Build Advice Advice on <$2000 Build ?

[Scar Mountain]

Approximate Purchase Date: Mostly this week and next for sales. But I won't have a chance to actually assemble and test the buld until January, as I'll be quite busy all next month.
System Usage: My current build is venerable: 480-190-440 mm LxWxH case with GTX 970 and i7-4790K. (Still within minimum spec for a lot of new 3D games!) That's for an idea of geometries; my tower shouldn't be much bigger than this. The purpose is the same as before: High-mid-tier future-proof gaming and general tasks for the long-term.
Budget Range: The overall budget with monitor is not expected to exceed $2000 including tax, similar to my legacy build.
OS: I have a PID-verified W10 Pro OEM key lying around, will take advantage of the free upgrade to W11.
OC: Modest, if any. I'll look at XMP/EXPO and whatever the manufacturer profiles and reccs suggest.
Location: NE US


The red headings are the ones I don't need advice on.

CPU: The Ryzen 9900X looked interesting, being available on Amazon for $380 compared to $330 for the Intel 14700K. One problem with AMD5 sockets is that the motherboard selection seems to be more expensive than for LGA 1700. On the AMD side, I have a hard time telling what the performance differences should be between the 9700X, 7900X, 7700X and even 7600X3D, and the 9900X. If I can save up to $100, shouldn't I? 7800X3d is available for the same MSRP as the 9800X3D, so that is out of the question, and I don't want to pay the new X3D premium. I don't take the high-range Intel offerings into much consideration for their higher purchase and operating cost, including for better cooling. The Ultra series seems to be a bit less suited for gaming than the AMD alternatives, and the 265K currently only matches the 9900X on price point. But note that the 14900KF is actually also similar in price to the 9900X right now ($400 Newegg vs. $380 Amazon). Here is a list of all models I'm considering. Remember that all of them may roughly be at the same (Amazon) price point this week, with the 7700X ~$50 cheaper and the 9900X ~$50 more expensive.

14700K
7600X3D
7700X
7900X
9700X
9900X

In the past, I would have just looked at cores and clock speed, but that's not adequate for paring this spread. From benchmarks I've seen, 9900X often does worse than 9700X, both often do worse than 7000 gen, and 7900X often does worse than lower models in the same generation, X3D notwithstanding. What gives? My superficial impression was that the 9900X ought to be a bit better than the 14700K overall, with less lifetime power draw making up for higher purchase cost. Maybe the core configuration with higher-end AMD models is just too problematic? Tom's for its part recommends the 9700X or 14700K. At about the same price level, I would go for 9700X just because of the Intel 14th Gen stability issues. But then I see comments such as "buying a Ryzen 7 9700X for $329 over a $269 Ryzen 7 7700X (or a cheaper 7700) is unthinkable." So then 7900X for the same price as 9700X? But 7900X would have the same problem as 9900X with the core complexes. Ultimately, is there a good reason not to settle at the 9700X at this price point and just make sure it's uprated for power draw?
CPU Fan: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 S

GPU: Both 4070S and RX 7900GRE are available under $600 for now. The Galax looks to be an interesting 4070S. What's good for QoL about the 4070S is its compact size: the 7900GRE would require me to remove internal bays from my top case pick (see below) to fit. Their benchmarks are so close, or advantage the 4070S, that I'm OK with paying a modest premium for Nvidia. But my final decision on either card and submodel will also depend on ongoing price drops in the coming days.

MOBO: I need the most help here. LGA1700 is simplest procedurally, as Z790 offeres a lot of relatively-affordable options. With AM5, I'm unsure which of these chipsets would be most suited for me. Besides being able to physically AND technically accommodate the CPU, GPU, and RAM and M2 speed, USB support is important to me. My requirements are: built-in wifi; bare minimum 4 USBA rear ports, preferably 6 with a good mix of gens; minimum 3 pr 4 system fan connections, 4 or 5 preferred; at least 3 SATA connections; preferred price range $100-200. Non-screw/lock-in M2 slots are a nice feature if available.

