New gaming PC

awec

Current machine is a GTX 1070. It's starting to really struggle.

Need a full new build, no monitor required, no software required. Must be Nvidia as my monitor is GSync. Used for gaming only, but don't need the absolute bleeding edge as I mostly play online games or the likes of Civ, and not so much the single player games that require top dollar to be spent.

I'd be looking for mid-to-high end rather than extreme high end, if that makes sense. Something that will give me 100+ fps at 1440p in games like CS2, PUBG, etc, with high quality graphic settings.

Budget 1500-2000, depending on what I can get. Would want it to last me 5+ years (current machine has lasted 7). I haven't been keeping in the loop on this stuff at all, literally no idea what to look at.

Any suggestions? 😊

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/fpwnYN

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (€357.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler (€39.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: MSI PRO B650M-A WIFI Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard (€168.32 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL32 Memory (€116.17 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital Black SN770 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (€109.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Zotac GAMING Trinity OC GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER 16 GB Video Card (€1034.89 @ Proshop)
Case: Lian Li A3-mATX MicroATX Mini Tower Case (€75.89 @ Caseking)
Power Supply: Asus Prime AP-850G 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€102.60 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €2005.66
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-08-20 11:29 CEST+0200

CPU: 7800X3D will last you the length of the PS5 & beyond. And you can pair it with cheaper mATX B650 boards without issue.
CPU cooler: Thermalright are great value.
RAM: 32GB should do for now.
GPU: 4080 Super for longevity.

Beta Ray Bill

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/PT2Lz6

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D 4.4 GHz 12-Core Processor (€393.60 @ Caseking)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (€69.31 @ Galaxus)
Motherboard: MSI MAG X670E TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard (€285.99 @ Cyberport)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (€132.15 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Samsung 990 EVO 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X2 NVME Solid State Drive (€136.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB Video Card (€835.00 @ Galaxus)
Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case (€83.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 - TT Premium Edition 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€110.77 @ Galaxus)
Total: €2047.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-08-20 12:39 CEST+0200

Gone a little over budget but the rational is the following:
There is no point in buying a 7800X3D/7900X3D and 4080/4070 and running a B650 board, you need a 670 or 670E. They have more lanes than the 650 and the VRMS on the 670 are better.
It's a PCIe 5.0 compatible board so you should use PCIe 5.0 components if you can (It will stand to the longevity of your machine ) - explains the 200 for the storage.
Again, there is no point in running a power hungry GPU and CPU without a Platinum class Power Supply.

If you wanted you could drop back to a 7800X3D but that CPU 40% less performant than the 7900X3D (And you'll only save 90)

Note: PC Part picker doesn't include jacob.de which is great component seller.
Note: For an extra few hundred you could got for a 7950X3D which is an absolute beast

Edit (originally did US but switch to .DE website)

awec

@K.O.Kiki / @Beta Ray Bill if I wanted to get closer to the 1500 budget, what would you save on here?

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122523046#Comment_122523046

You could go for the 650 Board and a 7800X3D, I'd stick with the platinum power supply that would get you down to around €1800

The elephant in the room is the graphics card. They are just gone so expensive now.

There are options:
1: You could buy second hand - risk
2: Go for a previous generation like a 3080 -
3: Go for a OC 4070

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/PbqJ6D

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (€357.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (€69.31 @ Galaxus)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650M D3HP Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard (€110.39 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (€132.15 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Kingston NV2 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (€108.35 @ Galaxus)
Video Card: Gigabyte WINDFORCE 2X OC GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card (€566.63 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case (€83.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 - TT Premium Edition 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€110.77 @ Galaxus)
Total: €1539.58
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-08-20 13:02 CEST+0200

You're down to around €1500 now.

If you're looking for benches on games for the 4070 there's a good review here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZHDq-LEGzw

At 4k the 4070 will run Counter Strike at 190 fps

The PC Parts picker is just an example. Do you research on the Hardware vendor website

Avoid the Samsung SSD's for now, the 980 had a massive F**k Up there a few weeks ago and the price of them is coming down. PCIe 5.0 isn't a must but defo something to strive for.

Also, on your monitor, how old is it? (Make/Model/Hz?) if it supports Freesync too you can use AMD GPU's

If you don't care about raytracing then AMD's GPU's could be another option. A 7900XT will outperform a 4070 in non raytracing applications and its only an extra €120

Note G-Sync and Free Sync only matter when you're below 100fps if I'm honest.

K.O.Kiki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122523046#Comment_122523046

Downgrade GPU to 4070 Super (no point getting a 4070 when the better Super is basically the same price)

@Beta Ray Bill

Disagree on the CPU, the 7900X3D & 7950X3D are worse gaming CPUs since the 7800X3D doesn't need any configuration to ensure its cores have access to the full 3D V-cache, and 7900X3D is a 6+6 configuration.

