Building PC for girlfriend, looking for advice

[flysosceles]

My girlfriend's iMac crapped out so she's decided to replace it with a PC. She's a creative professional who works mostly in Photoshop, After Effects, Maya and ZBrush. This machine will also be used for light gaming here and there.
Below is a list of parts I've compiled:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$283.55 @ B&H
CPU Cooler	Corsair H100x 57.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$99.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4/ac ATX AM4 Motherboard	$124.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$144.99 @ Corsair
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$99.99 @ Adorama
Storage	Western Digital Blue 2 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$33.99 @ Amazon
Video Card	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB Video Card	$399.99 @ Best Buy
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$119.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1307.48
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-21 20:04 EDT-0400

 

No need for peripherals just yet, she'll be using her old iMac as a display for the time being. She's looking to spend $2000 at most, but I feel like that might be overkill? I would however like this computer to be as future-proof as possible so perhaps splurging isn't a terrible idea.

 

I am open to any and all suggestions. Thank you!

 

EDIT: ... and I just realized I posted this in the wrong subforum. Sorry, could a mod please move this to New Builds and Planning? I'd delete the thread if I knew how.

Edited August 22, 2020 by flysosceles
Wrong Subforum

[jaslion]

4 minutes ago, flysosceles said:

My girlfriend's iMac crapped out so she's decided to replace it with a PC. She's a creative professional who works mostly in Photoshop, After Effects, Maya and ZBrush. This machine will also be used for light gaming here and there.
Below is a list of parts I've compiled:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$283.55 @ B&H
CPU Cooler	Corsair H100x 57.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$99.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4/ac ATX AM4 Motherboard	$124.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$144.99 @ Corsair
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$99.99 @ Adorama
Storage	Western Digital Blue 2 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$33.99 @ Amazon
Video Card	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB Video Card	$399.99 @ Best Buy
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$119.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1307.48
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-21 20:04 EDT-0400

 

No need for peripherals just yet, she'll be using her old iMac as a display for the time being. She's looking to spend $2000 at most, but I feel like that might be overkill? I would however like this computer to be as future-proof as possible so perhaps splurging isn't a terrible idea.

 

I am open to any and all suggestions. Thank you!

I would not go for watercooling but for a higher tier air cooler like a dark rock 4 just for longevity.

The board is alright but a msi tomahawk would do better.

For the ssd you can get a sx8200 for a little more in the 1tb variant or the 500gb for less and pretty much have the same performance

Hdd make sure it is at least 7200rpm

A gtx 2060 ko is a better creative card due to it being a 2080 with disabled cores and thus still acting like a 2080 in a lot of rendering tasks. The cooler on it is bad and thus very loud.

With all of these savings you may actually even be able to fit in a 3900x which would help a lot in cpu rendering tasks.

[flysosceles]

Awesome, this helps so much! Thanks @jaslion!

[XAIXER]

No case?

[jaslion]

10 minutes ago, flysosceles said:

Awesome, this helps so much! Thanks @jaslion!

I assume this build is for now and not in 2 weeks? Since well rtx 3000 is getting announced and launched very soon. Also got a case?

[flysosceles]

For the case she picked out the Phanteks 400 because it's clean, white and has an option for closed panel instead of the tempered glass. She's not big on RGB or the see-through panel. I had a hard time finding anything else that meets all those requirements .

 

And yes, hoping to start building within the next week or so. Unless waiting for the 3000 series would be best? The timeline on this is pretty flexible, just want to get her the most bang for her buck.

[bellabichon]

30 minutes ago, flysosceles said:

For the case she picked out the Phanteks 400 because it's clean, white and has an option for closed panel instead of the tempered glass. She's not big on RGB or the see-through panel. I had a hard time finding anything else that meets all those requirements .

 

And yes, hoping to start building within the next week or so. Unless waiting for the 3000 series would be best? The timeline on this is pretty flexible, just want to get her the most bang for her buck.

If Nvidia's moderately cryptic tweets are anything to go buy, the 3000 lineup is going to be officially announced on the 31st of August. I think it's worth waiting that long just to see what the new cards look like, even if you still intend to buy the previous generation.

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, bellabichon said:

go buy

They've gotten to you!

[dizmo]

Honestly I wouldn't bother with an AIO, I'd just get a good air cooler. Fewer points of potential failure.

I'd also get a different motherboard. If you need integrated WiFi, at least try and get AX; If not, get a much cheaper board and add an AX card in.

I'd try and get a larger SSD, and a 7200 RPM HDD. If it's just for files it's not a huuuuge problem, it'll just take a little longer to find stuff. If you can get away with it, ditch the HDD entirely and grab a 1TB SSD, then buy a much larger HDD for the same price on Black Friday.

IIRC the G3 wasn't the greatest PSU; check the LTT PSU Tier list, and pick something from one of the higher brackets.

 

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

I assume this build is for now and not in 2 weeks? Since well rtx 3000 is getting announced and launched very soon. Also got a case?

The card he's looking at wouldn't be released for quite a while. The 70/80/90 are released first.

1 hour ago, bellabichon said:

If Nvidia's moderately cryptic tweets are anything to go buy, the 3000 lineup is going to be officially announced on the 31st of August. I think it's worth waiting that long just to see what the new cards look like, even if you still intend to buy the previous generation.

Haha, they're not that cryptic. They have a countdown timer on their website, it's pretty obvious what it's for.

It's not worth waiting for him though.

[bellabichon]

1 hour ago, Den-Fi said:

They've gotten to you!

Oops. That's the sleep deprivation talking.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to New Builds and Planning