RAM: 2x16GB. After some reading I'm doubtful as to whether there is any benefit, or even a detriment, to RAM above 6000MHz speed. I do note that the price differentials between 5200 MHz and 6000/6400 are not necessarily large. As I understand it, few motherboards are rated to employ these speeds out of the box, but turning on XMP or EXPO will fix that with little manipulation. So for example (Amazon $):

GSkill Trident Neo 6000: $113 (-$3 RGB OR -$20 RGB with 36 Latency)​

GSkill Trident Neo 6400: $120 (-$5 TZ5NR - what's the submodel difference?)​

XPG Lancer 6400: $115​

Corsair Vengeance 6400: $110​

​

So the higher-latency Trident Neo 6000 for $90 makes the most sense. For being the cheapest option, Tom's benchmarks show basically no performance loss for the higher latency, and it sounds like the major brands converge on the same performance for the same frequency.​

PSU: Corsair RM850e Gold?

I haven't spent much time on this, but maybe my current 750W build lasted so long because there wasn't much more than 50% utilization by cumulative TDP rating, so a 850W upgrade might be worth it. There isn't much of a price premium over 750W, and many of the options cluster around $100. Besides all the standard stuff, I just need at least a couple of - preferably 3 - SATA connectors, which almost any PSU should still have. One question would be whether it's advantageous to choose an ATX 3.0-standard PSU, when the GPUs I'm considering don't require it. Will it benefit GPU performance to have a 12VHPWR connector instead of two 8-pins?​

​

Case: I like the design and size of the Fractal Define R5. It even has a 5.25 bay for optical drives, which is a requirement. One potential advantage of the R5 is more support for 140mm fans. But I would also prefer front-loading USB ports instead of top. 2 USB minimum, 3 or 4 system fan minimum. Velcro straps for cabling? Antec P101 Silent is an alternative. As is the Coolermaster N400, for an example of a fronted USB/button interface and loads of fans. (For the N400, please disambiguate the following:

Front: 120mm fan x 2 (one white LED XtraFlo fan installed, one optional) - for KKN1/KWN1, with no PWM / LED XtraFlo - for KKN2/KWN2​

Case Fans: What are good case fans 120/140mm for $10-20 each? Two top fans, a bottom or side fan, and a rear fan seem like enough. These seem pretty good and cheap though. I can probably buy fans at the end of the process.​

​

SSD: WD Black 850X 2TB, already received with heatsink. Can return if a better deal appears, but it's a bit of a questionable practice.
HDD: WD 6TB 7200 RPM/128 MB cache or Seagate BarraCuda 5400RPM/256 MB cache

I'm not sure which of these would be better performance-wise - the higher RPM, or the larger cache. Which boosts speed most here? Really, I'm not even sure I should get an HD at all. The very fast HP Gen4 NVMe FX900 Pro is $200, and slower Gen4 at $180-90. But there are multiple used commercial 6/8TB HDD models with both high cache and RPM for $100 or less. There's even this 10TB refurb with high RPM and cache for <$100. that's less than half the price range for 4TB NVMe such as the WD Black, or even the FX900 Pro, above. A storage NVME would be very nice, but a solid HDD can easily bulk me up indefinitely (as my current one has), whereas if I really need it, there will probably be 6TB NVMe on the market in the $100-200 price range within a couple of years. Also, my suggested cases have loads of 3.5-inch bays to be taken advantage of. The bottom line is I don't need more than 4TB right away, but will eventually. I can probably also carry over my veteran 3TB Toshiba to use for backups.​

Monitor: I have two QHD options in mind, one $100 with tax, but I'd like to hear: Is there a point to 180 Hz over 100 Hz? The former is $150 with tax. I don't have any pretentions to being a competitive gamer or professional video editor, and I have poor eyesight.

 

[turtletarget111]

The CPU choice is a complex discussion. Perhaps the performance differences between the new 9000 series against the 7000 chips is confusing to you because, funnily enough, the new ones are remarkably similar to the 7000 series in terms of real world 1440p gaming performance. In terms of bog standard 8 core 7000 and 9000 series chips, the important question you need to answer is where you will be spending money. If you are playing at 1440p resolution, where the GPU is going to be slammed significantly harder than the CPU, it's really a matter of which performance class you are willing to settle on. If every penny you save on your CPU is getting put into a more powerful video card, the Ryzen 7700X will be more than enough for a long time. I wouldn't buy a CPU at any performance tier above the 7700X unless you are willing to shell out for a X3D product, because the benefits are not going to outweigh the cost.