Also disagree on the motherboard - you only need those PCI-e lanes of X670 if you are running lots of M.2 drives or add-in cards. For gaming with a GPU & nothing else, it's overkill.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122523137#Comment_122523137

Monitor is an Acer Predator XB271HU, 120/144hz if I remember right. I don't think it does FreeSync.

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122523229#Comment_122523229

yeah I suppose if it's JUST gaming and nothing else then 7800X3D is good. Loads of the HW review guys dumped the 7950X3D data after they realised they handn't correctly configured their CPU's…. GAS! #RTFM

I cant find a super for the same price and regular 4070.

In relation to 5.0, and lanes games are getting bigger and bigger, Halo Infinite is 100GB in size for example. You wouldn't be long filling up a 2TB M.2, so 5.0 makes sense to future proof. (In my opinion). The memory consumption is also getting bigger.

I'm running a x570e, I've used up a lot of the 2 NVME drives on my machine. I'm 2.5 SSD for storage too but they're just not as good. Will probably look at something like Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 (obviously I'm stuck on 4.0 for the foreseeable) going forward which is the pain in the hole.

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122523268#Comment_122523268

No it does not

I'd do as @K.O.Kiki says and try and get a 4070 Super if you can.

awec

Thanks lads I'll take a look. It's only for gaming yea, I use a MBP for everything else. I notice @K.O.Kiki you linked a mini case, that looks quite neat! Is there any downside to these cases?

Do I need any additional cooling?

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122523547#Comment_122523547

Those mini cases are one of the new cool things. (Case market is quite busy right now)

The mini cases can be slightly noisey, cause the get a bit hot depending on what components you use, hence higher fan speed.

I like them, but don't own one… I've the exact opposite infact.

Lian Li have a lot of nice cases, but again if you look at case reviews on gamers nexus they do quite an in dept job.

There are basically 2 types:
Mini-ITX
Micro-ATX

Could be the otherway around actually

Anyway, they're very small The ITX one is tiny, be careful if you don't go with an AIO CPU cooler as an air cooler might not fit in the case. Same applies to the height of the RAM.

One thing we both forgot to add to the list of things to buy is case fans… you'll need a few.

K.O.Kiki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122523848#Comment_122523848

Incorrect.

The Lian Li A3 is all-mesh, which means lots of airflow, which means fans can run SLOWER and thus quieter for cooling.

And it's micro-ATX, not mini-ITX.

As for RAM height, that is never a factor with case size but rather depends on the CPU cooler & if it overhangs the RAM slots.

As for case fans: nice to have, but not 100% necessary. Thermalright & Arctic have good budget options.

awec

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/cw7J6D

@Beta Ray Bill @K.O.Kiki what about something like this?

I want it to be as quiet as possible, so I went with liquid cooling for the CPU as I think this means the fans can run at a lower RPM.

Other than the CPU, do I need more cooling in there? If so, is there any way of doing this without needing high speed fans running?

K.O.Kiki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122524895#Comment_122524895

@awec Unnecessary TBH

The 7800X3D uses ~55W during gaming, it doesn't need fancy cooling. Liquid is nice but you have to contend with both fan and pump noise. The Thermalright Phantom Spirit cools as well as a 240mm AIO and only has fans that can make noise.
Also Corsair are ridiculously overpriced for what you get.

I've added a trio of Arctic P12 ARGB fans to the list.

You can make any fan run quieter by simply setting up a fan curve (e.g. "at 70C CPU spin at 50%") which can be done in BIOS or in software, e.g. with Fan Control.

I have 2'000 rpm fans but I don't run them past 1'500 unless there's a runaway scenario (CPU goes to 88C) which would indicate a hardware failure.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122526842#Comment_122526842

I see. The internet does suggest liquid cooling is quieter as fans can run at much lower RPM, is my understanding incorrect?

I actually updated my list this morning. Instead of the 4080 I looked at the 4070 TI Super which seems a mid-point between the 4070 SUPER and the 4080?

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/8mQbBL

K.O.Kiki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122526892#Comment_122526892

4070 Ti Super is alright, but I'd get a cheaper model (except MSI Ventus 3x).

Having owned both liquid & tower coolers over the years, I 100% can tell you a tower is ALWAYS quieter than liquid during desktop usage.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122527333#Comment_122527333

Tower cooler is what you have in your link right?

There really aren't that many cheaper options, the difference is insignificant.

awec

@K.O.Kiki now I'm doubting myself, wondering if I'm just better off paying the few hundred extra to go for a 4080. Any thoughts?

