Workstation PC For College Part List Help

[bathroomfloortiles]

Budget (including currency): ~$2,200-2,500 USD

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Unreal Engine 5 (traditional 3D and VR), Rhino 7, 3DS Max, C4D, Photoshop, Illustrator, DaVinci Resolve, Gaea, Touch Designer.

Other details This PC is largely to help improve my 3D modeling and rendering time. I have maxed out my current laptop and have wanted to invest in a much more powerful workstation PC for architecture college. I also want the PC to be plenty powerful to run VR experiences that I create for my projects.

 

Here is my parts list:

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Dj2fZw

CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K 3.5 GHz 14-Core Processor  ($319.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK620 68.99 CFM CPU Cooler  ($75.78 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($229.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Patriot Viper 4 Blackout 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($154.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP33 PRO 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($112.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP33 PRO 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($112.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Asus TUF GAMING OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB Video Card (~$850)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact TG Dark Tint ATX Mid Tower Case  ($148.08 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Phanteks AMP 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($129.99 @ Newegg) 
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro OEM - DVD 64-bit  ($139.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1424.79 (With GPU ~2,274.79)
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-01-04 18:34 EST-0500

 

I was debating between the new 4070 Ti and a used 3090 Ti, but after watching some reviews it seems that the 4070 Ti does better with rendering, which is my primary concern, but a little worse with photo / video editing, which is unfortunate but a tradeoff I'm willing to make. I also have personally had a hard time finding many good 3090 Ti examples to buy second hand, I have found some but the convenience of getting it new without having to deal with 3rd party is a plus. The one thing that would change my mind and make the 3090 Ti worth it for me is the extra VRAM at 24GB, compared to 12GB of the 4070 Ti. However, I don't really know what the upper limit of VRAM usage I should expect because I have been limited to 6GB for a while. Online it says that between 8-16 is great, but again, I don't know if have the 24GB would be nice to have for the future, or if it's just overkill. For the CPU I went for the K SKU, but I would be open to a non K SKU. I would like to experiment with overclocking, but the risk of some instability when I'm doing productivity work that I don't want to lose is a bit scary. I went with a WIFI mobo because at my Uni I'm not sure I'll have close access to ethernet and would like the ability to use wifi if ethernet isn't an option, and I specifically wanted WIFI 6E for the faster speeds that my Uni provides. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

I already have one of these monitors and would be buying another one because I won't have my laptop screen as a second monitor. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JXCR263/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

I don't know exactly how color accurate the display is, but it seems to be rather good in my opinion, certainly better than my laptops display and the colors look natural and true to what I print, but if anyone has suggestions for more budget friendly color accurate 4k displays please let me know.

 

Again, any help would be greatly appreciated!

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, bathroomfloortiles said:

I was debating between the new 4070 Ti and a used 3090 Ti, but after watching some reviews it seems that the 4070 Ti does better with rendering, which is my primary concern, but a little worse with photo / video editing, which is unfortunate but a tradeoff I'm willing to make.

An argument for the 3090 Ti, if you need renders where you're likely to notice the difference between the 4070 Ti and 3090 Ti you'll need a lot of VRAM, so while the 4070 Ti is a little faster with rendering (it's only a couple percent faster IIRC), it's infinitely slower than the 3090 Ti if you need more than 12GB of VRAM. There's no right option between the two, there is reasoning to go both ways, but I'd personally lean more towards a used 3090 Ti rather than a 4070 Ti. If you don't think you'll use more than 12GB, the 4070 Ti is the better option because of the lower power consumption, but the extra VRAM is probably the better option IMO. 

 

12 minutes ago, bathroomfloortiles said:

For the CPU I went for the K SKU, but would be open to a non K SKU. I would like to experiment with overclocking, but he risk of some instability when I'm doing productivity work that I don't want to lose is a bit scary.

If you do enough stress testing, you don't really have to worry about instability, but I totally understand not wanting to do OC on a workstation. If you don't want to do overclocking, you're probably better off spending the extra $40 and going for a 13700F instead, the two extra P cores would be much more useful than the extra ~500MHz you'll get on the 13600K by overclocking it. Either that or save the nearly $100 on a 13500 instead, it's basically the same CPU as the 13600K with 300MHz lower clock speeds (~5% slower). Overclocking is fun, but it's generally too expensive to justify for the vast majority of people. 

 

Other than that, that system looks pretty good, not really anything I'd change. Try not to spend full price on a Windows license, you can get these for $20 from key resellers, but that's about it. 

[Defiantly not a bot]

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/jbRhwc

CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K 3.5 GHz 14-Core Processor  ($319.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK620 68.99 CFM CPU Cooler  ($75.78 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($239.99 @ B&H) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-5200 CL40 Memory  ($259.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP33 PRO 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($112.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP33 PRO 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($112.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Asus TUF GAMING OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB Video Card 
Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact TG Dark Tint ATX Mid Tower Case  ($148.08 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Phanteks AMP 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro OEM - DVD 64-bit  ($139.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1529.79
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-01-04 19:20 EST-0500

[bathroomfloortiles]

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

This is the new parts list.

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/vCVRxs

CPU: Intel Core i7-13700KF 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($394.98 @ Newegg) 
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK620 68.99 CFM CPU Cooler  ($75.78 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO B660M-A WIFI DDR4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($149.99 @ B&H) 
Memory: Patriot Viper 4 Blackout 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($154.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP33 PRO 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($112.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP33 PRO 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($112.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24 GB Video Card  ($1429.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact TG Dark Tint ATX Mid Tower Case  ($148.08 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($159.99 @ Corsair) 
Total: $2739.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-01-04 20:12 EST-0500

 

Ignore the $1500 GPU, I'm trying to get that second hand and I might be able to get it for about $870. With the 3090 Ti and the new CPU the power draw is a lot higher. I now need a 1000W power supply. I speced a Corsair because I know that they make decent power supplies but any other recommendations would be great! Again, thanks for the help.