On another note, Intel has supposedly fixed their suicidal 13th and 14th gen CPUs as of October, but time will tell if they really found a permanent fix. Am I willing to shell out 300+ dollars on a CPU that shouldn't have had this problem in the first place? My answer is no. Yours might be different. Regardless of which brand you go with, remember than Ryzen's X and Intel's K chips do not come with a box heatsink. Either step down to the 7700, or thow in a tower cooler. This Thermalright Peerless Assassin is a ridiculous amount of cooling performance for the price, and will keep the 7700X performing optimally. Alternatively, you could reuse an old cooler you have on hand if you can order the AM5 mounting hardware from the manufacturer. They will typically send these parts out free of charge.

AM5 boards were certainly expensive at launch, but you can find adequate boards for around 100 bucks, and can find great ones for around 200 dollars if you want more features and flexibility. For the sake of this guide, I am assuming you went with the recommended 7700X. Unless you are doing some wicked overclocking, buying into something like X670 and X870 is simply a waste of your money. Modern motherboard VRMs will be more than adequate for the majority of CPUs, and performance difference will be imperceptible. With all that said, a solid 200 dollar board for me would be something like the MSI MAG Tomahawk B650. Plenty of expansion, PCIe slots, lots of IO, and clean (in my opinion) aesthetics.


You are on the right track in terms of memory, but you need to ensure you have low enough latency for Ryzen. This G.Skill Trident Neo 6000 is 100 bucks, has 6000 speeds, and a CAS latency of 30. These are all important values, but the First Word Latency is a big one too, which basically measures the timings of the DIMM. For Ryzen, you really want to be shooting for no higher than ten miliseconds, and this kit meets that metric. If you have some extra cash and you want to spring for something nicer to squeeze as much performance out of your 7700X as possible, this G.Skill Neo 6400 has lower First Word latency and higher speeds. If it was me, I would pay the extra twenty bucks for the 4% performance improvement.

The WD Black 850X is fine, as long as the SSD you are buying has high write endurance and comes with a DRAM Cache, you can't really go wrong. I personally prefer Samsung, and I'm okay with paying a little more for their reliability track record, but again, the 850X will serve you well.

The WD Black 6TB is honestly a better deal than I expected, and you're only saving about 15 dollars if you step down to the 4TB model, so this would be a decent choice. If you need the capacity only a hard drive can provide, I would not go any slower than 7200.

The Corsair RM850e is an excellent choice for a PSU, but you are paying a little extra for the Corsair brand. You could opt to save some money by going with a different brand, or going with a 750 watt PSU, which will already be more than enough, but that's up to you.

I'm the kind of guy who has a hard time spending money on things I don't really need, and considering the Cooler Master N400 is the cheapest case out of the bunch and ticks most of your boxes, I would say its adequate. As far as fan choices, Arctic fans are the obvious choice in terms of bang for buck. There are fans that are way quieter, or move way more air, but expect to pay three or four times the price.

That leaves about 750 bucks for a video card, with an additional 250 for a monitor. Considering how much room is left in your budget, I would grab the RTX 4070 Ti Super, unless you plan to use zero of Nvidia's proprietary features. If you like and plan on using DLSS, Ray Tracing, Nvidia Reflex, or Nvidia Broadcast, then that is the clear choice. If you don't want to spend nearly 800 dollars on a video card, the AMD Radeon 7900XT is a compelling option, trading blows with the 4070 Ti Super, while costing nearly 150 dollars less. If you want the Nvidia route and still want something cheaper, the 4070 Super is a decent option, but will not perform as well as the 7900XT in terms of rasterized games.

For your reference, here is the completed list. Feel free to ask any questions or clarifications. Hopefully I didn't go overboard with the explanations.

 

[Scar Mountain]

Thanks for the advice.

Tom's happened to bench both the higher and lower latency submodels of the GSkill Trident Neo 6000, and there really seems to be no difference. In that case, saving $20 is an easy choice. As for upping to 6400, other reviews I've seen indicate that on the CPUs and MBs I'm considering, there is no benefit of 6400 against 6000. While $25 to Trident Neo 6400 is not that much, it is equivalent to the CD/DVD drive I want. After all, $2000 is my ceiling, not a target.

Given that both 7900GRE and 4700 Super are currently retailing, and may continue to, in the neighborhood of +/-$550, I don't want to spend extra hundreds for a bit more capacity and may as well put it to savings. For example, the most demanding ask I made of my old GTX 970 was heavily-modded Skyrim. I'm not doing 4K gaming, but I'm willing to give 1440p a shot.