This would increase the potential lifespan of the machine right?

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122526842#Comment_122526842

If you're gonna go AIO for the CPU then I'd recommended the ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III (It seems to be the best one out there at the moment). Agreed that Corsair stuff is so incredibly expensive

I'm currently using a Lian Li Galahad AIO and it's be great, very quiet. BUT, I've had to warranty replace a few of the Fans as the bearing went in them… (Not great)

My concern would be if you're using a Lian Li A3-mATX, you're gonna struggle to fit in the GPU and a Tower cooler. (I don't know for sure though)

Consider Low Profile Ram such as Crucial Pro 32GB Kit.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122528206#Comment_122528206

My Opinion on this has been to always buy the best as it will last longest, but don't put yourself in debt like

K.O.Kiki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122528206#Comment_122528206

https://www.techspot.com/review/2797-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-super/

Go to bottom section - Cost per frame (1440p gaming)
You can see that 4070 Super generally offers the best "bang-per-buck" compared to 4070 Ti Super & 4080 Super.
However, the 4080 Super is the only card there that is producing 1440p 144fps+ in all titles at highest settings.

For 4070 Ti Super there is a INNO3D model for 823eur on CaseKing that seems to cool the GPU & VRAM just fine (review 1, review 2)

awec

@K.O.Kiki @Beta Ray Bill

Do you mind casting your eyes over this?

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/rhJpt7

Honestly, the last time I did this finding parts and retailers was a whole lot easier. I want to avoid making 5 different orders to 5 different retailers as any savings will be eaten up by shopping, so I changed my setup based on what I could find on CaseKing and Amazon UK.

Ignoring the price on PartPicker, the whole thing comes in at around 2k.

From CaseKing:

Ryzen 7 is 385

MSI Pro Motherboard is 173

Corsair DDR5 is 129

RTX 4070 TI Super is 936

Jonson case is 65

WD NVMe M2 SSD is 159

From Amazon:

The MSI PSU is about 125 and then the rest is for the cooling.

The RAM and SSD were a particular pain in the arse to try and find something reasonably priced.

Any thoughts or anything that stands out as nuts here?

K.O.Kiki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122552484#Comment_122552484

Corsair RAM is overpriced junk. Buy G.Skill Ripjaws or Crucial Pro.

For 4070 Ti Super I just don't see the value in paying for a 936eur model that won't perform better than the 830eur dual-fan. At that stage, might as well buy a 4080 Super for 100 more.

MSI PSUs are alright, IIRC Corsair RM series have the best reputation.

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122552908#Comment_122552908

I made the Corsair mistake

G.Skill is the ram to buy

@awec Is that price for the CPU with a stock cooler included? I don't see one listed

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122552908#Comment_122552908

I was actually wondering if the 3 fan version is worth it. Sounds like it isn't?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122553296#Comment_122553296

It just says it comes boxed. But I don't need the stock cooler anyway, right?

awec

Actually, I also meant to ask, @K.O.Kiki / @Beta Ray Bill , I notice that the likes of Inno3D produce gpus that are significantly cheaper. Is there a risk going with these over the more established producers like MSI / Gigabyte etc?

Beta Ray Bill

Oh Yes, I see you have one on your PC parts picket link.

In Terms of the GPU from Inno3D, they have been around a while, I think they did 20* and 30* nvida GPU's I do not know if they were good.

Reading about their GPU's they don't use a Vapour Chamber and instead use Nickel plated heat pipes (older design). I don't know enough about this to say yay or nay.

K.O.Kiki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122553606#Comment_122553606

AFAIK "big brand" is more applicable to USA where warranty claims are handled by the OEM; whereas here they'll be handled by the reseller thanks to EU regulations.

And even then, the biggest OEMs like Asus have been exposed as being absolutely terrible.

@Beta Ray Bill Most GPUs use cold plates with heat pipes; very few use vapour chambers - and even the ones that do it doesn't make a huge difference.

The INNO3D RTX 4070 Ti Super does great in all tests I've read.
69C core, 83C hotspot, 70C VRAM @ 270W is damn good.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122556714#Comment_122556714

Makes sense but I'm curious why they are so much cheaper. With the 2 fans and cheaper price there must be a tradeoff?

Is it a noise thing? Or running at hotter temps there more likely to have degraded performance or lifespan?

K.O.Kiki

^- above is outdated info by about 2 years.

Coyler

Not to get sidelined but is that generated by a LLM and is now hoping we are going to correct it?

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122671179#Comment_122671179

It's a spambot, they're pushing a URL through their profile for some dodgy mobile app. I've already reported it to the admins to confirm a few days ago.

Jon Doe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122523268#Comment_122523268

Only the Predator XB3 supports FS…