Just want some opinions on this PC build.
I've had my current PC for the past 8 years, so thought it was time for an upgrade. This is my first time building it, so don't really have much experience so any advice would be greatly appreciated. I haven't bought any part as of right now, but will start to buy within the next couple of months as prices start to drop. Hopefully I should be able to get the PC for around $2500 if prices drop enough (fingers crossed).
Thanks!
Thank you so much for the reply!
Yep that's true, at the current price, the SSD you suggested is much better value. 3080 ti is also a good shout. Hopefully 3080's go on sale in the couple of months so I can grab one. Anyways, thanks for the advice. Much appreciated!
650W power supply will be the bare minimum if you are looking for a 3080 ti and will not be enough if you upgrade in future. Don't waste your money on platinum or titanium is your budget won't allow it.
ahhh ok, makes sense. I'm probably looking to spend around $2500 and hoping the PC would last me around 7-10 years hopefully.
@Mani88: If you want to cut costs, you should look into getting 16gb ram for now, since you will have 2 slots spare to upgrade to 32gb in future
you should also get 2 drives, one small NVMe, and one 1tb+ SATA which you can use as a game storage (cheaper but still plenty fast, any games you want directstorage can be installed to nvme)
sail the seas for windows or just leave it unactivated
and if you understand the differences, get a cheaper motherboard
@askbargain: Thats a good shout, I dont think I need 32gb as of right now, so might opt for the 16gb. However if i do get a really good price for the 32gb, i might just end up going for that. The build I've made really just acts as a template, and I'm only going to get the certain parts if their cost drops enough.
@Mani88: don't just get 16GB RAM (consider the amount of $$ you are spending already)
a newly installed Windows will cost just over 4GB itself, a game like call of duty will cost about 9GB whilst running, you left with about 2~3G depends on the background task. I can see my game slowing down a lot with anything big running(even idling) on background when gaming.
Getting 2 stick and add 2 stick later is also a dumb idea (no offense to anyone), as you'd almost never end up with same memory IC even if you buy the RAM with exact same product code, even if you are lucky enough to have all 4 stick using exactly the same revision, 2DPC(2 dimm per channel) has way worse stability both thermal wise as well as signal clearity wise, than having 1DPC.
a newly installed Windows will cost just over 4GB itself
except it's 2gb.
Getting 2 stick and add 2 stick later is also a dumb idea
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw…
tell that to the 50% of gamers who have 16gb of ram (80% who have 16 or less)
you'd almost never end up with same memory IC
???. it never mattered if you're not pushing it past XMP or whatever AMD calls it
has way worse stability both thermal wise as well as signal clearity wise
yikes. no proof, and you might want to check what website you're on
@askbargain: Honestly I'll probably see. Like I said if I happened to get a really good deal for 32gb, I might get that. However if its still kinda expensive (i.e. no sale), then I might just opt for 16gb for now.
@OMGJL: @OMGJL
As someone with a gaming computer with 16GB of Ram, I rarely use anywhere close to that gaming, the only time I think it would matter is if you doing something like Skyrim with alot of mods. Firefox eats more of my Ram than gaming does, thanks to the billion tabs I constantly have open, but it depends what else he's using it for apart from gaming (e.g. video editing, 3D software, ect…), he can just close he's browser before gaming if he can't afford the price of more Ram. Dropping down to 16GBs is a perfect valid cost saving measure that won't have a massive negative impact on his PC performance.
platinum and tittanium is stupid in comparison to gold, barely any increasee in efficiency and costs way more in comparison to their gold counterparts. Just get one from a reliable manufacturer.
I like this build; but as above, I think the NVME and videocard could be better.
NVME - do you really need 2tb as a single boot drive? With the finite lifespan of these drives (yes this is a quality one, but it's still reasonably finite), I'd recommend having a smaller boot drive and a secondary that stores most of your data. Eg, a 512gb or maybe 1tb boot drive (that does all the hard caching work), and a second for storage. That way if your boot drive wears out, you don't immediately lose everything. {Edit: I say this because I'm assuming you'll want it to last 8+ years and we don't know your frequency of use}
GPU - I know this 3080 is one of NVIDIA's upper teir cards, but 10GB of VRAM probably isn't going to give you a good gaming experience over the next 5-7 years - particularly if you move to a 4K screen. I'd go for a 12GB or 16GB card for longevity - hopefully the next gen will have more in this range.
That way if your boot drive wears out, you don't immediately lose everything.
you will get plenty of warning of a drive failing.
This is very true - I guess I'd just prefer to lose a 512GB drive than a 2TB one… but who knows, in 5 years they might be super cheap
Sorry, could you elaborate on the finite lifespan of SSD compared to HDD?
