Critique my AMD based part-list

[ftahir192]

Decided it's time to upgrade my current rig (i5 4690k, gtx 770, asus maximus vii ranger and so on)...

 

My uses would be:

- 1440p gaming (easy to run games like CS:GO and League as well as some new upcoming titles like the new half life, cyberpunk, and so on)

- Coding

- Movies 

 

Here's what I've come up with:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	£269.97 @ CCL Computers
CPU Cooler	Corsair H100i RGB PLATINUM 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	£114.99 @ AWD-IT
Motherboard	Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming ATX AM4 Motherboard	£234.99 @ AWD-IT
Memory	Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	£89.98 @ Box Limited
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	£164.59 @ Box Limited
Video Card	Asus Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB STRIX Gaming OC Video Card	£428.35 @ Currys PC World Business
Case	NZXT H510i ATX Mid Tower Case	£97.99 @ AWD-IT
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£1400.86
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-25 01:55 GMT+0000

 

 

CPU: Either this or the Ryzen 5, around a £100 difference. I think Intel will be given a miss this time round.

CPU Cooler: Was contemplating the dark rock pro 4 but might make the move to water cooling this time round. DRP 3 was a beautiful cooler but it just looks way too beefy in my mid tower case (fractal desgin define r2)

Motherboard: This was in the A-tier list (see https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1137619-motherboard-tier-list-v2-currently-amd-only/ and also has asus aura which has the most compatibility from what I have seen. I don't massively care for RGB but if there is any RGB in my rig, I'd ideally like it to be synced up. Also contemplated the TUF gaming plus from Asus

Memory: Seemed like the best bang for its buck, may go with the non-RGB version if I can't sync this with Asus Aura but from reading up looks like I can

Storage: From what I've read, the samsung 970 evo is the best for its buck but not sure how it compares to the PLUS/PRO. Are there any other potentially cheaper SSD's that perform well? I think NVMe form factor is a must nowadays also?

Video Card: Between the 5700 xt and 2070 super, but the 2070 is £150 more for the ASUS strix version. Again went for ASUS because can't really go wrong with their products, reviews are good and also the Aura compatibility for my OCD.

Case: Don't want to spend a ton here but may look at the fractal design meshify as the h510i front ports are a bit underwhelming. Any other good cases with a USB c connector in the front?

Power supply: Salvaging this from previous build as it was recently RMA'd and performed very well up till then. My current build has a seasonic focus gold 550w in it as I had to wait a few weeks for the RMA so just bought a new one. The old pc would be going to my brother - should I take the PSU out or is the EVGA g2 just as fine?

 

Will be using my existing keyboard and mouse, and buying 2 new monitors down the line but this is for a separate post. Should I also get some different thermal compound or is the one that comes with the water cooler good enough? Normally used to use arctic silver 5 for all my builds.

 

 

Ultimately don't want to spend more than £1500. I'd also like RGB compatibility as much as possible.

 

Any tips and help appreciated, thanks.

 

[Sorenson]

You have no list posted. If you’re competitive at CS:GO you might want to consider intel for the cpu and 240hz monitor. Otherwise AMD all the way.

[ftahir192]

Just now, Sorenson said:

You have no list posted. If you’re competitive at CS:GO you might want to consider intel for the cpu and 240hz monitor. Otherwise AMD all the way.

Yep misclicked and posted early, it's edited now. Cheers.

 

Not competitive at CS:GO, super casual.

[bowrilla]

Spending way too much on the board. Just get a different version of the 2070 Super and not the ASUS Strix one, comes cheaper, better performance. The H510i is a stupid choice (sorry for being blunt) if you want to have a cheap case. The "i" stuff is absolutely useless and expensive. On top of that the H510 is not very well ventilated on the front and that's the only place for your AiO. The Meshify C is a better choice and cheaper then the H510i and just a bit more expensive than the H510. NVMe drives are not a must though they're more affordable these days. You will not notice much of an improvement comparing a good SATA SSD with a NVMe drive in regular daily tasks. Boot times might be a few (!) seconds shorter, load times in games might be a tiny bit quicker, but in overall responsiveness there isn't much of a difference. If you want to save a bit in order to get a better GPU: ditch the NVMe drive and get a good SATA SSD.

