Almost completely new build, 7800X3D paired with a 4060.

[Nevan Nedall]

Budget (including currency): $1000 CAD + incremental upgrades

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: VTOL VR, Digital Combat Simulator, Destiny 2, and various modern games.

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): Already have 2 1080p Monitors, one of which is 144hz, and other perifs. Upgrading from an 8600k and a 1060. Already have the 4060.
Current planned part list:
 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/JGHYKX

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($688.16) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($47.35 @ Amazon Canada) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($0.00) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($158.19 @ Amazon Canada) 
Storage: *Silicon Power P34A60 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($91.51 @ Amazon Canada) 
Storage: *TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($85.29 @ Amazon Canada) 
Storage: *TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($85.29 @ Amazon Canada) 
Video Card: Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB Video Card  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Case: Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case  ($84.74 @ Canada Computers) 
Power Supply: *Cooler Master MWE Gold 850 - V2 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($129.94 @ Amazon Canada) 
Total: $1370.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-25 12:30 EDT-0400

CPU and MoBo are bundled.
Initially budget is going to go to buying the case, mobo, CPU, cooler, and memory.
I'm going to reuse my old PSU for a while and get a new one ASAP. My current one (EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G2 650 W 80+ Gold) has enough wattage but is getting a little old (~7 years.)
After that, I plan to buy the NVME and SSDs over time, with the exact drives being subject to change.

Looking for feedback/second opinions. From what I've researched this should be pretty solid, I don't have much room to go up from here, but if there are any obvious, easily addressed inefficiencies I'd like to hear about them.

[GuiltySpark_]

I'd see what you can do about trying to funnel budget away from other things and into a faster GPU. That's a lot of money to spend on a 1080p system with parts that make more sense in a high end 1440p/4k system, except for the GPU. First thing I'd do is drop to a 7600/x, or maybe a 7700/x. You don't need to go all out on a 7800x3D for only a 4060, you really want to prioritize the GPU if you have aspirations above 1080p. 

 

If 1080p is and forever will be the goal, I'd still spend less on the CPU. 

 

Just seems a little off balance for 1080p, is all. 

[Nevan Nedall]

1 minute ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

I'd see what you can do about trying to funnel budget away from other things and into a faster GPU. That's a lot of money to spend on a 1080p system with parts that make more sense in a high end 1440p/4k system, except for the GPU. First thing I'd do is drop to a 7600/x, or maybe a 7700/x. You don't need to go all out on a 7800x3D for only a 4060, you really want to prioritize the GPU if you have aspirations above 1080p. 

 

If 1080p is and forever will be the goal, I'd still spend less on the CPU. 

 

Just seems a little off balance for 1080p, is all. 

I might upgrade to 1440 eventually, but more immediately, I'm focused on the X3D because I keep hearing how beneficial the X3D CPUs are for the flight sims I play, particularly DCS.
I was originally planning on a 5800X3D but realized AM5 is probably the better option for future potential upgrades.

[podkall]

3 minutes ago, Nevan Nedall said:

After that, I plan to buy the NVME and SSDs over time, with the exact drives being subject to change.

why buy several smaller SSDs when you can get fewer bigger and have similar amount of space in the end with less parts?

 

I'd also follow @GuiltySpark_'s advice,

 

for a build though there's not much improvement outside of downgrading CPU for better GPU and being patient, and MB on a deal:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($529.00 @ Amazon Canada)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($41.90 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: ASRock B650 PG LIGHTNING ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($177.36 @ Vuugo)
Memory: *ADATA XPG Lancer Blade 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($134.99 @ Memory Express)
Storage: Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Crucial BX500 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP44L 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($152.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Video Card: Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB Video Card  (Purchased For $0.00)
Case: Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case  ($74.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Power Supply: *EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GA 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($109.98 @ Memory Express)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM - DVD 64-bit  (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Cooler Master R4-S2S-124K-GP 44.73 CFM 120 mm Fans 4-Pack  (Purchased For $0.00)
Monitor: ViewSonic XG2401 23.6" 1920 x 1080 144 Hz Monitor  (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $1221.21
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-25 12:33 EDT-0400

[Agall]

1 minute ago, Nevan Nedall said:

I might upgrade to 1440 eventually, but more immediately, I'm focused on the X3D because I keep hearing how beneficial the X3D CPUs are for the flight sims I play, particularly DCS.
I was originally planning on a 5800X3D but realized AM5 is probably the better option for future potential upgrades.

If you already have the RTX 4060 and have the budget, then sure, the 7800x3D is the best part by a mile.

 

I'd just consider the fact  that you'll be relatively imbalanced with an RTX 4060 and 7800x3D. You'd have a lot of headroom for a GPU upgrade if its insufficient performance at least.

