Queen Chrysalis

See what the price difference is for the ‘3F’ or ‘4F’ variants, as those include intake fans.

Probably $30-$50 for assembly. Maybe $100 if you did a full consult for parts and everything. Keep you expectations low, though, as there’s tons of people doing this and if someone is so unsure of themselves that they want someone else to do it they’ll likely pay best buy or microcenter to do it, or just get a prebuilt.

Even a 12600kf would be plenty for most stuff with thise GPUs and they’re dirt cheap right now. The advent of e-cores means productivity is pretty damn good on it too. Also, points for the microcenter bundle deal on it.

If you’re near a microcenter, while this may be more than you want, they’re still doing the 12600kf with a z790 wifi board and 16gb for $250. They also do $20 off any board and cpu, so their $120 5600 with a cheap open box board could be $150 on the right day. You just have to ask nicely at the register to do the combo with an open box board. I also found these on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/315311966776?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=dr8lziucroy&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=IO4zV1NhQTm&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY https://www.ebay.com/itm/315311966776?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=dr8lziucroy&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=IO4zV1NhQTm&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY Worst comes to worst you could resell it for about what you paid.

Yeah, the mod is to the CPU, drawing a trace between a couple pins. You can use a pencil, or any other conductive material. There are a couple videos on it. Though, given where games are at and the 9xxx cores not being all that much faster than the 7xxx ones, unless a hyperthreaded quad core isn't gonna cut it, I'd probably just stick with a 7700k. People also want stupid money for 9900ks on ebay, and for the cost of one you could just get a 5600 and a cheap board, making this whole effort pointless. I'd stick with the cheapest option possible that'll get the job done, which would be a 7700 or 7700k.

I'd offer $50 at most. They can take it or leave it. The market is cold as fuck for that chip so i bet you'll get it. The chip ain't worth $50, but your system running modern games when it's struggling right now is worth it. You may find the 7700k/3080 combo more than suitable for your gaming needs, in which case you're good to go for the foreseeable future. The cores on the 7700k are still faster than current gen consoles, so it's very possible. Doubling your thread count will make games that seemed unplayable smooth, while the 3080 will let you run shit on ultra that you were running on medium before. I'm not sure what the state of skylake+++++ cross-compatibility is at the moment. I remember the pencil trick from when the covfefe lake came out, but I'm not sure where it's at right now. OP, If you're comfortable with a single stroke of soldering iron, liquid metal, or a good art pencil you can run an 8700, 8700k, 9700, 9700k, 9900 or 9900k on that board as well. But the 7700 or 7700k would be a lot cheaper, and would be sufficient for modern games.

Yeah they do. I bough a b450mac in July of 22 and it came with a zen 3 compatible BIOS that had been released in like May of 22. They didn’t make all of them in 2018 and just sit on them. They’ve been in production and usually come with the newest BIOS. Same for an A320 DS3H I bought in August of ‘19 being Zen 2 capable despite it being a 2017 board. I would cast absolutely insane doubt that a B450 DS3H sold in 2024 would have a pre-Zen 3 BIOS, as it’s among the most popular AM4 boards and people have been buying them for Zen 3 consistently for the last 2 s.

For home interior design I wouldn’t imagine you’d need much. What do other people who use this software usually use for work at your level? A used gaming PC might be able to handle your workload effortlessly . Something with a 1070 should be under $300.

Not correct since at least mid-2022. That’s one of the most popular AM4 boards. It’ll have a zen 3 BIOS.

Not gonna be a thing on facebook marketplace or craigslist, which is where a lot of complete PCs get sold because of size and fragility.

You could try for $300. People might appreciate it being put together and such. Do a clean windows install with a *fresh* windows key.

Ah, I see it now. Yeah that’s fine.

Which 600w PSU? The model matters.

What do you currently have? A lot of 2019ish CPUs are still more than capable of running with a new GPU at 1440p60.

Which GPU do you want? Unless you want a 5090 you can just get something now, it won’t be that much different. Otherwise you won’t really see much benefit from buying all if this now. Also, depending on your actual CPU needs, a 12600kf and a DDR4 board might bring your costs down a lot. It’s fast enough for almost any current GPU at 1440p and you could just get a 2nd kit of DDR4 to get you to 32GB.

Yeha this looks fine. I'd get a basic 32GB RAM kit for $15 more (SP gaming or such). The brand on basic RAM doesn;t matter, just the specs. That way you'd never have to upgrade, no need to match kits in the future. you may also want wifi and bluetooth, the intel ax200 is aa chip you can pop int that motherboard for like $22 for WiFi 6 and BT 5.2.

This should not be a new PC. Any old computer from the last decade will handle this easily and you'll spend $20.