 

Regarding RGB: I think the Corsair stuff wants the Corsair RGB control software (not sure though). Having Corsair RGB memory: I'd say ditch it. The two sticks regularly fall out of sync.

 

Throw in 2 more case fans like the BeQuiet Silent Wings 3 PWM or some Noctua Chromax PWM fans. When going for watercooling your VRMs want some airflow in your case.

[KaitouX]

The 5700XT Strix is bad, the older revision is straight up defective and even the fixed one still worse than other (cheaper) models, if you want a premium 5700XT go for the Sapphire Nitro or PowerColor Red Devil, or maybe the Gigabyte Gaming OC if you want something cheaper that still performs really well. Avoid Asus AMD cards in general, they're the probably the worst option when it comes to AMD GPUs.

Water cooling Ryzen isn't worth it, unless the looks are important or you got a case that can't fit good air coolers, you won't gain much from it over a good air cooler.

 

[ftahir192]

26 minutes ago, bowrilla said:

Spending way too much on the board. Just get a different version of the 2070 Super and not the ASUS Strix one, comes cheaper, better performance. The H510i is a stupid choice (sorry for being blunt) if you want to have a cheap case. The "i" stuff is absolutely useless and expensive. On top of that the H510 is not very well ventilated on the front and that's the only place for your AiO. The Meshify C is a better choice and cheaper then the H510i and just a bit more expensive than the H510. NVMe drives are not a must though they're more affordable these days. You will not notice much of an improvement comparing a good SATA SSD with a NVMe drive in regular daily tasks. Boot times might be a few (!) seconds shorter, load times in games might be a tiny bit quicker, but in overall responsiveness there isn't much of a difference. If you want to save a bit in order to get a better GPU: ditch the NVMe drive and get a good SATA SSD.

 

Regarding RGB: I think the Corsair stuff wants the Corsair RGB control software (not sure though). Having Corsair RGB memory: I'd say ditch it. The two sticks regularly fall out of sync.

 

Throw in 2 more case fans like the BeQuiet Silent Wings 3 PWM or some Noctua Chromax PWM fans. When going for watercooling your VRMs want some airflow in your case.

Not too sure what kind of board to go for in that case. I followed the tier list. Do you have any recommendations?

 

There's still around a £80 difference between the cheapest 2070 Super and a decent 5700 XT, is that worth it?

 

H510i was mostly a placeholder without doing much research - this is very likely to change. What are your recommendations here?

 

I don't mind spending the extra for the NVMe even if I do go for the 2070 Super. I'd still be under my £1500 budget I reckon. Is my NVMe choice solid or are there other good contenders?

 

I'll ditch the Corsair RGB memory. Is there any other memory you'd recommend? 

 

As for fans, yep will probably go for a couple BeQuiet Silent Wings but amn't factoring this into the cost. I have the SilentWing 2's in my current build and they've been solid for the last 6 years.

[ftahir192]

7 minutes ago, KaitouX said:

5700XT Strix is bad, the older revision is straight up defective and even the fixed one still worse than other (cheaper) models, if you want a premium 5700XT go for the Sapphire Nitro or PowerColor Red Devil, or maybe the Gigabyte Gaming OC if you want something cheaper that still performs really well.

Water cooling Ryzen isn't worth it, unless the looks are important or you got a case that can't fit good air coolers.

 

Does it make sense to go for a 2070 Super card at this price point then? The Gigabyte WIndforce 2070 Super OC is around £70 more than your suggested cards

 

Water cooling is mostly for the looks to be honest, but may drop this to a dark rock pro 4 or potentially even the stock wraith cooler.

[KaitouX]

2 minutes ago, ftahir192 said:

Does it make sense to go for a 2070 Super card at this price point then? The Gigabyte WIndforce 2070 Super OC is the same price point as your suggested cards.

 

Water cooling is mostly for the looks to be honest, but may drop this to a dark rock pro 4 or potentially even the stock wraith cooler.