Speaking of which, do you have any thoughts on the monitor options I presented, the 100 Hz vs 180 Hz?

The WD 6TB link is mostly unavailable now. My questions about cache vs. RPM stand, but more importantly, for savings alone should I go for the previously-linked GST Ultrastar He10 Enterprise? It's a 10TB refurb with high cache and RPM, just $80. With this and other sizy refurb options in the same price range, I could even get two and set up RAID for more security, though I would still have the original drive, after all.

...

CPUs just got even more complicated: Amazon price drop on 7900X to $300. On the other hand, Microcenter is offering this bundle of 9700X, Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX V2, and G.Skill Flare X5 32GB DDR5-6000 (equivalent to GSkill Trident Neo) for just $430, which is a savings over individual components of at least $150. The drawback is that the Gigabyte MB is not quite perfect on RAM, and moreover only supports 3 system fans. A mobo upgrade version adds $50.

Moreover, there's a similar bundle with 7800X3D for $650, which is also basically within my $2000 budget ($1300 with GPU and tax, + case/PSU/fans/storage/monitor). The motherboard is Asus Rog Strix B650-A, which is clearly good.

There's even a bundle with 7800X3D and 7900XT, but it's actually disadvantageous by prorating the 7900XT to $700, where it's currently less than that for some vendors. But I don't think I want the trouble of adopting 7900XT.

 

[Why_Me]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor ($459.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: *MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory ($81.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: *MSI SPATIUM M482 Eco-Pack 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($89.99 @ MSI)
Video Card: *MSI SHADOW 3X OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB Video Card ($749.98 @ Newegg)
Case: *Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.88 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: *MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($84.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: *MSI G272QPF E2 27.0" 2560 x 1440 180 Hz Monitor ($169.99 @ MSI)
Total: $1905.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-28 03:56 EST-0500

 

[turtletarget111]

Thanks for the advice.

Tom's happened to bench both the higher and lower latency submodels of the GSkill Trident Neo 6000, and there really seems to be no difference. In that case, saving $20 is an easy choice. As for upping to 6400, other reviews I've seen indicate that on the CPUs and MBs I'm considering, there is no benefit of 6400 against 6000. While $25 to Trident Neo 6400 is not that much, it is equivalent to the CD/DVD drive I want. Af

Thanks for the advice.

Tom's happened to bench both the higher and lower latency submodels of the GSkill Trident Neo 6000, and there really seems to be no difference. In that case, saving $20 is an easy choice. As for upping to 6400, other reviews I've seen indicate that on the CPUs and MBs I'm considering, there is no benefit of 6400 against 6000. While $25 to Trident Neo 6400 is not that much, it is equivalent to the CD/DVD drive I want. After all, $2000 is my ceiling, not a target.

Given that both 7900GRE and 4700 Super are currently retailing, and may continue to, in the neighborhood of +/-$550, I don't want to spend extra hundreds for a bit more capacity and may as well put it to savings. For example, the most demanding ask I made of my old GTX 970 was heavily-modded Skyrim. I'm not doing 4K gaming, but I'm willing to give 1440p a shot.

Speaking of which, do you have any thoughts on the monitor options I presented, the 100 Hz vs 180 Hz?

The WD 6TB link is mostly unavailable now. My questions about cache vs. RPM stand, but more importantly, for savings alone should I go for the previously-linked GST Ultrastar He10 Enterprise? It's a 10TB refurb with high cache and RPM, just $80. With this and other sizy refurb options in the same price range, I could even get two and set up RAID for more security, though I would still have the original drive, after all.

...

CPUs just got even more complicated: Amazon price drop on 7900X to $300. On the other hand, Microcenter is offering this bundle of 9700X, Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX V2, and G.Skill Flare X5 32GB DDR5-6000 (equivalent to GSkill Trident Neo) for just $430, which is a savings over individual components of at least $150. The drawback is that the Gigabyte MB is not quite perfect on RAM, and moreover only supports 3 system fans. A mobo upgrade version adds $50.

Moreover, there's a similar bundle with 7800X3D for $650, which is also basically within my $2000 budget ($1300 with GPU and tax, + case/PSU/fans/storage/monitor). The motherboard is Asus Rog Strix B650-A, which is clearly good.

