Hi all, new member here hope I’m in the right place..
I’m looking for some advice on a PC build I’m looking to do for my son for Christmas. This is really not my area of expertise and starting to have a head melt
so far i have blindly (to be honest) came up with a list of products and guess I’m seeing if I’m barking up the right tree or if you guys could suggest any recommendations or changes.
It will primarily be a 4K gaming PC but will be getting used as a studio as well through the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 4th Generation
Processor AMD Ryzen 7
Graphics Card ASUS Prime GeForce RTX5070 ti 16GB GDDR7
Motherboard ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero
RAM Corsair Vengeance 64GB (2x32GB)
Storage 1. 1TB Samsung 990 Pro
Storage 2. 2TB Crucial T500
Case Lian Li O11 Dynamic EVO RGB
Corsair iCUE Link H150i RGB 360mm AIO
Power Supply Corsair RM1000x Shift
The only thing I’d take another look at is the memory. Prices for these things have gone insane, and it’s unlikely any reasonable gaming workload is going to require 64GB, so if you can get by with a 2x16GB set your wallet will thank you.
Why the Crosshair Hero mobo? Is your son a serious overclocker? You can get a similar mobo for half the price.
Nvidia raised prices like crazy recently. 1200 dollars for 5070Ti? When you can get AMD 9070 XT that performs the same or better for 700 dollars?
This all looks pretty good, but I would also agree that the motherboard is probably overkill, could save a bit of money there and not miss out on anything by moving down to a mid range board
Thank you all for your input.. it is truly valued and appreciated as well as helpful, those 3 replies alone have answered my major concerns. ended up down a rabbit hole last night researching these exact issues.. Firstly if i can get away with 32GB ram will be a bonus…. i watched a review on the 5070ti and it said the same as yourself and then stared looking at others to use and that’s what was causing head to explode loads off info and no clue what it meant lol to make things simple for a blue collar man and guide to me an exact mobo i would be extremely grateful
B850 ATX mobo with the connectivity you need. Number of USB-ports, PCI-E slots. Should be 4 RAM slots on them. 2 or more NVME slots. Do you need Wi-fi on the board or do you use Ethernet? I avoid Wi-Fi as much as possible. Higher latency, lower throughput. Can be alleviated somewhat with Access Points and similar (hardwired Ethernet to them).
Check reviews, manufacturers make good stuff and less good stuff. Never buy blindly by brand. MSI B350 Tomahawk was good for example but from what I’ve read, later versions (B550 etc) has only gone downhill from there. I had the B350, it died after I flashed it 20 times. OG Ryzen had issues and constant mobo updates. I did not have the tools to flash firmware manyally on the mobo, had to get a new mobo. Went with Asus. Still use it in this machine.
For GPUs, I have a hard time trusting Gigabyte. I bought a Vega 56 from Gigabyte. Would not work right, out of the box. I had to flash the firmware on it to get it stable. This was 1-2 years after release. Also, the worst Vega 56 on the market for overclocking. I was not happy. I should have done more research.
12V Hi-Power connector is problematic, which Nvidia uses predominantly. Subpar standard. There are some AMD 9070 XTs that use it too. I specifically avoided those when I got mine. The normal 8-pin PCI-E power has always worked, zero problems.
As some said you should be able to get away with less RAM, unless your son is loading a shitload of audio plugins at once. Since 16GB is an outdated size for memory, 32GB (2x16GB) will do. Speeds between 5600MHz and 6000MHz should be a good middle ground.
Regarding the motherboard your choice is wildly overkill (says the guy that bought an X570 ITX) so you can follow this video to find the cheapest and best rated motherboard they recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFqd7lnXlIk
A friend took their adivce and he’s super happy with it.
Regarding the GPU I’d say that if your son is not gonna dabble in any locally hosted AI, so AI models running locally on said computer and not in the cloud, there’s no need to spring for an overpriced 5070Ti. I got one, it’s really great, but not worth todays money for gaming. An AMD 9070XT is mostly on par but way cheaper.
Regarding which model to buy make sure it’s not using a single power input, the dreaded 12HPWR, but multiple ones. Brand and cooler matter relatively. Any triple slot one at the cheapest price you can find it, from any brand, will be good. No need to follow any “OC” branding or flashy colours.
MAYBE Gigabyte cards are having some troubles with thermal paste and thermal pads application but that needs to be double checked.
Beside that it’s all about looks so I cannot give you adivce on that. I have preferences on cooling and somewhat of a “brand loyalty” but I won’t bring them up unless asked about.
First of all choosing parts for a new build can be pretty overwhelming now a days.
So i understand your concerns a bit.
Like others already pointed out part selection so far in the OP looks pretty good.
However there are a few parts on which you could save money significantly.
For gaming 32GB of memory is more than enough so going with 64GB which is ridiculously expensive currently is also a bit overkill for your needs.
So i would suggest to save some money go with a 32GB kit.
The motherboard you choose is of course a pretty good one but it also kinda is overkill for your needs.
You could find motherboards with a similar feature set for allot less money basically.
Unless you really need 10Gbe network onboard, but if not than in my opinion it does not make a whole lot of sense to spend much more than like €400,- / $450,- ish on a main stream motherboard really.
But there are even cheaper but still good boards that already give you plenty of fast usb and storage options really 5Gbit lan and Wifi 7 is pretty much standard with newer boards.
The more expensive high end x870e boards give you onboard 10Gbe sometimes and also x8/x8 lane split capabilities between the primary and secondary pci-e x16 slots.
But you also gonna pay a hefty price premium for that and it´s pretty much a very nicé use case.
But other than that your parts selection looks pretty good to me.
Hi, thank you for your response, Money isn’t an issue that being said if i can save a few £££ I’m not complaining lol.. I went for the over kill on RAM etc as my son is now an adult and this is his final surprise…. before he has to stand on his own 2 feet lol.. i was trying to future proof it for him (prob bad economy) as parts update so often he will be running windows
and this is his final surprise…. before he has to stand on his own 2 feet lol.. i was trying to future proof it for him (prob bad economy) as parts update so often he will be running windows