No. The 5600x is still more than fast enough for almost any GPU at most resolutions. Unless you bought a 4080 or 4090, it's fine. You're overthinking this by a mile. Just build your system and play some games. You won't notice anything. Years from now you may feel compelled to upgrade, and at that point you'll do it. By then, the difference between a 5600 and 7600 will be negligible.

have you ever gamed on a PC before? Because right now, the top end of the market is absolutely insane, and you can probably gett something that to you would look amazing and be the coolest thing ever for like $1200 (12600kf/7600 paired with a 7900xt/7800xt/470ti/4070 etc...). Most games will run at a very high framerate at max settings with something like that. Keep in mind, the PS5 is essentially an underclocked 3700x with a 5700xt, and to most people that's a pretty amazing gaming experience.

Get these at microcenter: Intel Core i5-12600KF, MSI Z790-P Pro WiFi DDR4, G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-3200 Kit, Computer Build Bundle - Micro Center Corsair iCUE 4000X RGB Tempered Glass ATX Mid-Tower Computer Case - Black - Micro Center (Open box, $60 off if you select 'open box') MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Ventus 3X Overclocked Triple Fan 12GB GDDR6X PCIe 4.0 Graphics Card (Refurbished) - Micro Center (Another excellent GPU option, same 4070ti but $110 less) NVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition Dual Fan 24GB GDDR6X PCIe 4.0 Graphics Card (Refurbished) - Micro Center (another good option) PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Red Devil Overclocked Triple-Fan 16GB GDDR6 PCIe 4.0 Graphics Card (Refurbished) - Micro Center (Good option for a GPU, a little slower than the 4070ti but with more VRAM and the best cooler anyone made for it) Both of those GPUs are refurbished, which IMO is almost better than new because it was returned, looked over, and tested to ensure, full, perfect functionality, as opposed to 'new' where it comes off the line and goes in a box (and could be DOA). Get this on eBay: (It's RAM, I promise it's totally fine, I have 20+ year-old kits that still work that I bought used 10 years ago). G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB 288-Pin SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory 4719692004970 | eBay You final build would look like this (or close). Under $1500 with your monitor: PCPartPicker Part List CPU: Intel Core i5-12600KF 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor ($100.00) CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin King SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler ($19.29 @ Amazon) Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-A WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($120.00) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($30.00) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($30.00) Storage: MSI SPATIUM M482 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($109.99 @ MSI) Video Card: MSI VENTUS 3X OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB Video Card ($690.00) Case: Corsair iCUE 4000X RGB ATX Mid Tower Case ($87.00) Power Supply: ADATA XPG Core Reactor II 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Amazon) Monitor: MSI G273CQ 27.0" 2560 x 1440 170 Hz Curved Monitor ($179.00 @ MSI) Total: $1465.27 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-17 00:21 EDT-0400 For your second monitor, get one from goodwill or such for <$20. They all work the same as the new one's you'd pay ~$100 for, the tech hasn't changed in over a decade and they pretty much work forever.

Regardless, this is what I'd do with that budget if I didn't have a deal on a case or GPU. The manually entered prices reflect the bundle. The 7900xt is a quite a bit faster than the 7800xt, and the 12600k is more than capable of feeding it frames. PCPartPicker Part List CPU: Intel Core i5-12600KF 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor ($100.00) CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin King SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler ($19.29 @ Amazon) Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-A WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($125.00) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($25.00) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($25.00) Storage: MSI SPATIUM M482 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($109.99 @ MSI) Video Card: Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB Video Card ($699.99 @ Newegg) Case: Deepcool CK560 ATX Mid Tower Case ($68.99 @ Newegg) Power Supply: ADATA XPG Core Reactor II 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Amazon) Monitor: MSI G273CQ 27.0" 2560 x 1440 170 Hz Curved Monitor ($179.00 @ MSI) Total: $1452.25 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-16 21:20 EDT-0400

The 12600kf bundle is gonna be the best deal for you. It's aq fast chip and it comes with a really good motherboard. Get an additional 16GB or RAM to go with it, they have tons of those G. Skill Ripjaws V. 3200 2x8 kits open box from people buying the bundles and returning the RAM. Do you mind if I ask which micro center you are near? You may bee able to get a really good deal on an open-box GPU and/or case as well.

If they're low enough to be distracting than a small upgrade like this is gonna cost a lot to get you barely anything. I'd stick it out or find some other way to mitigate it. A 7800x3d might be the only thing fast enough to make a difference, but again, it'll be small. IMO the 12600k is too new to upgrade.

IS the system you listed what you currently have? A 14700k will not be much faster at all than that 12600k. You'll rarely see any improvements, especially with DDR4. 14th gen and 13th gen are only faster than 12th gen with DDR5.

You can't justify a $40 cooler with this budget. I like basic boards, but that's a bit much for how much more you can get for a little less. people generally expect wifi these days and bluetooth goes a long way. A used 5600x is not $80. They're $130. It's still way too new to expect that kind of discount, as most people aren't dumping them and won't be for a long time. And used cases are great if you know someone, but they're expensive to ship, and doing a whole meetup for $10 saved on fb marketplace or craigslist is often not worth it. A new one can be shipped for free, come with all the hardware, and can be had for $0. You might not even find one available in your area for that. OE desktop cases can be problematic if you don't know how to rewire them, and they usually only have one 92m fan in the back and no intake fans. I'd just cut the crap and get a new, cheap case.