There's even a bundle with 7800X3D and 7900XT, but it's actually disadvantageous by prorating the 7900XT to $700, where it's currently less than that for some vendors. But I don't think I want the trouble of adopting 7900XT.

ter all, $2000 is my ceiling, not a target.

Given that both 7900GRE and 4700 Super are currently retailing, and may continue to, in the neighborhood of +/-$550, I don't want to spend extra hundreds for a bit more capacity and may as well put it to savings. For example, the most demanding ask I made of my old GTX 970 was heavily-modded Skyrim. I'm not doing 4K gaming, but I'm willing to give 1440p a shot.

Speaking of which, do you have any thoughts on the monitor options I presented, the 100 Hz vs 180 Hz?

The WD 6TB link is mostly unavailable now. My questions about cache vs. RPM stand, but more importantly, for savings alone should I go for the previously-linked GST Ultrastar He10 Enterprise? It's a 10TB refurb with high cache and RPM, just $80. With this and other sizy refurb options in the same price range, I could even get two and set up RAID for more security, though I would still have the original drive, after all.

...

CPUs just got even more complicated: Amazon price drop on 7900X to $300. On the other hand, Microcenter is offering this bundle of 9700X, Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX V2, and G.Skill Flare X5 32GB DDR5-6000 (equivalent to GSkill Trident Neo) for just $430, which is a savings over individual components of at least $150. The drawback is that the Gigabyte MB is not quite perfect on RAM, and moreover only supports 3 system fans. A mobo upgrade version adds $50.

Moreover, there's a similar bundle with 7800X3D for $650, which is also basically within my $2000 budget ($1300 with GPU and tax, + case/PSU/fans/storage/monitor). The motherboard is Asus Rog Strix B650-A, which is clearly good.

There's even a bundle with 7800X3D and 7900XT, but it's actually disadvantageous by prorating the 7900XT to $700, where it's currently less than that for some vendors. But I don't think I want the trouble of adopting 7900XT.

Okay, let's dive into your first concern. I was under the impression that 2000 USD was your price range, and it was my mistake for misreading your post. With that in mind, if you are simply looking to cover the basics with the best bang-for-buck possible, then you will want to forgo the 6400 memory kit I listed and stick with the G.Skill 6000. As previously mentioned, as long as the First Word latency is at ten or less, you will be good to go. A hundred bucks for a decently fast, low latency 32GB kit of memory is exactly where you want to be for your price range. We will get to how the bundles you listed changes things.

It seems like you don't want to spend more than 600 dollars on a video card, which is completely reaosnable, but most of what I mentioned previously still applies. Given your 600 dollar target, I would opt for the 4070 Super if it's between that and the 7900 GRE. I understand you're trying to really pinch pennies here, and you would be saving 50 bucks, but the 4070 Super is giving you a better AI Upscaler, better Frame Generation, better Ray Tracing performance, and other benefits like Nvidia Reflex. If you are one thousand percent certain you give absolutely zero rips about any of these features, then you can save the 50 bucks and be more than happy with the 7900 GRE. However, the 4070 Super is the safer option between the two.

To answer your question about whether RPM or cache matters, it really depends on the use case. If we take a drive with 5400 RPM and 512MB of cache and compare it against a 7200 RPM 256MB when copying a ten gigabyte file, for example, the drive with the larger cache pool will always have a head start at the beginning. However, as the cache fills up, it will immediately lose all momentum and be stuck around the 5400 speed it's rated for, while the 7200 is consistently faster. You can see this live in Windows when the speed absolutely tanks while moving files around. To put it another way, a larger cache pool is better for quick read and writing bursts, while faster RPM is more advantageous for sustained writes. Because most game loading time is made up of sustained writes, a faster drive with less cache typically fairs better.

Does any of this heavily impact raw gaming performance? Not particularly, because after the drive has loaded most the assets into system and video memory, it won't be a priority for the drive. To reiterate, it will typically be more beneficial to most people when going with a 7200 RPM drive (faster general speeds) versus slightly faster speed when copying tiny files (more cache). Those enterprise drives can be tempting, because they can be found so inexpensively with large sizes, but for general computing and gaming I would stick to a drive oriented towards average use cases. Enterprise drives are intended for accessing massive amounts of data in a data center, or constantly being written to for things like security systems. Not really intended for every day mixed usage.

If you have access to Micro Center and can get ahold of that bundle, pull the trigger now, provided you are completely happy with that motherboard. Although, even if you aren't, the 50 bucks to get the upgraded board you were looking at is still cheaper than my configuration, not to mention the newer, faster CPU and similarly performing memory for less money.

