Build Advice $1200 Gaming & Work Build for a friend ?

[Almightynose1]

Hello! I've recently completed a build of my own and received some great advice here. Hoping to ask on some build advice for a friend of mine. He will be purchasing the components and I will be putting it together for him.

This build will be used both for office work, gaming and very light video editing (trimming videos). Some things he has specified to me are:

- Beefiest GPU/CPU combo he can get for that price range (prefers Intel/Nvidia combo)
- 32 GB RAM
- 500GB boot drive w/ 1TB storage drive (with how cheap SSD prices are these days, I think a 2TB drive can be worked in here).
- WiFi connectivity
- RGB nice to have but not necessary, wants performance over aesthetics.

Some titles he's enjoyed years ago include Quake 2, Unreal, etc. He has specified that he'd like a solid 1440p gaming experience. I will be installing Windows for him, no license necessary for the build. I've researched builds and have come up with something like this:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MwFbvj

It is slightly over budget, but I think I can convince him since this will get him on the latest 40 gen series cards and allow for some light future proofing. I am a little concerned about bottlenecking as building PCs in general are still quite new to me. Would love to hear your thoughts and any feedback you might have. As long as the build is under $1300, I think he would be willing to go ahead with the purchase. Appreciate your insights!

 

[XxDarkMario20xX]

Computer will work great bottlenecking gets thrown around to much because people are worried. CPU and GPU has to work nicely!. Both CPU and GPU are good match. But would spend extra 20 on Intel Core i5-13400 so that you got Intel UHD Graphics 730 as a backup just incase something gose wrong in future!

 

[Why_Me]

@Almightynose1 you want a board with better VRM's than that one in your build so that you don't experience thermal throttling. Also a 120mm rear exhaust fan for that case will help with your airflow. Try this.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-13400F 2.5 GHz 10-Core Processor ($201.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK400 66.47 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte B760M GAMING X AX DDR4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($139.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory ($57.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: *ADATA Legend 800 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($79.98 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PNY VERTO GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card ($589.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Focus 2 ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: MSI MPG A650GF 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ B&H)
Case Fan: *ARCTIC P12 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan ($9.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1284.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-08-12 12:03 EDT-0400

 

[geofelt]

A decent list.

There is no such thing as "bottlenecking"
If, by that, you mean that upgrading a cpu or graphics card can
somehow lower your performance or FPS.
A better term might be limiting factor.
That is where adding more cpu or gpu becomes increasingly
less effective.
This looks like a well balanced build.

You can build as is.

My thoughts:

I would spend some $20 more for the i5-13400. In the event of a graphics card issue, having integrated graphics is a lifesaver.
As a plus, integrated graphics gives you quick sync capability:

Intel® Video Processing Library: Video Codecs

Unlock media features on CPUs, GPUs, VPUs, and other accelerators with a successor to Intel® Media SDK—a video-processing API for encode and decode.

www.intel.com

The included laminar flow cooler is excellent; no need for an aftermarket cooler.

You can save a bit on cost with a $70 2tb Intel 670P m.2:

Intel 670p Series M.2 2280 2TB PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 3D4 QLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDPEKNU020TZX1 - Newegg.com

Buy Intel 670p Series M.2 2280 2TB PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 3D4 QLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDPEKNU020TZX1 with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

Or a $80 2tb samsung 970 EVO plus:

SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2 2280 2TB PCIe Internal SSD - Newegg.com

Buy SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2 2280 2TB PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 V-NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V7S2T0B/AM with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

Do not chase fast synthetic benchmarks. In actual use you cant't tell the difference.
These guys could not:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA

 

[Almightynose1]

Thank you all for the advice! I've made some slight tweaks to the original build. Upgraded to the i5-13400 as suggested. Also changed the board as @Why_Me suggested. Switched out the case and changed the SSD. New build here: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kTRMpB

 

[RustyBunny]

I just built a gaming PC Asus z790 plus Tuf gaming full size ATX motherboard for about $230 on Amazon. Shop around for the best price on every piece because competators will offer lightly lower pricing in order for you to buy from them. Shop around for PC components on the net from places like Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, because you get warranties and if something goes wrong they often will replace it for free. Never buy pc component's on Ebay. That is setting yourself up for failure. Samsung.com and Amazon have the same cost for NVMe SSD and the board can handle 5, but the lanes for other components suffer at the cost of PCIe lanes. You are to make that case, more solid state drives or less and have a spinner and DVD or BLURay. I have a external Blueray and external media drive system on a 5 bay Synology. IOn it I have 5 16Tb Drives. It holds all my music and movies. My solid state drives I had 3 from my prior build and added a 990 Pro 2 TB for $159.99 from Amazon This will be my C drive. The other two are Samsung NVMe 1 TB. (shop around you can get a 16 tb for under $200.) I added a Corsair H115i 240mm watercooler for the CPU $89.99. The case I bought from Free Geeks for $25 is a older Mastercase full tower. It came with a 1000 watt gold power supply. I bought a Cooler Master Master vertical graphics card Kit Version 2 with Riser Cable PCI-E. *what this does is faces the video card towards the front of the case instead of facing down. It costs about $45. This board uses DDR 5 DDr 5 is relative inexpensive 64 GB runs about $200 for (2x32) $220 6400 MHz. The Processor for the z790 series there are Intel and AMD, I chose, I always choose Intel over AMD. this time I chose to choose a intel i7 13700KF. $340 The K allows me to overclock higher than the boost clock allows. and the F means there is no support for onboard graphics because I have my own graphics card Nvidia Tuf Gaming 3060 runs about $340. This is somewhat important because it free's up processor resources that would normally be reserved for a onboard graphics design within the processor. $1850.
You can make due with 32 Gb of memory that will save you about a hundred. The 1TB Samsung 990 Pro costs about $90 saving $60. You may already have a power supply and case saving $25. You probably dont need a 16 Tb storage drive and could make due with what ever drive you currently have saving $200. final estimate would be about $1475 not including sales tax.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

^ what is that wall of text?! XD