$2000 Budget Gaming PC

[Peter_The_Ent]

Budget (including currency): $2000 USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Minecraft, various FPS games, AI/ML, Video editing/encoding, doubling as storage server.

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 have nothing for the build as this is my first build, unless you can think of a cool way to incorporate a Raspberry PI zero w 2. Must be able to run Minecraft at highest settings while a multi-million mob loot per hour mob machine is running. Will not be able to purchase parts for a few months, but I like to plan a head.

[Zando_]

AFAIK Minecraft Java is still very much single threaded, so you'll want an Intel chip as they pretty consistently hold a slight lead there. What resolution are you playing at? And are you good with a base machine you can add storage to later, or do you want the mass storage drives included (and if so, how much storage/what RAID config do you plan to use)?

[Peter_The_Ent]

1 minute ago, Zando_ said:

AFAIK Minecraft Java is still very much single threaded, so you'll want an Intel chip as they pretty consistently hold a slight lead there. What resolution are you playing at? And are you good with a base machine you can add storage to later, or do you want the mass storage drives included (and if so, how much storage/what RAID config do you plan to use)?

Currently I am playing at what ever resolution minecraft on my tablet is outputting, but I do not want 4k, as I don't feel it makes enough of a difference when I could have more frames. I don't know what it is. As for Storage, I am willing a lot of it later, but need a decent amount immediately for video storage and do not want a bunch of hassle when I eventually do put more in.

[Zando_]

25 minutes ago, Peter_The_Ent said:

Currently I am playing at what ever resolution minecraft on my tablet is outputting, but I do not want 4k, as I don't feel it makes enough of a difference when I could have more frames. I don't know what it is. As for Storage, I am willing a lot of it later, but need a decent amount immediately for video storage and do not want a bunch of hassle when I eventually do put more in.

Starter list: 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/34NbY9

CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K 3.5 GHz 14-Core Processor  ($319.91 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S chromax.black 82.51 CFM CPU Cooler  ($99.95 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock Z690M PG RIPTIDE/D5 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($80.99 @ Best Buy) 
Storage: Samsung 990 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($169.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: Seagate IronWolf NAS 8 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($159.99 @ Adorama) 
Storage: Seagate IronWolf NAS 8 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($159.99 @ Adorama) 
Video Card: Zotac GAMING Twin Edge OC GeForce RTX 3060 Ti LHR 8 GB Video Card  ($399.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design Define 7 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($179.99 @ B&H) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM850e 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($114.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1965.77
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-01-16 14:24 EST-0500

 

CPU - Fastest for the $ really, very good in games, very good in video editing (especially Premiere Pro which will use Intel QuickSync, Intel chips are nigh unbeatable there for that reason)

CPU cooler - Similar performance to a 280mm AIO, cheaper than any of the decent ones. That case will fit it or an AIO without losing HDD slots though, so this is easily swappable for an AIO if you prefer one. 

Motherboard - 2nd cheapest B760 board, isn't shit, that's basically it. Could be subbed for a B660 or Z690 if you are good with the possibility of needing a BIOS update before the 13600K is usable. 

Memory - It's RAM, decent speed/timings, cheap, 32GB because modded games often eat RAM + video editing will benefit from it also. 

Storage - bit of a funky setup. Crucial P5 for the boot/some games drive as it's good 'nuff, 990 Pro to edit off of as it's the best all-round 4.0 drive and the usual high TBW from Samsung. If you're not worried about storage speeds then you can drop it as it is a little expensive. 2x 8TB drives so you can run RAID1 for redundancy and still have a good chunk of space. 

Video card - It's a 3060 Ti, should be solid up to 1440p60 (maybe 144 in some titles especially with DLSS). You can fit a 4070 Ti in the budget if you drop some of the storage drives, but that is expensive and likely massive overkill. Not familiar with AMD's cards, but if you aren't using software that takes advantage of Nvidia's CUDA stuff, they can be absolutely banger performance/$. 

Case - Big box, can shove ~10+ HDDs in while still having a full length GPU and an AIO cooler/custom loop, you can even fit a 5.25" drive in as well if you want to rip CDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray for a media server or something. 

PSU - Should be enough wattage, shouldn't explode, decent price. 

