~£4,000 (Inc. VAT) PC Builder advice/critique request

[Guest]

DUE TO A PLETHORA OF FANTASTIC ADVICE, I AM GOING TO REWORK THE PLANNED BUILD FROM THE GROUND UP.
Please consider this current thread closed for the purposes of feedback in light of this, though will leave it active as people are engaged in discussions still.
Many thanks again to everyone for all their help, it's hard to select any one response as 'The Answer' as there have been so many helpful posts.



Budget (including currency): ~£4,000 (Inc. VAT, Exc. Postage/Warranty)

Country: England, UK.

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: UE5 modern/near future gaming with max settings. Upgrade fueled by Ark Survival Ascended.

Other details:

• Existing Parts: Monitor - LG ULTRAGEAR (2560x1440@144Hz), G502 Wireless Mouse with Powerplay mousemat, Corsair K95 Keyboard, Sony XM4 Wireless Headphones, Yeti Nano Mic.
• Required Peripherals: None with build, intention to purchase smaller second monitor in the future for web browsing/YT/Watching Streams etc.
• Buying When: Now.
• Resolution & Refresh: 2560x1440@144Hz + (Currently unknown second monitor in the future)

 

Proposed Build/Quote:

 

Case: FRACTAL DEFINE 7 BLACK QUIET MID-TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i9 24-Core Processor i9-13900KS (Up to 6.0 GHz) 36MB Cache

Motherboard: ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO (LGA1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E)

Memory (RAM): 64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 32GB)

Graphics Card: 24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP

1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)

2^nd M.2 SSD Drive: 1TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)

Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Power Cable: 1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)

Processor Cooling: CORSAIR ICUE LINK H150i RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER

Thermal Paste: ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

Sound Card: ASUS Xonar AE 7.1-Channel Gaming Audio Card

Network Card: ONBOARD LAN PORT

USB/Thunderbolt Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]

 

 

Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)

Delivery: TIMED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND - MON-FRI (BEFORE 10:30AM)

Build Time: Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days

 

Other thoughts/information:
 

• I'm pretty scared of the 'water cooling', however, this seems to be the only option available with this build.
• Link to build - https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z790-ddr5-pc/U7UXkmrPR0/ (£4,083 Inc. VAT, Exc. Warranty/Delivery)
• I don't really care about looks, I would actually rather avoid lighting and sound as much as possible.
• I leave my PC on 24/7.
• It's not essential to use PC Specialist, however I do want to use a custom PC builder, rather than building my own.
• I was intending to use the 2nd SSD purely for the OS, the 1st SSD for all my gaming, as well as possibly moving a 1TB File Storage SATA HDD from my current PC to the new one.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated, or just a thumbs up that everything seems okay before I go ahead with such a big purchase. I have noted that the Water Cooling is RGB, which I can presumably turn off, the only non RGB option seemed to be less powerful (I'm guessing the higher power will be better cooling/performance?) I'm not particularly tech savvy, though not useless, the most I've ever done was changing my PSU when I did a GPU upgrade, it scares me a lot that I would break something, hence my hesitancy about Water Cooling.

Many thanks for your time,
Jonny

 

[SimplyChunk]

Have you had a look on the Overcookers website?

 

Scam Computers are pretty good too

[jaslion]

So a couple things:

 

You can save like 1500 and still have a 4090 and same if not better gaming experience

 

The 4090 still has cable melting issues. Its pretty widespread and basically is a when not if unless you get one with a fixed cable and those are not super common yet.

 

13900ks isnt coolable prettt much it will overheat

 

Genuinly you are being massively overcharged here with top spec hardware that has really poor value/£

 

And you arent even getting a pc that can run at 100% without overheating to boot.

 

That and a bunch of unnecesary stuff and a sound card that isnt better than onboqrd stuff at all

 

Genuinly diy build its just lego's really or buy the parts and make a pc shop assemble it then you have control and not a overspend af system

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, SimplyChunk said:

Have you had a look on the Overcookers website?

