Gaming rig upgrade.

Do-more

Looking to put together a new PC for my 17 year old son as a Christmas present, hoping to pick up some of the bits on Black Friday.

He already has an RTX 2080 graphics card in his current machine, not going to upgrade that at this time.

His current machine is a HP OMEN 880-011 with a i5 7400 CPU, he says that the CPU/motherboard is the limiting factor.

A local retailer has a pre-configured build as follows: (I've deleted the GPU)

Case: Fractal Design Meshify C / Dark Tempered Glass

MB: ASUS ROG Strix X570-F Gaming

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X

RAM: G-Skill Trident Z-Royal 32GB 2x16GB 3600MHz DDR4 CL14 Silver-RGB

SSD: Samsung 970 EVO Plus series SSD 1TB M.2

PSU: Corsair RM750 750W 80+ Gold

Cooler: Corsair Cooling Hydro H100X / 240mm

Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy Fx

+ Win 10.

Had thought to put together something similar, but in particular not sure about the motherboard and RAM.

He doesn't need WiFi, I might need to add bluetooth.

Any suggestions?

JoyPad

I would get a 5000-series CPU, instead of that 3950X. They are just out, and availability might be an issue.
I would replace the motherboard with a B550 chipset, which is still great, and saves about 100 euro. I would drop ASUS for MSI too.
If you need to save some more, get just 16GB of RAM. And drop the Sound Blaster, as the onboard sound card is more than enough.

Samuel T. Cogley

I assume he's doing video editing / rendering or something similar?

Homelander

To be honest that seems like throwing money at a machine for the sake of it.

The 3950X is a workstation type CPU, you can get something like the new Ryzen 5600X for less than half the price that is much faster in games.

And that is it he's gaming at 144hz, if it's just a standard 1080p/1440p/4k 60hz build, a £170 Ryzen 3600 is still an excellent gaming CPU and probably the most popular on the market right now.

750W gold PSU is also overkill, as is 32GB of RAM.

Water cooling is a personal thing but those all-in-one coolers in my opinion are a bit pointless, better off with a cheaper good air cooler.

Same with the sound card, unless there's a specific reason, onboard sound these days is perfect.

Do-more

Thanks Homelander, that's exactly the type of advice I was looking for.

That config together with a RTX 3090 GPU was billed as a gaming rig but from the research I have been doing since I posted many seem to agree with you that it is more appropriate as a workstation.

Yes he is gaming at 144hz.

When I bought the last PC I thought that I was getting something that was well over spec'ed for what he wanted but it didn't take long for him to pass it out, I don't want to fall into the same trap this time round.

If I am going to shell out €1500-2000 on it I want him to get at least two years out of it and be able to upgrade if possible.

Next time around it will be his own money going into it!

He's a good lad and studies hard so I don't want to cheap out on it either but no point in buying something that is a waste of money either.

Samuel T. Cogley

Future proofing doesn't really work. Buy the best bang for the buck now, premium products if you can afford it but there is a tier of PC products that are just nonsense for the vast majority. The 5950X, RTX3090 and 6900XT all fall into this category. Use what you save to upgrade down the line and sell on your old stuff.

An example. I bought a 3600 for £165, sold it there for €160 and bought a 5600X to bring me upto date. If I'd bought the 3950X it would have cost me more and not offered as good performance in games.

Do-more

Forgot to mention that he also has a Valve Index VR headset that he runs at 144hz which he tells me is pretty CPU intensive.

Samuel T. Cogley

Do-more wrote: »

Forgot to mention that he also has a Valve Index VR headset that he runs at 144hz which he tells me is pretty CPU intensive.

Games dont really leverage high core counts even in VR. The 5600X excellent performance, the 5800X is oddly priced so there is some merit in the 5900X but the 5950X won't offer you any future proofing over the 5900X IMHO.

BloodBath

Fore pure gaming the 5800x is and will be the best cpu on the market for a while.

