Budget-ish Gaming Machine for Latest AAA Games

EliteGolden43 · May 25, 2022

Budget (including currency): $1500-$2000

Country: United States

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Latest AAA games. Mostly Just looking for a good 1440p gaming experience. I currently have this monitor: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TGMC29J?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1, so a good GPU shouldn't be a problem for it.

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):

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/crGQd9
Would prefer a lower budget if I can, not really looking to overkill on much and want to mostly focus on getting a good gaming experience. Not looking to overclock either unless it's really that important I'm willing to consider.

Bombastinator · May 25, 2022

2 hours ago, EliteGolden43 said:

Budget (including currency): $1500-$2000

Country: United States

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Latest AAA games. Mostly Just looking for a good 1440p gaming experience. I currently have this monitor: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TGMC29J?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1, so a good GPU shouldn't be a problem for it.

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):

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/crGQd9
Would prefer a lower budget if I can, not really looking to overkill on much and want to mostly focus on getting a good gaming experience. Not looking to overclock either unless it's really that important I'm willing to consider.

1080p@240 is a PvP monitor not an AAA monitor. Won’t need that much card to drive that monitor. 1080p@240hz is the same as 4k@60

A 12400f is fine now, but a 12600k or 12700f may eventually needed to be installed to keep up. It’s an unknown. The 12600k has eCores which are useless for gaming now but might not be in the future. Are you a esports athlete? 240hz is more or less useless for everything but them or other folks with unusually quick eyesight like pro baseball hitters. I might look at 4k@120 or 144 unless of course it’s already in hand. The thing about 4k is it slots down to 1080p really well, so if you need less screen resolution to get high refresh it’s available. All those are more expensive of course, so maybe something in the 6800xt or 3070 or 3070ti range and use the extra money for the more expensive monitor. Also 3080s still have pretty bad pricing problems atm. I’d look at perhaps a 6900xt if you just want that much power. There’s an argument that the 6900xt is faster anyway. It will be situation and location dependent though.
Cooler is fine for a 12400 but may be on the light side for a bigger chip. G-skill stopped being a favorite of mine this evening when I found out they make the chips on their memory untraceable to everyone but them. They may or may not be abusing it now, but big corporations have a really strong history of screwing the public as hard as they can eventually. that kind of stuff is unacceptable to me. Too much trust is being put in a non-human entity.
You seem to like the rgb, but your choice of 2 extra fans doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. 3 fans or 1, depending on whether the case actually comes with fans or not, though I suppose you could put 2 fans in the top if it does. My suspicion is it won’t need any though. The overheat possibility comes from the gpu not the cpu. It throws a lot more heat even if you reduce it.
I suspect a 750w PSU may turn out to be inadequate for a 3080

Edited May 25, 2022 by Bombastinator