[SOLVED] My very first build - advice needed

Aug 22, 2019
11
1
15
Hi guys,

English isn't my first language, apologies if I'm not clear enough

I'm kind of new to building. I've had the same old laptop for 6 years now, and to be honest, I've always been limited to a few games with it. I've played them over and over.
I've always wanted to build a proper gaming computer, so I saved money step by step for that. I've reached the milestone a year ago, but work had been utterly busy, so I kept delaying that blessed moment. Now I have the budget (Around 1700€/£1500/$1650), but this is such a huge treat I'm scared to do any mistake.

I've read countless post/articles on how picking parts, but I'm still kind of worried about that potential build. Let me explain what I had in mind.
I'm trying to cover the last 6 years of videogames I missed + the 3 next years (so I guess I'm trying to have something somewhat I end?) The goal is to never have to play a 10yo game on low setting ever again haha.
I'm expecting the build to allow me to play at least 1080p on ultra/high setting the recent games. I also chose a Nvidia card for the Real time Raytracing (But I'm starting to reconsider this card given that I feel like I'll have trouble finding it at the RRP).
I'm not planning to buy a monitor as I already have one.
I'm considering a SSD.
I don't really mind the noise to a reasonable level (I get constant jokes about how my current laptop makes as much noise as a plane anyway haha)

I kind of had in mind that with this build, if I wanted to upgrade in a few years, I could do it by:
1- Add another graphic cards in SLI
2-Overclock (give I had cooling and more power- even though I think the case and current cooling might be enough)

Here is a link to the aforementioned build:
https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/WL7Dr6

Do you think that would be suitable? or do you see any throttleneck? Any incompatibility or anything worth mentionning (like a better value/money/performance)?

Any help would be appreciated and would means the world to me

Thanks
 
Solution
Alright, that was hell of a long post! Thanks mate!

I'll answer/ask following bulletpoint if you don't mind:

1/2: Hmmm you raised some concerns to me. I've compared the Ryzen 1700 and the Ryzen 3700, and if I can't really get a lot of room to overclock the 3700, I'm wondering what's the point to spend double (+170€) for just 0.2Ghz per core. Unless I'm missing intrinsec specs besides the cooling/threads? Because at this point, I could also go for the 3800 at 3.9 Ghz for an extra €40, which could be pushed a tiny bit further overclocking. It'd still match with the GPU price as I'm now going toward the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB at €800
Anyway I think overclocking gets definitly out of the question, as I'm fairly new to all...
I would concider omitting the dark rock cou cooler. The Dark Rock 4 is a very good cooler, however the AMD Ryzen 7 3700x does not output a lot of heat and comes with a decent RGB cooler which can easily maintain safe temperatures while not being noisy.

Ryzen 3000 cous are essentially maxed out from the factory leaving very little for overclocking. The added cooler wont be worth the extra 100mhz or so.

The motherboard also seems pretty expensive. You likely could go for a cheaper x579 motherboard with no issues.

Solid state drives significantly speed up your computers boot times and overall snappyness over a hard drive. Solid state drives are also very cheap now, making not including one in a high dollar build silly.

The cheaper motherboard and omission of the cooler may allow you to get a bigger ssd or better gpu.

A side note:
Sli adds little to no performance in modern games as few games are designed to support sli. Also sli can cause problems aswell making you disable it for some games to function properly.
 
Last edited:

QwerkyPengwen

Splendid
Ambassador
A good chunk of the parts you selected aren't available and/or no good pricing.

I've rebuilt your system.
I got rid of Windows 10 because you can install and use it completely free without limitations but with a small watermark in the corner telling you it's not activated.

