Building a new PC, would be grateful for advice

[340951987]

Budget (including currency): Variable, but I would feel kind of guilty going over $2000 CAD.

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Potentially any new multiplayer game (currently light stuff like Valorant/CSGO, near future Overwatch 2, etc), want to be able to run stable 144+ fps for any esports games and stable 60+ fps for other games on 1080p medium for at least the next 5+ years. 

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): Upgrading from a Ryzen 7 1700 & GTX 1070, case is cheap and one of the feet are broken and I've been kind of considering upgrading for a while.

 

I'm planning on leaving my current build at home and bringing this new build with me when I move back out for university, so I don't have to bring my PC back home every time I visit if I still want to game. I'm still happy w/ my monitor and peripherals and it's less of a pain to move those than the rest of my computer so I'm not planning on upgrading those.

 

I think the part list I currently have might be overkill for my use case because I don't usually play very demanding games, but since I'm upgrading from an already functional build I want to feel like the upgrade is substantial.

 

I'm not planning on overclocking, so I went with AMD. I was considering the 12600k but the added cost of the motherboard + cooler made it not worth it imo, and I feel like I upgrade rarely enough that by the time I upgrade again I'd have to get a new motherboard anyways if I went wiht Intel now.

 

I don't really care about the aesthetics of the case as long it's easy to work with and has good airflow.

 

I upgraded my RAM to a 2x8gb 3600Mhz corsair kit from a 2x4gb kit a year ago, so I'm planning on taking that from my current build and putting the 2x4gb kit back in (should still be mostly fine for just Valorant and CSGO and the like).

 

Current part list is here (I added 13% tax for all retailers because I live in Ontario): 

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/CgJjZw

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($316.38 @ Best Buy Canada) 
Motherboard: MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($169.49 @ Amazon Canada) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($169.49 @ Amazon Canada) 
Video Card: Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 Ti LHR 8 GB GAMING Twin Edge OC Video Card  ($789.87 @ Canada Computers) 
Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case  ($129.94 @ Amazon Canada) 
Power Supply: Phanteks AMP 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($117.52 @ Amazon Canada) 
Total: $1692.69
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-04-27 16:51 EDT-0400

 

 

 

[GhostRoadieBL]

PCPartPicker Part List: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/GcFcbK

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($219.99 @ Canada Computers)
CPU Cooler: Scythe Kotetsu Mark II 51.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($53.50 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: Asus PRIME B660M-A D4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($164.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($149.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 Ti LHR 8 GB GAMING Twin Edge OC Video Card  ($699.00 @ Canada Computers)
Case: Silverstone PS15 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($124.80 @ Amazon Canada)
Power Supply: Corsair CXF 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($107.99 @ Amazon Canada)

Total: $1520.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-04-27 18:34 EDT-0400

 

if you are going with 6 cores anyway, you can save some $ and get a little more single core performance out of the 12400F

went mATX because you mentioned university and space is always a premium, personally I'd go ITX since you'll likely only have a GPU anyway so extra slots just take up space and budget.

Quote

when comparing the AMD and Intel CPUs in the gaming benchmarks, it's really going to come down to the games used, and how those games are tested. In our relatively small sample of games, the 5600X enjoyed big wins in Horizon Zero Dawn, Hitman 3, Rainbow Six Siege, Age of Empires 4, and a solid win in F1 2021, while the i5-12400 was stronger in Far Cry 6 and The Riftbreaker.

It also depends on how you test these games. Horizon Zero Dawn, for example, using the ultimate quality settings sees the game become entirely GPU limited and this equalizes CPU performance, seeing the 5600X and 12400 matched, even with the 6900 XT at 1080p.

https://www.techspot.com/review/2392-intel-core-i5-12400/

it's such a close call it's tough to justify $100 more for AMD

 

Other than that I swapped the case to mATX and PSU to match, I know aesthetics aren't a priority but the PSU was cheaper, has excellent reviews and just because it's 80+Bronze most people overlook it so it ends up on sale for $60-75 often. The cooler is nothing special but will run circles around the included stock cooler, Ideally (you have budget for it) you could run a Corsair H100i to really overpower the cooling so the CPU is always able to hit max turbo and sustain it, that would also add a pair of fans to the build to help with GPU temps.

