Build Advice Looking for feedback on incoming 2024 Q4 $2000 game dev PC build

[leyn]

Approximate Purchase Date: already got core parts in 2023, want to buy final parts by June 2024

Budget Range: 2000-2500 EUR (2200-2700 USD)

Country: France (you can check prices on websites like https://www.idealo.fr/ or https://ledenicheur.fr/, but I’m mostly interested in compatibility)

System Usage from Most to Least Important:

• Game development: compiling (contributing to Godot)
• Game development: 3D rendering (Unreal Engine 5)
• Video editing
• Gaming

Are you buying a monitor: No, I'll reuse my 1440p 165Hz monitor

Parts to Upgrade: I only had laptops so far so it’s a brand new build; except for the SSD from my old laptop that I can reuse as a temporary solution, but that will ultimately need an update.

Do you need to buy OS: Yes, Windows 11 (since my old Windows is installed on some laptop SSD, so must be OEM license)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: I’m in France so price comparators https://www.idealo.fr/ or https://ledenicheur.fr/ are good, or you could try https://www.amazon.fr/ for an average but not necessarily lowest price. If you type the product name in the top search bar you will be able to see results and should not need to understand French

Location: Paris, France

Parts Preferences: already purchased parts for Intel CPU, Motherboard for DDR5 RAM, Nvidia GPU (see “Already purchased” section more below). Otherwise, prefer air CPU cooler. No preferences for the other parts, just need compatibility.

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 2560x1440

Additional Comments:

I want to develop with Unreal Engine 5 and compile Godot from source regularly.

I have started buying parts sparsely over time from January 2023 and therefore my setup is quite suboptimal, but at this point I mainly care about finishing a build that actually works (compatibility, feasibility in terms of space allowed by the case, and decent cooling).

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading:

• I have troubles running Unreal Engine 5. I can make it work, but it takes a long time to open, and it would sometimes crash on hot compile which means I must re-open it often. So I need to upgrade CPU to launch and compile faster, RAM to avoid reaching the limit too fast, and GPU to get high FPS at high quality settings.
• I want to compile Godot repeatedly so I can contribute to the engine code and test my iterations quickly. So CPU & RAM.

List of chosen and candidate parts

Table overview

Core parts	Chosen / Candidate ?	Price (EUR)	Purchased?
CPU	Intel Core i9-12900K 3.2 GHz 16-Core Processor	444.93	Yes (2023-05)
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (NH-D15)	117.54 ?	No
Motherboard	ASRock Z790 Pro RS	245.99	Yes (2023-05)
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32GB Kit DDR5-5600 CL28 ?	166.9 ?	No
Storage (system)	Reuse 860 EVO 250 Go M.2 SSD (to upgrade)	0+	Reuse or upgrade
Storage (data)	TBD some 2TB M.2 SSD ?	?	No
Video Card (GPU)	MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO	573.44	Yes (2023-01)
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ?	138.9 ?	No
Case Fans	3x ARCTIC P12 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan	26.59 (pack of 5)	No
Power Supply	TBD	?	No
Video capture card	Elgato 4K60 PRO (PCIe 2.0 x4) ?	216 ?	No
Total		1928.69+

Details

Already purchased

Motherboard, CPU, GPU

Motherboard
ASRock Z790 Pro RS
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/cFQcCJ/asrock-z790-pro-rs-atx-lga1700-motherboard-z790-pro-rs
245.99€ (2023-05)

CPU
Intel Core i9-12900K 3.2 GHz 16-Core Processor
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/gGH7YJ/intel-core-i9-12900k-32-ghz-8-core-processor-bx8071512900k
444.93€ (2023-05)

Note: Turns out profiling showed i7-13700K to have similar or even better perfs vs temperature in some cases (and some people told me it was a better fit for my motherboard), but it was too expensive at the time.

GPU
MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO 8GB
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/WR...b-gaming-x-trio-video-card-rtx3070gamingxtrio
573.44€ (2023-01)

Total paid so far: 1264.36€ ~ 1260€
Out of budget range 2000-2500€
Budget left for remaining parts is: 740-1240 € (790-1330 USD)

Below, I put all my research so far for the remaining parts.

