Build Advice Needing some build/upgrade advice

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Flay_Gunnar

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Feb 20, 2020
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Here are my current specs:

CPU: Ryzen 5 3500
Cooler: Deepcool Gammaxx 400
GPU: MSI GTX 1660S Ventus XS OC
RAM: Corsair Vengence DDR4 3200 MHz, 32 GB (8GB x4)
Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk Max
Storage: 250 GB Kingston Gen3 NVMe SSD for OS, 500 GB SATA SSD for storage
Power Supply: Deepcool 850W Gold (PM850D, I believe)
Cabinet: Fractal Design Meshify C

I got a new 2K monitor recently, and I find that my system isn't really able to run games all that well at higher resolutions. It managed 1080p pretty good (as long as it's not the latest games), but 2K is challenging even for games from 4-5 years ago. Due to this, I was considering an upgrade for the core components, for around January next year (should have the budget ready by then). Here's what I have in mind (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RMbMn6):

CPU: Intel i5 13600KF (or the 14600K(F) if it's out and available around then)
Cooler: Bit unsure on this one, was thinking either a Deepcool AK620 or any good 240mm liquid.
GPU: Looking at a 4070, mostly considering a Gigabyte Eagle model.
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32GB (2x 16GB) DDR5 6000
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI
Storage: Xpg Gammix S70 Blade 2TB

The power supply, cabinet and remaining storage would be kept, but it's essentially a full revamp at this point. So what I wanted to ask is:
  • How is the build? Is it balanced enough for 2K gaming, or would it need any tweaking? Any glaring issues?
  • What would be a good cooler for the 13600KF? While I do like the AK620, there seem to be quite a few liquid coolers within a similar price range (I'm in India, so even the AK620 is ~$65). I do see liquid options like the Cooler Master Master Liquid 240L Core and Deepcool Gammaxx LE520 in around the same ballpark.
  • Any suggestions for the exact 4070 model? Based on whatever I read up, the Gigabyte Eagle seems to be a balanced one, looking at cost/performance, but if there's anything better, I'm open to suggestions. My budget is somewhat flexible, but I don't want to go overboard is all.
Any other general feedback would be appreciated as well!
 
Your build seems balanced enough.
It is a bit premature to be making decisions now for a January build.

Do not go overboard on cooling for a 13600K.
Whatever you buy will be pushed to the max by your motherboard.
Expect to see 100c. regardless of your cooler.
That is not all bad.
Read this article on cooling 13900K:
www.tomshardware.com

Core i9-13900K Cooling Guide: Testing Intel's Flagship With Budget Air and Big AIOs

The Core i9-13900K can push even the most capable liquid coolers to their limits, but you don’t lose that much performance if you go with budget-priced air cooling.
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com
In video form:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNFgswzTvyc


At a gross level, a good dual tower type air cooler like the AK620 will have about the same cooling capacity as a 240 aio cooler.
It should do the job.
But, I think you would find a noctua NH-D15s with 140mm fans to cool better and be quieter due to the larger fans.

My suggestion is to buy your 4070 first and see how you do.
I would avoid the maximally overclocked version.
Otherwise you probably get fair value for your money.
That will give you a better idea of what your processor needs might be.
As a test for now,
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

Do not be penny wise and pound foolish and buy a F suffix version of the processor to save minor $
Having integrated graphics is a life saver if you should ever have graphics issues.

Intel is not sensitive to ram speeds. If 5000 speed is enough cheaper, I would go with that.
 
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Hey there,

If you mostly game, then I'd go a different way. Keep most of your rig, and get this and the GPU

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 3.4 GHz 8-Core Processor ($291.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $291.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-08-21 11:40 EDT-0400

Just add in your 4070 of preference, and have a stellar gaming CPU to boot.

Of course, there is no room to upgrade after that in terms of the CPU. But GPU, ram will be fine.
 
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Last edited:
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geofelt said:
Your build seems balanced enough.
It is a bit premature to be making decisions now for a January build.

Do not go overboard on cooling for a 13600K.
Whatever you buy will be pushed to the max by your motherboard.
Expect to see 100c. regardless of your cooler.
That is not all bad.
Read this article on cooling 13900K:
www.tomshardware.com

Core i9-13900K Cooling Guide: Testing Intel's Flagship With Budget Air and Big AIOs

The Core i9-13900K can push even the most capable liquid coolers to their limits, but you don’t lose that much performance if you go with budget-priced air cooling.
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com
In video form:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNFgswzTvyc


At a gross level, a good dual tower type air cooler like the AK620 will have about the same cooling capacity as a 240 aio cooler.
It should do the job.
But, I think you would find a noctua NH-D15s with 140mm fans to cool better and be quieter due to the larger fans.