You can buy a key and activate at a later time when you have the money.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (€356.89 @ TopAchat)
Motherboard: MSI MPG X570 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard (€219.89 @ TopAchat)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory (€149.89 @ TopAchat)
Storage: Kingston A400 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€38.89 @ Cdiscount)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Computer 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€78.89 @ TopAchat)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card (€579.89 @ TopAchat)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case (€115.89 @ TopAchat)
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 700 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (€102.89 @ TopAchat)
Total: €1643.12
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-23 02:56 CEST+0200
 
Aug 22, 2019
11
1
15
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (€356.89 @ TopAchat)
Motherboard: MSI MPG X570 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard (€219.89 @ TopAchat)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory (€149.89 @ TopAchat)
Storage: Kingston A400 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€38.89 @ Cdiscount)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Computer 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€78.89 @ TopAchat)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card (€579.89 @ TopAchat)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case (€115.89 @ TopAchat)
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 700 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (€102.89 @ TopAchat)
Total: €1643.12
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-23 02:56 CEST+0200

Thanks! To be honest, I have no idea how to install windows then later activate it. But that's another story haha

I've checked the details of the motherboard you selected, and apparently there is no option for bluetooth/wifi onboard with this one. Would you think I could ad a wifi card?

Also, you recommend 1 Hard Drive and 1 SSD. Comparatively the SSD is quite small in size. Does that mean the HD should be use as purely storage while Windows etc should be installed on the SSD?

Last: Any reason for changing the RAM? The 2 of them had similar specs I believe?

Sorry for all the questions,

Thanks in advance!
 
Aug 22, 2019
11
1
15
I would concider omitting the dark rock cou cooler. The Dark Rock 4 is a very good cooler, however the AMD Ryzen 7 3700x does not output a lot of heat and comes with a decent RGB cooler which can easily maintain safe temperatures while not being noisy.

Ryzen 3000 cous are essentially maxed out from the factory leaving very little for overclocking. The added cooler wont be worth the extra 100mhz or so.

The motherboard also seems pretty expensive. You likely could go for a cheaper x579 motherboard with no issues.

Solid state drives significantly speed up your computers boot times and overall snappyness over a hard drive. Solid state drives are also very cheap now, making not including one in a high dollar build silly.

The cheaper motherboard and omission of the cooler may allow you to get a bigger ssd or better gpu.

A side note:
Sli adds little to no performance in modern games as few games are designed to support sli. Also sli can cause problems aswell making you disable it for some games to function properly.

Thank you so much for your quick answer guys!

So to follow up from what I've read it can be overclocked at 4.3Ghz ; that doesn't seem much. Do you believe it might be better to try directly to pick a maybe more powerful CPU? To be honest, the 3700X look already like a beast (I currently have I5-3210 2.5 Ghz in my laptop haha)
 

QwerkyPengwen

Splendid
Ambassador
Yes. SSD is for the OS and main applications.
HDD is for mass storage is games and files.

The RAM and even the GPU you have in your list don't have a price tag and no links to buy them online, so I chose RAM and GPU that actually had links and a price. And they are the cheapest 16GB option at 3600mhz for the French PCPP. Plus G.Skill Trident Z is good quality made RAM and reliable.
 
Here is the list:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (€356.89 @ TopAchat)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard (€117.99 @ Amazon France)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€97.89 @ Alternate)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 1.02 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€116.38 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€44.99 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB BLACK GAMING Video Card (€799.89 @ TopAchat)
Case: Fractal Design Define S ATX Mid Tower Case (€74.22 @ Amazon France)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2018) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€119.98 @ Cdiscount)
Total: €1728.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-23 06:59 CEST+0200


Extremely powerful build. High quality components.
No compatibility issues. BIOS of that motherboard can be updated without the requirement of previous gen. CPU.
 
PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor | €356.89 @ TopAchat
Motherboard | MSI MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard | €281.99 @ Amazon France
Memory | Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory | €109.99 @ Amazon France
Storage | Intel 660p Series 1.02 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive | €121.57 @ Amazon France
Video Card | Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB GAMING OC Video Card | €549.99 @ Amazon France
Case | Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case | €46.71 @ Amazon France
Power Supply | Corsair RMx (2018) 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | €89.99 @ Amazon France
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | €1557.13
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-23 12:40 CEST+0200 |

A cheaper motherboard that still has wifi.
1TB NVME SSD to eliminate HDD.
Replaced components without prices for ones with prices.
 
You could build as is.
Some thoughts:

1. A balanced gamer will budget about 2x the cost of the processor for the graphics card.
Without knowing the RTX2070 super prices, I think you are spot on there.