The Gigabyte 2070S is £60 more than the Nitro+(not the SE) which is the most expensive out of the models I listed, and £100 more than the Gigabyte one(Which might be equivalent, but maybe not.). If the difference is worth it only you can say, personally I don't think so but some people think it is(I wouldn't get premium models btw). TechSpot got this comparison between the two: https://www.techspot.com/review/1902-geforce-rtx-2070-super-vs-radeon-5700-xt/

Check also other benchmarks on games that interest you and try deciding which is going to be the best for you.

[Herman Mcpootis]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£269.97 @ CCL Computers) 
CPU Cooler: Gelid Solutions Phantom CPU Cooler  (£45.40 @ Alza) 
Motherboard: Asus PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£159.99 @ Box Limited) 
Memory: Thermaltake TOUGHPOWER Z-ONE RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (£79.97 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Integral UltimaPro X2 960 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (£118.86 @ Ebuyer) on par with the 970 evo.
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card  (£673.48 @ Ebuyer) 
Case: Corsair SPEC-DELTA RGB ATX Mid Tower Case  (£47.46 @ Ebuyer) 
Total: £1395.13
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-25 03:25 GMT+0000

[bowrilla]

27 minutes ago, ftahir192 said:

Not too sure what kind of board to go for in that case. I followed the tier list. Do you have any recommendations?

The cheapest one you can find with the features you like from Tier B or above I'd say.

 

28 minutes ago, ftahir192 said:

H510i was mostly a placeholder without doing much research - this is very likely to change. What are your recommendations here?

Fractal Design Meshify C is very good in regards to airflow and looks quite nice in my opinion. 

 

30 minutes ago, ftahir192 said:

I don't mind spending the extra for the NVMe even if I do go for the 2070 Super. I'd still be under my £1500 budget I reckon. Is my NVMe choice solid or are there other good contenders?

Very much solid. There are slightly quicker ones available on PCIe 3.0 but not by much. The Pro versions come with a better warranty.

 

31 minutes ago, ftahir192 said:

I'll ditch the Corsair RGB memory. Is there any other memory you'd recommend? 

Corsair or G.Skill. I'd just skip the RGB stuff.

[ftahir192]

28 minutes ago, bowrilla said:

The cheapest one you can find with the features you like from Tier B or above I'd say.

 

Fractal Design Meshify C is very good in regards to airflow and looks quite nice in my opinion. 

 

Very much solid. There are slightly quicker ones available on PCIe 3.0 but not by much. The Pro versions come with a better warranty.

 

Corsair or G.Skill. I'd just skip the RGB stuff.

Thanks.

 

Went for the Asus TUF Gaming which looks to be the cheapest from B+ that has some sort of RGB sync. No USB C headers from what I can see though - this was partly why I chose the Strix one, as well as it having upgraded sound codecs. (Realtek S1220A vs S1200A),

 

Changed the case to Corsair Carbide Spec Delta. Not too much of a fan of Meshify C to be honest. I like the define series (have the R2 right now) but R7 is £150... The corsair case comes with 4 fans - if I were to get this case should I replace these?

 

There's only a few pounds difference between the rgb and non rgb corsair, I could always disable the RGB if it turns out to be out of sync right? I see Corsair released plugins for iCue that lets Asus Aura control the rgb of the ram now.

 

Here's the updated list (cooler may yet change still):

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	£269.97 @ CCL Computers
CPU Cooler	Corsair H100i RGB PLATINUM 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	£114.99 @ AWD-IT
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard	£191.58 @ Aria PC
Memory	Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	£89.98 @ Box Limited
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	£164.59 @ Box Limited
Video Card	Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB AORUS Video Card	£553.47 @ Ebuyer
Case	Corsair SPEC-DELTA RGB ATX Mid Tower Case	£47.46 @ Ebuyer
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£1432.04
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-25 03:56 GMT+0000

 

[ftahir192]