[Peter_The_Ent]

22 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

Storage: Samsung 990 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($169.99 @ B&H) 

 

Storage - bit of a funky setup. Crucial P5 for the boot/some games drive as it's good 'nuff, 990 Pro to edit off of as it's the best all-round 4.0 drive and the usual high TBW from Samsung. If you're not worried about storage speeds then you can drop it as it is a little expensive. 2x 8TB drives so you can run RAID1 for redundancy and still have a good chunk of space. 

Video card - It's a 3060 Ti, should be solid up to 1440p60 (maybe 144 in some titles especially with DLSS). You can fit a 4070 Ti in the budget if you drop some of the storage drives, but that is expensive and likely massive overkill. Not familiar with AMD's cards, but if you aren't using software that takes advantage of Nvidia's CUDA stuff, they can be absolutely banger performance/$. 

 

Case - Big box, can shove ~10+ HDDs in while still having a full length GPU and an AIO cooler/custom loop, you can even fit a 5.25" drive in as well if you want to rip CDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray for a media server or something. 

PSU - Should be enough wattage, shouldn't explode, decent price. 

First, I appreciate that you thought of a ODD. Second, how do you set up a drive to edit off of? or is that something that should be asked when I am building the PC?

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Peter_The_Ent said:

First, I appreciate that you thought of a ODD. Second, how do you set up a drive to edit off of? or is that something that should be asked when I am building the PC?

Just put your working project files there/tell the software you use to store media and such on a folder there. I believe with proxy media you don't need fast storage or something though, haven't looked into that. 

 

As for the ODD, I have one for when I want to watch stuff on DVD/Blu-Ray so I tend to think of them, if you're meaning to store a bunch of stuff then ripping discs is pretty common as well. I buy CDs occasionally to rip for my iPod Classic. 

[Peter_The_Ent]

1 minute ago, Zando_ said:

As for the ODD, I have one for when I want to watch stuff on DVD/Blu-Ray so I tend to think of them, if you're meaning to store a bunch of stuff then ripping discs is pretty common as well. I buy CDs occasionally to rip for my iPod Classic. 

What is an iPod Classic?

[Zando_]

Just now, Peter_The_Ent said:

What is an iPod Classic?

The titular "iPod", called Classics now as the last generation was actually named that, and it differentiates them from the iPod Touch and Nano series. These:

Spoiler

I have that 6th gen (though its HDD has since kablooied and I haven't bothered to fix it yet) and a 5th gen, run them with Rockbox (custom firmware for these and some other MP3 players). Nice for when I just want an music player that does that one thing: play music. Rockbox does include the obligatory DOOM port if you want to try other things though . 

[Peter_The_Ent]

4 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

The titular "iPod", called Classics now as the last generation was actually named that, and it differentiates them from the iPod Touch and Nano series. These:

  Hide contents

I have that 6th gen (though its HDD has since kablooied and I haven't bothered to fix it yet) and a 5th gen, run them with Rockbox (custom firmware for these and some other MP3 players). Nice for when I just want an music player that does that one thing: play music. Rockbox does include the obligatory DOOM port if you want to try other things though . 

Cool. Why haven't you bothered to fix the hdd?

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Peter_The_Ent said:

Cool. Why haven't you bothered to fix the hdd?

I have the 5th gen. These are annoying to open up, and when I do finally do so I want to get a fresh battery + switch it over to flash storage instead of the tiny 1.8" HDD, and the adapter + drive for that is more expensive than I want to spend on these right now. So since my other one works, just haven't bothered yet. 

[Peter_The_Ent]

12 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

I have the 5th gen. These are annoying to open up, and when I do finally do so I want to get a fresh battery + switch it over to flash storage instead of the tiny 1.8" HDD, and the adapter + drive for that is more expensive than I want to spend on these right now. So since my other one works, just haven't bothered yet. 

That males sense. when do you think you will do it?

And what do you think of my main "Rig" that I put in my signature?

[Zando_]

14 minutes ago, Peter_The_Ent said:

That males sense. when do you think you will do it?

Probably never at this point . Is constantly on the back burner vs other general tech stuff I need to do. 

[Peter_The_Ent]

2 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

Probably never at this point . Is constantly on the back burner vs other general tech stuff I need to do. 

What are you going to do with it?