Need help building my first PC (All-Purpose)

[GokuGogo]

Please bear with me on my first post to the LTT Forum!

Budget (including currency): ~$1200

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for:  Gaming (Modded Skyrim and Fallout, Anno, maybe some shooters), Streaming (mentioned games and living room concerts), Video Editing (Adobe Premiere), Music Production

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): 

 

I've been a MacBook Pro person for about a decade as music was really all I've been concerned about. Now that I'm teaching online and want to expand my work possibilities, I want to be able to make videos and stream video games/ private concerts. My MacBook has been okay at this, but it's taking a lot of abuse and I'd prefer to keep my Intel MacBook alive as long as possible. 

 

My brother is also looking to upgrade/build a PC in 6 or so months, and some of these parts may be passed on to him if I decide later to upgrade the CPU, to DDR5, to an AIO Cooler, etc. Also a reason why WiFi in the Mobo may be useful.

 

Here's my parts list:

GPU: EVGA 2080 Super (already purchased)

 

Not Purchased/ Looking at:

Case: Lian Li O11 Air Mini Snow White - I love this case and it seems to be small enough to move between locations if necessary, while also being compatible with ATX size components to avoid a cost premium. Pretty set on this one.

 

CPU: Intel 12600K- Middle ground that I shouldn't need to upgrade soon but can also play around with OC. If Rocket Lake is irresistible, the 12600K may get passed on.

 

CPU Cooler: Either a Scythe Fuma 2 or a Deepcool AK620. I'd like to have minimal noise while maintaining as much headroom as possible for potential OC. (AK620 seems better suited to this) Also may pass this on if I upgrade to an AIO later

 

Motherboard: Asus Prime Z690-P WIFI D4 ATX (WiFi would be nice to have since alot of the places I stay have no way to route ethernet)  Might pass this one on if for some reason I find that DDR5 is needed.

 

                  I'm a beginner and would like to get my feet wet with some overclocking. Nothing crazy, but getting solid and long-lasting all core boosts would be nice. I don't need crazy VRMs, but I also don't want to fry them with a medium OC.

                     

                  I also looked at a Gigabyte Z690 UD AX DDR4 and MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4, but the reviews I saw pointed to the Asus and GN mentioned that the Asus VRM was a bit better. IDK if getting a non-wifi board and buying a WiFi                        card would be a better plan, please educate me!

 

Memory: I'm looking at Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro SL 32 GB (2x16) DDR4-3600 CL18 cause it seems fast enough, fairly affordable, and it's white + RGB which matches my case. I would like a touch of RGB aesthetic. Also easily expanded.

 

Storage: 1TB NVME SSD. I'm looking at either a Samsung 970 EVO Plus (which I have in a Thunderbolt enclosure and am amazed with the speed as an external storage device) or a 980 Pro. I don't know how much of a difference the 35                        bucks between these two makes or if it's even noticeable. More education needed here! I'm open to other options as well, like a Crucial P5 or such.

 

               I will likely put in a couple hard drives in RAID for backup and redundancy at some later point.

 

Power Supply: I was looking at an EVGA Supernova GA. I figured if I got a 650W now, I could upgrade later this year to an 850 when things go on sale during the holidays, and give the 650W to my brother. Will 650W be sufficient?                                             200W OC CPU+ 300W OC GPU seems to leave some headroom unless a 3080 falls out of the sky and into my lap.

 

Peripherals: I have a keyboard and mouse, I just have no idea what to do with a monitor. I don't really need a very high refresh rate and I do like 4K content. 4K 120Hz with decent color would be optimal, but I can make some concessions. I also don't mind buying used. Gaming at 4K is not too much of a thought unless it's Skyrim and Oblivion, in which case I'm used to console FPS.

 

Please let me know your thoughts! I don't have much experience, but I've been consuming LTT, GN, and Jayz for 4 years so I think I'm not entirely lost. I can take and appreciate any and all constructive criticism!

 

Thanks for taking the time to help out!

 

-GokuGogo

 

 

[Ryuikko]

Some things I'll say now 

28 minutes ago, GokuGogo said:

Rocket Lake is irresistible

I wouldn't exactly say rocket lake is irritable, I think you might mean raptor lake though.

You really don't tain much from oc 12th gen so basically is just for fun

Out of the 2 coolers you listed, I'd get the deepcoolak620, but I'd recommend you get a thermalright cooler.

Getting a wifi card usually isn't good at all since it takes a slot and is more expensive.

