Building My First PC! Could use some advice

[IamSuperB4]

Hello LTT community!

 

Budget (USD): About $2,000 for PC parts. Around $8-900 for monitors. Maybe $500 (though I really have no idea) for a NAS. Somewhat flexible budgets.

Country: Washington, United States

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for:

• Programming: data science (Python?, C#), web design, databases
• Games: Not sure yet, want to get into gaming with a "real" computer, only really play Age Of Empires Online right now
• NAS: Also want a NAS.

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): 

 

Here's the parts I have picked out for my PC: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xJvnpH

 

I have never owned a real desktop PC, only budget-ish laptops. I currently have an Inspiron 15 5000 with a Ryzen 4700U and integrated graphics. I have a 24" 1080p 144hz monitor and 1080p 60hz that plug into my USB docking station from my laptop. I already have a DAC and amp for audio so no need for a sound card, Keycron Q3 keyboard, Logitech G604 wireless mouse, speakers, microphone, and chair.

It's getting close to my graduation so I want to make a nice, reasonably high-end PC that will last me a while. I'm willing to have a fairly substantial budget. I plan to build it in around a month. I have a friend who has built a PC before who is going to help me build it. Here are some of the things I've thought about:

 

PC Parts:

I want a PC that I don't need to worry about and will just work. Great cooling, great specs, overkill and high quality power supply, and little maintenance needed or dust getting in the case. Even if I can't take full advantage of everything, I want to future-proof it anyway.

• This computer will be used quite a bit for programming, so the CPU is important. I feel like the i9 is overkill and too expensive so I thought an i7 12700K was good, but feel free to correct me on that decision if you think I need better. I'd prefer to have the integrated graphics available to me to make things a little easier so I'm getting the K version.
• With GPU prices coming down and the 40 series just around the corner (maybe September?), I'm thinking of waiting for that release to buy my real graphics card. If I can snag a 4080/4070 at MSRP at launch, I'd like that. Otherwise 3080s will probably be a good deal with a new generation out. It would be fun to have a setup ready for VR too, but I don't have any of that equipment at the moment. I've bought a used GTX 1060 until then. A 1060 will still be a lot better than I've had before so I'm ok with that for a few months. Feel free to weigh in on that decision if you'd like.
• Along with that potential 4080, I feel like a 1000W power supply would be good to give me some breathing room in case the 40 series sucks power, and any potential later upgrades. Seasonic's PRIME 1000W is over $200 and Corsair's is $170, so I picked out a Corsair since they're still a top PSU brand, and this has a 10 year warranty.
• As much as I want DDR5 RAM, I feel like it isn't worth it right now in the early adopter stage, so I'm going DDR4 RAM. I read 3200 MHZ is the max DDR4 Intel can take advantage of so I went chalk Corsair Vengeance 32 GB. I can't imagine I'd need more, but data scientists might disagree? And is there a better set of RAM sticks? They all seem similar to me. I just want fast and reputable
• LTT always praises Noctua CPU coolers, so I thought that was best
• For the case, I just want pretty big, I'm not worried about size too much. This is my first build so it's not going to be compact. I'm not too particular about looks. I also want good cooling and a dust filter. I think the case I picked out meets the criteria. Feel free to suggest something better.
• That Crucial SSD seems like the best one, so I went for that. I'm planning on having a NAS, so I don't think I need more than a 1TB SSD. Feel free to correct me on this though.
• As for the motherboard, I really have no idea. Very open to suggestions on this one. I just want a very good, but not overkill, motherboard. Fastest Wi-Fi and Bluetooth available is preferred.
• I'm not sure what to do about the OS, please provide tips/info about how do best go about getting/setting up the OS

Peripherals:

Monitors:

I'm never going back to a one monitor setup, so I'm going dual monitors. 2 32" monitors seems too big, so I'm thinking dual 27".

