Help! After a decade out of the game I'm building my second computer

[Stevethe11th]

Tried playing around with a cheaper cpu to increase the budget for a better gpu, but I think the 5070 ti is the best card I can get in my budget. 5080s start at 1400 dollars and that would put me well over 2000 dollars which is quite a stretch from my original budget. I think I'm locked in to a 5070 or 5070 ti at this price.

[Stevethe11th]

4 hours ago, Tetras said:

From what I've seen of the USD market, it is a good idea to have a ballpark of what performance level you want and see if you can get something on clearance, or a special offer from a local store. You might get lucky that way.

 

If you're not sure on how stuff compares, TPU's GPU database is a good place to start.

 

Here's the 5060 Ti 16GB's entry:

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-rtx-5060-ti-8-gb.c4246

 

Note that these numbers don't take into account ray tracing, or the impact of VRAM, so don't use the charts blindly:

 

I tried hunting for some bundle deals on newegg and I somehow priced a 5080 build for $1950. This is almost convincing now. Just have to sacrifice 32 gb of ram for a free 16 gb kit plus a slower cpu.

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($208.99 @ Amazon)  -- comes with Team Group 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6000
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($37.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO B840-P WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($124.98 @ Newegg) 
Video Card: MSI VENTUS 3X OC PLUS GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB Video Card  ($1409.99 @ MSI) -- comes with Kingston NV3 M.2 2280 1TB
Case: Montech XR ATX Mid Tower Case  ($80.90 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Montech CENTURY II 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.90 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1952.66

 

[Why_Me]

9 hours ago, Stevethe11th said:

Budget (including currency): $1,000-1,500 USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: now: assetto corsa competizione | future: assetto corsa evo, gta 6 

Other details : need a monitor upgrade but not including it in this budget

 

After 9 years of service, Microsoft is effectively bringing my computer to end of life with the end of windows 10. I know there's work arounds, but it's time to move on.

I know this is the worst time to buy, but I recently received a $1000 dollar gift card that I want to put towards a new pc. I know almost nothing about the current pc market besides intel sucks now and nvidia is the big shit.

I mostly do sim racing now which isn't super graphicly intense, but I would like to be able to hit 4k on future casual games like gta 6 for my tv. I'm ok with upscaling and frame gen and 60 fps would be good enough. 

I guess nvidia gpu's are out of the picture at this price point since they're literally unobtainium, but I don't know if an intel arc or amd rtx would be up to snuff either.

 

Any advice or points in the right direction to get up to speed would be greatly appreciated.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 5 7600 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($198.85 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: *ASRock B850 Pro RS ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: *Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($82.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: *Silicon Power UD90 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($95.97 @ B&H) 
Video Card: *Gigabyte WINDFORCE SFF GeForce RTX 5070 12 GB Video Card  ($604.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: *Antec P20C ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: *ADATA XPG Core Reactor II 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Case Fan: *ARCTIC P12 PWM PST 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan  ($9.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1352.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-05-20 02:17 EDT-0400

 

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

[Tetras]

16 hours ago, Stevethe11th said:

I tried hunting for some bundle deals on newegg and I somehow priced a 5080 build for $1950. This is almost convincing now. Just have to sacrifice 32 gb of ram for a free 16 gb kit plus a slower cpu.

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($208.99 @ Amazon)  -- comes with Team Group 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6000
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($37.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO B840-P WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($124.98 @ Newegg) 
Video Card: MSI VENTUS 3X OC PLUS GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB Video Card  ($1409.99 @ MSI) -- comes with Kingston NV3 M.2 2280 1TB
Case: Montech XR ATX Mid Tower Case  ($80.90 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Montech CENTURY II 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.90 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1952.66

 

Interesting, hard to say for sure which would be best: 7800X3D+5070 Ti or 9600X + 5080.

 

I think the 5080 is about 15% faster, so at 4K with all the shinies enabled I'd imagine it'll come out ahead, though with more CPU dependent games the X3D can add a lot of frames and it'll offer you more framerate consistency even when it does not.

[Stevethe11th]

On 5/20/2025 at 3:29 PM, Tetras said:

Interesting, hard to say for sure which would be best: 7800X3D+5070 Ti or 9600X + 5080.

 

I think the 5080 is about 15% faster, so at 4K with all the shinies enabled I'd imagine it'll come out ahead, though with more CPU dependent games the X3D can add a lot of frames and it'll offer you more framerate consistency even when it does not.