If wifi is needed I'd go for the b660 x ax or the b660m a wifi. If you really want to oc, I'd wait for the release of the b660 mortar Max since apparently you can get some good clocks on the 12400f

If get whatever ram is the cheapest. 3600 cl18 and 3200 cl16 perfrom about the same

Something like this if you want rgb

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kFZ9TW/mushkin-enhanced-redline-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr4-3200-cl16-memory-mla4c320gjjm16gx2

Though it really dosent matter since the cpu cooler will block the rgb

I'd get a sk hynix drive instead, it's better for cheaper then the 970 evo

Pcie gen 3 vs 4 dosent matter much for gaming, you'll see the ever slightest perfromance boost in professional programs though it's not worth it.

I'd get a 750 or above. The price difference between most of the psus aren't as drastic as to wait for a sale later. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FsNPgb

You can save ~60$ going for a 12700f + h670 pg riptide

 

If you wanna toy around with oc then id advise not bothering with cpu oc cause theyre already pushed to the limit and going faster is just wasted power, youll gain more by just undervolting the pcores and ocing the ecores, also gets very boring very fast since its just shove a voltage to run a certain freq.

 

A more noticable performance benifit is from ocing rams while also not skytocketing your power bills, id suggest 4x8 crucial 2666 bare pcb off ebay (23$) tho you may be able to get cheaper by buying used locally and specifically ask for either c9bjz (top 2666 bin rev e) or d9wsm (rev j) ics wise, dual rank is already ~20% uplift in bandwidth so you can just take a profile for 3600/3800 c14 online and forget, if you go for the f cpu instead locked cpus also have locked vccsa so they have trouble going past 3600, rev e/j is very light on the imc which helps so maybe at most 3600 c14 but more likely ~3200 c13, max 1.5v w/o fan, not advisable to go >1.7v for the imcs sake (rev e/j dont degrade with voltage)

[GokuGogo]

42 minutes ago, Ryuikko said:

Some things I'll say now 

I wouldn't exactly say rocket lake is irritable, I think you might mean raptor lake though.

You really don't tain much from oc 12th gen so basically is just for fun

Out of the 2 coolers you listed, I'd get the deepcoolak620, but I'd recommend you get a thermalright cooler.

Getting a wifi card usually isn't good at all since it takes a slot and is more expensive.

If wifi is needed I'd go for the b660 x ax or the b660m a wifi. If you really want to oc, I'd wait for the release of the b660 mortar Max since apparently you can get some good clocks on the 12400f

If get whatever ram is the cheapest. 3600 cl18 and 3200 cl16 perfrom about the same

Something like this if you want rgb

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kFZ9TW/mushkin-enhanced-redline-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr4-3200-cl16-memory-mla4c320gjjm16gx2

Though it really dosent matter since the cpu cooler will block the rgb

I'd get a sk hynix drive instead, it's better for cheaper then the 970 evo

Pcie gen 3 vs 4 dosent matter much for gaming, you'll see the ever slightest perfromance boost in professional programs though it's not worth it.

I'd get a 750 or above. The price difference between most of the psus aren't as drastic as to wait for a sale later. 

Raptor Lake, that is what I meant lol

 

As for the OC, JayzTwoCents seemed to get a significant bump in performance by undervolting and disabling/lengthening the Turbo timers. Would I be able to do that with a non-690 board? Also, would that be disabled with a 12700f?

 

Also, in case anything in Raptor Lake has any capacity for OC, I would like to have the option. I'm fine spending an extra $50 and knowing I can play around instead of thinking I may be missing out (I'm in the market for a little bit of fun with OC, I tinker with just about everything else I own)

 

You mentioned waiting for the B660 Max in order to OC, is that 660 board able to OC like a 690 board? I didn't realize there were exceptions to the 690 being the OC exclusive chipset!

 

On the ram, I'd like to stick to my White RGB RAM since they'll end up visible once I go AIO down the line.

 

On the Thermalright cooler and SK Hynix nvme, do you have any recommendations as to which models I should look for?

 

I'll certainly aim for the larger power supply!

 

Thanks for the advice!

[Ryuikko]

4 minutes ago, GokuGogo said:

Would I be able to do that with a non-690 board? Also, would that be disabled with a 12700f?

As far as I'm aware you can undervolt locked cpus.

I still wouldn't particularly want to mess with oc cpus as what has been said above. Oc on ram or gpu is what's mainly in the market now, 

As for the oc on the b660, it's something I've seen @RONOTHAN##mention a few times so I'd though I'd bring it up too.

If you plan to go down the aio line I'd get a good quality one from a brand like ek ek or Arctic liquid freezer, which would cancel out my thermalright suggestion.