If I was to get this one, since its at a all time low price https://www.amazon.com.au/Samsung-980-Heatsink-Black-MZ-V8P2…
, would this not last me around 7-10 years. I don't really think I need 2TB in storage (1TB would probably suffice), but thought to get it just in case.
Also thanks for your comment! :)
ahhh I see, that makes more sense. The Samsung 980 Heatsink has 1200TBW endurance, so I think it should easily last me 10+ years.
These are good resources - thanks @NoGiveJustTake. Sounds like it's less of a concern than I thought, provided you get a good quality NVME
i'd get smaller ssd (with additional HDD if required). I'd get case with better airflow. I"d bump up the power supply.
Thanks for the advice! As per the conversation above, if there any additional benefit to getting a smaller SSD + HDD, rather than getting a larger SSD of a really good quality for cheap such as https://www.amazon.com.au/Samsung-980-Heatsink-Black-MZ-V8P2…?
cost.
Ahhh ok, I see the point :)
@Mani88: I don't 100% agree with "getting smaller SSD and add a HDD". It depends.
This is a golden advice for those who have loads of storage files like video/photo stored on their PC, where the goal is to have cheap storage spaces and speed is no issue.
This is a bad advice for those who need to put a lot of games/softwares/VMs etc on their PC, where file access speed matters. If you really want to save cost, you could get a 1TB NVMe SSD and add more SATA SSD if required.
Most of cheap HDD right now (WD Blue/Seagate Barracuda) is using SMR, and if you try to store games/softwares/VMs on it, jokes on you.
@OMGJL: Thanks for your advice. I don't really store photos/videos on my computer at all, and store a lot more games, so I'll probably end up getting a larger SSD :)
@OMGJL: I feel like I can never afford enough SSD space for all my games, although if he is using Steam, he can just move individual games to the SSD and back to the HDD when he doesn't play them as often (I'm pretty sure Steam allows for this now). Even a few TBs will fill up pretty quickly, especially if he takes advantage of the free games Epic regularly gives out, Steam and GOG also give out free games on occasion.
Some thoughts:
1) In general, not a great time to be building given that next generation of CPUs and GPUs are just around the corner. I would wait, the 7700X looks like it'll be a great value and I'm sure Intel will respond with something very competitive as well.
2) Even if you absolutely have to build now, the 5800X3D doesn't really make that much sense at its price unless you're a competitive gamer who needs to eek out the last few fps. I'd just get a 5700X for significantly less, or a 5900X for similar money, but get a much more well-rounded CPU
3) You don't need a "high-end" motherboard, again, if you need to build now, get a B550 for $150-200
Everything else has been addressed, e.g. GPU, PSU should probably be 750W+…etc.
Don't pay $169 for Windows, you can get OEM keys for $20-30.
Thank you so much for the reply!!!
This build is definitely gonna take a couple of months to build, but I'm just getting a early start on what things I should get.
1, 2) I'm definitely gonna buy the GPU and CPU probably last, and wait till the new ones drop as that's when the prices will drop. If the new ones are indeed better value, then I'll definitely opt for those, otherwise my current selection for CPU is between 5800X3D or 5900X.
3) Ahh that's also true, but since I'm building this for the long term (10+ years), I thought I might as well get a decent motherboard. But I'll definitely wait till prices drop for all products before making any purchases so that I get the best value for my buck.
Haha yep, I definitely wont pay $169 for windows lol, I just added it there for the sake of completeness :)
Anyways thanks for the advice :)
I'm definitely gonna buy the GPU and CPU probably last
unless you can find ways to verify those parts you bought first isn't faulty, you'd much rather buy everything together. Every store will have slightly better warranty when a product is just purchased, and they are more likely to handle a newly purchased faulty product as "dead on arrival", but if the product is purchased like 3 weeks ago, they'd second doubt if you somehow killed it in the first few weeks of ownership, and may ship it to manufacturer to get it checked before refund/replace.
oh fair enough. I'll then have to just wait for the new gens to drop then ig
3) Ahh that's also true, but since I'm building this for the long term (10+ years), I thought I might as well get a decent motherboard. But I'll definitely wait till prices drop for all products before making any purchases so that I get the best value for my buck.
This is true if you're buying into a new socket, but AM4 is EOL, you're not going to be making any upgrades to it, so definitely not worth it. B550 is far more than you need, I run a 5950X on a B550 board. Look for one with decent VRMs and you're fine.
ahhh I see. If thats the case, then I'll opt in for the cheaper one. Thanks for the advice.
$169 for Windows? Can't you buy an oem key for ~$15?
hahah yep, honestly should probably remove that lol
My suggestion:
to save cost:
Cooler could be downgraded (to save like $50), as you can't OC a 5800x3D and the performance won't change no matter what cooler you have as long as it doesn't overheats. Though You never have too much cooling, have a beefier cooler is never a bad thing.
