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sgtDiggle
By sgtDiggle
in New Builds and Planning
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Budget (including currency): $3500 CAD

Country: Canada

Games: Starfield, Skyrim, Baulders Gate 3, Cyberpunk, etc. 

Monitor: 1440P Freesync Pro 240hz, HDR600. 

 

I used to be a long time PC gamer (2010 was my last build, retired it 2015). Moved to console gaming when I become a father. It's time to go back to PC. 

 

I am struggling to decide between the 7900XTX ($1300+ Newegg) and the 4080 ($1600+ Newegg), which will probably be the 4080 Super in January. I get the fight on paper. Ray Tracing, DLSS etc. etc. However, I am wondering what everyone actually thinks? I enjoy modding Skyrim, and if I remember correctly, back in the day the mods really ate your VRAM. 

 

Also trying to decide between the 7800X3D and the Intel i7 K series. I have always been an Intel user. Have zero experience with AMD. From what I can tell, the 7800X3D doesn't overclock, but is considered the best for gaming. 

 

My last struggle is figuring out a reliable brand. When I was building before, it was always ASUS or Intel EVERYTHING and you can't go wrong. I see a lot of ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI now in everyone's builds. These were always considered unreliable products, but I am assuming its changed?

 

 

 

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Posted
12 minutes ago, sgtDiggle said:

Budget (including currency): $3500 CAD

Country: Canada

Games: Starfield, Skyrim, Baulders Gate 3, Cyberpunk, etc. 

Monitor: 1440P Freesync Pro 240hz, HDR600. 

 

I used to be a long time PC gamer (2010 was my last build, retired it 2015). Moved to console gaming when I become a father. It's time to go back to PC. 

 

I am struggling to decide between the 7900XTX ($1300+ Newegg) and the 4080 ($1600+ Newegg), which will probably be the 4080 Super in January. I get the fight on paper. Ray Tracing, DLSS etc. etc. However, I am wondering what everyone actually thinks? I enjoy modding Skyrim, and if I remember correctly, back in the day the mods really ate your VRAM. 

 

Also trying to decide between the 7800X3D and the Intel i7 K series. I have always been an Intel user. Have zero experience with AMD. From what I can tell, the 7800X3D doesn't overclock, but is considered the best for gaming. 

 

My last struggle is figuring out a reliable brand. When I was building before, it was always ASUS or Intel EVERYTHING and you can't go wrong. I see a lot of ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI now in everyone's builds. These were always considered unreliable products, but I am assuming its changed?


IMO, the 7800X3D is a better choice for CPU right now than anything intel is offering.

 

As for the 7900XTX vs the 4080: The 7900XTX's extra Vram should be an advantage in the future, but I think once your above 16GB of Vram that future is some way off. The 7900XTX's real advantage is it's traditional rendering performance. DLSS and FSR are both getting more similar by the day. So that means the reason to go for a 4080 would be the raytracing performance (and maybe some of their other features like NVENC, if your going to use them).
 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($479.99 @ Best Buy Canada)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($120.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: ASRock B650 PG LIGHTNING ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($177.36 @ Vuugo)
Memory: Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory  ($126.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus W/Heatsink 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($102.67 @ Amazon Canada)
Video Card: Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB Video Card  ($1349.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Case: Cooler Master N400 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($108.68 @ Vuugo)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 TT Premium 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($189.99 @ Canada Computers)
Total: $2656.66

I might be experienced, but I'm human and I do make mistakes. Trust but Verify! I edit my messages after sending them alot, please refresh before posting your reply. Please try to be clear and specific, you'll get a better answer. Please remember to mark solutions once you have the information you need. Expand this signature for common PC building advice, a short bio and a list of my components.