[Bombastinator]

5+ years is hard.  The way it worked generally is devs make games to run on console so they have console specs.  Therefore if one builds a machine that beats a given console in every direction on can play games originally designed for that console.  6/6 and 4/8 CPUs lasted as long as the playstation4 because the PlayStation had 6 threads available for games (it actually had 8 but two were reserved) the new console has 16 threads available, and a given amount of gpu and memory. There are machines being built now that can beat the ps5 in every direction, so they will play games until the console generation changes.  Given past console update that seems to be every 6 or 7 years, but there is no guarantee of that.  The best that can be done is to beat the current console and build again when the specs for a new one arrive.  That could be 2 years from now though.  When systems are “futureproof” that’s all it really means. Given that, to beat a PS5 you need an 8/16 cpu with decent clocks, 16gb of fast memory, and a gpu about on the level of a 1080. Consoles use unified memory though while gaming PCs don’t (generally) so it means you need maybe 14gb of cpu memory and 14gb of gpu memory.  Things don’t divide all that neatly though so games machines often get 16gb of memory for cpu, and whatever they can get on gpu.   Future IGPs may have fast enough processors and memory to do the division thing, but the memory requirement will probably go up some too to cover the extra overhead of it being a general purpose device, so we may see a lot of 32gb iGP systems in the next few years (because ddr modules just work that way.  The next size after 16 is 32 not 17). At this point my move would be to get a 4k monitor if possible.  The things can be run at 1080p pretty well (4k is 4 1080ps so one pixel becomes 4.  Easy peasy) so call it a 12700, a b series motherboard, 16 gb of ram, and 3060ti or a 6700xt to take a PS5. 4k monitor if you can squeeze it in or a 1080p if you can’t.

[Queen Chrysalis]

53 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

5+ years is hard.  The way it worked generally is devs make games to run on console so they have console specs.  Therefore if one builds a machine that beats a given console in every direction on can play games originally designed for that console.  6/6 and 4/8 CPUs lasted as long as the playstation4 because the PlayStation had 6 threads available for games (it actually had 8 but two were reserved) the new console has 16 threads available, and a given amount of gpu and memory. There are machines being built now that can beat the ps5 in every direction, so they will play games until the console generation changes.  Given past console update that seems to be every 6 or 7 years, but there is no guarantee of that.  The best that can be done is to beat the current console and build again when the specs for a new one arrive.  That could be 2 years from now though.  When systems are “futureproof” that’s all it really means. Given that, to beat a PS5 you need an 8/16 cpu with decent clocks, 16gb of fast memory, and a gpu about on the level of a 1080. Consoles use unified memory though while gaming PCs don’t (generally) so it means you need maybe 14gb of cpu memory and 14gb of gpu memory.  Things don’t divide all that neatly though so games machines often get 16gb of memory for cpu, and whatever they can get on gpu.   Future IGPs may have fast enough processors and memory to do the division thing, but the memory requirement will probably go up some too to cover the extra overhead of it being a general purpose device, so we may see a lot of 32gb iGP systems in the next few years (because ddr modules just work that way.  The next size after 16 is 32 not 17). At this point my move would be to get a 4k monitor if possible.  The things can be run at 1080p pretty well (4k is 4 1080ps so one pixel becomes 4.  Easy peasy) so call it a 12700, a b series motherboard, 16 gb of ram, and 3060ti or a 6700xt to take a PS5. 4k monitor if you can squeeze it in or a 1080p if you can’t.