 

Scam Computers are pretty good too

 

I haven't looked at other sites such as Overclockers, or Scan Computers, though I will do that as a final step. I figure it makes more sense to get the right setup of parts before comparing, but I'll check them out at the end, thank-you!

[venomtail]

Ryzen 7950X3D would be far more prestigious in my eyes than any i9.

[filpo]

1 hour ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

UE5 modern/near future gaming with max settings. Upgrade fueled by Ark Survival Ascended.

just gaming?

X3D 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£362.00 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB 48.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£115.05 @ NeoComputers) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte X670 AORUS ELITE AX (rev. 1.0) ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£280.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL28 Memory  (£106.78 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£256.79 @ Newegg UK) 
Video Card: Palit GameRock GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB Video Card  (£1801.73 @ Amazon UK) 
Case: NZXT H9 Flow ATX Mid Tower Case  (£159.99 @ AWD-IT) 
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 TT Premium 1650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£264.99 @ AWD-IT) 
Total: £3348.30
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-11-16 15:40 GMT+0000

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, jaslion said:

So a couple things:

 

You can save like 1500 and still have a 4090 and same if not better gaming experience

 

The 4090 still has cable melting issues. Its pretty widespread and basically is a when not if unless you get one with a fixed cable and those are not super common yet.

 

13900ks isnt coolable prettt much it will overheat

 

Genuinly you are being massively overcharged here with top spec hardware that has really poor value/£

 

And you arent even getting a pc that can run at 100% without overheating to boot.

 

That and a bunch of unnecesary stuff and a sound card that isnt better than onboqrd stuff at all

 

Genuinly diy build its just lego's really or buy the parts and make a pc shop assemble it then you have control and not a overspend af system

I hadn't heard of the 4090 melting cable issue, so just looked into it now. It seems they've recently identified the cause, something GamerNexus seems to have come to the same conclusion on. In theory it should be avoidable by making sure that connection is completely secure, I'll be sure to ask the builder to take extra care and even double check it myself.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/18/23466974/nvidia-rtx-4090-power-cable-12vhpwr-melt-burn-plugged-in


Can you elaborate on the CPU issue, please? What would you recommend? A downgrade to the part below it?

So I should just remove the Sound Card?

I do understand that I could build it myself much cheaper, it's just really not something I want to do, sorry. If it's possible to keep comparisons and other options to what a PC Builder company can offer, I would appreciate it, though understand it's frustrating to others to see fools like myself throwing money down the drain by using them.

[jaslion]

5 minutes ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

I hadn't heard of the 4090 melting cable issue, so just looked into it now. It seems they've recently identified the cause, something GamerNexus seems to have come to the same conclusion on. In theory it should be avoidable by making sure that connection is completely secure, I'll be sure to ask the builder to take extra care and even double check it myself.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/18/23466974/nvidia-rtx-4090-power-cable-12vhpwr-melt-burn-plugged-in


Can you elaborate on the CPU issue, please? What would you recommend? A downgrade to the part below it?

So I should just remove the Sound Card?

I do understand that I could build it myself much cheaper, it's just really not something I want to do, sorry. If it's possible to keep comparisons and other options to what a PC Builder company can offer, I would appreciate it, though understand it's frustrating to others to see fools like myself throwing money down the drain by using them.

That is why option 2 I offered is a great win here.

 

You buy a partslist and pay a local shop less than 100 pounds for assembly.

 

The issue with builder sites if that if you want one part lower and one higher they often sont allow it

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, venomtail said:

Ryzen 7950X3D would be far more prestigious in my eyes than any i9.

I understand very little about AMD products compared to NVIDIA/Intel and to be honest, I've always just stuck with them because that's what I've had before. Does something make them superior, over it just being a personal loyalty aspect? Sorry for the question, I'm very ignorant of this topic.

[SupaKomputa]

1 hour ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i9 24-Core Processor i9-13900KS (Up to 6.0 GHz) 36MB Cache

AMD 7950x3d with real 16 cores, not 8 + 8 fake cores.