2. Do not pay more for a sli capable motherboard.
sli will win you synthetic fps benchmarks, but gameplay is better with a single good card.
sli is prone to screen tearing stuttering and non support in many games.
Plan instead for a future upgrade to a sligle more powerful card.

Do not count on any great overclock for a 3700X. 4.15 is reached by 21%
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-3000-cpus-silicon-lottery-binning,40157.html

If your games depend on single thread performance, and not so much on many(16 ) threads, a i7-9700K will generally go to 5.0 on all cores(8)
Actually, the i5-9600K(6) or i9-9900k(16) will also reach 5.0 with a good cooler.
Cpu centric games tend to be sims, mmo and strategy games.
It is multiplayer games with many participants that do best with many threads.
For fast action games spend more on the graphics card and less on the cpu.

I think I might spend less on the cpu and more on the graphics cards.

3. 3700X cooler is usually adequate.
DRP4 or noctua NH-D15s is about as good as it gets if you need top cooling.

4. On ram, ryzen is picky about ram. take the time to verify that whatever ram you pick is on the motherboard ram QVL list or is explicitly supported on that motherboard by the ram vendor.
ryzen needs fast ram for best performance. If you go intel, ram speed does not matter much.
a 2 x8gb kit is usually right.

5. wd blue is not the fastest of drives and not the best for windows. WD black is better.
but...
I will never again build without a ssd for the "C" drive. It makes everything you do much quicker.
240gb is minimum, it will hold the os and a handful of games.

If you can go 500gb you may never need a hard drive.
With ssd prices down, even 1tb is reasonable.

You can defer on the hard drive unless you need to store large files such as video's.
It is easy to add a hard drive later.

I like the Samsung evo line. Either 2.5" or m.2 format.

6. every motherboard will come with a lan adapter.
Some, costing more will include wifi. Do not pay a premium for wifi on the motherboard. A wifi adapter card is not expensive. USB wifi dongles are cheap, but you get stronger reception if you have a good antenna.

7. FWIW:
MY build process:

Before anything, while waiting for your parts to be delivered, download
and read, cover to cover your case and motherboard manual.
Buy a #2 magnetic tip philips screwdriver.
I find it handy to buy a power switch like this for testing.
https://www.ebay.com/p/4in1-PC-Powe...or-Computer/631889283?iid=142232821294&chn=ps

1. I assemble the critical parts outside of the case.
That lets me test them for functionality easily.
A wood table or cardboard is fine.
2. Plug in only the necessary parts at first. Ram, cpu, cooler, psu.
Do not force anything. Parts fit only one way.
Attach a monitor to the integrated motherboard adapter if you have one, otherwise to the graphics card.
  1. If your motherboard does not have a PWR button, momentarily touch the two pwr front panel pins with a flat blade screwdriver.
  2. Repeatedly hit F2 or DEL, and that should get you into the bios display.
  3. Boot from a cd or usb stick with memtest86 on it. memtest will exercise your ram and cpu functionality.
  4. Install windows.
  5. Install the motherboard cd drivers. Particularly the lan drivers so you can access the internet.
Do not select the easy install option, or you will get a bunch of utilities and trialware that you don't want. Drivers only.
  1. Connect to the internet and install an antivirus program. Microsoft security essentials is free, easy, and unobtrusive.
  2. Install your graphics card and driver if you tested with integrated graphics.
You will need to remove the graphics card later to install your motherboard in the case.
As a tip when screwing the motherboard into the posts, give the screw a small counterclockwise turn until you feel a click.
That lets you know that the screw will engage properly.
Make a note of how the graphics card latches into the pcie slot.
The mechanism will be hidden under the card and may be difficult to work if you have not previously checked how.
  1. Update windows to currency.
  2. Only now do I take apart what I need to and install it in the case.
  3. Now is the time to reinstall your graphics card.
 

CrownedClownBG

Reputable
Mar 5, 2019
7
0
4,520
Thanks! To be honest, I have no idea how to install windows then later activate it. But that's another story haha

I've checked the details of the motherboard you selected, and apparently there is no option for bluetooth/wifi onboard with this one. Would you think I could ad a wifi card?