• 1 gaming monitor and 1 productivity monitor seems ideal
  • For the gaming monitor, I'm thinking of the Samsung Odyssey G7. There's no way I need 4k on a gaming monitor, so 1440p 240hz with great visuals and pixel response times sounds great. Is this something I could buy refurbished and save a little money? This is already pushing what I'd pay for a monitor so I'm not looking to go higher end.
  • For the productivity monitor, it doesn't need to be anything special. Color accuracy isn't important to me, I don't even know if I can tell, but I would like a decent viewing experience. There is going to be zero photo/video editing. The closest thing to color accurate productivity would be a website design. 4k 60hz seems ideal for a productivity monitor. The Dell S2721QS seemed like the best monitor for my needs from my research. Very open to suggestions here, but keep it around this price range (~$300)
• I have a dual monitor VESA stand that I plan to attach these monitors to: https://www.amazon.com/Dual-Monitor-Stand-Computer-Notebooks/dp/B08DNTVY8Y/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3C9ZH2CIHKYYO&keywords=huanuo+dual+monitor+stand+laptop&qid=1652734488&sprefix=huanuo+dual+monitor+stand+laptop%2Caps%2C108&sr=8-3

Again, I already have the audio setup, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and chair. I think that's all I need

 

NAS:

Our family friend has a NAS so I can get some help from him on this, but I'd also like some input from you guys. I have almost no idea where to go for this, so please point me in the right direction for this. I'll provide a list of what I'm thinking:

• I am planning on keeping my laptop for portable computing, so I would like to share files between my PC and laptop. A NAS seems great for that
• I have about 500GB-1TB of music
• I have a reasonable amount of pictures/videos, but nowhere near a TB
• That family friend I was talking about already has a 120TB PLEX server with TV shows and movies on it, so I don't need a PLEX server (maybe in the future, who knows)
• I'm thinking 2x 8TB hard drives on RAID. I'm eyeing the Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS drive: https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-IronWolf-Internal-Hard-Drive/dp/B084ZV4DXB/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=8tb%2Bhard%2Bdrive&qid=1652733482&sprefix=8tb%2B%2Caps%2C130&sr=8-3&th=1. Not set on anything here, so feel free to make suggestions
• Am I able to keep this NAS in my PC, or should it be a separate box with its own little Linux computer?

 

Hopefully I'm on the right track here for my first PC. Some things I'm very open to suggestions, some I feel like I've got my heart set on, but I'm happy to hear any advice! Sorry this post is so long, but the more information the better right? It's ok to spend a little more in certain places if it's a big enough upgrade, but in general please try to keep suggestions within the similar price ranges. I'm not worried about power consumption. Also is there anywhere I can save money by buying open-box/refurbished? And certain items to specifically buy new? And are there certain items I shouldn't trust Amazon shipping to keep my part safe and buy at, say, BestBuy?

 

I look forward to hearing from you all! Thanks!

[SupaKomputa]

you still have a reasonably good pc for now, i suggest waiting till the end of the year so you can have the option to go for Ryzen 7000 and Nvidia 4000.

 

[IamSuperB4]

7 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

you still have a reasonably good pc for now, i suggest waiting till the end of the year so you can have the option to go for Ryzen 7000 and Nvidia 4000.

 

Nvidia 4000 series I very much agree, that's my plan. As for the CPU, I kinda prefer Intel at this point after Alder Lake, I'm focused on performance over power efficiency, but is there something special rumored with the Ryzen 7000? 

[SupaKomputa]

Well it's all over the news, it's obviously going to decimate an Alderlake DDR4 system, with 25% IPC improvement from current gen.

5ghz for all cores (5.2 boost), we all know ryzen scaled better with clock, caveat, this came from pre production sample, so we can expect higher clock in retail version.

source: https://wccftech.com/roundup/amd-ryzen-7000-zen-4-am5-cpus/

[IamSuperB4]

7 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

Well it's all over the news, it's obviously going to decimate an Alderlake DDR4 system, with 25% IPC improvement from current gen.

5ghz for all cores (5.2 boost), we all know ryzen scaled better with clock, caveat, this came from pre production sample, so we can expect higher clock in retail version.

source: https://wccftech.com/roundup/amd-ryzen-7000-zen-4-am5-cpus/

Wow the new Nvidia GPUs and Ryzen CPUs were literally both on TechLinked today . What good timing! With both maybe coming in the summer, that's definitely worth waiting for. Thanks for the advice!