 

Common build advice:

1) Buy the cheapest (well reviewed) motherboard that has the features you need. Paying more typically only gets you features you won’t use. 2) only get as much RAM as you need, getting more won’t (typically) make your PC faster. 3) While I recommend getting an NVMe drive, you don’t need to splurge for an expensive drive with DRam cache, DRamless drives are fine for gamers. 4) paying for looks is fine, just don’t break the bank. 5) Tower coolers are usually good enough, unless you go top tier Intel or plan on OCing. 6) OCing is a dead meme, you probably shouldn’t bother. 7) "Bottlenecks" rarely matter and "Future-proofing" is a myth. 8) AIOs don't noticeably improve performance past 240mm and don't improve at all past 360mm. 9) RTFM.

 

Useful Websites:

https://www.productchart.com - helps compare monitors, https://uk.pcpartpicker.com - makes designing a PC easier.

 

Bio:

He/Him - I'm a PhD student working in the fields of reinforcement learning and traffic control. PCs are one of my hobbies and I've built many PCs and performed upgrades on a few laptops (for myself, friends and family). My personal computers include 4 windows (10/11) machines and a TrueNAS server (and I'm looking to move to dual booting Linux Mint on my main machine in future). Aside from computers, I also dabble in modding/homebrew retro consoles, support Southampton FC, and enjoy Scuba Diving and Skiing.

Fun Facts

1) When I was 3 years old my favourite toy was a scientific calculator. 2) My father is a British Champion ploughman in the Vintage Hydraulic Class. 3) On Speedrun.com, I'm the world record holder for the Dream Bobsleigh event on Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games 2010.

 

My Favourite Games: World of Tanks, Runescape, Subnautica, Metroid (Fusion and Dread), Spyro: Year of the Dragon (Original and Reignited Trilogy), Crash Bash, Mario Kart Wii, Balatro

 

My Computers: Primary: My main gaming rig - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/will0hlep/saved/NByp3C Second: Hosts Discord bots as well as a Minecraft and Ark server, and also serves as a reinforcement learning sand box - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/will0hlep/saved/cc9K7P NAS: TrueNAS Scale NAS hosting SMB shares, DDNS updater, pi-hole, and a Jellyfin server - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/will0hlep/saved/m37w3C Foldatron: My folding@home and BOINC rig (partially donated to me by Folding Team Leader GOTSpectrum) - Mobile: Mini-ITX gaming rig for when I'm away from home -

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Posted
9 minutes ago, sgtDiggle said:

rom what I can tell, the 7800X3D doesn't overclock, but is considered the best for gaming. 

Kinda, and it is. The 7800X3D can't technically overclock, though Ryzen chips in general are red-lined out of the box, so overclocking is reserved for the folks using LN2 and it's not that big a deal for the vast majority of people. The same can be said about Intel's lineup, where if you have a 13700K/14700K you'll be lucky to get 10% extra clock speed out of it if you have an insane amount of cooling, though it is still more than AMD's at most 5% uplifts. Technically though, you can overclock it if you get one of the handful of boards that support external ECLK support (the cheapest is usually the B650E Taichi Lite), where you end up increasing the base clock of the CPU and thus shift the entire boost algorithm up a bit, though as hinted at above, this doesn't get much extra performance. 

 

If you're exclusively building a gaming PC, it's hard to recommend anything other than the 7800X3D. 

 

14 minutes ago, sgtDiggle said:

I am struggling to decide between the 7900XTX ($1300+ Newegg) and the 4080 ($1600+ Newegg), which will probably be the 4080 Super in January. I get the fight on paper. Ray Tracing, DLSS etc. etc. However, I am wondering what everyone actually thinks? I enjoy modding Skyrim, and if I remember correctly, back in the day the mods really ate your VRAM. 

If you're going to wait for the 4080 Super to release, then I'd wait till then to actually make a decision. From the bit I've heard (admittedly not keeping up with rumors that much since they're usually wrong), it would end up getting more VRAM and be a bit closer to the 4090 for performance, though you have to wait and see what the cards actually end up as (if they release at all) to see what they'll be. 