47 minutes ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£269.97 @ CCL Computers) 
CPU Cooler: Gelid Solutions Phantom CPU Cooler  (£45.40 @ Alza) 
Motherboard: Asus PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£159.99 @ Box Limited) 
Memory: Thermaltake TOUGHPOWER Z-ONE RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (£79.97 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Integral UltimaPro X2 960 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (£118.86 @ Ebuyer) on par with the 970 evo.
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card  (£673.48 @ Ebuyer) 
Case: Corsair SPEC-DELTA RGB ATX Mid Tower Case  (£47.46 @ Ebuyer) 
Total: £1395.13
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-25 03:25 GMT+0000

Thanks for this. How does this cooler compare to the cooler master hyper 212 evo RGB?  Not big on the aesthetics of this cooler.

 

That motherboard is tier A, not sure how I missed that. Thanks.

 

Regarding the memory, there's a £10 difference with this and the corsair but the corsair gives the added benefit of being able to sync with Asus Aura. I'd personally pay the £10. Also a fan of corsair's customer support.

 

Storage wise - nice catch. Are Integral reliable? I don't know much about them and their website seems meh.

 

Video card - I like how you managed to fit the 2080 in this budget so will need to think about this. Is the £100 price difference worth it between the 2070 and 2080?

 

Case - I like this one for the price, but it's not super modular. I'm wondering if it's worth spending an extra £40 for a modular case i.e. where I can remove the hard drive cage.

 

Here's v3 (haven't changed the cooler, ram and graphics card yet):

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	£269.97 @ CCL Computers
CPU Cooler	Corsair H100i RGB PLATINUM 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	£114.99 @ AWD-IT
Motherboard	Asus PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard	£159.99 @ Box Limited
Memory	Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	£89.98 @ Box Limited
Storage	Integral UltimaPro X2 960 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	£118.86 @ Ebuyer
Video Card	Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB AORUS Video Card	£553.47 @ Ebuyer
Case	Corsair SPEC-DELTA RGB ATX Mid Tower Case	£47.46 @ Ebuyer
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£1354.72
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-25 04:13 GMT+0000

 

 

[Herman Mcpootis]

1 minute ago, ftahir192 said:

Thanks for this. How does this cooler compare to the cooler master hyper 212 evo RGB?  Not big on the aesthetics of this cooler.

 

Regarding the memory, there's a £10 difference with this and the corsair but the corsair gives the added benefit of being able to sync with Asus Aura. I'd personally pay the £10. Also a fan of corsair's customer support.

 

Storage wise - nice catch. Are Integral reliable? I don't know much about them and their website seems meh.

 

Video card - I like how you managed to fit the 2080 in this budget so will need to think about this. Is the £100 price difference worth it between the 2070 and 2080?

 

Case - I like this one for the price, but it's not super modular. I'm wondering if it's worth spending an extra £40 for a modular case i.e. where I can remove the hard drive cage.

it cools much better than the hyper 212 rgb for not much more.

thermaltake's website claims it's compatible with aura sync.

no idea, but it's just another Phison E12 that quite a few companies also sell, including corsair.

do you think you'll really need the modularity? 

[KaitouX]

For air coolers, for me it goes like this:

Budget - ARCTIC Freezer 33 eSports

Midrange - Scythe FUMA 2

Highend - Noctua NH-D15

 

I personally would get the Fuma 2 over the D15 because i prefer silence over performance and the performance gain from the D15 is too small to justify the price difference for me.

[ftahir192]

I think I've got my final build.

 

Going for stock cooler for now with scope to upgrade to the Scythe in the future.

 

Thoughts? Only concern is if all rgb is syncable because a mish mash of different colours and 5 different software sounds disgusting

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	£269.97 @ CCL Computers
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard	£191.58 @ Aria PC
Memory	Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	£89.98 @ Box Limited
Storage	Integral UltimaPro X2 960 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	£118.86 @ Ebuyer
Video Card	PowerColor Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB Red Devil Video Card	£396.98 @ CCL Computers
Case	Phanteks Eclipse P400A ATX Mid Tower Case	£69.99 @ AWD-IT
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£1137.36
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-25 21:20 GMT+0000