 

1 hour ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)

2^nd M.2 SSD Drive: 1TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)

I would mix some big HDD if i were you, instead of getting 5TB total ssd only. Plus i still not trusting SSD for long term storage.
I would add  8 TB hdd x 2, put them in RAID 1 for data redundancy.

 

1 hour ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

Processor Cooling: CORSAIR ICUE LINK H150i RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER

If you're not comfortable with water cooler, than don't. A top end air cooler perform about the same, air cooler has only 1 (or 2) moving parts, easier to maintain.

 

1 hour ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

Sound Card: ASUS Xonar AE 7.1-Channel Gaming Audio Card

This is unnecessary, since mobo audio now is good enough. I would get a capture card like elgato instead (for live streaming, if that's your thing).

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, filpo said:

just gaming?

X3D 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£362.00 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB 48.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£115.05 @ NeoComputers) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte X670 AORUS ELITE AX (rev. 1.0) ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£280.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL28 Memory  (£106.78 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£256.79 @ Newegg UK) 
Video Card: Palit GameRock GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB Video Card  (£1801.73 @ Amazon UK) 
Case: NZXT H9 Flow ATX Mid Tower Case  (£159.99 @ AWD-IT) 
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 TT Premium 1650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£264.99 @ AWD-IT) 
Total: £3348.30
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-11-16 15:40 GMT+0000

I really want to stick with a PC builder, rather than building it myself, in spite of the extra costs. I would just have more peace of mind, sorry, I know that's frustrating to hear for people more tech savvy and confident enough to build their own.

[Tetras]

Here's an AMD/AMD alternative from the same supplier that you used:

 

Case: LIAN LI LANCOOL 205 MESH C GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU): AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard: ASUS® PRIME B650-PLUS (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0)
Memory (RAM): 64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5600MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card: 24GB AMD RADEON™ RX 7900 XTX - HDMI, DP - DX® 12
1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable: 1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling: PCS FrostFlow 150 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste: STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card: ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card: WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]

 

Price: £2,552.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/agF8mFnkTA/

 

Here's a reconfigured Intel alternative, the same supplier again:

Case: CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i7 16-Core Processor i7-13700 (Up to 5.2GHz) 30MB Cache
Motherboard: ASUS® TUF GAMING B760M-PLUS WIFI (mATX, LGA1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6)
Memory (RAM): 64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5600MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card: 24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP
1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable: 1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling: PCS FrostFlow 150 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste: ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card: ONBOARD LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]

 

Price: £3,360.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z790-ddr5-pc/BMA82VnQmu/

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, jaslion said:

That is why option 2 I offered is a great win here.

 

You buy a partslist and pay a local shop less than 100 pounds for assembly.

 

The issue with builder sites if that if you want one part lower and one higher they often sont allow it

 

I hadn't considered that a local shop would be cheaper or even offer that as a service, I'll look into it once I get the parts list sorted, thank-you for the advice!

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

I understand very little about AMD products compared to NVIDIA/Intel and to be honest, I've always just stuck with them because that's what I've had before. Does something make them superior, over it just being a personal loyalty aspect? Sorry for the question, I'm very ignorant of this topic.

Basically value wise a 7900xtx is a lot better. 4080 perf for a 4070ti price.

 

And thr 7800x3d cpu is quite literally the best one right now

 

I looked for simplifying the pc

 

A 13600, the on offer hydro 100x cooler, remove the second drive (easy enough to add one later or other ones much easier than a psu swap) and opt for a cheaper case. Also no sound card and get the b760 board you really dont need more. Instant 700 down.

 

The gpu wise id pick the 7900xtx and upgrade later in 3-5 years if needed as the 4090 is just bad value through and through.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

AMD 7950x3d with real 16 cores, not 8 + 8 fake cores.

 

I would mix some big HDD if i were you, instead of getting 5TB total ssd only. Plus i still not trusting SSD for long term storage.
I would add  8 TB hdd x 2, put them in RAID 1 for data redundancy.

 

If you're not comfortable with water cooler, than don't. A top end air cooler perform about the same, air cooler has only 1 (or 2) moving parts, easier to maintain.

