2022 New Build Advice

TWrapper · January 29, 2022

I am looking to build a new system here within the next month or so. I am just wanting to make sure that I am being logical in the parts that I ahve choosen. I have left out the graphics card due to the current market situation but would also like ideas on what would pair well with this even if it would be a good used card (No extensive overclocking or mining done with the car).

Budget (including currency): $1200 USD

Country: United States of America

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: iRacing, Adobe Suites (Illustrator, Photoshop and Light Video Editin), Web Broswing

RONOTHAN## · January 29, 2022

First and foremost, unless what you do benefits a lot from AMD CPUs, go Alder Lake. The 12400F is ~$100 less and marginally outperforms the 5600X.

Second, I'd ditch the corsair fans and AIO. Corsair charges a ton for their products, which aside from cases, PSUs, and sometimes RAM (RAM is complicated), are very much a terrible value. You can get an Arctic Freezer 360mm AIO RGB for the same price that will absolutely demolish that in performance and reliability (if the 5600X or 12400F got hot enough for it to matter). An AIO really isn't necessary or recommended for this system, so unless you really want an AIO for looks, go for a good tower cooler like the Scythe Fuma 2. Or, if you go 12400F, the stock cooler is good enough, so might as well use it and put the ~$30-50 towards a better GPU. As for the fans, they're not amazing. the Arctic P12 RGB fans can be had for about half the price, and perform better. If you don't care about RGB you can get a 5 pack of the Arctic fans for $30. it just doesn't make sense to get those fans unless you really just want a super RGB computer.

As for the RAM, it's complicated. Corsair RAM is either complete trash or amazing. Either you end up with a kit of Samsung B-Die for next to nothing, or you end up with complete garbage for $10-20 more than its worth. If you want to try and overclock your RAM and are willing to take the risk, go for it, you could get lucky. If you don't want to try and overclock your RAM and/or you want a known decent kit of memory, go for a kit of Crucial Ballistix 3600CL16. It'll be about the same price and it will be pretty good memory. It won't be amazing like B-Die, but it will be pretty good, plus its faster with the XMP speeds.

For the storage, the Crucial P5 is ~$10 less for the same performance, might as well save a few dollars.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qg2D4s

Taking all those suggestions brought the total to ~$750, $350 less for the same or better performance. Put that money towards a better GPU, $350 is the difference between a scalped 3070 and a scalped 3080.

If you want to buy a stop game GPU, either go for a 3050 or get a scalped 1070 (they're about the same price of $400). They're both good 1080p class cards that will get you above 100 FPS in most games at high settings. Plus, with the amount of money shaved off the parts list, you can actually afford one under the listed budget. Then try and go for up to a 3080 or 6800XT once the prices eventually come back down.