Phoenix II - Rebuilt my rig.

[fastfishy2]

First built in this case (Phanteks P300 White) in 2020, early in the pandemic. Initial specs were an R5 3600, 16gb CL16 DDR4-3200, Asus Prime B450 Plus mobo, and a GTX 1660 Super.

Upgraded the cooler, power supply, ended up with an RTX 2070 Super and then a 3060ti, and I swapped the solid front panel for a mesh one from the P300-A pretty early on. That improved thermals quite a lot.

 

Graduated from University and started working full time. Things went really well at work, NZ Government was kind enough to give me some of my taxes back, and full time money came into play too, so I opted to rebuild about 70% of the computer whilst keeping the case. In its current state it should last me another 3-4 years, depending on where life takes me.

 

This is where my current specs stand:

• Chassis: Phanteks P300 White w/ P300A front mesh panel
• CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X3D (Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S Black)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix B550-A 
• RAM: G-Skill Ripjaws DDR4-3200 CL16, 32GB (2x16)
• GPU: ASUS DUAL RTX 4070 12GB
• Power Supply: Corsair RM750x (Bought in late 2020 to upgrade from the EVGA PSU I initially bought)
• Storage: 1x Samsung 860 EVO 500GB (Boot drive), 1x Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME 1TB (w/ EK Heatsink), 1x Samsung 870 QVO 2TB  - (There was a WD 2TB HDD in there, but I didn't use it for much and opted to remove it to make more room in the chassis 'basement' for PSU cables when I did the rebuild)
• Case fans (front): 2x Be Quiet! Silent Wings 4
• Case fan (rear): 1x Noctua NF-F12 Chromax Black

Thermals are good, and the system just gives off a subtle hum which becomes impossible to hear the minute I boot up anything with sound.

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by fastfishy2

[Blqckqut]

lemme ask u 1 think, do you do 3d modeling?

 

if the answer is no, the 4070 is quite litteraly the worst card you can buy next to the 4060/ti

[fastfishy2]

Just now, Blqckqut said:

lemme ask u 1 think, do you do 3d modeling?

 

if the answer is no, the 4070 is quite litteraly the worst card you can buy next to the 4060/ti

I don't but I'll give some context:

I wanted a decent upgrade from the 3060ti to last me a few more years and originally I was looking at an RTX 3080

All of the RTX 3080 I can find here (New Zealand) cost about $70-100 NZD more than the 4070, have similar performance, and use a lot more power + heat.

I also like to turn on ray tracing a lot in games, and I've really enjoyed DLSS as well, so eventually I decided not to go with an AMD GPU this time around.

 

So really it ended up at this one. Relative to other cards here in New Zealand, the value wasn't terrible, at least not from what I could see. I really like the performance so far.

[PDifolco]

1 minute ago, fastfishy2 said:

I don't but I'll give some context:

I wanted a decent upgrade from the 3060ti to last me a few more years and originally I was looking at an RTX 3080

All of the RTX 3080 I can find here (New Zealand) cost about $70-100 NZD more than the 4070, have similar performance, and use a lot more power + heat.

I also like to turn on ray tracing a lot in games, and I've really enjoyed DLSS as well, so eventually I decided not to go with an AMD GPU this time around.

 

So really it ended up at this one. Relative to other cards here in New Zealand, the value wasn't terrible, at least not from what I could see. I really like the performance so far.

Isn't there any AMD 6950XT or 7900XT in Kiwiland ?  

[Blqckqut]

4 minutes ago, fastfishy2 said:

I don't but I'll give some context:

I wanted a decent upgrade from the 3060ti to last me a few more years and originally I was looking at an RTX 3080

All of the RTX 3080 I can find here (New Zealand) cost about $70-100 NZD more than the 4070, have similar performance, and use a lot more power + heat.

I also like to turn on ray tracing a lot in games, and I've really enjoyed DLSS as well, so eventually I decided not to go with an AMD GPU this time around.

 

So really it ended up at this one. Relative to other cards here in New Zealand, the value wasn't terrible, at least not from what I could see. I really like the performance so far.

just get a 6950xt?

 

its better than 3090 ti while costing 650 bucks, even here in europe

 

average nvidia brainrot right here

[fastfishy2]

2 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Isn't there any AMD 6950XT or 7900XT in Kiwiland ?  

So, I just did a look on the major retailers for the 6950XT. Only one major retailer seems to have them, and they are a bit cheaper than the 4070, but with a 335w TDP (vs. the 4070's 200w) it wouldn't have been happy in this case. Good cases cost around $250-350 NZD here so it could well have put me over the price of just putting a 4070 in the system. 

XFX Speedster 6950XT is $1100 here, Asus Dual 4070 is $1280, and I wouldn't bother replacing the case unless it was a really good one, so we're talking maybe $100 NZD more for fitting the 6950XT as it would have been too much for this case.

 

RX 7900XT costs about $1500 NZD and has the power draw of 300w, so again pushing it for what this case can cope with. Overall between the two the 4070 was easier and, factoring in the cost of a decent case, probably cheaper.

 

Although, that's all more in retrospect. My main consideration at the time was ray tracing performance, power efficiency / heat, and being much more familiar with Nvidia's ecosystem. Last time I used an AMD card was a Sapphire Nitro R9 380X in 2016, and boy did I love that GPU, but it's been a long time.