 

This is unnecessary, since mobo audio now is good enough. I would get a capture card like elgato instead (for live streaming, if that's your thing).

Thank-you, you're the second person to recommend switching to that CPU, so I'll definitely look to make that change based on both your advice.

I am moving over a 1TB HDD for that reason, I genuinely don't store all that much data at the moment, but if I end up needing to, I'll follow that advice and get a few large HDD's for longterm storage.

I did feel a bit cornered with the water cooling due to there being no air cooling on the site that it was happy to accept in the config. I've been advised that using a local shop to build is also an option, so think I'll definitely make that change with the cooling to match, thank-you.

Someone else pointed out that I was being silly adding an audio card, I'll remove it from the build. I'm not currently a streamer, though occassionally consider it, so will consider adding a capture card instead. Thanks so much for all the feedback and advice!

[podkall]

23 minutes ago, jaslion said:

The 4090 still has cable melting issues. Its pretty widespread and basically is a when not if unless you get one with a fixed cable and those are not super common yet.

I thought those were only melting if the connection wasn't tightly secured

 

2 minutes ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

I understand very little about AMD products compared to NVIDIA/Intel

7800x3D is roughly 3% faster on average compared to 13900k, gets less hot and draws less power overall and even during load, among other things like cache, responsiveness and more

[jaslion]

5 minutes ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

 

I hadn't considered that a local shop would be cheaper or even offer that as a service, I'll look into it once I get the parts list sorted, thank-you for the advice!

Parts list you already got a top spec BETTER one from @filpo and it hasnt even been that price optimized

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, podkall said:

thought those were only melting if the connection wasn't tightly secured

Even then it happens. I'm already seeing case 4 and this was the new cablemod cable and a recent 4090 built by someone I know that does awesome work. Sucks it was a hardline loop and all (boutique builder) ans of the 30 4090's they have 2 melt and they made sure it was 100% in to the point they are asking customers to check and offer free servicing to check themselves (+ maintenance as a sorry for the inconvenience)

 

Its not good still.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Tetras said:

Here's an AMD/AMD alternative from the same supplier that you used:

 

Case: LIAN LI LANCOOL 205 MESH C GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU): AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard: ASUS® PRIME B650-PLUS (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0)
Memory (RAM): 64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5600MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card: 24GB AMD RADEON™ RX 7900 XTX - HDMI, DP - DX® 12
1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable: 1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling: PCS FrostFlow 150 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste: STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card: ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card: WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]

 

Price: £2,552.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/agF8mFnkTA/

 

Here's a reconfigured Intel alternative, the same supplier again:

Case: CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i7 16-Core Processor i7-13700 (Up to 5.2GHz) 30MB Cache
Motherboard: ASUS® TUF GAMING B760M-PLUS WIFI (mATX, LGA1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6)
Memory (RAM): 64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5600MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card: 24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP
1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable: 1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling: PCS FrostFlow 150 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste: ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card: ONBOARD LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]

 

Price: £3,360.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z790-ddr5-pc/BMA82VnQmu/

Thank-you for these, is it advised to keep AMD CPU with AMD GPU?

There have been a few complaints about Ark not supporting features of the AMD card and AMD GPU's seemed to have significantly inferior performance to the 4090, though I could be misunderstanding things here.

How come you dropped down to the i7 over i9 CPU in that build?

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Basically value wise a 7900xtx is a lot better. 4080 perf for a 4070ti price.

 

And thr 7800x3d cpu is quite literally the best one right now

 

I looked for simplifying the pc

 

A 13600, the on offer hydro 100x cooler, remove the second drive (easy enough to add one later or other ones much easier than a psu swap) and opt for a cheaper case. Also no sound card and get the b760 board you really dont need more. Instant 700 down.

 

The gpu wise id pick the 7900xtx and upgrade later in 3-5 years if needed as the 4090 is just bad value through and through.

I wasn't really looking to save money at the cost of performance, given how incredibly demanding ASA has proved to be even for absolute beast rigs. I went with having 2 SSD drives so I could keep the OS on one and game from the other, advice I had seen said this was beneficial. Will definitely take that Sound Card out as advised, thank-you.