I thought at the time the 5080 had a bigger advantage over the 5070 ti. I think a 15% increase at best for almost double the cost isn't worth it. I think its probably best to go with the 5070ti with a better motherboard and cpu so I can upgrade later down the line if I find I need to.

[Why_Me]

1 hour ago, Stevethe11th said:

I thought at the time the 5080 had a bigger advantage over the 5070 ti. I think a 15% increase at best for almost double the cost isn't worth it. I think its probably best to go with the 5070ti with a better motherboard and cpu so I can upgrade later down the line if I find I need to.

PCIe 5.0 for the gpu and better VRM's. For another $10 you can get the WiFi version of that board.

 

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B850 Pro-A/index.asp

 

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

 

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

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($198.99 @ Newegg) 
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: *ASRock B850 Pro-A ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($92.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: *Silicon Power UD90 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($94.97 @ Newegg Sellers) 
Video Card: *MSI SHADOW 3X OC GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB Video Card  ($852.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: *Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case  ($65.00 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: *Montech CENTURY II 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.90 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1584.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-05-23 20:38 EDT-0400

 

https://www.msi.com/Monitor/G272QPF-E2 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Monitor: *MSI G272QPF E2 27.0" 2560 x 1440 180 Hz Monitor  ($199.99 @ MSI) 
Total: $199.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-05-23 20:41 EDT-0400

[Tetras]

12 hours ago, Stevethe11th said:

I thought at the time the 5080 had a bigger advantage over the 5070 ti. I think a 15% increase at best for almost double the cost isn't worth it. I think its probably best to go with the 5070ti with a better motherboard and cpu so I can upgrade later down the line if I find I need to.

Yeah, not usually worth it, but the calculations at 4K can be a little different, just due to playability issues at high/very high settings.

[Stevethe11th]

On 5/24/2025 at 8:30 AM, Tetras said:

Yeah, not usually worth it, but the calculations at 4K can be a little different, just due to playability issues at high/very high settings.

I saw a thread in the gpu section where someone said they had bought both and couldn't tell a difference unless they were frame counting. Now they didn't specify if they do much 4k gaming or 1440, but I think that's good enough for me right now. If a year or so down the line I think I need the 5080 super or whatever is next in the product line, then at least I'll have an upgrade path.

[Tetras]

Just now, Stevethe11th said:

I saw a thread in the gpu section where someone said they had bought both and couldn't tell a difference unless they were frame counting. Now they didn't specify if they do much 4k gaming or 1440, but I think that's good enough for me right now. If a year or so down the line I think I need the 5080 super or whatever is next in the product line, then at least I'll have an upgrade path.

Yeah, I'd personally consider it plenty good enough.

 

What I was getting at (RE: playability issues), is that if someone wanted to play say... fully ray traced and high/ultra settings and they got 50 fps, then +15% would be 57.5 fps and while that difference is small, the difference in overall playability/smoothness can be worth paying the extra. If it was me, I'd just turn some stuff off or down.

[Stevethe11th]

On 5/25/2025 at 9:14 AM, Tetras said:

Yeah, I'd personally consider it plenty good enough.

 

What I was getting at (RE: playability issues), is that if someone wanted to play say... fully ray traced and high/ultra settings and they got 50 fps, then +15% would be 57.5 fps and while that difference is small, the difference in overall playability/smoothness can be worth paying the extra. If it was me, I'd just turn some stuff off or down.

Yeah 50 to 60 is more noticeable than 200 to 215. In regards to specific board manufacturers does it matter which "tier" of 5070 ti I go with? Like the cheapest ones I can find right now are the msi shadow, asus prime, or zotac or is it worth it to spend a little more money on a tier higher? Can't find much on what seperates them and why some are 830 and some are 1000.

[Tetras]

2 hours ago, Stevethe11th said:

In regards to specific board manufacturers does it matter which "tier" of 5070 ti I go with? Like the cheapest ones I can find right now are the msi shadow, asus prime, or zotac or is it worth it to spend a little more money on a tier higher? Can't find much on what seperates them and why some are 830 and some are 1000.

TPU often have a chart in their reviews where you can compare the cards, that's somewhere to start at least:

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-rtx-5070-ti-gaming-trio-oc/40.html

 

I'm not aware of any roundups, but I expect you can find some somewhere.

