ITX 3070 Build

[DanFromDownUnder]

Budget (including currency): $2000 AUD (flexible)

Country: Australia

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Currently playing Anno 1800, Deep Rock Galactic, Valheim, Dota 2 and miscellarious other more cinematic FPS/RPGs. Also use it for development from time to time so code compilation speed is a plus.

Other details

- Already have a MSI GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB GAMING X TRIO that I am taking from my old build when moving from Germany to Australia (a friend is buying the rest of the PC)

- Already have a 512GB SATA SSD

- I will likely move between Australia and Germany multiple times over the next few years so am planning ITX so there is potential that I can take the machine with me as carry on

- No peripherals are needed

- Currently have a 1440p 60z monitor but will upgrade sometime in the next year either to higher refresh rate or 4k

- Happy to spend a bit more to get something that lasts longer (especially on things like power supplies, cases and fans/coolers that don't become obselete as fast)

 

I've come up with the following on PCPartPicker and would love some feedback.

- The NR200 is the only case I know so far that will fit a decent air cooler AND the super long GPU I have and perform well but I would be super interested in other options (something smaller or something with more premium build quality).

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/stbbBc

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($419.00 @ Amazon Australia) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9S chromax.black 46.4 CFM CPU Cooler  ($169.00 @ Amazon Australia) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard  ($299.00 @ PCCaseGear) 
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory  ($338.00 @ Newegg Australia) 
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($245.00 @ BPC Technology) 
Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB GAMING X TRIO Video Card 
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox NR200 Mini ITX Desktop Case  ($85.00 @ JW Computers) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS SGX 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply  ($219.00 @ Umart) 
Total: $1774.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-10-06 15:07 AEDT+1100

 

Thanks very much and look forward to hearing your suggestions etc

 

Edited October 6, 2021 by DanFromDownUnder
Added full list to post

[Yes9110]

honestly good job order the system you picked out great parts

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/fBQ6Yg

Cut cost by 350aud and upgraded to 5800x

 

Ditched the noctua cooler, a cheap tower like the se 224 xt will be adequate

 

Ditched the tridentz ram, if you were looking for an overclocking ram then you prob would have gone for the neos, swapped for 3200mhz cl16 to save ~100aud

 

650w gold for 220aud is a scam, fit a 750w gold unit for 170aud instead, you could also go for a corsair sf platinum unit

 

Ditched the 980 pro, unless you are doing server like workloads aka transferring tons of massive files regularly then a gen4 nvme ssd is of no use to you

 

Cheaper board cause no one overclocks in an itx build

[Dr0idGh0sT]

3 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/fBQ6Yg

Cut cost by 350aud and upgraded to 5800x

 

Ditched the noctua cooler, a cheap tower like the se 224 xt will be adequate

 

Ditched the tridentz ram, if you were looking for an overclocking ram then you prob would have gone for the neos, swapped for 3200mhz cl16 to save ~100aud

 

650w gold for 220aud is a scam, fit a 750w gold unit for 170aud instead, you could also go for a corsair sf platinum unit

 

Ditched the 980 pro, unless you are doing server like workloads aka transferring tons of massive files regularly then a gen4 nvme ssd is of no use to you

 

Cheaper board cause no one overclocks in an itx build

Totally agree that original build had too overpriced parts in it, But you gone little too below than you should be.

For example, Yeah, Gen 4 absolutely unnecessary, But cashless drive instead of it?

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/Bgz6Yg

 

Very little changes.

Also, Noctua have great coolers, But in Australia, Their prices are almost 2 times more than it should be, So avoid buying Noctua in australia. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 hour ago, Dr0idGh0sT said:

cashless drive

I think the a2000 has cache though if you are gonna get a p5 might aswell get a rocket q4 for 20$ more

 

1 hour ago, Dr0idGh0sT said:

But you gone little too below than you should be

Common issue with my pcpartpickers

Always going for the cheapest parts that i can find xD

[Dr0idGh0sT]

2 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

I think the a2000 has cache though if you are gonna get a p5 might aswell get a rocket q4 for 20$ more

 

A2000 uses SLC caching while P5 uses Dram, Also P5 have faster read/write speeds than rocket q, So it's ain't worth paying 20$ more at all. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

28 minutes ago, Dr0idGh0sT said:

A2000 uses SLC caching while P5 uses Dram, Also P5 have faster read/write speeds than rocket q, So it's ain't worth paying 20$ more at all. 

So whats the major diff between slc cache and dram endurance and speed wise?

 

Are you referencing the regular q or the q4 (pcie gen4 ssd version of the q)?