Sk hynix goldp31 is the ssd model seen here https://pcpartpicker.com/product/xNCFf7/sk-hynix-gold-p31-1-tb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-shgp31-1000gm-2

 

[GokuGogo]

2 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FsNPgb

You can save ~60$ going for a 12700f + h670 pg riptide

 

If you wanna toy around with oc then id advise not bothering with cpu oc cause theyre already pushed to the limit and going faster is just wasted power, youll gain more by just undervolting the pcores and ocing the ecores, also gets very boring very fast since its just shove a voltage to run a certain freq.

 

A more noticable performance benifit is from ocing rams while also not skytocketing your power bills, id suggest 4x8 crucial 2666 bare pcb off ebay (23$) tho you may be able to get cheaper by buying used locally and specifically ask for either c9bjz (top 2666 bin rev e) or d9wsm (rev j) ics wise, dual rank is already ~20% uplift in bandwidth so you can just take a profile for 3600/3800 c14 online and forget, if you go for the f cpu instead locked cpus also have locked vccsa so they have trouble going past 3600, rev e/j is very light on the imc which helps so maybe at most 3600 c14 but more likely ~3200 c13, max 1.5v w/o fan, not advisable to go >1.7v for the imcs sake (rev e/j dont degrade with voltage)

If I go 12700f with a 670 pg riptide, doesn't that prevent me from undervolting Pcores and OCing e cores?

 

The super overclockable RAM is really interesting. I may just play around with that! It sounds like it would be a good budget option for my bro that I can set up for him down the line!

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

9 minutes ago, GokuGogo said:

If I go 12700f with a 670 pg riptide, doesn't that prevent me from undervolting Pcores and OCing e cores?

 

The super overclockable RAM is really interesting. I may just play around with that! It sounds like it would be a good budget option for my bro that I can set up for him down the line!

 

Undervolting will work fine but prob not ecore oc, the z690 is 25$ more with main benifit being able to fully tune the system but also better vrms incase 13th gen may be a compelling upgrade

 

Good 8gbit rev e/j or 16gbit rev b is capable of upto 4600+ c18/17 (1.6v+) though not exactly worth it to run high speed just because 3800 c14 profile is readily available and youll prob not even see the benifit of the faster rams till you start running >5000 which is pretty much where these sticks cap out, basically not worth running ludicrous speed when gear1 will provide the same performance, esp most cpus being able to do 4000 gear1 with some going upto 4400 gear1, not like ryzen where the multi ccd chips like 5900x cap at ~1900 fclk (easily outsped by running 4800+ ddr4) or ludicrous cezanne apus capable of 2500+ fclk where gear1 is basically endless for pretty much everything except maybe very high bin djrs which i also have an interest in but i doubt even a t top board even w a cezanne apu can do 5000 stable in 4x8 where most of the performance benifit is at cause dual rank op. Basicallly just rip someones 3800 c14 ballistix profile off the internet, maybe do a lil tweaking, and be done with it as theres not much to gain past this till you start going for ludicrous 1.7v overclocks like 5000+ c18/17

[GokuGogo]

7 minutes ago, Ryuikko said:

18 minutes ago, GokuGogo said:

Would I be able to do that with a non-690 board? Also, would that be disabled with a 12700f?

As far as I'm aware you can undervolt locked cpus.

I still wouldn't particularly want to mess with oc cpus as what has been said above. Oc on ram or gpu is what's mainly in the market now, 

As for the oc on the b660, it's something I've seen @RONOTHAN##mention a few times so I'd though I'd bring it up too.

If you plan to go down the aio line I'd get a good quality one from a brand like ek ek or Arctic liquid freezer, which would cancel out my thermalright suggestion.

Sk hynix g

I'm going to start out with an air cooler since I'll save some cash and have something to gift my bro a bit later. The Arctic Liquid Freezer was actually what I was looking at haha I'll definitely look at that b660!

 

Thanks!

[Somerandomtechyboi]

16 minutes ago, GokuGogo said:

I'm going to start out with an air cooler since I'll save some cash and have something to gift my bro a bit later. The Arctic Liquid Freezer was actually what I was looking at haha I'll definitely look at that b660!

 

Thanks!

I see you are a man of culture

 

Though you wont get far even with an aio so i suggest if you wanna give a go at cpu oc then go custom loop, not the idiot trap kind with overpriced ekwb and hardline but the price/performance kind where most of the thing is chinese parts, there are high quality chinese alternatives like barrow and bykski which sell some pretty cheap copper rads over on ali, i mean 90$ for a 480 with 60mm thiccness is not bad compared to some 120$ ekwb 480mm rad with a thinness of a pitiful 30mm

[GokuGogo]

4 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Undervolting will work fine but prob not ecore oc, the z690 is 25$ more with main benifit being able to fully tune the system but also better vrms incase 13th gen may be a compelling upgrade

 

Right on, that's kinda what I'm feeling. I appreciate the advice! I'm defs bookmarking this thread so I can dive down the RAM OC rabbit hole when I'm ready for it!

