Time for an upgrade, 7 years in the making (Feedback)

[Overloke]

Hello from Australia! At current, I have a venerable (for the speed at which technology progresses) gaming PC from around 2017. It has the following:

• MSI GTX 1080
• Intel Core i7-7700K overclocked to 5GHz all-core
  • Corsair H100i v2 240mm AIO
• 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 @ 3000MHz
• FSP Raider 650W PSU
• MSI Z270 Gaming Carbon X motherboard
• 2 x Crucial MX500 2TB SSD in RAID0 (I know, I know, but I run disk backups to my NAS, and I just found another one laying around, so why not?)
• 1 x 2560x1080 35" ultrawide @ 144Hz, and 1 x 1080p 27" @ 60Hz. Nothing special, they're not amazing 'gaming' monitors.  

This absolute gaming chad has served me well for years. However, it's getting a bit long in the tooth - 45 FPS on Helldivers 2, if you can believe it! And so, I believe it is time to give the old girl a new lick of technological paint. However, due to everything being from that era, and having not upgraded the system piecemeal as I went along, I now have to update everything at once. Here's my current plan. Give me your thoughts, let me know what you think, am I missing or overshooting anything? All prices are listed in Australian Dollarydoos.

• Motherboard: MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK - AUD$345
  • I don't want to get a bottom-of-the-barrel motherboard. Four RAM slots, two M.2 slots (although I hate M.2 drives and if you check my post history you'll see why), built-in Wi-Fi (although I'll be wired in), buncha SATA ports, etc, etc. If there's a better value-for-money motherboard, lemme know.
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700 - AUD$529
  • It's a 7th Gen Ryzen, what's not to love? Going up from 4c/8t to 8c/16t, higher boost clock, more cache, and I'm sure an absolute whack-ton of IPC improvements in the last seven years. I don't need mucho nutso performance (e.g. the X3D range or anything like that. I don't plan to stream or do rendering or anything).
• CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 - AUD$125
  • The seller I'm looking at doesn't have any good Noctua stuff in, and I've used be quiet! before at work, and they're lovely. It's possible the built-in Wraith cooler for the 7700 would be fine, but I do like my overclocks. Although from what I've heard, overclocking doesn't get you the performance boost it once used to. Also, I'm sick of water cooling.
• GPU: MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio - AUD$1,699
  • The moment you've all be waiting for. The chunkiest boy. The biggest upgrade. I was looking at a 4070Ti initially, but people seemed to be saying that the VRAM could become a limitation on that card, and the 4080 is a few hundred dollars more, but worth the money. Thoughts?
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2 x 16GB DDR5 @ 6000MHz - AUD$169
  • It's dedodated wams, what more do you want from me?
• PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 850W - AUD$149
  • Probably overkill, but my current 650W FSP Raider doesn't have the cables required to power the GPU (I believe). I prefer too much than not enough. If there are better quality power supplies, lemme know, but as long as it's name brand, it's probably fine, right?
• TOTAL COST: AUD$3,016

Note that this build obviously isn't set in stone, I haven't bought anything yet, and prices can still fluctuate. However, I think it's finally time I start thinking seriously about upgrading, and I don't want to half-ass it. Whole-ass only.

 

Thanks lads and ladettes.

 

[Slide-Byte]

Certainly an upgrade I'd say! 

Personally, I'm team blue so I don't have much to say on the CPU decision though I've come to understand that the Ryzen 7 7800x3d is an absolute BOSS when it comes to gaming performance while also not being particularly power hungry. My buddy just put together a build with one and he's had no complaints. 

 

I have the same Ram in my rig, (but somehow it was about $60 cheaper?) and have had no issues with it. I will say, if icue has any issues recognizing it, just give it a quick re-post and that'll solve it. Did for me at least haha

 

The GPU is definitely the crown jewel of any gaming rig. If you're pointed towards MSI, I just got the 4070 Ti super for around $850 and it's giving me solid 120+ frames on some demanding, underpolished games (like escape from tarkov). Not to mention, roughly half the cost. 

 

I'm certainly no established Guru, but figured I'd toss my two cents into the fountain. 

It's not every day you get to build a PC for yourself, regardless of what direction you go, I hope it's a blast and when it's time to finally hit that power button everything posts first time!

