gtludwig

Thanks, @koptr! The whole purpose of me putting this question now was to get an idea of whether I was going overkill (and poorly allocating budget) by attempting at RAID. I understand it is a case of, when the time comes, biting the bullet. By my research, I think I might go with either a top-notch B450 or B550 chipset motherboard, budget CPU and less memory than what I want to end up with, so I can span my spending over two or more months. I'll likely get the case, PSU, motherboard, storage, budget cpu (likely a ryzen 3 3200G) - so I'll get a working system. Then, get the GPU. And, finally, the top-notch CPU and an AIO option last.

Thanks for the input, @redteam4ever! I was thinking about getting a slightly better motherboard that would accept the new 4th gen Ryzen processors and get a used Ryzen 5 off of eBay until the price of the R9 3950x is a bit more acceptable. So I might go for 2 x 8 GiB of RAM instead of 2 x 16 GiB and would later on get another 8 GiB - so the motherboard needs to have 4 DIMM slots. I would also probably likely go to only one M.2 NVMe of about 1 TiB at this point.

Well, I honestly think that a RAID mirrored system would perform better loading times. And I know even the the most reliable systems fail, so if you have a mirrored storage solution, you're not dead in the water should one of the mirrors fail. As for X570, I suppose I don't really need it. I only put it in there so whatever rig I end up with does not suffer any bottlenecks from processor, memory, drives and gpu.

Budget (including currency): From €1,000 to €2,000 Country: Ireland Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: During working hours, Java-based development software (IntelliJ IDEA, database engines, Web browsers, etc.), some light photo and image editing. After hours, I like some casual gaming, but I'm not into FPSs or online gaming, really. I love real time strategy games and story driven games. I want to play the new Baldur's Gate 3, I really like the XCOM series, Deus Ex, I've high hopes for Cyberpunk 2077, and I think I might go into flight simulators in the near future. Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): I have two AOC 27" 1440p screens I really like working on, but I feel I might be changing to one single wide screen soon. Even the ough, as far as I know, I don't need it, it would be nice if the new ultra wide screen would be 144Hz and 1440p. But this is not a priority for this build and would be part of a totally different budget! I also have a set of 4 years old wireless keyboard and mouse I'd be happy to trade up for wired gear. I'm looking to buy the gear before Christmas, possibly on or around Black Friday. I plan to run only Linux on it and use and abuse of Proton - so I would go AMD for the GPU and since I heard the Ryzen series are so nice, why not go for a Ryzen 7 or 9, as I would like this builds to serve me as a work horse for a few years. I still don't know what GPU I'd like to have, but since I want to run Linux, it needs to be supported, plus I like the open source approach AMD has to its drivers. My initial thoughts would be something like an Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GiB. I'm thinking of going 2x M.2 NVME of around 250 GiB for the OS and at least 2x 1 TiB SSD storage. I forgot the correct RAID definition, maybe 1+1? As for the motherboard, despite being able to use 2 M.2 NVME and the SSD in raid, I would like it to have the X570 chipset. Now, total newbie question, does it really matters that much the price tag of the motherboard? For PSU, I would like some high end modular 80 plus, at least gold and the quieter the better. For CPU cooler, I don't intend to overclock the CPU so I don't know whether AIO is a must. This whole build is supposed to be, at first, a work tool so I don't care (much) about aesthetics as it will likely be in a shelf near the desk with the screens or under said desk, so I don't care or like RGB LEDs that don't serve any practical use. What would you recommend? Thanks in advance!