[Nevan Nedall]

29 minutes ago, podkall said:

Memory: *ADATA XPG Lancer Blade 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($134.99 @ Memory Express)

After shipping the Lancer ends up around the same price as me picking up the T-Force from Canada Computers when I get most of the other parts I'm getting.
You're probably right about the SSDs, however- I haven't put as much thought into that yet since it's coming later.
 

28 minutes ago, Agall said:

I'd just consider the fact  that you'll be relatively imbalanced with an RTX 4060 and 7800x3D. You'd have a lot of headroom for a GPU upgrade if its insufficient performance at least.

I could theoretically return the GPU and try to look for an upgrade, I grabbed it a few days ago, but what would my options be on that front? 4060TI? I'm not well versed enough in the AMD side of GPUs to know what would be comparable.

[Agall]

20 minutes ago, Nevan Nedall said:

After shipping the Lancer ends up around the same price as me picking up the T-Force from Canada Computers when I get most of the other parts I'm getting.
You're probably right about the SSDs, however- I haven't put as much thought into that yet since it's coming later.
 

I could theoretically return the GPU and try to look for an upgrade, I grabbed it a few days ago, but what would my options be on that front? 4060TI? I'm not well versed in the AMD side of GPUs to know what would be comparable.

RX 6800, RX 7700 XT, Arc A770 16GB. Nvidia doesn't have strong options at the $300 price point right now since the RTX 4060 really isn't a good gaming desktop GPU outside of specifically 1080p.

 

The 8GB buffer isn't enough for AAA games and there's better options at that price point for standard rasterization and AAA. RTX 4060 is dramatically upsold for its tier of silicon with the expectation that it bats higher than its weight with DLSS.

[WereCat]

IMO the 7800X3D even with just 4060 is a good choice. 

If he does not need to run high graphical fidelity the extra CPU performance will be nice especially for the sim games. 

 

I'd rather look at what else besides CPU you don't really need that much to get a bit more GPU budget. 

[Nevan Nedall]

20 minutes ago, Agall said:

RX 6800, RX 7700 XT, Arc A770 16GB. Nvidia doesn't have strong options at the $300 price point right now since the RTX 4060 really isn't a good gaming desktop GPU outside of specifically 1080p.

Picking up a 7700XT is 200 more than what I paid for the 4060 after taxes right now, It'd be hard to make that fit budget-wise, and there aren't any reasonably priced 6800s right now that are in stock in Canada, it seems.

I'm not sure I'm ready to go with Arc, whenever I try to research it I see people wary about driver support or dealing with odd problems they need to troubleshoot, and it doesn't even appear to be an upgrade from surface level googling?

  

16 minutes ago, WereCat said:

I'd rather look at what else besides CPU you don't really need that much to get a bit more GPU budget. 

There's not much room to go down from here when solely considering the case, memory, and cooler. The discount of the bundle exceeds the price of the motherboard, so that's off the table if I'm not changing the CPU.
I'm unsure I can squeeze enough out at a budget of just over $1k for the CPU, Mobo, Cooler, Memory, and Case to get a better GPU. I'd need to find around 100 or so worth of value to get a TI.

[Agall]

13 minutes ago, Nevan Nedall said:

Picking up a 7700XT is 200 more than what I paid for the 4060 after taxes right now, It'd be hard to make that fit budget-wise, and there aren't any reasonably priced 6800s right now that are in stock in Canada, it seems.

I'm not sure I'm ready to go with Arc, whenever I try to research it I see people wary about driver support or dealing with odd problems they need to troubleshoot, and it doesn't even appear to be an upgrade from surface level googling?

Pricing between those gets complicated by region, in the US, the 6800 and 7700XT float around $380-$420 compared to the RTX 4060's ~$300. Intel Arc is a gamble and are as low as $280 in the US, but if you're playing mostly specific games and can pre-validate that they run fine on it, then they're a great option. They don't run into the specific VRAM and memory bandwidth issues that any of the RTX 4060's run into (including the 4060ti 8GB/16GB).

 

RTX 4060 is fine for some AAA games at 1080p, but past that and potentially in the future, its not a great value. Its major advantage is efficiency, and comparably, its a wonderful laptop GPU. The RTX 4060 in the desktop cards is the same die as the laptops, just with a higher TDP. Ideally though, sticking to 12GB or higher cards is best in 2024 if you're planning to use it for gaming for a while.

[podkall]

56 minutes ago, WereCat said:

IMO the 7800X3D even with just 4060 is a good choice. 

If he does not need to run high graphical fidelity the extra CPU performance will be nice especially for the sim games. 

 

I'd rather look at what else besides CPU you don't really need that much to get a bit more GPU budget. 

strong CPU ensures high framerates, especially with lowered graphics settings and on lower resolutions, while strong GPU ensures power to drive more demanding settings and higher resolutions without dropping to unplayable framerate

 

game type depends too of course,

 

speaking of strong CPUs, 7600 Ryzen isn't a weakling, it's performance can be occasionally comparable to 5800x3D, again depends on game and how much it benefits from higher cache vs clock speeds