Reusing from old computer

SSD
Samsung 860 Evo 250 GB M.2-2280 SATA Solid State Drive
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/G9rmP6/samsung-860-evo-250gb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-mz-n6e250bw

It’s more like a temporary solution to get things started quickly, but I could get a better one since my new machine would support NVMe SSD. So I’m open to suggestions there.

In general, I pick one SSD that faster but with less storage (250GB) for the system + a slightly less faster one but with a lot of storage (2TB) for data (generally a Western Digital for its lower price even at high capacity).

However, I found out I had issues running the system on low capacity, esp. after a Linux + Windows partition (120GB each). So I’m considering combining both speed and storage in one SSD. I had a look at:

Samsung 970 EVO Plus MZ-V7S1T0BW NVMe M.2 1TB SSD
https://www.amazon.fr/Samsung-MZ-V7S1T0-Disque-Express-V-NAND/dp/B07MBQPQ62
for 100€ (as of 2024-07-01), but I see other variants at different prices, such as:

Samsung 970 Evo Plus MZ-V7S1T0B/AM NVMe M.2 1TB SSD
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07MFZY2F2
at 123€, so I’m a bit lost and I don’t know if the other variants are worth for the price difference.

Parts to confirm before purchase

CPU Cooler, RAM, Video capture card, Case, Case fans

CPU Cooler

For now I’m looking at this one:

Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (NH-D15)
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4vzv6h/noctua-nh-d15-825-cfm-cpu-cooler-nh-d15
117.54€

RAM

Requirement: DDR5 (due to Motherboard)
Preferred: 2x16GB = 32GB (can be discussed if you think I need more)

I’ve been searching through many models and found their prices to vary between 100€ and 130€ over time, such as this one:

G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32GB Kit DDR5-5600 CL28 (F5-5600J2834F16GX2-RS5W)
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/ZP...ddr5-5600-cl28-memory-f5-5600j2834f16gx2-rs5w

but I’m not settled on a particular one yet. I was just monitoring the prices in the past months, hoping they’d go under the 100€ threshold, but they recently went up, so I guess I’ll have to bite the bullet and grab them at some point. I suppose there’s not much choice with DDR5. But tell me if you know better.

Video capture card

Not critical for the initial build but I intend to get this:

Elgato 4K60 PRO (PCIe 2.0 x4)
https://help.elgato.com/hc/en-us/ar...ame-Capture-4K60-Pro-Technical-Specifications
216€

for game recording. It’s an additional component but may affect Case and Power Supply so I prefer writing it down.

Case

My biggest fear here, that my components don’t fit esp. the CPU cooler.

According to https://ncc.noctua.at/cases, NH-D15 height is 168 mm, but
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/noctua-nh-d15-memory-clearance.3635794/#post-21908125
also mentions a safety margin bringing up to 178mm…

Otherwise the GPU MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO is 323 x 140 x 56mm

Right now I’m looking at:

Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/mn3RsY/phanteks-case-phes614pbk
138.9€

Case fans

Right now I’m looking at:

3x ARCTIC P12 PWM PST 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/68WfrH/arctic-p12-pwm-pst-563-cfm-120-mm-fan-acfan00120a

I found this 5x pack:
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07HC7P3HJ/
26,59€

which looks quite cheap and I could keep the extra 2 fans. But are they good enough?

Parts to be decided

Power Supply

People told me to get something solid for because of the huge power required by my CPU and GPU, but I haven’t researched specific models yet.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

You can look into this ram kit;
https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/product...dr5-6400-cl32-memory-f5-6400j3239g32gx2-rm5rw

As for your PSU, you should look into a reliably built 850W unit, that should hold you off a new PSU purchase when you decide to drop in a GPU later down the road, in place of the RTX3070. You should look into Corsair RMe/RMx series.

Thank you for creating a detailed post, with information we tend to look for from users to help give them a rounded off information.