 

@Somerandomtechyboi @Ryuikko Any thoughts on maybe bumping up to the 12700K? The 12600k doesn't have TVB, so if I'm looking to play around with OC yet may also end up concerned concerned with efficiency down the line if I get tired of OC, would the bump make sense? Any thoughts on this and all thoughts on the two compared would be appreciated. My apologies for the plethora of possibly contradicting thoughts, I keep shifting between thinking short and long term and my excitement for the build is making it hard to focus.

 

Thanks!

[GokuGogo]

3 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

I see you are a man of culture

 

Though you wont get far even with an aio so i suggest if you wanna give a go at cpu oc then go custom loop, not the idiot trap kind with overpriced ekwb and hardline but the price/performance kind where most of the thing is chinese parts, there are high quality chinese alternatives like barrow and bykski which sell some pretty cheap copper rads over on ali, i mean 90$ for a 480 with 60mm thiccness is not bad compared to some 120$ ekwb 480mm rad with a thinness of a pitiful 30mm

Thank you for the compliment! Part of the reason I went O11 was for the watercooling aspect. I would go custom loop if I wouldn't potentially be moving the computer A LOT over the next year or two, which is why AIO was on my mind once I', done with the air cooler. Once it has a place to stay, it's full custom loop time!

[Somerandomtechyboi]

10 minutes ago, GokuGogo said:

Right on, that's kinda what I'm feeling. I appreciate the advice! I'm defs bookmarking this thread so I can dive down the RAM OC rabbit hole when I'm ready for it!

 

@Somerandomtechyboi @Ryuikko Any thoughts on maybe bumping up to the 12700K? The 12600k doesn't have TVB, so if I'm looking to play around with OC yet may also end up concerned concerned with efficiency down the line if I get tired of OC, would the bump make sense? Any thoughts on this and all thoughts on the two compared would be appreciated. My apologies for the plethora of possibly contradicting thoughts, I keep shifting between thinking short and long term and my excitement for the build is making it hard to focus.

 

Thanks!

Best off just undervolting and setting a static allcore for pcores like 1.2/1.25v 4.8-5g and oc ecores

 

7 minutes ago, GokuGogo said:

Thank you for the compliment! Part of the reason I went O11 was for the watercooling aspect. I would go custom loop if I wouldn't potentially be moving the computer A LOT over the next year or two, which is why AIO was on my mind once I', done with the air cooler. Once it has a place to stay, it's full custom loop time!

Remember go chinese parts, theyre straight up superior to overpriced stuff like ekwb due to pricing while having similar/same performance

 

Pump + res should be no more than 50$

(480 60mm) rad should be no more than 100$

Block should be no more than 40$ (if you want gpu cooled just use another cpu block as hybrid cooling is alot cheaper than full watercooling the gpu)

I suggest not using hardline as its only aesthetic while you make the loop 10x more painful to dissasemble and to adapt to hardware changes since the pipes are rigid

[GokuGogo]

30 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Best off just undervolting and setting a static allcore for pcores like 1.2/1.25v 4.8-5g and oc ecores

 

Remember go chinese parts, theyre straight up superior to overpriced stuff like ekwb due to pricing while having similar/same performance

 

Pump + res should be no more than 50$

(480 60mm) rad should be no more than 100$

Block should be no more than 40$ (if you want gpu cooled just use another cpu block as hybrid cooling is alot cheaper than full watercooling the gpu)

I suggest not using hardline as its only aesthetic while you make the loop 10x more painful to dissasemble and to adapt to hardware changes since the pipes are rigid

I'll keep it in mind! Overspending on parts certainly is a downside. I'll message you when the time comes to construct the Great Loop!

 

Since some of the things I want to do with the PC is streaming music which can include 3 live high bitrate audio channels into a DAW and/or upwards of 50 virtual instruments simultaneously running and generating audio, do you think the extra 2 P cores of the 12700K would be a good idea? I know that my MacBook has crashed multiple times with about 20 instruments, and it's running a 9980 with 32 GB of RAM (which often was just enough RAM). Another reason I'm looking to have OC as an option is that my MBP would often start off handling these heavy projects alright, but then once the turbo at about 4.4 GHz was done the CPU wasn't able to handle it at 2.8GHz all core. My projects are getting more elaborate as time goes on which has me concerned.