Also, you recommend 1 Hard Drive and 1 SSD. Comparatively the SSD is quite small in size. Does that mean the HD should be use as purely storage while Windows etc should be installed on the SSD?

Last: Any reason for changing the RAM? The 2 of them had similar specs I believe?

Sorry for all the questions,

Thanks in advance!

To add/change Windows key later just go to settings>update & security>activation and click on change product key.

I also agree that it's better to skip windows for now and just buy it later or get a cheap digital license for $2-$3 on ebay. No idea why people scowl at those, but they work just fine. I've used a few now and haven't had a single issue.
 
Aug 22, 2019
11
1
15
You could build as is.
Some thoughts:

1. A balanced gamer will budget about 2x the cost of the processor for the graphics card.
Without knowing the RTX2070 super prices, I think you are spot on there.

2. Do not pay more for a sli capable motherboard.
sli will win you synthetic fps benchmarks, but gameplay is better with a single good card.
sli is prone to screen tearing stuttering and non support in many games.
Plan instead for a future upgrade to a sligle more powerful card.

Do not count on any great overclock for a 3700X. 4.15 is reached by 21%
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-3000-cpus-silicon-lottery-binning,40157.html

If your games depend on single thread performance, and not so much on many(16 ) threads, a i7-9700K will generally go to 5.0 on all cores(8)
Actually, the i5-9600K(6) or i9-9900k(16) will also reach 5.0 with a good cooler.
Cpu centric games tend to be sims, mmo and strategy games.
It is multiplayer games with many participants that do best with many threads.
For fast action games spend more on the graphics card and less on the cpu.

I think I might spend less on the cpu and more on the graphics cards.

3. 3700X cooler is usually adequate.
DRP4 or noctua NH-D15s is about as good as it gets if you need top cooling.

4. On ram, ryzen is picky about ram. take the time to verify that whatever ram you pick is on the motherboard ram QVL list or is explicitly supported on that motherboard by the ram vendor.
ryzen needs fast ram for best performance. If you go intel, ram speed does not matter much.
a 2 x8gb kit is usually right.

5. wd blue is not the fastest of drives and not the best for windows. WD black is better.
but...
I will never again build without a ssd for the "C" drive. It makes everything you do much quicker.
240gb is minimum, it will hold the os and a handful of games.

If you can go 500gb you may never need a hard drive.
With ssd prices down, even 1tb is reasonable.

You can defer on the hard drive unless you need to store large files such as video's.
It is easy to add a hard drive later.

I like the Samsung evo line. Either 2.5" or m.2 format.

6. every motherboard will come with a lan adapter.
Some, costing more will include wifi. Do not pay a premium for wifi on the motherboard. A wifi adapter card is not expensive. USB wifi dongles are cheap, but you get stronger reception if you have a good antenna.

7. FWIW:
MY build process:

Before anything, while waiting for your parts to be delivered, download
and read, cover to cover your case and motherboard manual.
Buy a #2 magnetic tip philips screwdriver.
I find it handy to buy a power switch like this for testing.
https://www.ebay.com/p/4in1-PC-Powe...or-Computer/631889283?iid=142232821294&chn=ps

1. I assemble the critical parts outside of the case.
That lets me test them for functionality easily.
A wood table or cardboard is fine.
2. Plug in only the necessary parts at first. Ram, cpu, cooler, psu.
Do not force anything. Parts fit only one way.
Attach a monitor to the integrated motherboard adapter if you have one, otherwise to the graphics card.
  1. If your motherboard does not have a PWR button, momentarily touch the two pwr front panel pins with a flat blade screwdriver.
  2. Repeatedly hit F2 or DEL, and that should get you into the bios display.
  3. Boot from a cd or usb stick with memtest86 on it. memtest will exercise your ram and cpu functionality.
  4. Install windows.
  5. Install the motherboard cd drivers. Particularly the lan drivers so you can access the internet.
Do not select the easy install option, or you will get a bunch of utilities and trialware that you don't want. Drivers only.
  1. Connect to the internet and install an antivirus program. Microsoft security essentials is free, easy, and unobtrusive.
  2. Install your graphics card and driver if you tested with integrated graphics.
You will need to remove the graphics card later to install your motherboard in the case.
As a tip when screwing the motherboard into the posts, give the screw a small counterclockwise turn until you feel a click.
That lets you know that the screw will engage properly.
Make a note of how the graphics card latches into the pcie slot.
The mechanism will be hidden under the card and may be difficult to work if you have not previously checked how.
  1. Update windows to currency.
  2. Only now do I take apart what I need to and install it in the case.
  3. Now is the time to reinstall your graphics card.

