Please help me squeeze as much value for money from this build as possible!

[Bashrag]

So I took you people's suggestions into account and decided to build a new system instead of buying one second hand. My SO and I discussed financials a bit and we decided to keep our budget a lot more flexible than we had originally planned. We're now trying to not exceed the €1,500 mark by a lot. We're still flexible, but as always, the cheaper the better!

 

Use case: Mostly 1440p gaming (70% Elder Scrolls Online, 30% Overwatch, maybe more in the future) and Photoshop + Illustrator work. Details below.

Spoiler

• With ESO, the priority is getting a minimum of 90 FPS at as high settings as possible so that we can enjoy the eye candy. She doesn't mind turning the settings down in Cyrodiil or in Battlegrounds. Of course, ESO not being very well optimised, getting decent FPS in crowded towns and trials will be almost impossible, but the more we can push it, the better.
• With Overwatch, the priority is hitting 120+ FPS. If she can bump the graphics up, well and good, but otherwise, she doesn't really care. Anything higher than rock-bottom-low will be a significant upgrade.
• Other than present time constraints, the reason she hasn't gotten into other games yet is because her current system isn't good enough to run most new games smoothly. Once we have the new system and once our schedules are a bit more reasonable, she will likely expand her game library.
• She is an artist and will be doing freelance graphic design work in the future. We plan to buy a graphic tablet eventually and she will be using a LOT of Photoshop and Illustrator. At some point, we will buy a monitor that is more suited to graphic workloads
• We're both quite tinkery and would love to get into overclocking and min-maxing everything just for the thrill of it.

 

Build: PCPartPicker Part List(Upaded based on feedback)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  (€349.00 @ Alternate) 
Cooler: Stock for now - will be gifting her a better tower cooler later on.

Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE ATX AM4 Motherboard  (€216.89 @ Mindfactory) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory  (€95.00 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN500 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€69.90 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB Video Card  (€409.00 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case  (€95.89 @ Alternate) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Platinum 550 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (€94.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Total: €1,330.67

Comments & Questions:

• PSU:  Is 550W good enough?
• This build is plenty overkill for the workloads she has. However, a big requirement was to try and future-proof the PC as much as possible. She doesn't want to make any significant upgrades to the system for at least 7+ years.
  That said, can I optimise performance per € anywhere?
  1. Is the performance difference between the 3700X and 3600X worth €96? 
  2. Is the WD Blue NVMe good enough or should I consider spending some more here?
  3. Is there anything else I should consider?

Change log:

• Replaced RTX 2070 S with RX 5700X.
• Changed to 3600 RAM.
• Switched to Fractal Design Case.
• Went from a 650W Titanium to 550W Platinum PSU.

[another_member]

8 minutes ago, AkshayRao27 said:

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card  (€557.32 @ Mindfactory) 

Get a RX 5700XT.

[Oalei]

Yeah you could with, P1, EX900,XPG,etc just capped the NVME it's usually at the same price with 860 Evo or just over 10usd more. If you don't want to be bothered with troubleshooting go for X570 Taichi, I forgot if its at the same price point or not actually. 

[Bashrag]

50 minutes ago, Catchears said:

Get a RX 5700XT.

I'll look into this. I don't know a lot about AMD cards and have no idea how they compare to Team Green's hardware.

33 minutes ago, Oalei said:

Yeah you could with, P1, EX900,XPG,etc just capped the NVME it's usually at the same price with 860 Evo or just over 10usd more. If you don't want to be bothered with troubleshooting go for X570 Taichi, I forgot if its at the same price point or not actually. 

I swapped the Evo for a WD Blue NVMe. Think that's a good deal? 

The Taichi is €120 more unfortunately.

[trevb0t]

1 hour ago, AkshayRao27 said:

I'll look into this. I don't know a lot about AMD cards and have no idea how they compare to Team Green's hardware.

I swapped the Evo for a WD Blue NVMe. Think that's a good deal? 

The Taichi is €120 more unfortunately.

The 5700 XT is a good 1440p option, and currently a good savings. 

They currently only come in blower models (yuck.) but are supposed to be releasing some actual multi fan cooled solutions later this month. So keep your eyes peeled.

 

Are you... In love with that case? I'd save a few bucks and get something like:

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/Y6Crxr/fractal-design-meshify-c-atx-mid-tower-case-fd-ca-mesh-c-bko-tg

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/G766Mp/cooler-master-mastercase-h500-atx-mid-tower-case-mcm-h500-ignn-s00

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/zHndnQ/phanteks-eclipse-p350x-blackwhite-atx-mid-tower-case-ph-ec350ptg_dbw

[ch3w2oy]

1 hour ago, AkshayRao27 said:

I'll look into this. I don't know a lot about AMD cards and have no idea how they compare to Team Green's hardware.