 

Personally, I'd go XTX. It's faster than the 4080 in non-RT applications, it's fast enough that you really shouldn't need DLSS, and even if you do need RT performance it's still good enough for most games. 

 

18 minutes ago, sgtDiggle said:

My last struggle is figuring out a reliable brand. When I was building before, it was always ASUS or Intel EVERYTHING and you can't go wrong. I see a lot of ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI now in everyone's builds. These were always considered unreliable products, but I am assuming its changed?

It's a little complicated. Back in the DDR3 days, ASUS really was the king of motherboards. Around DDR4 though, they started to coast on that reputation, releasing worse and worse boards while still charging a massive markup for them while everyone else "caught up" (even back in the DDR3 days, all the other brands did make really solid boards from time to time, it's just that they weren't nearly as consistently good as they are today, it was just the occasional great board they released). Nowadays, ASUS has had major quality control issues to the point where they really shouldn't be sought after. 

 

For actually picking a board, you need to look at the product itself and not the brand. Even back then, ASUS still made some boards that were e-waste out of the factory while for the same price you could get say a Gigabyte board that would be a bit better. Today, they all have some really solid options and they all have some terrible options. 

 

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/cLf4YN

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Posted
42 minutes ago, sgtDiggle said:

Budget (including currency): $3500 CAD

Country: Canada

Games: Starfield, Skyrim, Baulders Gate 3, Cyberpunk, etc. 

Monitor: 1440P Freesync Pro 240hz, HDR600. 

 

I used to be a long time PC gamer (2010 was my last build, retired it 2015). Moved to console gaming when I become a father. It's time to go back to PC. 

 

I am struggling to decide between the 7900XTX ($1300+ Newegg) and the 4080 ($1600+ Newegg), which will probably be the 4080 Super in January. I get the fight on paper. Ray Tracing, DLSS etc. etc. However, I am wondering what everyone actually thinks? I enjoy modding Skyrim, and if I remember correctly, back in the day the mods really ate your VRAM. 

 

Also trying to decide between the 7800X3D and the Intel i7 K series. I have always been an Intel user. Have zero experience with AMD. From what I can tell, the 7800X3D doesn't overclock, but is considered the best for gaming. 

 

My last struggle is figuring out a reliable brand. When I was building before, it was always ASUS or Intel EVERYTHING and you can't go wrong. I see a lot of ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI now in everyone's builds. These were always considered unreliable products, but I am assuming its changed?

Expect the 4080 Super 20GB to sit just beneath the 4090 24GB on the charts not to mention that card will give you DLSS 3.0. That card won't be cheap but it will be an AMD killer for those with a sizeable budget such as yours.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($479.99 @ Best Buy Canada) 
CPU Cooler: *Deepcool AG620 67.88 CFM CPU Cooler  ($66.98 @ Newegg Canada) 
Motherboard: *Asus TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($264.98 @ Amazon Canada) 
Memory: *G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($144.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Storage: *Kingston KC3000 2.048 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($154.99 @ Canada Computers) 
Case: *Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($119.99 @ Canada Computers) 
Power Supply: *Corsair RM1000e (2023) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($199.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Total: $1431.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-12-07 14:52 EST-0500

 

A better look at those components.

 

https://www.asus.com/us/motherboards-components/motherboards/tuf-gaming/tuf-gaming-b650-plus-wifi/  

 

https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d

 

https://www.deepcool.com/products/Cooling/cpuaircoolers/GAMMAXX-AG620-Dual-Tower-CPU-Cooler-1700-AM5/2022/15900.shtml  

 

https://www.gskill.com/product/165/396/1673491242/F5-6000J3038F16GX2-FX5  

 

https://www.kingston.com/en/ssd/kc3000-nvme-m2-solid-state-drive  

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/kingston-kc3000-m2-ssd-review  

 