 

Generally speaking: there's not much (or very little) difference in performance at stock settings, but higher tier models can be cooler and quieter. The warranty length varies (depending on the brand) too.

[Stevethe11th]

49 minutes ago, Tetras said:

TPU often have a chart in their reviews where you can compare the cards, that's somewhere to start at least:

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-rtx-5070-ti-gaming-trio-oc/40.html

 

I'm not aware of any roundups, but I expect you can find some somewhere.

 

Generally speaking: there's not much (or very little) difference in performance at stock settings, but higher tier models can be cooler and quieter. The warranty length varies (depending on the brand) too.

I did some of my own research and found this spreadsheet which is pretty helpful.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11MCugOebhsZ4zb-b5R2HRIIWXp6VLCKEsLnYyzsm2lk/edit?gid=755628141#gid=755628141

 

Currently at a Microcenter near me, Gigabyte offers the cheapest 5070ti at 825 and an oc version with a 2% oc. I found this review of the oc version where the author claims he got a 13% performance gain with a manual overclock.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/1jnxl9s/my_review_of_gigabyte_windforce_oc_sff_5070_ti/

 

I wonder if I get the stock version if I could manually overclock it and get similar results or if I would need the oc version to replicate his results. 45 dollars more for near 5080 performance is a lot more enticing than 600 dollars more for a 5080.

[Tetras]

24 minutes ago, Stevethe11th said:

I wonder if I get the stock version if I could manually overclock it and get similar results or if I would need the oc version to replicate his results. 45 dollars more for near 5080 performance is a lot more enticing than 600 dollars more for a 5080.

Normally, there is no difference between the OC and non-OC version of the same model apart from a slight factory OC, but I'm only referring to the cooler there.

 

In reference to the overclock, I'm not familiar enough with these cards to say what level of OC is generally achievable for the 5070 Ti, but sometimes you can get cards with different power limits, for example.

 

Personally, I'd never recommend buying a card with an assumption of an OC (..especially based on a single sample), so would be more inclined toward paying extra money for a better cooler or some other attractive feature (like a dual BIOS). Unless, there's good evidence that the GPUs are better binned (or where a certain model gets a different die), or an OC is consistently achievable because of x,y,z reason.

[Stevethe11th]

9 minutes ago, Tetras said:

Normally, there is no difference between the OC and non-OC version of the same model apart from a slight factory OC, but I'm only referring to the cooler there.

 

In reference to the overclock, I'm not familiar enough with these cards to say what level of OC is generally achievable for the 5070 Ti, but sometimes you can get cards with different power limits, for example.

 

Personally, I'd never recommend buying a card with an assumption of an OC (..especially based on a single sample), so would be more inclined toward paying extra money for a better cooler or some other attractive feature (like a dual BIOS). Unless, there's good evidence that the GPUs are better binned (or where a certain model gets a different die), or an OC is consistently achievable because of x,y,z reason.

Seems like from some light googling the 5070 ti is overall a pretty good overclocking card. Unfortunately the next tiers up from most bases are in the high 900s to 1000 range which I just can't quite stomach. Probably will just roll the dice on one of the base models and cross my fingers I get a good one.

[Tetras]

54 minutes ago, Stevethe11th said:

Seems like from some light googling the 5070 ti is overall a pretty good overclocking card. Unfortunately the next tiers up from most bases are in the high 900s to 1000 range which I just can't quite stomach. Probably will just roll the dice on one of the base models and cross my fingers I get a good one.

Yeah, I wouldn't pay that much for one either.

 

I'd definitely want a thorough professional review (or a tear down) when investing this much though, like: does it have thermal pads on the VRM and memory, is the backplate metal and/or used for cooling, do the fans use ball bearings?

 

The Gigabyte cards have had some reports of leaking thermal material, but not sure if that's something to worry about.

 

I think Zotac offer a 5 year warranty in most regions, Gigabyte 3 or 4 years, PNY, MSI and Asus 3, some of the cheaper brands like Palit might be just 2.

 

I'd also check the warranty on the lesser known models (like MSI's shadow), as sometimes they're only sold as OEM cards which could have a very short or retailer-only warranty.

[Stevethe11th]

20 hours ago, Tetras said:

Yeah, I wouldn't pay that much for one either.

 

I'd definitely want a thorough professional review (or a tear down) when investing this much though, like: does it have thermal pads on the VRM and memory, is the backplate metal and/or used for cooling, do the fans use ball bearings?