I swapped the Evo for a WD Blue NVMe. Think that's a good deal? 

That's not an NVMe, it's just an SSD with the M.2 form factor.. They are both called M.2 drives but can either be regular SSD or NVMe.. NVMe drives should say NVMe or PCIe 3.0 x 4 (or 2). The read and write speeds will also be above 1000 mb/s..

 

My SX8200 Pro advertises 3500/3000 MB/s while the SSD variant of the M.2 form factor is about the same speed as is 2.5" variant..

 

[VEXICUS]

2 hours ago, AkshayRao27 said:

 

...

I'll recommend something like this instead...

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  (€349.00 @ Alternate) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  (€72.89 @ Aquatuning) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE ATX AM4 Motherboard  (€215.89 @ Mindfactory) 
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory  (€113.84 @ Mindfactory) 
Storage: Crucial P1 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (€65.75 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB Video Card  (€409.00 @ Amazon Deutschland) Placeholder for AIB version
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case  (€94.07 @ Amazon Deutschland) 
Power Supply: BitFenix Formula Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  (€89.90 @ Caseking) 
Total: €1410.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-04 13:39 CEST+0200

 

• Added a great air cooler.
• Replaced the RAM with a 3600mhz cl17 kit.
• Replaced the ssd with a crucial p1.
• Replaced the gpu with a rx 5700xt. But I'll recommend you to get a aib version of the card as the blower style cards suck at thermals.
• Replaced that nzxt case with a much better case. That nzxt case has restricted air flow and doesn't look much appealing.
• You don't need a titanium rated PSU. A decent unit with 80+ gold efficiency is fine. I have gone with a 750w model because it was cheaper.

[Bashrag]

1 hour ago, trevb0t said:

The 5700 XT is a good 1440p option, and currently a good savings. 

They currently only come in blower models (yuck.) but are supposed to be releasing some actual multi fan cooled solutions later this month. So keep your eyes peeled.

 

Are you... In love with that case?

Yeah, I watched a bunch of reviews and everyone's (rightly) salty about the blower design. 

 

Case: she very specifically wants a white one. Had about 15 options, she liked that one the most

 

1 hour ago, ch3w2oy said:

That's not an NVMe, it's just an SSD with the M.2 form factor.. They are both called M.2 drives but can either be regular SSD or NVMe.. NVMe drives should say NVMe or PCIe 3.0 x 4 (or 2). The read and write speeds will also be above 1000 mb/s..

WHAT. I filtered by NVMe! Gods, I'll check again. Thanks for pointing this out! 

1 hour ago, VEXICUS said:

 

• Added a great air cooler.
• Replaced the RAM with a 3600mhz cl17 kit.
• Replaced the ssd with a crucial p1.
• Replaced the gpu with a rx 5700xt. But I'll recommend you to get a aib version of the card as the blower style cards suck at thermals.
• Replaced that nzxt case with a much better case. That nzxt case has restricted air flow and doesn't look much appealing.
• You don't need a titanium rated PSU. A decent unit with 80+ gold efficiency is fine. I have gone with a 750w model because it was cheaper.

Thanks!

 

I'll ask her if she likes the case.

 

PSU: Have a look at the calculations I linked. Turns out that Titanium would cost significantly less to operate in the long run. 

[VEXICUS]

2 hours ago, AkshayRao27 said:

PSU: Have a look at the calculations I linked. Turns out that Titanium would cost significantly less to operate in the long run. 

Those calculations seem to be wrong.

 

@Spotty can help you more regarding PSUs.

[trevb0t]

24 minutes ago, VEXICUS said:

Those calculations seem to be wrong.

 

@Spotty can help you more regarding PSUs.

I mean even if they're off, if the PC is running almost all the time, and he is gonna use it over a couple of years, the efficiency will eventually pay off. 

I'm not sure I would personally invest so heavily on one in this budget range, since that money up front could mean better performing parts.. There's likely about a 100E savings just by grabbing a solid ass Gold unit like a BitFenix Gold.

[trevb0t]

3 hours ago, ch3w2oy said:

That's not an NVMe, it's just an SSD with the M.2 form factor.. They are both called M.2 drives but can either be regular SSD or NVMe.. NVMe drives should say NVMe or PCIe 3.0 x 4 (or 2). The read and write speeds will also be above 1000 mb/s..