[Overloke]

34 minutes ago, Slide-Byte said:

Certainly an upgrade I'd say! 

Personally, I'm team blue so I don't have much to say on the CPU decision though I've come to understand that the Ryzen 7 7800x3d is an absolute BOSS when it comes to gaming performance while also not being particularly power hungry. My buddy just put together a build with one and he's had no complaints. 

Honestly, so was I - I have Intel in my current PC, my fiance's old PC, my media PC, and both my servers. I went with AMD for her latest build, and it's going well, so I thought I'd give it a swap. I'm also still running Windows 10, and unless there's been changes, I vaguely remember reading/hearing that Windows 10 doesn't quite know what to do with P-cores vs. E-cores.

34 minutes ago, Slide-Byte said:

I have the same Ram in my rig, (but somehow it was about $60 cheaper?) and have had no issues with it. I will say, if icue has any issues recognizing it, just give it a quick re-post and that'll solve it. Did for me at least haha

Prices go up and down, the total cost of this has fluctuated by about $200 over a few months as sales come and go. I've never used iCUE for my RAM. I don't think I even use it for my AIO anymore.

39 minutes ago, Slide-Byte said:

The GPU is definitely the crown jewel of any gaming rig. If you're pointed towards MSI, I just got the 4070 Ti super for around $850 and it's giving me solid 120+ frames on some demanding, underpolished games (like escape from tarkov). Not to mention, roughly half the cost. 

Where are you getting your parts/prices? The 4080 I'm looking at is $1,699 AUD, and a 4070Ti is minimum $1,099 AUD. So sure, it's $600 more, and maybe I don't need the 4080 for a 2560x1080 ultrawide, but I'm sure I'd want to upgrade my monitors somewhere down the line as well, and I'd hate to be caught out because I run out of VRAM at higher resolutions. My main goal would be "Run Space Marine 2 when it comes out in September at absolute max settings."

42 minutes ago, Slide-Byte said:

I'm certainly no established Guru, but figured I'd toss my two cents into the fountain. 

It's not every day you get to build a PC for yourself, regardless of what direction you go, I hope it's a blast and when it's time to finally hit that power button everything posts first time!

Thanks dude. This isn't my first PC building rodeo, but there is definitely still some tension every single time you press the go button for the first time!

[Slide-Byte]

50 minutes ago, Overloke said:

Honestly, so was I - I have Intel in my current PC, my fiance's old PC, my media PC, and both my servers. I went with AMD for her latest build, and it's going well, so I thought I'd give it a swap. I'm also still running Windows 10, and unless there's been changes, I vaguely remember reading/hearing that Windows 10 doesn't quite know what to do with P-cores vs. E-cores.

Prices go up and down, the total cost of this has fluctuated by about $200 over a few months as sales come and go. I've never used iCUE for my RAM. I don't think I even use it for my AIO anymore.

Where are you getting your parts/prices? The 4080 I'm looking at is $1,699 AUD, and a 4070Ti is minimum $1,099 AUD. So sure, it's $600 more, and maybe I don't need the 4080 for a 2560x1080 ultrawide, but I'm sure I'd want to upgrade my monitors somewhere down the line as well, and I'd hate to be caught out because I run out of VRAM at higher resolutions. My main goal would be "Run Space Marine 2 when it comes out in September at absolute max settings."

Thanks dude. This isn't my first PC building rodeo, but there is definitely still some tension every single time you press the go button for the first time!

So here's the thing about the price discrepancy..I was thinking in USD not AUD :'D sorry for that confusion (and my own stupidity) hahaha 

[brob]

3 hours ago, Overloke said:

Hello from Australia! At current, I have a venerable (for the speed at which technology progresses) gaming PC from around 2017. It has the following:

• MSI GTX 1080
• Intel Core i7-7700K overclocked to 5GHz all-core
  • Corsair H100i v2 240mm AIO
• 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 @ 3000MHz
• FSP Raider 650W PSU
• MSI Z270 Gaming Carbon X motherboard
• 2 x Crucial MX500 2TB SSD in RAID0 (I know, I know, but I run disk backups to my NAS, and I just found another one laying around, so why not?)
• 1 x 2560x1080 35" ultrawide @ 144Hz, and 1 x 1080p 27" @ 60Hz. Nothing special, they're not amazing 'gaming' monitors.  

