I want to first say thank you to those who have responded to my first post about my first build I know I didn’t respond back but I took your advice to heart and appreciated so much that you took the time out of your day to talk to me and advise me. I have learned a lot and taken feedback from other sites as well and came up with a revised list that I would like a second opinion on. I learned a lot between those times and I learned what to properly look for in parts.
The long and short of the first post is that I would like to keep this computer for about 8-10 years. Which when given the opportunity would like to upgrade the RAM, Storage, GPU, and etc. My use cases are mostly productivity with engineering mostly in mind, the building of machine learning applications, as well as parallel computing/networking with a makeshift cluster of raspberry pi computers.
My last build as pointed out will basically be obsolete in a couple of years, shortening the lifespan of the computer but I have learned from then. I also learned that power supply is going to be sufficient enough for my needs during that time. Since I used a little over half I still have plenty of room to work with in the future. I would also like to address that I have come up with a better place to put the computer to allow better airflow in the computer outside the closet for those coming back wondering about that. A lot of my first build was just ignorance and basic lack of understanding of what to be looking for in terms of compatibility
This time around I just have a couple other questions; I am getting an air cooler heatsink with about 3 more fans for the cooler system, will that be too much or will it be ok for the application I would like to apply to the PC. Finally, for the monitor I would like to have it be certified refurbished from Ebay to save on money. Would you recommend that or just buy it new?
The Bequiet coolers don´t seem to do that well on am5 cpu´s.
Even their bigger new ones like the Darkrock pro5 ain´t performing great on am5.
Bequiet generally performs better on intel.
Some of the best performing price to performance budget air coolers for AM5 today,
are the Thermalright Phantom Spirit SE and the Thermalright Peerless Assasin.
Another good option is the Deepcool AK620 if you fancy nicer looks.
Unless you need Nvidia, a 7600 XT is about +20% performance but with 4 GB more VRAM. It costs another $50 but is well worth the cost and will last you a year or two more.
My other advice is, try to stretch towards a 7900 over a 7700, those extra cores will make a difference. You will get the Wraith Prism cooler as stock cooler which is quite nice although not exceptional.
Looking fairly decent otherwise, I’d say this combined with a CPU upgrade in 2026-2027 sometime will help you last until atleast 2030
31.5" 1920x1080 165hz is not a good combination for a monitor except very special cases.
Resolution 1920x1080 is quite low for large monitors >24" or so.
High frequency (>60hz) is not particularly useful for work and casual gaming. It’s mostly for competitive gaming, but then 240hz is the standard, and 31.5" is too large.
I would recommend taking 60hz, and then look at higher resolution of 2560×1440, or better 4k at 4096×2160. Or just save money on 1920x1080 60hz.
27" is currently most common, there is limited benefit of going larger, especially on budget.
In case of competitive gaming, 1920x1080 is more than enough, but the frequency should be at least 240hz.
If you are focused on machine learning and just getting started stick with NVIDIA and CUDA. I think that 3060 with 12GB of vram is probably a great place to start at that price point.
I could not disagree with the 60hz monitor recommendation more. It’s certainly not a “need”, but when I went to 144hz it was night and day, on desktop even MORE so than gaming. and there’s really not a price premium on 144-165 hz anymore.
less strongly disagree with 1080p being “quite” low. It’s maybe a little low, but this is very much in personal preference territory.
Yeah, I see that the cheapest 27" FHD monitors are at 100hz nowadays, that seems to be the new standard vs previous 60hz and a great value for tight budget.
FHD 144hz is 30% more expensive. WQHD at 75hz is 50% more expensive vs base FHD, WQHD 144hz is 80% more expensive vs base FHD.
I don’t worry about monitors much, but my colleagues who do are obsessed about higher resolution for some reason, that might be a better direction for investing.
A fast monitor would additionally require a 1000hz polling mouse for moving things smoothly, which is an additional strain on the budget.
If you use ergonomic mice, they don’t come with gaming level performance at all.
Thank you, and as well thank you for last time. I took your advice and upgraded from my last build. I am quite please that you find it decent means a lot to me.
I did change it to the 4070 Super, while trying to go for a more cheaper method for cooling. I am planning to get into machine learning so so I need something that will last me until the next build.
I don’t know what is available on your market. This one should work fine, but comparing to EU market it seems a bit expensive.
it also has 60hz refresh rate.
Here I see MSI PRO MP273APDE, 27" or Acer KA2 KA272Ebi, 27" which have 100hz and are cheaper. I don’t have any experience with any of those, just what I see from specs.