 

My SX8200 Pro advertises 3500/3000 MB/s while the SSD variant of the M.2 form factor is about the same speed as is 2.5" variant..

 

It is, and it does. I can't speak to the quality thereof.

[VEXICUS]

3 minutes ago, trevb0t said:

I mean even if they're off, if the PC is running almost all the time, and he is gonna use it over a couple of years, the efficiency will eventually pay off. 

I'm not sure I would personally invest so heavily on one in this budget range, since that money up front could mean better performing parts..

Check that calculation page that op has mentioned in his post, it's $3 as suppose to $11.

Efficiencies of 80+ gold & titanium PSU at 50% load are 92% and 96% respectively.

So his calculations seem to be pretty off.

[Spotty]

6 hours ago, AkshayRao27 said:

PSU:  Should I get a 650W or a 600W?

• I crunched some numbers and based on assumptions I made, it seems that a Titanium would would save enough money in energy costs over the span of a year to make up for the price difference between a Gold & Titanium.
  Assuming she'll use this system for over 7 years, I expect a low efficiency PSU to cost us much more over time than a max efficiency one. Is my reasoning sound?

Those calculations are wrong. 

 

Firstly, your calculations are based on the PSU outputting 650w at all times. The PSU only outputs as much power as the system draws. When you're idling or just browsing the web, watching a video on YouTube, etc you'll be closer to 50-100w consumption. 

 

For a system with a 3700x + 2070 super you should be under 400w peak power consumption under load. Probably closer to 300-350w. While browsing the web or just left open on desktop like 75w or less.

For arguments sake let's say 100w power consumption under general use (web browsing, etc).

A gold rated PSU will be pulling 113w from the wall

A titanium rated PSU will be pulling 106w from the wall.

Difference of 7w. Over 8 hours of use a day that's 0.056kwh, or 0.392kwh per week. That's a difference of 20kwh per year, and at the €0.10/kWh in your table that's €2 per year.

 

Let's say you're using your system intensively and those 8 hours of use per day are not at 100w, but instead under a heavy load with the system pulling up to 400w. 

Gold rated PSU will be pulling 435w from the wall.

Titanium rated PSU will be pulling 415w from the wall.

Difference of 20w. Over 8 hours of heavy use that's a difference of 0.16kwh, or 1.12kwh per week. Difference of 58kwh per year, which at a €0.10/kWh will be €5.80 per year you would save with a titanium unit.

 

So it depends on how much you'll use the system and what sort of load it will be under, but for most people with typical usage you'd only be saving a few euro per year at most.

 

(Power consumption and efficiency calculations are a little guesstimated and based off the 80+ standards efficiency targets not actual PSU efficiency graphs... I'm on my phone. Should be close enough to give you an idea though)

 

The prime titanium is a good unit, but you could probably get a decent 80+ gold unit for under €100. 80+ titanium might save you €5 a year but it's an extra €80 euro upfront. Probably won't pay for itself over the lifetime of the unit. At €5 savings per year from efficiency it would take you over 15 years to make the cost back.

[hello_there_123]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	€209.00 @ Alternate
Motherboard	MSI B450-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard	€86.99 @ ARLT
Memory	Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	€71.24 @ Amazon Deutschland
Storage	Intel 660p Series 1.02 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	€107.89 @ Mindfactory
Video Card	XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB Video Card	€409.00 @ Amazon Deutschland
Case	NZXT Phantom 410 ATX Mid Tower Case	€111.70 @ Amazon Deutschland
Power Supply	BitFenix Whisper M 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	€89.90 @ Caseking
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€1085.72
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-04 17:34 CEST+0200

Edit: get formula 450 instead of whisper 550

[seon123]

8 hours ago, AkshayRao27 said:

PSU:  Should I get a 650W or a 600W?

None of the above. The 2070 Super is a 215W card, so expect the whole system to draw a bit under 300W when gaming. Using actual efficiency numbers for the BitFenix Formula 450W (€65 on PCPP DE) and Seasonic Prime Titanium 650W (€175) on 230V AC at about 300W, they are about 91,5% and 95,2% efficient. If you drink so many energy drinks that you don't need any sleep, and you game 24/7, you save about €38 €11 annually with the electricity cost you used. Of course, if you e.g. game "only" 8 hours per day, every day, that's under €13 €4 annually. You get the idea. 

Efficiency numbers from Cybenetics, on 230V. 

https://www.cybenetics.com/index.php?option=power-supplies

The Formula 450W is the my recommendation for a cheap, fairly high end, quiet PSU. Not modular, but that should be fine. 

