Gaming Build - 2,750$

[Omga4000]

Budget (including currency):

2,750$

 

Country:

USA

 

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

Mostly gaming.

Battlefield, Cyberpunk, Witcher, RDR, etc..

A lot of VR gaming as well. Using a Valve Index. 

 

Other details

Hi everyone,

 

Building a gaming PC for my fiancée, as a present for Christmas.

She'll be using 2 monitors, most likely a dual 1440p setup.

 

Here's what I've compiled - interested in hearing your thoughts

 

Explanation of part choice:

CPU

13900KF seems like a very good option here.

Since we don't plan to upgrade a motherboard / CPU in 5-7 years this may prevent future bottlenecks.

The 12900K is also an option, but figured I may as well go with the newer model.

 

Motherboard

Our requirements are:

1. DDR5 - because the entire market is going that way and when we want to upgrade in 3-4 years I doubt DDR4 will be as available as it is.
2. WiFi - layout of our house forces her to use WiFi
3. 5.1 Analog input - we like our Z906.
4. As many M.2 as possible. We have another x2 M.2 SSDs laying around we'd like to use.

The one I chose seems to tick all the options, but you may have something I didn't think about.

It was either this or the TUF GAMING Z690-PLUS WIFI - but the MSI just looks slicker for not a whole lot more.

 

Memory

She likes RGB. Don't judge.

 

Video Card:

The 3080 Ti seems to be reasonable at the moment going for 875$.

UPDATE: The 875$ model I originally chose has gone up in price. It will be replaced by the 975$ EVGA XC3 ULTRA GAMING iCX3 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB or whatever is available at time of purchase.

The 3090 goes on sale for 999$ quite often so that's also a valid choice. Assume ~1000$ for a GPU.

 

Case

An extension of liking RGB. You're still judging though, aren't you?

Also - a very very good case regardless, one of the top rated ones this year.

I think this specific part is non-negotiable (everything else is), unless you have a very good reason why I shouldn't.

 

PSU

Read reviews online, seems to be very quiet and highly rated.

I know a 850W is probably enough here but I do like my PSUs having some room to breath.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900KF 3 GHz 24-Core Processor  ($629.99 @ B&H) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler  ($109.95 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI MAG Z690 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($259.99 @ B&H) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5200 CL40 Memory  ($162.99 @ Corsair) 
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($119.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: EVGA XC3 ULTRA GAMING iCX3 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB Video Card  ($975.00 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Torrent RGB ATX Mid Tower Case  ($246.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($179.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $2684.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-10-31 22:52 EDT-0400

 

Thoughts?

[Somerandomtechyboi]

6 minutes ago, Omga4000 said:

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler  ($109.95 @ Amazon) 

Obselete, outcompeted in price and performance by cheaper better competitiors (fuma 2, ak620, le grand macho)

 

7 minutes ago, Omga4000 said:

Motherboard: MSI MAG Z690 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($259.99 @ B&H) 

Overpriced, look at the cheaper z690 a pro or z690 ud (wifi) and i suggest going ddr4 instead if you dont intend on overclocking

 

8 minutes ago, Omga4000 said:

Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5200 CL40 Memory  ($162.99 @ Corsair) 

You definitely wont be futureproofing with that trash micron ram, 5600 regardless of useless cl bin bare minimum for ddr5 if youd like limited futureproofing by overclock to 6600-7000mhz since slower bins than that are garbage micron 16gbit a die that cannot do more than 5500. If you do not want to overclock then the limiteed futureproofing ability of 5600 ddr5 is of no use to you and you are better off saving your money with ddr4. Rgb is personal choice, i hate rainbow puke but argb is adjustable so the rainbow puke aspect doesnt really matter when i can just change it, from an objective standpoint dont waste a shit ton on rgb either its not worth it, maybe 5-10$ over a part that doesnt have rgb but any more without any actual benifits (ex ram rgb) then it isnt worth it

 

14 minutes ago, Omga4000 said:

Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($119.99 @ Amazon) 

Gen4 is useless garbage if its just gaming, if you intend on r/w heavy stuff like high res vid editing sure itd make sense but if its just gaming you are wasting your money. Go spend an extra 20$ for a 2tb mushkin pilot e as those are solid highend gen3 and currently going at a good price last time i checked (138$)

 

16 minutes ago, Omga4000 said:

Video Card: EVGA XC3 ULTRA GAMING iCX3 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB Video Card  ($975.00 @ Amazon) 

Used rtx 3090 on ebay go for ~800$

 

16 minutes ago, Omga4000 said:

Case: Fractal Design Torrent RGB ATX Mid Tower Case  ($246.98 @ Newegg

Ridicolous pricing, i just dont see a point in these fancy cases, what do you even get for that extra 100$+ over a nice case like the 4000d airflow?

