Heading for a upgrade from laptop to itx(SFF) build when 40 series release

[Maver1ck1220]

Budget (including currency): 2300-2900 $CAD / 12000-15000 CNY￥(better if less than this)

Country: Canada and China

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

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): Currently using an Alienware Area 51m with 9900k and 2080. Planning to buy a whole new set up when the 40 series release. I am expecting to play at 2k 144hz/240hz.

 

I have to thank everyone who click in and read this, because my situation is very complicated which I am going to explain in the following. If anyone got any idea and reply here I will appreciate that a lot. 

 

First, I have to build in an itx case no more than 15 liter because I need to take it with me when I take flights between 2 countries (China and Canada). Currently, I am limiting my case option on only Dan A4 H-20. Second, I do have 2 monitors in both countries, so we are not including that in the budget. Third, I am a student studying in Canada currently so I have no flexibility on my schedule, I will leave China on August 31st. For the rest of the time I will be staying in Kelowna, which is a small town beside Vancouver for at least 8 months. And my expectation on my new set up is: CPU should be about 20-30% better than 9900k (probably a i5 12600k/i7 12700k/5600x/5800x), GPU should be at least 30% better than 2080 (probably a 4070/4080). I am NOT accepting any 30 series card cuz I am afraid they are used in mining.   

 

As the above condition is fixed, I am going to first point out my main concerns. First, base on my experience of living in Canada for 4 years, pc components are hard to find(I don't know why does it seem to be so ez for most of the tech channel I watch, they all live in Canada). And there are almost no offline shop that has sufficient amount of up to date components (like micro center in the US). Also, the price of pc components are generally higher compare to China and US. So, I am considering buying some of the parts that are possible to buy in China. However, it is hard to predict when 13th gen intel, 40 series gpu are not released yet. Like these components do influence my options on power supplies, memory clock speed, Cpu cooler(most likely an AIO). Also as I don't know how many slots or how big 40 series will be, case compatibility is also an issue. And all these components are cheaper to buy and easier to find in China. So, I either will need some advice on how to find components I need in Canada, US is not in consideration due expensive shipping fee and taxes (I have paid $400 CAD tax for my current computer shipped from US in 2019). Either I will need some advice on what I can buy first in China because I am not confident with the leak currently (like I am afraid that a 850w sfx power supply is not enough for 40 series and it doubles my cost if it doesn't fit).

 

Here will be a list of my expectation of parts that I need:

CPU:  i5 12600k/i7 12700k/5600x/5800x/new cpu from intel or AMD

GPU: 4070/4080

CPU cooler: Lian Li Galahad 240mm aio (or anything that has similar price($144 CAD included tax in China) and performance)

Case: DAN A4 H-20(Lian Li)

Motherboard: Anything that is an ITX board, but not low ends like ASUS TUF gaming (Expecting ASUS Strix level).

Power Supply: Unknown sfx 850 w (probably need more)

RAM: 2x16g 3600mhz Gskill trident z rgb/royal / corsair vengeance

Memories: all from my past pc (western digital sn520 256g nvme for system, Crucial nvme ct1000p1 1t, Samsung 860evo sata 2t)

 

Thanks for your time and help everyone. 

 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Maver1ck1220 said:

Budget (including currency): 2300-2900 $CAD / 12000-15000 CNY￥(better if less than this)

Country: Canada and China

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

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): Currently using an Alienware Area 51m with 9900k and 2080. Planning to buy a whole new set up when the 40 series release. I am expecting to play at 2k 144hz/240hz.

 

I have to thank everyone who click in and read this, because my situation is very complicated which I am going to explain in the following. If anyone got any idea and reply here I will appreciate that a lot. 

 

First, I have to build in an itx case no more than 15 liter because I need to take it with me when I take flights between 2 countries (China and Canada). Currently, I am limiting my case option on only Dan A4 H-20. Second, I do have 2 monitors in both countries, so we are not including that in the budget. Third, I am a student studying in Canada currently so I have no flexibility on my schedule, I will leave China on August 31st. For the rest of the time I will be staying in Kelowna, which is a small town beside Vancouver for at least 8 months. And my expectation on my new set up is: CPU should be about 20-30% better than 9900k (probably a i5 12600k/i7 12700k/5600x/5800x), GPU should be at least 30% better than 2080 (probably a 4070/4080). I am NOT accepting any 30 series card cuz I am afraid they are used in mining.   

 

As the above condition is fixed, I am going to first point out my main concerns. First, base on my experience of living in Canada for 4 years, pc components are hard to find(I don't know why does it seem to be so ez for most of the tech channel I watch, they all live in Canada). And there are almost no offline shop that has sufficient amount of up to date components (like micro center in the US). Also, the price of pc components are generally higher compare to China and US. So, I am considering buying some of the parts that are possible to buy in China. However, it is hard to predict when 13th gen intel, 40 series gpu are not released yet. Like these components do influence my options on power supplies, memory clock speed, Cpu cooler(most likely an AIO). Also as I don't know how many slots or how big 40 series will be, case compatibility is also an issue. And all these components are cheaper to buy and easier to find in China. So, I either will need some advice on how to find components I need in Canada, US is not in consideration due expensive shipping fee and taxes (I have paid $400 CAD tax for my current computer shipped from US in 2019). Either I will need some advice on what I can buy first in China because I am not confident with the leak currently (like I am afraid that a 850w sfx power supply is not enough for 40 series and it doubles my cost if it doesn't fit).