That second bundle with the X3D chip is tempting, but again, you would be better off getting the first bundle and putting that 200 dollars into a more powerful video card, which will impact performance, especially at 1440p, way more than a faster CPU.

A common mistake people make when building a new PC is not upgrading the monitor. If you are sinking nearly two grand into a machine, then you should be spending way more than 100 bucks on a monitor. You look at and use your monitor every time you use your system, and you should get one that appropriately matches the performance your PC can deliver. I've never heard of KTC, and have little optimism that it will "punch above the price." A much better option to match your system would be the AOC Q27G3XMN. It is a 27" Mini LED panel with extremely high refresh rate, solid contrast, and adequate response times. If that is a little above your price range, the Dell G2724D is what I would consider to be acceptable for the price. But again, if these are really out of your price range, I would consider stepping down your video card or perhaps your CPU. Alternatively, you could save a couple bucks with a more modest motherboard, less fans, cheaper case, or less disk space.

 

[Scar Mountain]

@Why_Me Unfortunately, many of those conflict with my requirements. But I'm getting close to finalizing, as discussed below.

Okay, let's dive into your first concern. I was under the impression that 2000 USD was your price range, and it was my mistake for misreading your post. With that in mind, if you are simply looking to cover the basics with the best bang-for-buck possible, then you will want to forgo the 6400 memory kit I listed and stick with the G.Skill 6000. As previously mentioned, as long as the First Word latency is at ten or less, you will be good to go. A hundred bucks for a decently fast, low latency 32GB kit of memory is exactly where you want to be for your price range. We will get to how the bundles you listed changes things.

As I said, I have been leaning toward the 4070S. I just meant that the the final stretch of sales in the next week - e.g. Cyber Monday - will inform my exact choice, including submodels. If anything, maybe the release of the next gen GPUs in January will open new sale opportunities within the return window. I'm not the most ardent optimizer, but I do intend to settle on something for the next decade.

Because most game loading time is made up of sustained writes, a faster drive with less cache typically fairs better... Enterprise drives are intended for accessing massive amounts of data in a data center, or constantly being written to for things like security systems. Not really intended for every day mixed usage.

Of course, the HD is meant to be secondary - storage - to my WD 850X SSD. Thanks for clarifying the functionality of disk cache.

If you are sinking nearly two grand into a machine, then you should be spending way more than 100 bucks on a monitor.

I highlighted that monitor for a reason; I don't want to go above 24 inches or so. It's dependent on what will comfortably fit into my foveal field. I've used something like this ever since the end of the XP era. Even 24" QHD with 100 Hz would be a big upgrade for me. But if I start dumping hundreds of dollars on very high refresh rates and dimensions, I have every reason to believe I won't gain much benefit relative to my organic visual capabilities. For one example, I've reviewed DLSS on/off comparisons and been unable to discern any pixel-by-pixel improvement. That isn't to say I'm blind, just that my point of diminishing returns is definitely well below that of those who swear by 4K X00 Herz. I still benefit from something like the leap from Skyrim Ultra settings to Skyrim Ultra + HD textures. Sure, with the current savings I can spring the extra $50 for my link's 180 Hz version, although it is the same price as your suggested Dell 27". But tell you what - when I swing by the local Micro Center, I can take the opportunity to fool around with larger monitors and test my intuition.

By what I've learned, the 9700X bundle could be the best bet for efficiency and longevity. Some EXPO and the power unlock (if that's not default already) should be enough to get it outperforming or matching the 7800X3D in most tasks, including gaming scenarios that are more core-bound than cache-bound. That would cover all the major components. Then the difficult part of assembling and initializing everything would come, next year. The whole build should land in the $1800-1900 area with tax, given this bundle and depending on GPU sales.

 

[Scar Mountain]

I'm checking out the Fractal Define 5 ($10 more than N400) to get a feel for the ergonomics. It comes with two 140mm fans. The motherboard has 4 system fan headers, which should be a good default. Should I make the other two fans 120 or 140mm (e.g. Arctic P14)? This would apply regardless of case really.

Here is the fan layout of the case. Does one each back-front-top-bottom make the most sense?

There's also a built-in low-med-hi SATA fan controller switch. Is it worth connecting and using, or should I save the connection and rely on software?