 

The Gigabyte cards have had some reports of leaking thermal material, but not sure if that's something to worry about.

 

I think Zotac offer a 5 year warranty in most regions, Gigabyte 3 or 4 years, PNY, MSI and Asus 3, some of the cheaper brands like Palit might be just 2.

 

I'd also check the warranty on the lesser known models (like MSI's shadow), as sometimes they're only sold as OEM cards which could have a very short or retailer-only warranty.

According to micro center everything has a 3 year warranty. Can't find any additional info beyond that.

 

The ASUS Prime comes with phase changing thermal pads which is nice and might be beneficial to overclocking. They were in stock yesterday, but now they're gone from the two closest micro centers to me.

 

I can get a Zotach Solid Core variant right now which is probably fine or I could wait and see if the asus comes back into stock.  

[Tetras]

19 hours ago, Stevethe11th said:

The ASUS Prime comes with phase changing thermal pads which is nice and might be beneficial to overclocking. They were in stock yesterday, but now they're gone from the two closest micro centers to me.

 

I can get a Zotach Solid Core variant right now which is probably fine or I could wait and see if the asus comes back into stock.  

I couldn't tell you which one of those two is better, but I believe (based on a post elsewhere) the Core is a small downgrade on the original Solid model.

 

From the reviews I've seen on the Prime models (not a 5070 Ti), they're decent, everything is padded and the backplate is used for cooling.

[Stevethe11th]

On 5/28/2025 at 10:01 AM, Tetras said:

I couldn't tell you which one of those two is better, but I believe (based on a post elsewhere) the Core is a small downgrade on the original Solid model.

 

From the reviews I've seen on the Prime models (not a 5070 Ti), they're decent, everything is padded and the backplate is used for cooling.

Think I'm about to pull the trigger. Micro center offers some decent deals with an account. PNY is 100 dollars off which makes it more reasonable and most importantly its in stock. I've done some soul searching and I think if I'm going to build a new computer I'm not going to cut corners (aka I'm about to be irresponsible with my money). Snagged a psu on clearance earlier today so I "saved" 40 bucks.

 

Here's what I put together. For some reason the micro center builder is saying the gpu might not be compatible. Not sure why

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Raphael AM5 4.2GHz 8-Core Boxed Processor ($359.99 EACH)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B850 Gaming X WiFi6E AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard ($189.99 EACH)
RAM: TeamGroup T-Force Delta Alpha RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-5600 PC5-44800 CL40  ($89.99 EACH)
Video Card: (1) PNY NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ARGB EPIC-X Overclocked Triple Fan 16GB GDDR7 PCIe 5.0 Graphics Card ($899.99 EACH)
M.2 / NVMe SSD: (1) Samsung 990 EVO 2TB Samsung V NAND TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4 and PCIe Gen 5 x2 NVMe M.2 Internal SSD ($129.99 EACH)
Case: (1) Montech XR Tempered Glass ATX Mid-Tower Computer Case - Black ($69.99 EACH)
Water Cooling Kits: (1) Montech Hyper Flow ARGB 360mm All in One Liquid CPU Cooling Kit - Black ($99.99 EACH)
Total: $1,839.93

 

This is really blowing the original budget I had set. But I never got to build the full gamer pc, so I'm doing it right now.

 

[Stevethe11th]

On 5/19/2025 at 6:34 PM, jordanbuilds1 said:

DONT BUY NEW NVIDIA!

 

the reason im saying this is because of how lack luster drivers are rn ( yes, now nvidia has garbage drivers and amd has god tier drivers). Also perf isn’t that great, and the amd rx9060xt is releasing soon, which should in theory be better then the 5060ti.

 

if you don’t mind me asking, what wheel do you use for sim racing.

I ended up buying a 5070ti. Don't regret it, but I wanted to let you know you're right. I've already experienced black screens and screen tearing and its only been about 24 hours since I've built the computer. Hopefully its temporary and nvidia will fix it soon.

[jordanbuilds1]

5 minutes ago, Stevethe11th said:

I ended up buying a 5070ti. Don't regret it, but I wanted to let you know you're right. I've already experienced black screens and screen tearing and its only been about 24 hours since I've built the computer. Hopefully its temporary and nvidia will fix it soon.

Yeah the 5070ti is fine it’s just the fact that nvidia drivers are so all over the place rn which was the reason I didn’t recommend it