[Dr0idGh0sT]

2 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

So whats the major diff between slc cache and dram endurance and speed wise?

 

Are you referencing the regular q or the q4 (pcie gen4 ssd version of the q)?

I'm referring to normal Rocket Q, Not Gen 4.

https://www.teamgroupinc.com/en/blogs/ssd-cache

 

In few words, Drives with Dram are able to maintain speed in high load, While Dramless SSDs can't, So they sometimes become slow on high load, It sometimes can affect gaming performance as well. 

[DanFromDownUnder]

18 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/fBQ6Yg

Cut cost by 350aud and upgraded to 5800x

 

Ditched the noctua cooler, a cheap tower like the se 224 xt will be adequate

 

Ditched the tridentz ram, if you were looking for an overclocking ram then you prob would have gone for the neos, swapped for 3200mhz cl16 to save ~100aud

 

650w gold for 220aud is a scam, fit a 750w gold unit for 170aud instead, you could also go for a corsair sf platinum unit

 

Ditched the 980 pro, unless you are doing server like workloads aka transferring tons of massive files regularly then a gen4 nvme ssd is of no use to you

 

Cheaper board cause no one overclocks in an itx build

 

14 hours ago, Dr0idGh0sT said:

Totally agree that original build had too overpriced parts in it, But you gone little too below than you should be.

For example, Yeah, Gen 4 absolutely unnecessary, But cashless drive instead of it?

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/Bgz6Yg

 

Very little changes.

Also, Noctua have great coolers, But in Australia, Their prices are almost 2 times more than it should be, So avoid buying Noctua in australia. 

Thanks very much for the feedback guys!

• Didn't know about the inflated noctua prices in AU, will have a look at your recommendations and do some more research! The big shuriken looks pretty good.
• Regarding ram choice I was basing my choice on this video from Hardware Canucks , they show that 3600 is a sweet spot without any overclocking and 3733 is nice if you can get a minor overclock - I was planning on getting the 3600 kit, see if it will go to 3733 and if not I would be very happy with 3600 - are you thinking the small performance boost just isn't worth it?
• Thanks for the feedback regarding the PSU, wanted to get something high quality (not something just based on efficiency) but the coolermaster seems like a great option considering it also has a 10 year warranty
• For SSD: the crucial P5 seems like a good pick thanks
• With the feedback on the motherboard, I am definitely planning on undervolting - I think it's pretty common practice on ITX builds because you have less thermal headroom and it will help the CPU reach better boost clocks - I was thinking that a better quality board might help with cleaner power delivery and a more stable undervolt but do you think it's not necessary? Here's the video that got me thinking about undervolting

[Somerandomtechyboi]

5 minutes ago, DanFromDownUnder said:

 

Thanks very much for the feedback guys!

• Didn't know about the inflated noctua prices in AU, will have a look at your recommendations and do some more research! The big shuriken looks pretty good.
• Regarding ram choice I was basing my choice on this video from Hardware Canucks , they show that 3600 is a sweet spot without any overclocking and 3733 is nice if you can get a minor overclock - I was planning on getting the 3600 kit, see if it will go to 3733 and if not I would be very happy with 3600 - are you thinking the small performance boost just isn't worth it?
• Thanks for the feedback regarding the PSU, wanted to get something high quality (not something just based on efficiency) but the coolermaster seems like a great option considering it also has a 10 year warranty
• For SSD: the crucial P5 seems like a good pick thanks
• With the feedback on the motherboard, I am definitely planning on undervolting - I think it's pretty common practice on ITX builds because you have less thermal headroom and it will help the CPU reach better boost clocks - I was thinking that a better quality board might help with cleaner power delivery and a more stable undervolt but do you think it's not necessary? Here's the video that got me thinking about undervolting

Performance boost from ram usually isnt worth it, id say overclock from 3200mhz to 3600 or whatever the highest fclk you can run without erroring or crashing, then if you have enough headroom you can lower your timings for better performance, im prob gonna buy 4400mhz cl19 ram if i ever build a ryzen pc but thats just because its pretty cheap compared to the 3200mhz rams in my country + i just need to lower the speed to 3800 and lower the timings for extra performance, ram is still worth tuning compared to cpu overclocking in terms of the performance gain

 

Undervolting is a good idea cause itx build obv though try finding the max freq your cpu can run at with 1.2 or 1.25v cause usually cpus run very efficient with 1.2 or 1.25 vcore but above that is usually the volts needed for diminishing returns on cpu freq (needing to pump more voltage for a freq bump)