This absolute gaming chad has served me well for years. However, it's getting a bit long in the tooth - 45 FPS on Helldivers 2, if you can believe it! And so, I believe it is time to give the old girl a new lick of technological paint. However, due to everything being from that era, and having not upgraded the system piecemeal as I went along, I now have to update everything at once. Here's my current plan. Give me your thoughts, let me know what you think, am I missing or overshooting anything? All prices are listed in Australian Dollarydoos.

• Motherboard: MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK - AUD$345
  • I don't want to get a bottom-of-the-barrel motherboard. Four RAM slots, two M.2 slots (although I hate M.2 drives and if you check my post history you'll see why), built-in Wi-Fi (although I'll be wired in), buncha SATA ports, etc, etc. If there's a better value-for-money motherboard, lemme know.
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700 - AUD$529
  • It's a 7th Gen Ryzen, what's not to love? Going up from 4c/8t to 8c/16t, higher boost clock, more cache, and I'm sure an absolute whack-ton of IPC improvements in the last seven years. I don't need mucho nutso performance (e.g. the X3D range or anything like that. I don't plan to stream or do rendering or anything).
• CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 - AUD$125
  • The seller I'm looking at doesn't have any good Noctua stuff in, and I've used be quiet! before at work, and they're lovely. It's possible the built-in Wraith cooler for the 7700 would be fine, but I do like my overclocks. Although from what I've heard, overclocking doesn't get you the performance boost it once used to. Also, I'm sick of water cooling.
• GPU: MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio - AUD$1,699
  • The moment you've all be waiting for. The chunkiest boy. The biggest upgrade. I was looking at a 4070Ti initially, but people seemed to be saying that the VRAM could become a limitation on that card, and the 4080 is a few hundred dollars more, but worth the money. Thoughts?
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2 x 16GB DDR5 @ 6000MHz - AUD$169
  • It's dedodated wams, what more do you want from me?
• PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 850W - AUD$149
  • Probably overkill, but my current 650W FSP Raider doesn't have the cables required to power the GPU (I believe). I prefer too much than not enough. If there are better quality power supplies, lemme know, but as long as it's name brand, it's probably fine, right?
• TOTAL COST: AUD$3,016

Note that this build obviously isn't set in stone, I haven't bought anything yet, and prices can still fluctuate. However, I think it's finally time I start thinking seriously about upgrading, and I don't want to half-ass it. Whole-ass only.

 

Thanks lads and ladettes.

 

 

Use au.pcpartpicker.com and post the BB formatted list or the build url.

 

I may have missed it, but I see no mention of a PSU, case, or storage solution.

 

For a gaming rig consider the 7800X3D. It is currently the optimal choice.

 

With AMD CPU I suggest using memory kits that include EXPO profiles. 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($587.77 @ JW Computers) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($59.00 @ Scorptec) 
Motherboard: MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($344.77 @ JW Computers) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($184.27 @ Amazon Australia) 
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($239.00 @ Amazon Australia) 
Video Card: Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB Video Card  ($1399.00 @ Centre Com) 
Case: Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($159.00 @ Mwave Australia) 
Power Supply: ADATA XPG Core Reactor II 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($159.00 @ Centre Com) 
Total: $3131.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-16 16:20 AEST+1000

[Overloke]

13 minutes ago, brob said:

 

Use au.pcpartpicker.com and post the BB formatted list or the build url.

 

I may have missed it, but I see no mention of a PSU, case, or storage solution.

 

For a gaming rig consider the 7800X3D. It is currently the optimal choice.

 

With AMD CPU I suggest using memory kits that include EXPO profiles. 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($587.77 @ JW Computers) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($59.00 @ Scorptec) 
Motherboard: MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($344.77 @ JW Computers) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($184.27 @ Amazon Australia) 
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($239.00 @ Amazon Australia) 
Video Card: Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB Video Card  ($1399.00 @ Centre Com) 
Case: Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($159.00 @ Mwave Australia) 
Power Supply: ADATA XPG Core Reactor II 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($159.00 @ Centre Com) 
Total: $3131.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-16 16:20 AEST+1000

Thanks for the recommendations. I will be reusing the case and storage from my current build, and PSU is listed in the upgraded section of my post.