 

[fastfishy2]

7 minutes ago, Blqckqut said:

just get a 6950xt?

 

its better than 3090 ti while costing 650 bucks, even here in europe

 

average nvidia brainrot right here

As I said to another user, the 6950XT would have required I get a much bigger case @ 335 watts. Price for a good case last I checked were at least $200 NZD, so it'd end up being more expensive than the 4070 whilst also costing me more in power when I end up flatting again. The 4070 was easier and just went straight into my existing system.

 

I wouldn't call it Nvidia brain rot, I'm not a fanboy. I'm very impressed by AMD's offerings and for a while I was seriously considering it. I've owned Radeon GPUs back in the Maxwell days, owned a Sapphire Nitro R9 380X at one point and it's easily the graphics card I liked the most back when I had my first build. They just didn't win out in the pros and cons list this time, for my specific scenario.

[Blqckqut]

1 minute ago, fastfishy2 said:

As I said to another user, the 6950XT would have required I get a much bigger case @ 335 watts. Price for a good case last I checked were at least $200 NZD, so it'd end up being more expensive than the 4070 whilst also costing me more in power when I end up flatting again. The 4070 was easier and just went straight into my existing system.

 

I wouldn't call it Nvidia brain rot, I'm not a fanboy. I'm very impressed by AMD's offerings and for a while I was seriously considering it. I've owned Radeon GPUs back in the Maxwell days, owned a Sapphire Nitro R9 380X at one point and it's easily the graphics card I liked the most back when I had my first build. They just didn't win out in the pros and cons list this time, for my specific scenario.

i mean tbh

 

id go with a 6800xt, way cheaper, better performaning, and u have the money to get a case upgrade

[fastfishy2]

Just now, Blqckqut said:

i mean tbh

 

id go with a 6800xt, way cheaper, better performaning, and u have the money to get a case upgrade

I wasn't super keen on going last gen also because of ray tracing performance, and that does matter to me because some of my favourite games use a lot of ray tracing and I love the effect it gives (Metro Exodus Enhanced ed., Control, etc). From the benchmarks I've been able to find, the 4070 almost always beats the 6900XT by a decent margin in Ray Tracing heavy scenarios, and also is able to use DLSS, which is another thing I've enjoyed using over my time with the 3060ti. 

 

To be clear, I'm not saying everything's good with Nvidia at the moment. It's just not. I find DLSS3 Frame Generation to be really hit and miss, and it likes to override my V-sync in Witcher 3, which really pissed me off. But with pricing the way it is over here, and the features I wanted + the ability to chuck it in my existing case, the 4070 ticked more boxes. There were quite a few 4070 at $1400-1500 NZD, but I found the Asus dual for $1280 which I found much more reasonable, and it runs very cool.

 

As I said before, the 7900XT is priced at about $1500 over here whilst the 7900XTX is closer to $2000, and neither would be very happy in my existing case.

[fastfishy2]

9 minutes ago, Blqckqut said:

i mean tbh

 

id go with a 6800xt, way cheaper, better performaning, and u have the money to get a case upgrade

RX 6800XT isn't in retailers in NZ anymore  that's actually sad

[Blqckqut]

14 minutes ago, fastfishy2 said:

RX 6800XT isn't in retailers in NZ anymore  that's actually sad

2nd hand

[fastfishy2]

10 minutes ago, Blqckqut said:

2nd hand

Never bought second hand, I'm willing to pay more for brand-new PC parts because if problems come up, I can narrow it down to manufacturing defects rather than trying to guess what the previous user might have done to it. And I can take it straight back to the retailer. Consumer protection laws in New Zealand make that a better route peace-of-mind wise.

[Blqckqut]

2 minutes ago, fastfishy2 said:

Never bought second hand, I'm willing to pay more for brand-new PC parts because if problems come up, I can narrow it down to manufacturing defects rather than trying to guess what the previous user might have done to it. And I can take it straight back to the retailer. Consumer protection laws in New Zealand make that a better route peace-of-mind wise.

same here, especialy with gpus, i normaly test it tho, i ask them to come to my house isntead of me coming to them for about 10% upcharge, as its still cheaper but i can test it in my own system on my own games

 

only reason i got a faulty 7900xtx is because i bought it online

 

cheapest 2nd hand one here is 950, wich is very lucky, if it works ill go for it, if not ill rma it and get a replacement

[fastfishy2]

1 minute ago, Blqckqut said:

same here, especialy with gpus, i normaly test it tho, i ask them to come to my house isntead of me coming to them for about 10% upcharge, as its still cheaper but i can test it in my own system on my own games

 

only reason i got a faulty 7900xtx is because i bought it online

 

cheapest 2nd hand one here is 950, wich is very lucky, if it works ill go for it, if not ill rma it and get a replacement

Fair enough. When I got told I was getting a tax refund I was initially thinking about RX 7000 series for quite a bit, but when I saw the pricing for the 4070 I was actually pleasantly surprised, I thought it'd be way more than that. I was looking at some of the more expensive 4070s for a bit but they all used the 12 pin connector which I wasn't interested in, and they were quite pricey. Asus Dual just uses a standard 8 pin connector, so I only need the one cable, and it runs cooler than most triple-fan cards I've owned in the past. So I'm pretty happy with it. Thinking of getting either a 1080p/120hz or 1440p/60hz monitor at some point because the 1080p/75hz I have is pretty lightweight for the 4070, it's too easy.