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/p/psu/cp-9020264-na/rme-series-rm1000e-fully-modular-low-noise-atx-power-supply-cp-9020264-na  

 

https://lian-li.com/product/lancool-216/  

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Posted

Intel version of that build up above.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i7-13700 2.1 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($468.98 @ Amazon Canada) 
CPU Cooler: *Deepcool AG620 67.88 CFM CPU Cooler  ($66.98 @ Newegg Canada) 
Motherboard: *Asus ROG STRIX B760-A GAMING WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($259.00 @ Amazon Canada) 
Memory: *G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($149.97 @ Newegg Canada) 
Storage: *Kingston KC3000 2.048 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($154.99 @ Canada Computers) 
Case: *Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($119.99 @ Canada Computers) 
Power Supply: *Corsair RM1000e (2023) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($199.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Total: $1419.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-12-07 15:03 EST-0500

 

A better look at that board, cpu and RAM.

 

https://rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-b760-a-gaming-wifi/

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/230490/intel-core-i713700-processor-30m-cache-up-to-5-20-ghz/specifications.html  

 

https://www.gskill.com/product/165/377/1649234797/F5-6000J3040F16GX2-RS5K-F5-6000J3040F16GA2-RS5K

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Posted
7 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Technically though, you can overclock it

Would you count power limit increase as overclocks?

Press quote to get a response from someone! | Check people's edited posts! | Be specific! | Trans Rights

 

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3 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

you hit voltage limits

Yeah i forgot how low this is on the X3D chips. RIP.

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Posted
  • Author

Thank you for all your responses. I have saved a couple of the suggested builds for further inspection. They do help! Seems like the 7800X3D is currently a no brainer. I feel like the 7900XTX is my current option, again depending on what's announced in January for the 4080 Super. 

 

Now the chip says that DDR5 - 5200mhz, all the builds are showing DDR5 - 6000mhz, CL30. With my Intel experience, XMP profiles also boots the clocks etc. of the processor. Does this not count as overclocking? Is it the same with AMD? I did some looking around on google, and they do say that 6000mhz ram is the sweet spot for 7800X3D, just looking to understand it a little more. 

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10 hours ago, sgtDiggle said:

Seems like the 7800X3D is currently a no brainer.

 

I beat the 7800x3d in many single-core tests with an Intel 12600KF (stock) just by using Linux instead of windows11.

So it is not a particularly powerful CPU, overall.

 

For gaming, the 14700KF is actually more powerful than the 7800x3D in the 1% Low values, and I think we will see this more and more in the future, that the 14700KF will easily beat the 7800x3D.

 

spacer.png

 

This is the build I would recommend for your budget.

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-14700KF 3.4 GHz 20-Core Processor  ($533.25 @ shopRBC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler  ($139.94 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-A MAX WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($366.30 @ Vuugo)
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-7600 CL36 Memory  ($229.97 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($179.75 @ Vuugo)
Video Card: XFX Speedster MERC 310 Black Edition Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB Video Card  ($1339.99 @ Canada Computers)
Case: Zalman Z10 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Xilence XP1050MR9 1050 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($296.10 @ Amazon Canada)

Total:     $3185

OS: OpenBSD -current WM: Polybar -- bspwm -- dmenu -- picom Components: Intel 12700KF -- G.SKILL RIPJAWS @4000 CL18 -- ASUS Dual Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB -- ASUS ROG STRIX B760-G GAMING WIFI D4 -- JONSBO Z20 black -- ARCTIC F14 -- bequiet! SYSTEM POWER 10 550W -- DeepCool AG500BK -- Kingston Renegade G5 1TB and Samsung 9100 PRO 1TB Mouse: zalman ZM-GM7 Display panel: UltraGear 34G630A-B Headphones: Kawai SH-9 Webcam: Microsoft LifeCam HD-3000 Keyboard: HP desktop 320K Microphone: Trust GXT 259 RUDOX Camera: Fujifilm X-M5

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