Is my PC build okay for a first time PC owner?

[Zakariaxxs]

Budget (including currency): $2000 (USD)

Country: United States of America

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Games, drawing and college work

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): 

I play on xbox and have a samsung laptop for school/drawing. Just looking to really cement a PC and something that'll last me a LONGGG time. Link for my pc build is below.

I also wanna make sure that everything I picked will fit into my casing and wont clash with any parts. any tips, suggestions or changes would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Zakariaxxs/saved/#view=sh4hK8

[Why_Me]

The 12 gen cpu's don't have good thread scheduling, that board you have chosen has weak VRM's, and I would look at a 850W psu to cover any random power spikes that might occur. The 5070 Ti supports PCIe 5.0 so might as well get a board that also supports PCIe 5.0 for the graphics card. btw ignore the bios warning in the link ... the 14 gen cpu's were released a year ago and by the slim chance this board doesn't include the 14 gen bios, that board allows you to upgrade to the latest bios without having to install the cpu & RAM. Low profile RAM so that the heatsinks don't impede that dual tower cpu cooler.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i7-14700F 2.1 GHz 20-Core Processor  ($309.95 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: *Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($37.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: *MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($179.99 @ MSI) 
Memory: *Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: *Acer Predator GM7000 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($132.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: *Gigabyte GAMING OC GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB Video Card  ($969.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: *Montech AIR 903 MAX ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.90 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: *MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1900.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-03-17 04:20 EDT-0400

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/windows-11-free-or-cheap

 

A better look at those components.

 

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-Z790-TOMAHAWK-WIFI 

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/236854/intel-core-i7-processor-14700f-33m-cache-up-to-5-40-ghz/specifications.html

 

https://www.predatorstorage.com/products/predator-gm7000-pcie-4-ssd.html        

 

https://www.msi.com/Power-Supply/MAG-A850GL-PCIE5 

 

https://www.montechpc.com/air-903-max 

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/montech-air-903-max/ 

 

 

[BahnStormer]

What type of games are you playing? There is a huge difference between optimising a PC for one particular game or genre versus a much more vague title of "games" where you you might overspend on on something that you never, ever use (e.g. 20 CPU cores is only for a very niche group of simulators like City Skylines).... most of the games that I play never use more than 4 cores!

 

What monitor do you have? I don't want to waste money recommending a complete overkill GPU if you only have a 1080P 60Hz screen that you plan to keep as you'll be travelling to and from dorms for the next three years.

[BahnStormer]

Nobody can make any proper recommendation without knowing which games / software you'll be using or what resolution and frame rate you are aiming for.

Just as food for thought: here's a sample build for well under $2000 that will 10%-15% faster than the above build in most gaming scenarios, except a handful of raytraced options, where it is still faster, but only 5%.

The added bonus is that it is a platform that will take at least another 2 whole generations of very easy (just swap the one chip) CPU upgrades.

 

i.e. up to the current 9000 series AND also any AM5 upgrades out to 2027.

 

It will also be the same speed in most "drawing" apps, unless you're going to CAD rendering, where you need to know the exact application to make a recommendation - some will be better with 20Gb+ VRAM (i.e. RX7900XTX), others will be locked to Nvidia's CUDA cores... but still need as much VRAM as possible, so you get freak scenarios where the otherwise very mediocre and overpriced RTX4060Ti 16Gb would win against a RTX5070 (only 12Gb).

 

Here's my current recommended all-round solid "gaming" rig for well under $2000.

 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($272.76 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($34.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock B650M PG Lightning Wifi Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($119.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital Black SN770 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($119.68 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: XFX Quicksilver Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB Video Card  ($869.99 @ Newegg Sellers) 
Case: Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case 
Power Supply: EVGA 1000 GQ 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1627.30
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-03-17 05:22 EDT-0400

 

 

The PSU is complete overkill, but an EVGA 1000W PSU couldn't be ignored... it's only semi modular, but the only permanently attached cable is the main motherboard one!

 

That said, this will be slower in some CPU-based rendering simulations (City Skylines) and video compilation software that needs CPU cores or locked to CUDA cores, but you need to know what software you're using.