Building 4k Custom PC

[TheDictator90]

Budget (including currency): $3000-$3500

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: VM Machine for dev work, Gaming, Netflix/Youtube

Hi,

I was planning to build my first custom PC. I have done a lot of research, and I believe I have got the build nailed, but I wanted someone else to take a look. Here is the list :

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/XQNC89

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($369.00 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($138.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($201.38 @ Amazon) 
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($204.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial P3 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($166.98 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: XFX Speedster MERC 310 Black Edition Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB Video Card  ($939.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (2021) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($134.99 @ Amazon) 
Monitor: Gigabyte ‎M28U 28.0" 3840 x 2160 144 Hz Monitor  ($449.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $2696.30

 

I want to build a machine with at least 4k 60+ (min fps) for all games. I generally play strategy/grand strategy games like Paradox games, Starcraft 2, Age of Empires, and Factorio. These games are more CPU intensive than GPU. I also plan to have virtual machines set up to dev work and watch content on this machine.

Please let me know if everything looks good or not. I do not like RGB, so all my parts are RGB-free. I am okay with adding an RGB part if it's cheaper or adds more value. I have a budget of 3000 to 3500 USD including the monitor.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[RONOTHAN##]

41 minutes ago, TheDictator90 said:

I also plan to have virtual machines set up to dev work

Can you elaborate on this a little bit more? Most of the time if you're doing something like this, you want a few more cores than the 7800X3D has, so it might make a bit more sense to go for a 7900X, 7950X, or 7950X3D depending on exactly what you're doing. 

 

43 minutes ago, TheDictator90 said:

I do like RGB, so all my parts are RGB-free. I am okay with adding an RGB part if it's cheaper or adds more value

Just to confirm, is that supposed to say "I do not like RGB" or am I just reading this wrong?

 

I'll go through the rest of the parts, though I won't really say what CPU to swap to (if you should swap at all) until after you elaborate on the workload a bit more. 

1. If you're going for the 7800X3D, that cooler is insanely overkill, that chip is the easiest to cool high end chip in the last probably 7 or 8 years. If you go for the higher core count options, it makes sense, but if you're just going 7800X3D you might as well save some money and go for something a fair bit cheaper. The Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 should give you practically the same performance for $100 less. 
2. Motherboard should be fine, though admittedly if the budget is this high I'd want to have a POST code on board for troubleshooting purposes. If you want to keep it to save money, that's understandable, though I'd probably swap the board out for the B650E Taichi Lite.
3. You can save a slight amount of money goign for the Flare X5 version of that memory kit rather than the Trident Z5 Neo version. The memory sticks themselves are the exact same, it's just a slightly worse heatsink that won't really matter unless you're planning on manually overclocking your RAM.
4. Depending on the exact workload, you might want a faster SSD, though that's probably going to be fine. 
5. If your workload involves any sort of AI applications, you might want to swap to a Nvidia card. You've got the budget for a 4090, though if your dev work is entirely CPU bound the 7900 XTX should do just fine. 
6. As for the monitor, I'm of the mindset that if you're going 4K you really should be looking at monitors 32"+, as below that you'll be forced deal with the mess that is Windows scaling. I'm not really good with monitor specifics, so I won't give you a specific recommendation as to what panel to get (I'll leave that to someone else on here), just figured it was worth mentioning that you should probably get a bigger monitor if you want that resolution or just step down to a QHD panel instead (probably the better option). 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/vQ4b28

[TheDictator90]

Thanks for the response. Yes I meant "No RGB", thanks for catching that!

 

For the VM, I am planning to have 1 or 2 Linux Mint machines running mostly Apache Servers and stuff for dev and test. I do not plan to use it for machine learning right now. I originally thought of RTX 4090, but they are priced at 1699 which is like 80% bump.

 

1. I chose 7800X3d since it sounded a good choice between performance and gaming.
2. I will look into the other motherboard
3. If they are same, then the cheaper one makes sense
4. I don't think disk speed would matter for my use case.
5. Nah, not AI stuff
6. I chose 27 inch since I sit pretty close to my monitor (1-2 feet). I can look into the 32 inch ones.

Thanks for the list of components. I will definitely take a look!

 

 

[RONOTHAN##]

25 minutes ago, TheDictator90 said:

Thanks for the response. Yes I meant "No RGB", thanks for catching that!