 

Id just suggest going for something like the zalman i3 as that is 70$ last time i checked on pcpp and it includes 4 argb fans and seems to be a decent airflow case cause mesh front

 

18 minutes ago, Omga4000 said:

Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($179.99 @ Amazon) 

Psu is ridicolously priced, buy a super flower leadex 1000 platinum at like 155/160$ or you may aswell go 1200w and get a cheap platinum hxi or revolt x or something at ~200$ like theyre mostly platinum psus

[brob]

The NH-D15 overhangs the memory area which makes RGB memory modules a less than optimal choice. If you want RGB memory modules, consider an AIO. If you go this route replace the memory kit with one that is Mystic Light compatible so the lighting can be sync'd using the motherboard.

 

Instead of RGB memory, use low profile memory and add three A-RGB fans in the case bottom. This would allow for a large tower cooler like the still excellent NH-D15.

 

There is a z790 version of the Tomahawk. More expensive but supports faster memory.

 

 

 

 

[Jeppes]

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i7-13700K 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($439.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240 A-RGB 48.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($104.49 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL32 Memory  ($184.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($229.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 3090 TI GAMING X TRIO 24G GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24 GB Video Card  ($1244.90 @ Amazon)
Case: be quiet! Pure Base 500 FX ATX Mid Tower Case  ($149.90 @ Newegg Sellers)
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 FM 1000 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($163.59 @ Newegg Sellers)
Total: $2697.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-11-01 00:43 EDT-0400

[Omga4000]

5 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Obselete, outcompeted in price and performance by cheaper better competitiors (fuma 2, ak620, le grand macho)

Noted, good point.

 

5 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Overpriced, look at the cheaper z690 a pro or z690 ud (wifi) and i suggest going ddr4 instead if you dont intend on overclocking

Interesting I missed that one. Z690 UD AX looks good to me.

 

5 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

trash micron ram

Moved to DDR4.

Guess I'll have to upgrade the entire setup next time.

 

5 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Gen4 is useless garbage

I have discounts when buying on Samsung.com through my employer, I'll actually pay lower than that. Forgot to mention that in the comments. ~100$ for a well known brand, I think it's OK.

Never dealt with Mushkin before and I'd really dislike her to have issues.

 

5 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Used

Definitely won't do that. Not in today's market.

It's also a gift so second hand isn't much of an option here.

I'll wait for another sale on the 3090, happens frequently

 

5 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

i just dont see a point in these fancy cases, what do you even get for that extra 100$

RGB, better airflow / temperatures, better build quality (filters that don't look like they are made of paper).

RGB alone as quite a few additional bucks. The non-RGB version is ~75$ less.

Do I think it's worth it? Nope.

Is that what she wants? Yes.

I assume after she goes through an itteration of RGB stuff she'll get sick of it just as much.

She never had any RGB so.. It is what it is.

 

5 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

super flower leadex 1000 platinum

A much louder unit only to save ~20$?

Looking at Cybenetics, it was rated at 36db compared to 25.87db. Quite the difference.

I can go to 1200W for 189.99$, but I'm worried about the noise levels.

Couldn't find any reviews of that "Special Edition".

 

Thank you for the assistance, here is the revised build

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i7-13700K 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($440.00 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK620 ZERO DARK 68.99 CFM CPU Cooler  ($69.98 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z690 UD AX DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($179.99 @ B&H) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory  ($97.99 @ Corsair) 
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($119.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Zotac GAMING AMP Extreme Holo GeForce RTX 3090 24 GB Video Card  ($1159.99 @ Newegg Sellers) 
Case: Fractal Design Torrent RGB ATX Mid Tower Case  ($246.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($179.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $2494.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-11-01 04:35 EDT-0400

 

[Omga4000]

4 hours ago, brob said:

The NH-D15 overhangs the memory area

I'll probably swap it to a pull-pull configuration to still show the RGB.

 

Take a look at the updated build I had posted!

 

3 hours ago, Jeppes said:

CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240 A-RGB 48.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($104.49 @ Amazon)

I'm very much against AIO / water coolers.

Posted a new build with some extra notes, would appreciate your thoughts

[Somerandomtechyboi]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hcrbxs

Heres my version for improvements

 

Forgot to mention thermalright peerless assasin 120 and frost spirit 140 which are very good price/performance

 

Cheaper rgb rams, ram branding dont matter at all since ics are the same stuff from the ram ic manufacturers (samsung, micron, hynix)

 

Still gonna reccomend the damn mushkin, good god this brand has been around since atleast the ddr1 days and i havent really seen any poor reviews for mushkin. Same thing with ram, ics are from the same manufacturers (samsung, hynix, micron, though i think there are more nand manufacturers than dram manufacturers though idk all of em off the top my head, none are of bad quality otherwise theyd have shut down already) so good god dont be tied up to such an overpriced brand, highend gen3 start at 70$ iirc (cs 2130/3030, 670p, etc.)

 

Pricing is ridicolous on pcpp but if you can get a new 3090 for 1000$ or less sure go for it but im very heavily biased to used since its almost always superior either for the same price or same thing for (far) less

 

Case is personal preference but still 75$ premium for rgb is just highway robbery but budget allows it so ¯\_ (ツ) _/¯ 

[Omga4000]

6 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hcrbxs

Heres my version for improvements

Looks good to me.

I'm gonna wait for Black Friday and order it.

