’t want to go down to a B series board, as the IO on the back of it does not offer me so many ports, and the 10 Gig gives me peace of mind for the NAS that i will add to the system later on, and because i managed to find a lot of ProArt boards for a very good price, around 400 Euro ( 470 USD) brand new on Amazon (they seem to go down in price lately).

The worst offender by far will be the RAM. In Europe, the RAM is very VERY expensive brand new. And i agree with you there, a downgrade to 32 GB would be a good momentary solution, just to get things running for the moment, and then, later on another 32 GB can be added no problem.

I already looked at this but i was unable to find any 32 GB G Skill Trident Z5 stick available on Amazon in Germany or France or Italy. They really like to sell them in a 2x32 GB format, and they really like to sell them for 1000 Euro per kit, and that is insane pricing.

I think i will lookup offers on Ebay as well for some used kit, 32 or 64, whatever i will be able to get my hands on, just to get the system up and running. Seen some GSkill kits on there for as little as half the price of their retail, so, fingers crossed there, because that is where a lot of money can be saved on this system.

The processor i was able to find locally at around 500 Euro (590USD) so that’s a 200 Euro saving on it as well there. (same story, new, sealed box, warranty, invoice, the works)

Power supply is the least of my worries, it is very cheap to get a brand new one, the Corsair i was looking at is, maybe 200 USD, i found it as low as 180 brand new, so that’s 100% not worth the 30-50 USD saving to get something cheaper. I can save 10 times that amount by getting just one stick of 32 GB or Ram, in stead of two. (And this i am really considering as a viable option at this point)

So the only unknown in the system would remain the 9070XT, and that will all depend on what offers i can get for it.

Is it worth paying extra for the 9070XT OC version ? (overclock)

Do they have a higher clock speed than the simple XT version ? Or once overclocked, they have the same max clock speed as the XT’s do (give or take) ?
Does anyone know ?

Thanks for the help !

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RAM comes from three suppliers, Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix. So don’t stare yourself blind on RAM brands. Instead, look at speed and latency for a good ballpark, some brands like Kingston has a really good track record but those track records can change. Do not overspend on RAM!

As for the specs, 10ns First-word latency is really good, this can be achieved by 6000 MT/s + CS30 or 6400 MT/s and CS32. ECC is a very nice to have feature but not worth paying a ton extra for unless you really need it. Slower RAM is not a deal breaker for your use case however.

IMO, no, not really. You might crank out a few percentage points more but OC always seem to fail faster. If you want to maximize stability, go for non-OC.

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I was thinking the same regarding the 9070xt vs the OC version. At best the difference would be 2-5% if that (just my uneducated guess), and that is 100% not worth paying extra for.

DDR5 is a problem. Thank you for the explanations.

I found a local website offering for 64 GB G Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB CL 30 kit. (second hand)

If i can knock it down to around 600 Euro in stead of the retail of 1000, i was thinking of pulling the trigger.

I feel like i am more on a scavenger hunt than on a PC build

It’s fun ! :slight_smile:

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Small update.

I know it’s a very slow build, but at these prices, trying to find something borderline reasonable in terms of pricing for Ram and fast storage, is kinda difficult.

With that in mind, i managed to get my hands on a 64 GB DDR5 ram kit, from G Skill, at a somewhat reasonable price. Only question for you guys out there is this :

My kit is a Ripjaws S5, with the product code F5-6000J3040G32GX2-RS5K and the timings are CL30-40-40-96

On the package it does state that this is XMP ready (Intel) and i do not see anything mentioning AMD EXPO on it.

However, when going to the G Skill page and looking for Z5 Neo for example, which is EXPO enabled by default, i do see that the timings are identical, so in my mind, they should be functionally the same, and the Ripjaws XMP kit that i have should work just as well with the AMD motherboard and processor combo i had in mind ( X870e Creator and 9950x3d).

Am i correct in my assumption ?

Thanks for the help !

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Build completed. Not gonna share here since no one seems to care, but just as a small bit of information that might be useful to some other PC builders in these troubled times.

The G.Skill Ripjaws S5 DDR5 64 GB kit that has the code F5-6000J3040G32GX2-RS5K (intel XMP ready by default) will work just fine on any AMD PC as long as the motherboard supports it.

In my case, i decided to go with an MSI X870E ACE MAX motherboard, and after i put the PC together, i accessed the BIOS, and under the Advanced options, under Overclocking, you will find an option for A-XMP. By default it is disabled, but once you turn it on, it automatically applies the correct timings for the kit and you are now running at 6000 MT/s.

I am putting this info here just in case some other builder has no other option than to put this XMP intel kit into his AMD build, like i was forced to do. It works perfectly. Don’t worry about it.

Build completed, issue resolved. Best of luck to you all.

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Good to know, was a bit busy with life when you posted back in March and then promptly forgot!

Life happens sometimes. :person_shrugging:

And yes, for the record the answer to your question was “There is a 98% chance it will work but no guarantee that it will”. Glad it did work out in the end! Got a pic of the final build? :grin:

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So this is where i ended up after all this time :

Case : Fractal Design North XL Mesh Black

Motherboard : MSI X870E ACE MAX (600 Euro) - loved the 64MB bios and the excellent IO

CPU : 9950x3d (600 Euro - new)

AIO : Arctic Liquid Freezer 360 black-the original version, very quiet,6 year warranty (110 Euro)

RAM : G.Skill Ripjaws S5 64GB CL30 (a steal at only 500 Euro - second hand but with warranty)

GPU : Sapphire 9070Xt Nitro + (600 Euro) (sealed box, new)

Storage : Samsung 9100 4TB system drive (550 Euro) + WD Ultrastar 22 TB (600 Euro)

Power supply : Corsair RM 1000x - 150 Euro

And for the grand finale : 6x14cm Noctua NF-A14x25 G2 PWM Chrome Max Black fans - 240 Euro, because this is how you end a real buget build in 2026…

If all the prices for Ram, storage, and GPU’s have gone mad, i might as well join the madness..

But in all honesty i belive that this system is worth the little extra just to finish it off properly.

Will get back with some pics when i have a bit of time, but there is not much to see to be honest, as it is all black on black. The main goal for this system was performance not looks.

All in all, it was a long LOOOOOONG build, but i think it was worth it. At least for the next 3-5 years i should be fine. Just popping in a new CPU and GPU and it should hold out just fine in the long run i think.

Thanks for the help and advice everyone. Here’s hoping we will have a better time building a PC in the years to come..

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The important question is. Are you happy with the editing performance in resolve?