Ultimate Developer Workstation / Gaming Rig - No budget cap

[NewEnthusiast2077]

Budget (including currency): No hard limit

Country: Australia

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Games: Cyberpunk2077, Developer Tools: VSCode, Android Studio, XCode on MacOS-VM, NodeJS

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): 

 

Existing Parts / Fully Procured:

Case	Lian Li Lancool 2 Mesh (ARGB)
PSU	Corsair HX1200
GPU	Nvidia 3080 Founders Edition
Storage	Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 With heatsink - 5000 MB/s (read) and 4400 MB/s (write)

Planned Parts:

CPU	Ryzen 5950x
Memory	Crucial Ballistix Max 32GB (2x 16GB) DDR4 4400MHz Memory
Motherboard	Gigabyte X570 AORUS MASTER (rev. 1.2)

TBA:

Cooling A	Lian Li Galahad 240mm (Top Rad Mount Exhaust, back exhaust 1x120mm, Stock Front Intake 3x120mm)
Cooling B	Lian Li Galahad 360mm (Front Rad Mount Intake, Top exhaust 2x120mm, back exhaust 1x120mm)
Cooling C	Noctua nh-d15 chromax (Stock Front Intake 3x120mm, back exhaust 1x120mm, Top exhaust 2x120mm?)

 

I can't decide which cooling solution to go for, here's my dilemma:

 

The Case only supports a maximum of 240mm Rad for top mounting, so here are my options:

 

1. The most stock config will be top mount rad and leave the 3 front intake fans included with the case as is add a 120m exhaust at the back - What are the pros/cons of using a 240mm AIO for a beast like 5950x?

2. Front-mount a 360mm AIO configured for intake (given the front-mesh), add 2x120mm fans at the top and 1x120m at the back for exhaust - Configuring a radiator for intake instead of exhaust makes little sense in my head plus AIO orientation with the front mount is confusing as all hell.

3. Screw AIOs and Aircool with a Noctua ND-D15 Chromax - That would give me 3x120mm front intake fans as per stock, 1x120mm at the back for exhaust and maybe 2x120mm at the top if clearance permits after cooler installation? - This option is also attractive as the case is mainly optimised for airflow with pretty-much everything being perforated. However, aesthetically, I prefer an AIO with all the RGB goodness.

 

Please enlighten me with your valuable advice!

[Virtualstone]

What about a ultimate gaming pc?

[NewEnthusiast2077]

28 minutes ago, Virtualstone said:

What about a ultimate gaming pc?

Haha it secretly is my version of the ultimate gaming pc based on parts available today, might replace the 3080 FE with RX 6900XT down the track but the parts chosen are to the best of my knowledge, the very top end money can buy right now (without being overkill).

 

If the Lancool 2 Mesh supported larger AIO top mounts, I would have been golden but because it's limited to 240mm, i'm totally lost on how to cool this beast.

[dizmo]

13 minutes ago, NewEnthusiast2077 said:

Haha it secretly is my version of the ultimate gaming pc based on parts available today, might replace the 3080 FE with RX 6900XT down the track but the parts chosen are to the best of my knowledge, the very top end money can buy right now (without being overkill).

 

If the Lancool 2 Mesh supported larger AIO top mounts, I would have been golden but because it's limited to 240mm, i'm totally lost on how to cool this beast.

I don't know anything about water cooling, but if you do streaming at all, keep the 3080. Nvidia Broadcast is a pretty useful suite.

[NewEnthusiast2077]

22 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I don't know anything about water cooling, but if you do streaming at all, keep the 3080. Nvidia Broadcast is a pretty useful suite.

Thanks for the advice mate, much appreciated. Hopefully someone can address my cooling dilemma!