 

8 hours ago, AkshayRao27 said:

Does the 2070 Super offer enough of a performance boost over a Gigabyte RTX 2070 OC to justify the €57 difference? At what price point would a second hand RTX 2070 be a significantly better deal than a new RTX 2070 Super?

The 2070 Super performs about 20% better than the 2070. €57 is 4% of the total price for a €1500 PC. 4% price increase for 20% better performance should be worth it. 

As for the 5700 XT, the reference cooler is crap. AiB cards will be out in mid-late August. The performance is about 8% worse in games. 

 

Other than that, you can easily save money by going for a less expensive motherboard. Check out the MSI B450-A for €87. It might require a BIOS update, but that can be done without a CPU on that board. 

If you want a nicer SSD, check out the Samsung PM981 for €82 on PCPP DE. 

When checking case reviews, check the date of the review. Standards change, so a case that's 8 years old might not be as good as a more modern case, even though the reviews are more positive. 

8 hours ago, AkshayRao27 said:

• She is an artist and will be doing freelance graphic design work in the future. We plan to buy a graphic tablet eventually and she will be using a LOT of Photoshop and Illustrator. At some point, we will buy a monitor that is more suited to graphic workloads
• We're both quite tinkery and would love to get into overclocking and min-maxing everything just for the thrill of it.

Combining important work with overclocking might not be the best idea. System stability might be more important than the little performance gained. Especially with Ryzen 3000, which barely benefits at all. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by seon123
Error spotted by Spotty

[Spotty]

3 minutes ago, seon123 said:

Using actual efficiency numbers for the BitFenix Formula 450W (€65 on PCPP DE) and Seasonic Prime Titanium 650W (€175) on 230V AC at about 300W, they are about 91,5% and 95,2% efficient.

Thanks, currently 2am and am on phone in bed, couldn't be bothered looking up actual efficiency figures for the units.

[Spotty]

 

52 minutes ago, seon123 said:

The 2070 Super is a 215W card, so expect the whole system to draw a bit under 300W when gaming. Using actual efficiency numbers for the BitFenix Formula 450W (€65 on PCPP DE) and Seasonic Prime Titanium 650W (€175) on 230V AC at about 300W, they are about 91,5% and 95,2% efficient. If you drink so many energy drinks that you don't need any sleep, and you game 24/7, you save about €38 annually with the electricity cost you used. Of course, if you e.g. game "only" 8 hours per day, every day, that's under €13 annually. You get the idea. 

Efficiency numbers from Cybenetics, on 230V. 

How did you get €38 annually? Unless I'm missing something here I'm guessing you went off something like €0.30/kWh? OP put €0.101872/kWh as their energy cost in their calculations.

 

300w / .915 * 24 * 365 = 2870kWh yearly power use. 

300w / .952 * 24 * 365 = 2760kWh yearly power use.

 

That's 110kWh delta. 110kWh @ €0.10/kWh = €11

So even if they gamed 24/7 it would only be a difference of €11 per year with their energy rates.

[seon123]

6 minutes ago, Spotty said:

 

How did you get €38 annually? Unless I'm missing something here I'm guessing you went off something like €0.30/kWh? OP put €0.101872/kWh as their energy cost in their calculations.

 

300w / .915 * 24 * 365 = 2870kWh yearly power use. 

300w / .952 * 24 * 365 = 2760kWh yearly power use.

 

That's 110kWh delta. 110kWh @ €0.10/kWh = €11

So even if they gamed 24/7 it would only be a difference of €11 per year with their energy rates.

No idea. I did use OP's 0,100872, I do remember that. Must have been a weird mistake on my part. Sorry

[Bashrag]

Thanks so much for all of your feedback. I updated the parts list based on what y'all have been saying. I'm out right now so I can't have a look at all of the PSU calculations, but once I'm home, I'll have a look at all of the number crunching y'all gave done and make updates / answer questions.

 

So far, y'all have ended up saving my SO €100 and optimised stuff quite a bit as I see it ^^

[seon123]

On 8/4/2019 at 6:46 PM, Spotty said:

 

How did you get €38 annually? Unless I'm missing something here I'm guessing you went off something like €0.30/kWh? OP put €0.101872/kWh as their energy cost in their calculations.

 

300w / .915 * 24 * 365 = 2870kWh yearly power use. 

300w / .952 * 24 * 365 = 2760kWh yearly power use.

 

That's 110kWh delta. 110kWh @ €0.10/kWh = €11

So even if they gamed 24/7 it would only be a difference of €11 per year with their energy rates.

Found my error. For the energy use with Gold, I divided by efficiency, which is correct. Then, for the Titanium, I multiplied instead of dividing.