Alright, that was hell of a long post! Thanks mate!

I'll answer/ask following bulletpoint if you don't mind:

1/2: Hmmm you raised some concerns to me. I've compared the Ryzen 1700 and the Ryzen 3700, and if I can't really get a lot of room to overclock the 3700, I'm wondering what's the point to spend double (+170€) for just 0.2Ghz per core. Unless I'm missing intrinsec specs besides the cooling/threads? Because at this point, I could also go for the 3800 at 3.9 Ghz for an extra €40, which could be pushed a tiny bit further overclocking. It'd still match with the GPU price as I'm now going toward the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB at €800
Anyway I think overclocking gets definitly out of the question, as I'm fairly new to all of that and there seems no big interest if I take into account the extra cooling to add, unless I'd turn around and take an Intel CPU K
3: It appears cooling won't be necessary in the end
4: Nice one! It's has been tough to find the info, but indeed the Ram I'd go with wasn't on the QVL list. Shame, I kind of liked the concept of RGB at that price
5: I'm switching from a 1TO SSD picked by another chap
6:At the moment, I've got my eyes on one motherboard (MSI MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard ) ; I compared prices without wireless integrated and it's 90€ difference ; at the same time, I think I saw wireless cards for like 40€. Seems like a huge premium for integrated. Or am I missing something?
7:Thanks for all the info. I think I'll need it haha. I'm sure I'll be cautions (aka scared af) when building it physically, so I'm glad you wrote that down
Thank you for your help!
 
Aug 22, 2019
11
1
15
To add/change Windows key later just go to settings>update & security>activation and click on change product key.

I also agree that it's better to skip windows for now and just buy it later or get a cheap digital license for $2-$3 on ebay. No idea why people scowl at those, but they work just fine. I've used a few now and haven't had a single issue.

I didn't even know it was a thing. You just saved me €100. Thank you so much!
 
Aug 22, 2019
11
1
15
Here is the list:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (€356.89 @ TopAchat)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard (€117.99 @ Amazon France)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€97.89 @ Alternate)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 1.02 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€116.38 @ Amazon France)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€44.99 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB BLACK GAMING Video Card (€799.89 @ TopAchat)
Case: Fractal Design Define S ATX Mid Tower Case (€74.22 @ Amazon France)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2018) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€119.98 @ Cdiscount)
Total: €1728.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-23 06:59 CEST+0200


Extremely powerful build. High quality components.
No compatibility issues. BIOS of that motherboard can be updated without the requirement of previous gen. CPU.

Thanks man
 
Aug 22, 2019
11
1
15
PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor | €356.89 @ TopAchat
Motherboard | MSI MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard | €281.99 @ Amazon France
Memory | Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory | €109.99 @ Amazon France
Storage | Intel 660p Series 1.02 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive | €121.57 @ Amazon France
Video Card | Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB GAMING OC Video Card | €549.99 @ Amazon France
Case | Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case | €46.71 @ Amazon France
Power Supply | Corsair RMx (2018) 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | €89.99 @ Amazon France
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | €1557.13
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-23 12:40 CEST+0200 |

A cheaper motherboard that still has wifi.
1TB NVME SSD to eliminate HDD.
Replaced components without prices for ones with prices.

Switching for the SSD. It seems awfully fast compared to the HDD
 
  • Like
Reactions: NightHawkRMX
Alright, that was hell of a long post! Thanks mate!