Mobo could be downgraded to B550 series, like ASUS TUF B550 Plus or MSI B550m Mortar, or AsrRock B550m Steel Legend, same reason applies, you can't OC the CPU at all, memory OC means very little with this CPU due to the massive L3 cache, you don't really need a good board at all.
What I don't Like:
NZXT H510 case,
with the heat your RTX3080 going to produce, you will find a case without a front mesh ventilation cause a lot of trouble, the most annoying one is when the GPU heat up the internal temperature of the case, and your RAM suddenly become unstable because it can't withstand a high temperature under XMP profile. (RAM is passively cooled, if the air temp in case is around 50c, your ram would be operates at 60c +, and depends on the memory IC, 60c with XMP profile on is enough to cause instability)
PSU,
not only 650w is not quite enough for a 3080 (you'd better off with a good 750w or a average 850w), the fact is this MSI PSU is dual rail, which means the 650w in total isn't dynamically allocated, if the GPU power rail runs out of power, even if your CPU rail isn't under stress, it won't help the other rail.
rest is good.
Thanks for the reply.
I haven't fully decided what CPU to get at the moment, but it'll either be 5900x, 5800x3D, or one of the new gens if its a banger for value. You do make an excellent point about OC, so I could potentially go for a cheaper Mobo if I decide to go for the 5800x3D. If I decide to go for the Ryzen 9 5900x, or even one of the new gens, should I still downgrade the mobo, or would the mobo in that case be worth it?
For the case and PSU, I literally just picked the first one that came up on partpicker, so I will definitely change those lol. Currently atm, I'm just trying to decide on the major components of the build.
Thanks for your advice! :)
as far as AMD current lineups, high end B550 or X570 have very little difference to user. Without usage of PCIe Switches, B550 have PCIe 4.0 only for GPU lane and the top M.2, everything else is PCIe 3.0, where X570 have PCIe 4.0 across the board. IMO there's nothing else needing PCIe 4.0 other than GPU and SSD (Even GPU/SSD doesn't really need PCIe 4.0 as of right now) so IDC buying B550 instead X570.
a particular B550 can have better power delivery and OC capability than a particular X570. Though Ryzen in general isn't very power hungry, so any mid range b550 is good enough even running 5900x.
also in terms of 58x3D vs 59x, unless you do number crunching, VM, compile, rendering etc. There's no need for a 12 core system as of right now. In terms of gaming, you only need a few cores that run as fast as possible (best single thread performance) with the least memory bottleneck (fast+large L2/L3 cache, fast memory controller), making 58x3D run faster than 5900x in gaming load.
58x3D exactly fit the above description. decent enough single core performance, more than just a few cores, and very large L3 cache which reduce memory bottleneck almost completely.
if you know how to overclock memory with all timings, you could buy a 5700x or even 5600 and yield only slightly worse result than 58x3D while saving a lot of $$$, but I guess this won't be your option given you need advice for part selection, and buying 58x3D means you won't need to buy expensive memory kits.
Hi there, it's not in the OP so I just want to caution you first of all, new CPUs and GPUs are coming out, basically right now, so for a high end system like this one, I would do my best to wait if I were you.
So if you can wait, aside from the CPU, Motherboard, Ram
Air cooler is nice, consider a 'CRYORIG R1 Ultimate' or 'CRYORIG R1 Universal', similar performance but $35 cheaper, I've used a Universal for 5 years and it's still great, very good overclocker.
M.2 NVME, I would personally, find the lowest gigabyte to dollar, M.2 with DRAM that is Gen 4 at a capacity that suited what I wanted. 2TB I think is the sweet spot for a single drive, however consider a 1TB boot + 2TB game drive or 2+2 if you can afford it, may be good to have the system drive seperated from the game drive so you can wipe your system and be back up and running more quickly. Could also backup to a HDD if you wanted, but that's less clean imo (slower).
Case, as others have said, closed off panels and high wattage build does not lead to an ideal environment. I'd say double your case budget, something like the P500A, you'll be glad you bought a nice case when building.
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/product/NkK2FT/phanteks-eclipse-…
PSU - Seriously, I wouldn't trust any of the non big name "Power Supply" manufacturers, so no Gigabyte, Asus or MSI, we're talking Seasonic, Corsair are the first two to consider, always, otherwise Cooler Master and EVGA have been around a while too, then Fractal Design and Phanteks seem to be making decent high quality ones but they haven't been doing so for as long, I'd still be comfortable with either of them in a system too. Check reviews.
Windows 10/11 - I wouldn't buy a key from a retailer, firstly you can run Windows 10 at least without a key for a moment and you'll just lose customisation, but there are dozens of key resellers online that will probably set you back $30 or so, budget $40 for it. Windows 11 I feel is just a bit too fresh still but that's personal preference of giving a new Windows OS about 2 years until I move to it.