Fitz II

3950x is best got second hand, there are a few on adverts, I will be selling mine for half nothing when the new processors come. Consider buying the bits and letting him put it together, "Local Retailer" says to me you are about to get gouged.

Do-more

Fitz II wrote: »

3950x is best got second hand, there are a few on adverts, I will be selling mine for half nothing when the new processors come. Consider buying the bits and letting him put it together, "Local Retailer" says to me you are about to get gouged.

My intention is to get him to put it together.

I'm in Sweden, I could probably get the parts a bit cheaper from Germany but the company webhallen.se is competitively priced locally and charges approx. €70 for assembly.

Will wait for Black Friday and see if I can get any of the bits cheaper.

The new CPU's are due in Dec. 2nd. will pre-order in the next week or so.

Hyzepher

Something like this would be good enough for a few years

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Scythe FUMA 2 51.17 CFM CPU Cooler (kr704.00 @ Computersalg)
Motherboard: MSI MPG B550 GAMING EDGE WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard (kr2016.00 @ Computersalg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory (kr1874.00 @ Computersalg)
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (kr2659.00 @ Dustin Home)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P400A ATX Mid Tower Case (kr799.00 @ NetOnNet)
Power Supply: KOLINK ENCLAVE 700 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (kr979.00 @ CDON SE)
Total: kr9031.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-11-08 00:25 CET+0100

prices in Sweden aren't too competitive

Homelander

Fitz II wrote: »

3950x is best got second hand, there are a few on adverts, I will be selling mine for half nothing when the new processors come. Consider buying the bits and letting him put it together, "Local Retailer" says to me you are about to get gouged.

Not sure this is sound advice, even at literally half retail price the 3950X doesn't make sense for any sort of gaming machine.

5600X for a higher end high refresh build.

3600 for a normal, high refresh build.

3700X for a build you want to last a full 5year+ cycle without upgrading.

5800X for the above, but you want the best of the best in terms of high refresh gaming.

The 3950X doesn't really make any sense in any of those scenarios considering the price, whether new or second hand.

It's a workstation CPU, and should only be considered in that context. It has zero consideration for any gaming build, even at half RRP.

Do-more

@Hyzepher Thanks very much for taking the time to put that together.

I see that there are lots of motherboards that are at much higher prices than the one you have chosen, what benefits do they give? Is there any point in getting a higher spec motherboard?

[Edit] Watched some YT vids and answered my own question, mainly added features that are not needed.

Hyzepher wrote: »

prices in Sweden aren't too competitive

What I meant was that Webhallen are competitive with other local PC parts retailers.

25% vat is a killer here.

Do-more

Thanks for everyone's input what I have decided to go for is:

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor 6090kr

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler 927kr

MSI MAG X570 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard 2388kr

G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-4000 CL15 Memory 1830kr

Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive 1380kr

Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case 1090kr

Corsair RM (2019) 750 W 80+ Gold 1249kr

Probably overkill on a number of components but hopefully should last for a good few years.

Homelander

It's actually fine apart from the 5900X. There really is no reason to get that CPU over the cheaper (but not cheap) 5800X. It will have zero improvement in gaming, so unless your son is also doing heavy productivity work on the same, get the 5800X and invest the savings into something else.

This is also assuming he has either a 4K or 144hz monitor?

Do-more

Yeah probably overkill on the CPU and memory.

He has a Acer Predator XB271HU monitor and a Valve index Vr heatset.

Homelander

You're basically blowing massive cash on an enthusiast/workstation setup....being realistic here, your son won't appreciate, or need, any of it.

It would make far more sense to just get a B550M and 5600X, or 5800X, setup. I mean not being funny but why would a 17 year old need a 12 core 5900X?

I mean a 5600X + RTX3080 for example would **** all over a 5900X and RTX2080.

Do-more

I know, even the RTX 3070 will outperform the 2080.

Last year was a very bad time to upgrade, but will get nothing now for it 2nd. hand.

Will wait and see what the new crop of GPU's are like before deciding what to do on that front.