[podkall]

7 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Even then it happens. I'm already seeing case 4 and this was the new cablemod cable and a recent 4090 built by someone I know that does awesome work. Sucks it was a hardline loop and all (boutique builder) ans of the 30 4090's they have 2 melt and they made sure it was 100% in to the point they are asking customers to check and offer free servicing to check themselves (+ maintenance as a sorry for the inconvenience)

 

Its not good still.

I mean 2 is a number you could digest,

 

precisely 0,066% chance of 4090 cable failing if I read the numbers correctly

[Tetras]

10 minutes ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

Thank-you for these, is it advised to keep AMD CPU with AMD GPU?

Not really, it was just for interest and mirroring the feedback about buying the 7900 XTX versus the 4090.

10 minutes ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

There have been a few complaints about Ark not supporting features of the AMD card and AMD GPU's seemed to have significantly inferior performance to the 4090, though I could be misunderstanding things here.

I don't know anything about this game, but generally speaking: the 4090 has increased in price a lot lately and it has made the 4080 and 7900 XTX look better value.

 

What features are you referring to? FSR?

 

The 4090 is generally faster than the 7900 XTX, yes (especially with ray tracing enabled), but it's also potentially half the price and you avoid the 12/16 pin connector.

10 minutes ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

How come you dropped down to the i7 over i9 CPU in that build?

The 13700 non-K is easier to air cool and that's something I thought you would prefer and you don't need an i9 for gaming. If I wanted to go all-out I'd actually buy a 14700K or 14900K, due to the potential of APO:

But, who knows if APO will lead to worthwhile future gains.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Tetras said:

Not really, it was just for interest and mirroring the feedback about buying the 7900 XTX versus the 4090.

I don't know anything about this game, but generally speaking: the 4090 has increased in price a lot lately and it has made the 4080 and 7900 XTX look better value.

 

What features are you referring to? FSR?

The 13700 non-K is easier to air cool and that's something I thought you would prefer and you don't need an i9 for gaming. If I wanted to go all-out I'd actually buy a 14700K or 14900K, due to the potential of APO:

But, who knows if APO will lead to worthwhile future gains.

I looked at a comparison of the 4090 vs the 7900 XTX and it agrees with your sentiment that it's much better value, but also shows significantly inferior performance. I'm really hoping to go for the best performance I can within that £4,000 budget.

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-4090-vs-AMD-RX-7900-XTX/4136vs4142

Yes, that's the one! FSR. I really don't know much about it, but they were having discussions about it here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2399830/discussions/0/3881599433118707944/?ctp=2

I do want to go all out, though you make a compelling case with regards to being able to stick with air cooling, I'll have to really think that one through. I'll have a watch of the video you kindly provided in a little bit. Thank-you so much.

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

Budget (including currency): ~£4,000 (Inc. VAT, Exc. Postage/Warranty)

Country: England, UK.

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: UE5 modern/near future gaming with max settings. Upgrade fueled by Ark Survival Ascended.

Other details:

• Existing Parts: Monitor - LG ULTRAGEAR (2560x1440@144Hz), G502 Wireless Mouse with Powerplay mousemat, Corsair K95 Keyboard, Sony XM4 Wireless Headphones, Yeti Nano Mic.
• Required Peripherals: None with build, intention to purchase smaller second monitor in the future for web browsing/YT/Watching Streams etc.
• Buying When: Now.
• Resolution & Refresh: 2560x1440@144Hz + (Currently unknown second monitor in the future)

 

Proposed Build/Quote:

 

Case: FRACTAL DEFINE 7 BLACK QUIET MID-TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i9 24-Core Processor i9-13900KS (Up to 6.0 GHz) 36MB Cache

Motherboard: ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO (LGA1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E)

Memory (RAM): 64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 32GB)

Graphics Card: 24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP

1^st M.2 SSD Drive: 4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)

2^nd M.2 SSD Drive: 1TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)

Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Power Cable: 1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)