 

Here will be a list of my expectation of parts that I need:

CPU:  i5 12600k/i7 12700k/5600x/5800x/new cpu from intel or AMD

GPU: 4070/4080

CPU cooler: Lian Li Galahad 240mm aio (or anything that has similar price($144 CAD included tax in China) and performance)

Case: DAN A4 H-20(Lian Li)

Motherboard: Anything that is an ITX board, but not low ends like ASUS TUF gaming (Expecting ASUS Strix level).

Power Supply: Unknown sfx 850 w (probably need more)

RAM: 2x16g 3600mhz Gskill trident z rgb/royal / corsair vengeance

Memories: all from my past pc (western digital sn520 256g nvme for system, Crucial nvme ct1000p1 1t, Samsung 860evo sata 2t)

 

Thanks for your time and help everyone. 

 

We don’t even know what the voltage requirements will be or what the best bang/buck or raw power cpu will be which means we can’t even tell if SFX PSUs will work so not even a case can currently be picked for a build like that.  The thing about 40 series is new CPUs and motherboards will be out by then too.  

[Maver1ck1220]

15 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

We don’t even know what the voltage requirements will be or what the best bang/buck or raw power cpu will be which means we can’t even tell if SFX PSUs will work so not even a case can currently be picked for a build like that.  The thing about 40 series is new CPUs and motherboards will be out by then too.  

The point here is mostly about saving some money, the cheaper the better, so I am trying to know what I can buy first or where can I find it in Canada with a reasonable price.

[Bombastinator]

12 minutes ago, Maver1ck1220 said:

The point here is mostly about saving some money, the cheaper the better, so I am trying to know what I can buy first or where can I find it in Canada with a reasonable price.

Once you know how many watts you will need from that you can figure what PSU you can use ant thus what cases you can look at.  Going lowball SFF there is a pretty high liklihood of a atx form factor PSU being the cheapest available solution.  There are some older (and thus cheaper) SFF cases that use atx PSUs looking at one of those that has a hefty video card space (which you may or may not need) would be one way to go.  They tend to have less width available for video cards though.  Whether it is still the best or even a good choice once the new cpu/motherboards and video cards come out is a total unknown though.  It’s just still too early.  Wattage predictions for the new batch of video cards are all over the place but are even higher than last time in general.  Also the spiking behavior is unknown (though some say possibly even worse than amphere) so there no way to even really guess at wattages.  Also the thickness of upcoming video cards is an unknown as well. Seems to be somewhere around 2-4 slots.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Maver1ck1220]

47 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Once you know how many watts you will need from that you can figure what PSU you can use ant thus what cases you can look at.  Going lowball SFF there is a pretty high liklihood of a atx form factor PSU being the cheapest available solution.  There are some older (and thus cheaper) SFF cases that use atx PSUs looking at one of those that has a hefty video card space (which you may or may not need) would be one way to go.  They tend to have less width available for video cards though.  Whether it is still the best or even a good choice once the new cpu/motherboards and video cards come out is a total unknown though.  It’s just still too early.  Wattage predictions for the new batch of video cards are all over the place but are even higher than last time in general.  Also the spiking behavior is unknown (though some say possibly even worse than amphere) so there no way to even really guess at wattages.  Also the thickness of upcoming video cards is an unknown as well. Seems to be somewhere around 2-4 slots.

Thanks for you advices and help. I am not sure if you have any idea about places to find pc parts other than Amazon.ca or Newegg.ca. It might sound ridiculous but Gskill trident z rgb/royal is about 20% more expensive on Amazon.ca compare to US, and its almost 50% more compare to China. If you don’t live in Canada or you don’t really know any I will leave the question to others. Thank you again.

[dizmo]

You can still buy from the US, the only added cost you will incur is possibly shipping; you would have been paying the same amount of tax whether you bought it in the US or Canada. If you're talking about Kelowna, yeah, not surprising that there aren't many computer shops there. It's a pretty small town, and its more of an outdoor community. Vancouver has several large computer stores, like Memory Express. Really, though, most people just buy online.

 

A lot of what you're asking we don't know, and no one can answer for you. So you'll just have to wait and see. You can buy the highest wattage SFX PSU available and you'll be fine. I'd personally aim for 1000w, but 850w should be fine. You're using an SFX case, you're not going to be overclocking and will most likely be undervolting.

 

Might be worth looking at the LianLi A4H20. Basically a cheaper version of the Dancase.

 

With a case that size, chances are you're getting an AIO. Air coolers aren't really that great with higher performance CPUs in that form factor. The case you're looking at only accepts a 240mm AIO as max, so that's what you'd be getting; that's not something you need to worry about when it comes to purchasing decisions.

 

Overall, I'm not entirely sure what you're asking.

You've written a lot and not really asked many questions.