Good luck, hopefully you're considering an AMD 7000 or Intel 13th gen CPU with an AMD RX 7000 or Nvidia RTX 4000 series GPU, you may regret not waiting if you don't.
Although all the rest of your point is valid, you have a very big misconception on PSUs.
You don't like gigabyte(fair enough with the explosive PSU drama recently), ASUS or MSI, but you do like Corsair, Fractal Design and Phanteks??
All these company do is they order PSUs and have their own sticker printed from OEM manufacturers like GreatWall/SeaSonic. You should buy a PSU with good design, not a big brand. Refer to PSU Review Database and PSU tier list
Yes, I realise that most of the PSU brands that I trust don't make the PSUs themselves, but they buy PSUs that are more reliable than others so, in a nutshell I stand by what I said, my last sentence was Check reviews, so thanks for linking some for the OP.
Thanks for your thoughts.
I am definitely waiting for the new gens to come out, before making any major purchase on the CPU, Motherboard, Ram and GPU like you have said.
Its also a good shout to have the system drive separated from the game drive. I will definitely separate it, but that'll probably in the future, I'll probably just stick to one 2TB SSD for now, and in the upcoming years definitely upgrade to a separate disks.
For the cases, I just picked the first one that came up on partpicker, as there honestly probably the least concerning parts out of the entire build. When I do get to purchasing them, I would do a lot more research before making a decision.
Yh Windows 10 is not a big deal, so not too worried about that rn.
Also I'm definitely considering an AMD 7000 or Intel 13th gen CPU with an AMD RX 7000 or Nvidia RTX 4000 series GPU, but it also depends on their base price when they drop, cause don't wanna go over my budget :)
Thanks!
I have the case you linked and its fine, quite nice to build in, but for ~$10 extra you can get the h510 flow (same case but with front ventilation.
As others have mentioned above, if you don't need the new build now/this month, wait for the new gen hardware.
The incoming new AM5 platform would likely be the recommended choice due to AMD committing to support it to 2025 (so expecting three generations of product), so there'll be competitive upgrades over time when Intel also gets competitive. While the new hardware will be more expensive, but the $2.5k budget should be fine.
The new gen CPUs will also have integrated graphics, which mean you can likely hold out for either the next gen GPUs that'll bring current flagship level performance (so RTX 3090/RX 6900XT) to 4070/7700XT tier cards, or use your current GPU to hold, or to even get a mainstream RX6600 to hold.
Now if you have to build now and as you are building from scratch, I'd actually recommend Intel's 12th gen. AMD would be the easy recommendation if you are already on the AM4 platform, but Intel's 12th gen does have performance advantage if you are building from scratch.
Ahh yep, I'm definitely gonna wait for the new gen :)
I've had that case for last 2 years and my GPU (AORUS 3080 Master) is usually hovering around 70-80c while gaming.
I'll probably go with a mesh case like the H7 Flow for my next build though.
Thanks for the reply. I'll definitely go with a mesh case :)
The Lian Li Lancool 215 is a pretty good value case (at $20-30 more depending on colour) with good thermals (quick brief recap comment by GamersNexus: https://youtu.be/dhf97n0eqx4?t=146), if you don't mind the look. It can be a consideration for deciding whether it's a good fit when you know of the new hardware.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/724186
The Lancool II Mesh is an even better case than the 215 and currently at a good price. If you're good with the look, I think it is one of the things you can purchase first while waiting.
oh thanks!!!
Do u reckon the shipping is worth it? or do u think it might go even cheaper in a few months?
@Mani88: The postage to NSW is estimated as $34 for me (cheaper if VIC, or if pick up), not sure how much it is for you, but still just acceptable. The next cheapest for the black colour case is CentreCom, $155 delivered (before 1-2% CC or PayPal fees), so it is roughly a $20 discount. (And just had a quick look at the comments on the deal post, looks like shipping can vary quite a bit depending on location. I'd say if the final price is $135 or less, it is still a decent deal. Otherwise, can see if other sellers decide to match.)
I don't think prices can go that much lower, but I guess can enquire with PCCG to see when is the end of the promo pricing if you want to monitor.
What about grabbing this, and save $1500- $2000 .. and use that for the next upgrade.. in four years time..
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/723635
grab the 5600 upgrade, and perhaps the riptide motherboard upgrade..
$1227 + Delivery…
everything looks good except the nvme and video card
https://www.amazon.com.au/Samsung-980-Heatsink-Black-MZ-V8P2… for the nvme same price
get a 3080 ti for a similar price locally.
for a 3080 i would get a 750 watt minimum psu, preferably platinum or titanium.