I'll answer/ask following bulletpoint if you don't mind:

1/2: Hmmm you raised some concerns to me. I've compared the Ryzen 1700 and the Ryzen 3700, and if I can't really get a lot of room to overclock the 3700, I'm wondering what's the point to spend double (+170€) for just 0.2Ghz per core. Unless I'm missing intrinsec specs besides the cooling/threads? Because at this point, I could also go for the 3800 at 3.9 Ghz for an extra €40, which could be pushed a tiny bit further overclocking. It'd still match with the GPU price as I'm now going toward the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB at €800
Anyway I think overclocking gets definitly out of the question, as I'm fairly new to all of that and there seems no big interest if I take into account the extra cooling to add, unless I'd turn around and take an Intel CPU K
3: It appears cooling won't be necessary in the end
4: Nice one! It's has been tough to find the info, but indeed the Ram I'd go with wasn't on the QVL list. Shame, I kind of liked the concept of RGB at that price
5: I'm switching from a 1TO SSD picked by another chap
6:At the moment, I've got my eyes on one motherboard (MSI MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard ) ; I compared prices without wireless integrated and it's 90€ difference ; at the same time, I think I saw wireless cards for like 40€. Seems like a huge premium for integrated. Or am I missing something?
7:Thanks for all the info. I think I'll need it haha. I'm sure I'll be cautions (aka scared af) when building it physically, so I'm glad you wrote that down
Thank you for your help!
1/2) Single-threaded performance and multithreaded performance are both important for gaming. The 1700 is far older architecturally, so it actually executes fewer instructions per cycle than the newer 3700x. This means even though the 3700x and an overclocked 1700 have the same core/thread count and the clock speeds are similar, the 3700x has much better performance. The R7 1700 will actually limit the 2080 super, while the 3700x will not. (P.S. if you do go with the 1700 you will want a 400 or 300 series board. Also, the 1700 has worse memory compatibility)

3) Since most AMD CPUs come with a decent cooler, buying a better cooler is less important.

4) Ram on the QVL is a good idea, but not really necessary. 3rd generation has much better memory compatibility when compared to 2nd or 1st gen.

5) A 1TB SSD is pretty inexpensive now. An SSD is one of the best upgrades one can spend for the overall speediness of their PC.

6) Really any X570 mobo should do for the 3700x.

7) No need to be scared about buying incompatible parts. Thats what we are here for.
 
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Solution
Aug 22, 2019
11
1
15
1/2) Single-threaded performance and multithreaded performance are both important for gaming. The 1700 is far older architecturally, so it actually executes fewer instructions per cycle than the newer 3700x. This means even though the 3700x and an overclocked 1700 have the same core/thread count and the clock speeds are similar, the 3700x has much better performance. The R7 1700 will actually limit the 2080 super, while the 3700x will not. (P.S. if you do go with the 1700 you will want a 400 or 300 series board. Also, the 1700 has worse memory compatibility)

3) Since most AMD CPUs come with a decent cooler, buying a better cooler is less important.

4) Ram on the QVL is a good idea, but not really necessary. 3rd generation has much better memory compatibility when compared to 2nd or 1st gen.

5) A 1TB SSD is pretty inexpensive now. An SSD is one of the best upgrades one can spend for the overall speediness of their PC.

6) Really any X570 mobo should do for the 3700x.

7) No need to be scared about buying incompatible parts. Thats what we are here for.

Ok cool! Makes sense for the CPU. Still, would you recommand the 3800X over the 3700X? Considering it's going to be a treat for a few years, I think 10% extra Ghz for 10% increase in price seems alright

Regarding the Mobo, my big concern is about wifi, since I won't be able to have Ethernet. I've checked the different X570 available, but seems like the MSI 570 Pro carbon wifi is by far the most accurate. Unless you had any recommandation regarding the wifi card I could add? I think I read that sometimes it just take extra space/a Pcie slot and get things cranky/block the airflow.

Many thanks for your help (and the 7th point :) )
 
Ok cool! Makes sense for the CPU. Still, would you recommand the 3800X over the 3700X? Considering it's going to be a treat for a few years, I think 10% extra Ghz for 10% increase in price seems alright

Regarding the Mobo, my big concern is about wifi, since I won't be able to have Ethernet. I've checked the different X570 available, but seems like the MSI 570 Pro carbon wifi is by far the most accurate. Unless you had any recommandation regarding the wifi card I could add? I think I read that sometimes it just take extra space/a Pcie slot and get things cranky/block the airflow.