 

For the VM, I am planning to have 1 or 2 Linux Mint machines running mostly Apache Servers and stuff for dev and test. I do not plan to use it for machine learning right now. I originally thought of RTX 4090, but they are priced at 1699 which is like 80% bump.

 

1. I chose 7800X3d since it sounded a good choice between performance and gaming.
2. I will look into the other motherboard
3. If they are same, then the cheaper one makes sense
4. I don't think disk speed would matter for my use case.
5. Nah, not AI stuff
6. I chose 27 inch since I sit pretty close to my monitor (1-2 feet). I can look into the 32 inch ones.

Thanks for the list of components. I will definitely take a look!

 

 

First off, make sure to quote so we get a notification, I just happened to come back here and see this. 

 

If the VMs are just simple Mint with a web server running, yeah you should be able to get away with a 7800X3D. I'd still probably want to have something with a few more cores just in case, though it isn't really necessary and I do have a tendency to go overboard with the CPUs for most systems. 

 

I will say regarding the 4090, it may be 80% more cost than the 7900 XTX, though practically you should be looking at the price differences in terms of the whole system. Overall it would be a ~25-30% total cost increase for a roughly 25% performance increase on average, so value wise it might still be worth it. 

 

If you sit close enough to your monitor where you really want a 27" screen, just go 1440P instead, it's a fair bit cheaper and a lot easier to drive GPU wise. Plus you could get one of those fancy 240Hz versions and have a really fluid experience. 

[brob]

19 minutes ago, TheDictator90 said:

I chose 7800X3d since it sounded a good choice between performance and gaming.

 

While the 7800X3D is a gaming champ, it lags in most productivity loads. Something like the 7900X is no gaming slouch and crushes the 7800X3D in most other work loads. 

 

26 minutes ago, TheDictator90 said:

I don't think disk speed would matter for my use case.

 

Primary storage can get fairly busy in a multiple VM mix. Given the negligible cost differential, the added bandwidth of a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive can make a difference.

[TheDictator90]

On 10/28/2023 at 10:02 PM, RONOTHAN## said:

First off, make sure to quote so we get a notification, I just happened to come back here and see this. 

 

If the VMs are just simple Mint with a web server running, yeah you should be able to get away with a 7800X3D. I'd still probably want to have something with a few more cores just in case, though it isn't really necessary and I do have a tendency to go overboard with the CPUs for most systems. 

 

I will say regarding the 4090, it may be 80% more cost than the 7900 XTX, though practically you should be looking at the price differences in terms of the whole system. Overall it would be a ~25-30% total cost increase for a roughly 25% performance increase on average, so value wise it might still be worth it. 

 

If you sit close enough to your monitor where you really want a 27" screen, just go 1440P instead, it's a fair bit cheaper and a lot easier to drive GPU wise. Plus you could get one of those fancy 240Hz versions and have a really fluid experience. 

Thanks for the response.
Do you think 7950X3D/7900X3D would be a better choice? I have heard that there were a lot of driver issues on release, not sure if they have cleared up by now.
I will look into 4090 and see if it's worth it.
I want to stick with 4k for content consumption but I will definitely look into 32 inch ones.

[TheDictator90]

On 10/28/2023 at 10:11 PM, brob said:

 

While the 7800X3D is a gaming champ, it lags in most productivity loads. Something like the 7900X is no gaming slouch and crushes the 7800X3D in most other work loads. 

 

 

Primary storage can get fairly busy in a multiple VM mix. Given the negligible cost differential, the added bandwidth of a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive can make a difference.

Thanks for the response.

I will look into perf tests for 7900X vs 7800X3D. Do you think 7950X3D would be a better choice? I have heard that there were a lot of driver issues on release, not sure if they have cleared up by now.

[brob]

2 hours ago, TheDictator90 said:

Thanks for the response.

I will look into perf tests for 7900X vs 7800X3D. Do you think 7950X3D would be a better choice? I have heard that there were a lot of driver issues on release, not sure if they have cleared up by now.

 

No. I don't think the 7950X3D would be a better choice. It is no better gaming than the 7800X3D and the differential between it and the 7950X gaming is at best marginal. So it becomes a question of is the choice one of penis length or is the power of a 7950X truly needed?