Processor Cooling: CORSAIR ICUE LINK H150i RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER

Thermal Paste: ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

Sound Card: ASUS Xonar AE 7.1-Channel Gaming Audio Card

Network Card: ONBOARD LAN PORT

USB/Thunderbolt Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]

 

 

Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)

Delivery: TIMED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND - MON-FRI (BEFORE 10:30AM)

Build Time: Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days

 

Other thoughts/information:
 

• I'm pretty scared of the 'water cooling', however, this seems to be the only option available with this build.
• Link to build - https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z790-ddr5-pc/U7UXkmrPR0/ (£4,083 Inc. VAT, Exc. Warranty/Delivery)
• I don't really care about looks, I would actually rather avoid lighting and sound as much as possible.
• I leave my PC on 24/7.
• It's not essential to use PC Specialist, however I do want to use a custom PC builder, rather than building my own.
• I was intending to use the 2nd SSD purely for the OS, the 1st SSD for all my gaming, as well as possibly moving a 1TB File Storage SATA HDD from my current PC to the new one.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated, or just a thumbs up that everything seems okay before I go ahead with such a big purchase. I have noted that the Water Cooling is RGB, which I can presumably turn off, the only non RGB option seemed to be less powerful (I'm guessing the higher power will be better cooling/performance?) I'm not particularly tech savvy, though not useless, the most I've ever done was changing my PSU when I did a GPU upgrade, it scares me a lot that I would break something, hence my hesitancy about Water Cooling.

Many thanks for your time,
Jonny

 

"Upgrade fueled by Ark Survival Ascended."

 

So incredibly wrong I actually smacked my head in real life.

 

13900KS/4090...  save $2000 and get a 7800x3d/7900XTX build.  Or a 13600K/4080 build.  

 

The overkillness of this is very wasted on that monitor as well.  As well as the Pro drives for gaming. 

 

Did you consult with anyone before looking at this one, or just want the best stuff.  Nothing wrong with that, but if you had more knowledge you make make a difference choice...

 

 

It's liek ordering that Ferrari and going.. oh, all I do is drive to work and the store.  Oops.

 

[venomtail]

35 minutes ago, IAmNotASmartMan said:

I understand very little about AMD products compared to NVIDIA/Intel and to be honest, I've always just stuck with them because that's what I've had before. Does something make them superior, over it just being a personal loyalty aspect? Sorry for the question, I'm very ignorant of this topic.

Ryzen right now is pretty prestigious for me over Intel for multiple reasons that might be appealing:

• AMD over the last several generations has done an A++ job of keeping their older platforms alive by consistent new updates making older motherboards, CPU and chipset features backwards compatible. If you get Ryzen, you're way more likely to get some sort of new update/feature in 2028 when AMD says they'll upgrade to a new socket. Intel has already stopped releasing updates for intel 13th gen making some 14th gen only. 14th gen Intel is also last stop. Next gen is a new socket which means your new motherboard will age just one generation. In my eyes even with the significantly higher price tag than Intel motherboards AMD's a far better "investment" for longer term support. Likely in 2028 you'll still have a new CPU upgrade. Two days ago was a new leaks of some 5000 series CPU's coming soon. If they'll be like the last ones, they'll be compatible on 5 year old motherboards (if motherboard makers can be arsed to make a BIOS update which so far all have). Intel doesn't come close to this backwards compatible interchangeability.
• AMD has all cores be real cores
• AMD has their special 3D CPU's that many games turn out to absolutely adore. I'd say it's safe to assume devs have taken notice of this free real estate when it comes to performance so extra cache is is likely to turn from a nice to have but a must have.
• Ryzen compared to Intel is significantly more efficient. Where Intel's i9's start to come near Ryzen 3D's or 12+ core models, they're using twice as much power and need insane cooling to keep up as well, whilst Ryzen barely sweats it. 

To me Ryzen is just a far more efficient product in my eyes and what the industry should move towards. Intel right now is struggling and to keep up has returned to the old ways of brute forcing performance, be damned the shortcomings elsewhere.