Bro I'm gonna fight you on this again, but I seriously doubt that 8/16 is gonna be the thing about 2020 consoles that pushes games into the stratosphere and gives currently available parts an obsolescence timeline.  The 32 core Navi is what everything is gonna be limited to, not to mention those cores are zen 2 which alder lake and zen 3 are way faster than.  The 8/16 sku will be irrelevant in this regard so long as the total performance of a 6/12 alder lake matches 8/18 zen2 (low voltage bad airflow zen 2 at that).  And again, at 1440p and up these consoles are gonna continually be severely GPU bound, so having a faster CPU is not a big deal when the single most important factor ESCPECIALLY with newer engines is GPU performance.    if the console had a threadripper 1920x would everyone need a 12700k to keep up with it?

[GeorgeMKane]

Recommend the more modest RTX 3060 gpu. Recommending that so you can get better components for other areas of the build too.

 

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/mth4sL

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($424.50 @ Vuugo) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S chromax.black 82.51 CFM CPU Cooler  ($119.95 @ Amazon Canada) 
Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($189.99 @ Canada Computers) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($145.94 @ shopRBC) 
Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case  ($114.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2021) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($127.60 @ Vuugo) 
Case Fan: Corsair iCUE SP RGB ELITE 47.73 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack  ($74.98 @ Amazon Canada) 
Custom: ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 12GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 Video Card KO-RTX3060-O12G-V2-GAMING  ($610.60 @ Newegg Canada) 
$1808.55

[Bombastinator]

40 minutes ago, GeorgeMKane said:

Recommend the more modest RTX 3060 gpu. Recommending that so you can get better components for other areas of the build too.

 

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/mth4sL

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($424.50 @ Vuugo) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S chromax.black 82.51 CFM CPU Cooler  ($119.95 @ Amazon Canada) 
Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($189.99 @ Canada Computers) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($145.94 @ shopRBC) 
Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case  ($114.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2021) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($127.60 @ Vuugo) 
Case Fan: Corsair iCUE SP RGB ELITE 47.73 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack  ($74.98 @ Amazon Canada) 
Custom: ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 12GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 Video Card KO-RTX3060-O12G-V2-GAMING  ($610.60 @ Newegg Canada) 
$1808.55

AMD is definitely a way to go.  Question becomes which is cheaper with motherboard. A 12700 on a decent b series ddr4 board or an 8/16 ryzen 3 on a  

b550 board (or an x570 if it turns out to be cheaper) 

I don’t see ddr5 being super useful in this situation unless the plan is to get better memory later.  I’m not 100% a 3060 will be enough.  It matches a PS5, but I’m not sure it can beat it every time.  I might even consider ryzen2 and b450 here if it’s needed to get a better video card. Especially with an amphere card.  The biggest problem with the b450 is it’s pcie3, but the amphere cards are all pcie3 too, so the only hit is the lack of access to pcie4 for m.2. A 3700x on a b450 board is pretty cheap and it’s still faster than a PS5.  Not as MUCH faster, but still faster.  The hard one is max single thread speed is slow compared to even ryzen3, and there were a lot of PvP shooters in that list which are famous for wanting really fast  threads

Edited April 28, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Queen Chrysalis said:

Bro I'm gonna fight you on this again, but I seriously doubt that 8/16 is gonna be the thing about 2020 consoles that pushes games into the stratosphere and gives currently available parts an obsolescence timeline.  The 32 core Navi is what everything is gonna be limited to, not to mention those cores are zen 2 which alder lake and zen 3 are way faster than.  The 8/16 sku will be irrelevant in this regard so long as the total performance of a 6/12 alder lake matches 8/18 zen2 (low voltage bad airflow zen 2 at that).  And again, at 1440p and up these consoles are gonna continually be severely GPU bound, so having a faster CPU is not a big deal when the single most important factor ESCPECIALLY with newer engines is GPU performance.    if the console had a threadripper 1920x would everyone need a 12700k to keep up with it?

You may turn out to be right.  It’s an unknown atm.  The game devs don’t HAVE to make games that need 16 threads to function.  They haven’t yet.  They did leave the 4/4s out in the cold though. They merely might do it anyway.  It’s a bases covering thing.  

Edited April 28, 2022 by Bombastinator