Speculative Future PC Build (Late 2020)

HDclouds · May 12, 2020

Budget (including currency): $1500 USD TBA

Country: United States

I've been aching to build a new PC since I finished high school, but now I'm in my third year of Uni and I still haven't pulled the trigger. Now, with the approach of next-gen processors and graphics, here's my future PC build and reasoning behind each and every part choice. Please comment your suggestions and thoughts below!

CPU: 4000 Series Ryzen 7 on Zen 2 architecture.

- I do a fair bit of CAD, compiling, and light photo editing, and 3000 Series Ryzen 7 3700x was a really strong contender this year based on price and performance. But the final Ryzen series on the AM4 socket looks to improve efficiency and slightly boost performance, and I don't plan on upgrading this PC build. By the time games are on a new graphical/technological level, it'll be easier to just start building a brand new system.

GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 on the new Ampere architecture.

-I would love to move up from my trusty 1060 and step into the world of QHD 144hz gaming. Ampere looks to add massive performance in raytracing and raw compute power over RTX 2000 series and with coming competition from AMD in graphics, (finally!) I anticipate that high end cards will be more competitively priced after Nvidia's domination of that sector this generation. I also need to be ahead of the console gaming curve as both Sony and Microsoft's offerings look to be on par with current mid/high-tier gaming setups.

RAM: 32Gb 4X8Gb sticks of Corsair LPX DDR4 memory at 2133Mhz

-I'll be trying to save some money and carrying over my old sets of RAM from my current PC. I know Ryzen needs fast memory, so I'll be trying to overclock my RAM to 3200Mhz (or overclock Ryzen's Infinity Fabric). Please write me tips on memory over-clocking/Ram-timings.

Storage: 1 TB M.2 SSD TBA + 2TB HDD at 7200rpm

- More SSD storage is always better, but rising demand of high capacity SSDs have greatly inflated the price of 2 TB SSD solutions (+$400!). I wanted a compromise and so, will be implementing a hybrid set up with an M.2 SSD and standard 3.5 in HDD. Better preforming HDD's are really cheap these days and I don't care for having a massive Steam library. Not going with NVME because my workloads don't really benefit from the price hike over SATA. Brand really shouldn't matter as long as they're reliable and well priced.

Case: NZXT H510

- The case looks nice in white and I've heard great reviews. Not much to think about here.

Cooling: Included Wraith Prism cooler + 2 Noctua 140mm fans.

-I don't plan on crazy overclocking of Ryzen's cores themselves and the included cooler bundled with the processor seems more than adequate. I'm adding 2 Noctua 140mm fans for the case's front air intakes, (NZXT provides 2 included exhaust fans.)

Motherboard: Asus Strix B550 TBA

-Asus doesn't currently offer a midrange 500-series chipset motherboard but should approaching Ryzen 4000 series launch. I like their BIOS features and have the necessity of overclocking my memory modules having skimped out on more modern RAM.

Power Supply: EVGA 1000w gold+ modular power supply

-I've had this boy in my closet for 4 years now because it didn't fit in my old computer. It's more than adequate for my estimated wattage and will have ample power-overhead should I add a second RTX 3080 when CFR technology finally comes around.

Conclusion: Using PC Partpicker, this build should come out to sub >$1500. I have one foot in the future and the other in the past when it came to parts and features with this build, but I can't bear to push this budget to around $2000. Good things come to those who wait.

I know I'm putting a lot of stock in the future (literally and figuratively), but I've waited too long for this upgrade and this year seems like a great time to build a system that will be relevant for years to come. Please send me ideas, suggestions, comments, concerns and criticism you have. I always could use the help.

Rybo · May 12, 2020

I know everybody says the stock coolers on Ryzen are good, but I've bought 3 Ryzens in the past few months and have ultimately upgraded the cooling on all of them. If you do anything that involves a sustained load, your temps are likely to hit 80 degrees, which is just too much for me even if it's technically acceptable. If you don't plan on doing anything CPU intensive, the cooler is definitely fine, but never having to worry about it is, to me, worth an extra 50-100 dollars (particularly at the cost of the build you're planning)