Dream PC Upgrade Advice

[cheesemanxl]

Budget (including currency): 4500usd

Country: 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Top-of the Line gaming, Game Dev using Unity, UE4/5, Blender 

Other details: 

• Case : iBUYPOWER Lian Li LANCOOL II Mesh RGB Tempered Glass Gaming Case - Black
• Processor : Intel® Core™ i9-12900K Processor (8X 3.20GHz + 8X 2.40GHz/30MB L3 Cache)
• Processor Cooling : iBUYPOWER DEEPCOOL GAMERSTORM RGB 240mm CASTLE 240EX Liquid Cooler
• Memory : 32 GB [16 GB X2] DDR5-5600MHz Memory Module - G.Skill Trident Z5
• Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti - 12GB GDDR6X (VR-Ready)
• Motherboard : ASUS PRIME Z690-P - w/Wi-Fi add-in card, ARGB Header (3), USB 3.2 Ports (1 Type-C, 5 Type-A), M.2 Slot (3)
• Power Supply : 850 Watt - NZXT 850W C850 Fully Modular - 80 PLUS Gold
• Primary Storage : 1TB Samsung 980 PRO M.2 PCIe NVMe Gen 4 SSD -- Gen 4 Read: 6900MB/s; Write: 5000MB/s, Gen 3 Read: 3500MB/s; Write: 3400 MB/s
• Secondary Storage : 2TB Samsung 870 QVO SSD -- Read: 560MB/s, Write: 530MB/s
• Operating System : Windows 11 Home - (64-bit)

 

Hey Everyone! I've been thinking about going with an i5 or i7 alder lake CPU instead, as I don't think my workload will utilize the i9.
Should I? And if I do go with the i9 will this cooler and power supply be enough for the CPU GPU combo?

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

[GeorgeMKane]

I would recommend going with an i7 and a better cpu cooler (either Dark Rock 4 or NH-D15S) instead. Recommend saving some money here and there, so you can get a better chair/desk/speakers/etc. as well if you need to upgrade anything else.

[GhostRoadieBL]

Case:Lian Li LANCOOL II Mesh RGB

Processor : Intel® Core™ i9-12900K Processor (8X 3.20GHz + 8X 2.40GHz/30MB L3 Cache)

Processor Cooling :DEEPCOOL GAMERSTORM RGB 240mm CASTLE 240EX Liquid Cooler

Memory : 32 GB [16 GB X2] DDR5-5600MHz Memory Module - G.Skill Trident Z5

Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti - 12GB GDDR6X (VR-Ready)

Motherboard : ASUS PRIME Z690-P

Power Supply : 850 Watt - NZXT 850W C850 Fully Modular - 80 PLUS Gold

Primary Storage : 1TB Samsung 980 PRO M.2 PCIe NVMe Gen 4 SSD

Secondary Storage : 2TB Samsung 870 QVO SSD

 

oh boy where to start,

CPU - 12900k awesome choice for fastest ipc on the market, can't get much better but it's an inferno of a CPU when it's boosting (which is always)

the i7 would be just as good, the i5 keeps up in most games but not in code compiling

Cooling - like @GeorgeMKane said, get a dark rock 4 (preferably dark rock pro 4) or D15S or if you really want AIO go for a 360mm rad AIO

Memory - DDR5 vs DDR4 is going to be an argument with everyone with an opinion. Price to performance you can usually find a 64gb kit of 4000mhz CL18 DDR4 for around the price of DDR5 32gb kits

Video card - awesome card, really hope you can find one

Motherboard - you are pairing the highest intel sku with the lowest priced DDR5 Asus z690 board..... spend a few more dollars for a Asus TUF board or MSI Tomahawk. The prime probably won't be a problem and should be able to handle the CPU fine, but it is one of the worse places to cheap out on components.

PSU - going to call it out now, 850W probably won't be stable with a 3080ti and 12900k. The 12900k can consume anywhere from 300-400W if you push 5.2ghz, add on the 3080ti's 400W when you bump up the power limit by 10-15% in afterburner and there's no power left for spikes in load. If you don't push them both to test stability you can probably get away with the 850W, should probably bump it up to 1000W just to be safe. 

SSDs - for the price of 1TB gen4 and 2TB of SATA you could also get 500GB of gen4 and 2TB of gen3 NVME for a much faster overall system. Not many people can even find 500GB of OS and programs to fill that drive and then you have super fast gen3 storage for game files.

Case -  as long as it fits and isn't all glass, pretty much any case would handle these components well. Lian Li make some nice looking cases with plenty of breathing mesh. You should budget a bit more for fans, fill up the case because there's a ton of power turning into heat on these components so you'll need the extra airflow.