 

Thank you very much!

[NF-A12x25]

13 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Gen4 is useless garbage if its just gaming, if you intend on r/w heavy stuff like high res vid editing sure itd make sense but if its just gaming you are wasting your money. Go spend an extra 20$ for a 2tb mushkin pilot e as those are solid highend gen3 and currently going at a good price last time i checked (138$)

@Omga4000You will want a gen4 boot drive because when DirectStorage gets implemented it will be great. I would just go with a 1TB one though and get a big (2TB) gen3 drive as well for mass storage.

[NF-A12x25]

8 hours ago, Omga4000 said:

I'm very much against AIO / water coolers.

Oh, and if you are able to change your mind the Liquid Freezer II is insanely good, it beats the NH-D15 even.

[Omga4000]

1 minute ago, NF-A12x25 said:

Oh, and if you are able to change your mind the Liquid Freezer II is insanely good, it beats the NH-D15 even.

I'm sure it is.

She's not tech savvy whatsoever. A leaking tube / pump & a broken pump is not something she'll be able to deal with.

It's not like she opens up the PC often to check up on it

While fairly rare, I've heard enough stories about failures which could lead to GPU failures and it's just not something I'm willing to risk.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

6 hours ago, NF-A12x25 said:

@Omga4000You will want a gen4 boot drive because when DirectStorage gets implemented it will be great. I would just go with a 1TB one though and get a big (2TB) gen3 drive as well for mass storage.

Directstorage isnt just for games?

Well if it can speed up os boot times or something like that then sure get a gen4 boot drive and wait a year for directstorage to actually come out, though i wouldnt expect much in games

 

6 hours ago, Omga4000 said:

I'm sure it is.

She's not tech savvy whatsoever. A leaking tube / pump & a broken pump is not something she'll be able to deal with.

It's not like she opens up the PC often to check up on it

While fairly rare, I've heard enough stories about failures which could lead to GPU failures and it's just not something I'm willing to risk.

Liquid freezer ii is amazing although if you arent ocing i think a decent dual tower will be fine

[NF-A12x25]

51 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Directstorage isnt just for games?

it is just for games, but there’s no reason to have a gen3 boot drive and have a gen4 mass storage drive so it’s best to use a gen4 drive as a boot drive that can also house directstorage-compatible games

[Omga4000]

On 11/1/2022 at 2:30 AM, Somerandomtechyboi said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hcrbxs

Heres my version for improvements

 

Just wanted to update this thread and say that based off of current speculations, it's very likely I'll go for the new AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

It should be far better than the 3090 at a similar cost.

I'll wait for the reviews before making my final decision, but that's the new plan.

I may even switch to a full AMD build if that's the case.

 

Never had any AMD part in my life, maybe it's time

[Somerandomtechyboi]

28 minutes ago, Omga4000 said:

 

Just wanted to update this thread and say that based off of current speculations, it's very likely I'll go for the new AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

It should be far better than the 3090 at a similar cost.

I'll wait for the reviews before making my final decision, but that's the new plan.

I may have switch to a full AMD build if that's the case.

 

Never had any AMD part in my life, maybe it's time

Eh you missed that window by a year or 2 when ryzen 5000 was king and destroying 11th gen.

 

ryzen 7000 is just pricey af for no real benifit other than futureproofing but youd have to wait atleast 2 gens to make futureproofing count and youd likely only wanna upgrade by the time am5 is eol so only minor savings on the mobo since if you arent familiar with ram oc then your current ram will be useless by the time am5 goes eol and youd have to upgrade it, best you can do now is get some hynix 16gbit adie and oc to whatever speed next few gens will run best at since these ics should be able to do ~8000

[Omga4000]

On 11/4/2022 at 11:22 PM, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Eh you missed that window by a year or 2 when ryzen 5000 was king and destroying 11th gen.

 

ryzen 7000 is just pricey af for no real benifit other than futureproofing but youd have to wait atleast 2 gens to make futureproofing count and youd likely only wanna upgrade by the time am5 is eol so only minor savings on the mobo since if you arent familiar with ram oc then your current ram will be useless by the time am5 goes eol and youd have to upgrade it, best you can do now is get some hynix 16gbit adie and oc to whatever speed next few gens will run best at since these ics should be able to do ~8000

 

I still see many peoiple recommending the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which often goes on sale for ~330$.

Is that not competitive compared to an Intel 12700K, for example?

 

P.S

Managed to snag an RTX 4080 for MSRP - so that's going into the build

[Somerandomtechyboi]

18 minutes ago, Omga4000 said:

 

I still see many peoiple recommending the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which often goes on sale for ~330$.

Is that not competitive compared to an Intel 12700K, for example?

 

P.S

Managed to snag an RTX 4080 for MSRP - so that's going into the build

5800x3d is great for pure gaming use, matches or beats 13th gen and ryzen 7000  in gaming while being power efficient

 

Otherwise its just a downclocked 5800x aka 5700x

 

If all you do is game then great cpu but if you do or plan to do anything else then a cpu like the 13600k or 13700k would be a better buy