Many thanks for your help (and the 7th point :) )
3800x is a little better of you have some extra money. 3700x is fine otherwise.

In my opinion, the R7 3800x is the best ryzen 3000 cpu for gaming. The 3800x has all of the threads needed for gaming currently and the 3800x has the highest clocks of any Ryzen CPU on one CCX. The 3900x and 3950x may have higher clocks (on paper at least) but they have increased latency due to the cores being spread over 2 dies making the 3800x much better value for gaming.

Really the Gaming Pro Carbon WIFI seems like the way to go since you want wifi and are running a Ryzen 7.
 
Aug 22, 2019
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In my opinion, the R7 3800x is the best ryzen 3000 cpu for gaming. The 3800x has all of the threads needed for gaming currently and the 3800x has the highest clocks of any Ryzen CPU on one CCX. The 3900x and 3950x may have higher clocks (on paper at least) but they have increased latency due to the cores being spread over 2 dies making the 3800x much better value for gaming.

Ok, 3800 here I come!

I tried to read a bit about the latency issue you mentionned, but couldn't find anything. Sorry about the out of topic question, but how are the cores spread?

Also, here is the final build! We're slightly over budget, but the GPU is to blame. But I'm sure I won't regret it haha

https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/NDTHvn

Thanks everybody for your help!
 
Here is the list:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (€356.89 @ TopAchat)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H115i PRO 55.4 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (€133.99 @ Amazon France)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 GAMING X ATX AM4 Motherboard (€195.89 @ Amazon France)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€97.89 @ Alternate)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 1.02 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (€118.61 @ Amazon France)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB BLACK GAMING Video Card (€799.89 @ TopAchat)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro M ATX Mid Tower Case (€95.00 @ Amazon France)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2018) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€123.90 @ TopAchat)
Total: €1922.06
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-24 06:57 CEST+0200


If you really wanna push CPU to limit. Get R7 3700X and OC it. This will be better performance package as you get AIO in pairing to help you boost and clock your CPU higher while maintaining temps under limit. Go for R7 3800X only if you don't wanna OC. Otherwise R7 3700X is similar in performance.
 
https://ibb.co/vJyd3X2

With the Ryzen 5 and 7 chips, they have all 6 or 8 cores respectively on 1 die.

Ryzen 9 12 cores have 8 cores on 1 die and then 4 on another die. 16 core ryzen chips have 8 cores on 1 die and 8 cores on the other.

When cores on different dies try to communicate between one another there is an increased latency.

This latency is determined by how fast the interconnect between the ccx and io die or between ccx dies themselves is running at. This interconnect is called Infinity Fabric. By default, the Infinity Fabric runs at 1/2 of your ram speed untill 3733mhz where the ratio changes to allow better ram overclocking. This is why fast ram is reccomended to reduce this latency.

With 3rd gen ryzen cpus the infinity fabric clock can be overclocked while decoupled from ram speed, so ram speed matters less if you dont mind overclocking the infinity fabric clock.
 
Aug 22, 2019
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https://ibb.co/vJyd3X2

With the Ryzen 5 and 7 chips, they have all 6 or 8 cores respectively on 1 die.

Ryzen 9 12 cores have 8 cores on 1 die and then 4 on another die. 16 core ryzen chips have 8 cores on 1 die and 8 cores on the other.

When cores on different dies try to communicate between one another there is an increased latency.

This latency is determined by how fast the interconnect between the ccx and io die or between ccx dies themselves is running at. This interconnect is called Infinity Fabric. By default, the Infinity Fabric runs at 1/2 of your ram speed untill 3733mhz where the ratio changes to allow better ram overclocking. This is why fast ram is reccomended to reduce this latency.

With 3rd gen ryzen cpus the infinity fabric clock can be overclocked while decoupled from ram speed, so ram speed matters less if you dont mind overclocking the infinity fabric clock.
Aged to answer, but here I am! Thanks for the explaination and help!
 

vondes

Commendable
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The motherboard also seems pretty expensive. You likely could go for a cheaper x579 motherboard with no issues.

Solid state drives significantly speed up your computers boot times and overall snappyness over a hard drive. Solid state drives are also very cheap now, making not including one in a high dollar build silly.