My suggestion is to buy your 4070 first and see how you do.
I would avoid the maximally overclocked version.
Otherwise you probably get fair value for your money.
That will give you a better idea of what your processor needs might be.
As a test for now,
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

Do not be penny wise and pound foolish and buy a F suffix version of the processor to save minor $
Having integrated graphics is a life saver if you should ever have graphics issues.

Intel is not sensitive to ram speeds. If 5000 speed is enough cheaper, I would go with that.
Click to expand...
Makes sense, looks like the AK620 is plenty for the 13600K. Sadly, the NH-D15S is ~56% costlier than the AK, like most Noctua products around here.
That's some really good advice there, I didn't think of that. The main reason I thought of the 13600KF was because I figured my present chip would bottleneck faster GPUs. It makes perfect sense to get the GPU first, since my system can otherwise support it anyway.
I'm a bit confused about the 'maximally overclocked version' part though. Do you mean that I should avoid OC edition cards, or is there some stratification there? Any specific model that you'd recommend?
Point taken about the F series card, that does make sense.
I had read that 6000 MHz was the sweet spot for RAM speeds, but if it's like a percent or two difference for a lot more money, then yeah, makes sense to go for a lower one. I'll read up more on that.

Roland Of Gilead said:
Hey there,

If you mostly game, then I'd go a different way. Keep most of your rig, and get this and the GPU

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 3.4 GHz 8-Core Processor ($291.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $291.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-08-21 11:40 EDT-0400

Just add in your 4070 of preference, and have a stellar gaming CPU to boot.

Of course, there is no room to upgrade after that in terms of the CPU. But GPU, ram will be fine.
Click to expand...

Another interesting idea - keeping the motherboard and RAM would save me quite a bit there, especially if the rest of it won't have nay huge performance impact. The main reason why I was considering Intel was because the benckmarks from... cough cough userbenchmark... Said that the 13600KF was ~51% faster than my present chip, which I figured was a good generational jump to upgrade for. I know that Userbenchmark tends to be super biased in favor of Intel though.
 
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@Lucky_SLS Hmm... Would the 4070ti actually be worth it? I mean, sure, if I'm keeping the motherboard and RAM, I would have some headroom in the budget, but I remember hearing that the 4070ti was rather terrible value for money, while also having a rather high TDP.
Also, wouldn't the XPG SSD be a little better in this case? The specs seem similar, and it sells for around 9k (https://www.pcstudio.in/product/xpg-gammix-s70-blade-2tb-pcie-gen4-m-2-2280-internal-ssd/).

(Wasn't allowing me to quote you due to spam or something, not sure)
 
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.

If the best is too pricey, see what a Thermalright Peerless asassin costs:
www.tomshardware.com

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE Review: Incredible, Affordable Air Cooling Performance

Shockingly cool and quiet, less than $40!
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com

Graphics card vendors bin their chips and use the better ones in factory overclocked versions
that they can sell for more. You may be able to OC more, but then again, perhaps not.
They try to differentiate by adding cosmetics and fancy coolers which also sell for more.
I do think you get fair value from a modest factory overclocked card.
The cards that are pushing limits are more likely to have issues.
I would look for non overclocked versions or those with only a minimal overclock.
If you need more performance, then buy a higher tier card in the first place.

Unlike ryzen, intel does not depend on fast ram for performance.
This article came out two years ago, but is still relevant, I think.

Userbenchmark is considered as junk science by many.

A more respected comparison might be passmark.
Your R5 3500 has 6 processing threads and a passmark rating of 12835.
That is when all 6 threads are fully loaded. Not so likely with most games.
Multiplayer may be an exception.
Of more import is the single thread rating which is 2511:

A i5-13600K has 20 threads and a rating of 38442/4187; a very healthy upgrade.

Some amd users here are touting the X3D processors.
If you truly run only one game, the X3D processors are good.
But on anything else, they are not so good.
R7-5800X3D has 16 threads and a rating of 35130/3120
 
Flay_Gunnar said:
@Lucky_SLS Hmm... Would the 4070ti actually be worth it? I mean, sure, if I'm keeping the motherboard and RAM, I would have some headroom in the budget, but I remember hearing that the 4070ti was rather terrible value for money, while also having a rather high TDP.
Also, wouldn't the XPG SSD be a little better in this case? The specs seem similar, and it sells for around 9k (https://www.pcstudio.in/product/xpg-gammix-s70-blade-2tb-pcie-gen4-m-2-2280-internal-ssd/).

(Wasn't allowing me to quote you due to spam or something, not sure)
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that the m.2 slot is gen3 not that gen3 is a deal breaker.
 
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Flay_Gunnar said:
@Lucky_SLS Hmm... Would the 4070ti actually be worth it? I mean, sure, if I'm keeping the motherboard and RAM, I would have some headroom in the budget, but I remember hearing that the 4070ti was rather terrible value for money, while also having a rather high TDP.
Also, wouldn't the XPG SSD be a little better in this case? The specs seem similar, and it sells for around 9k (https://www.pcstudio.in/product/xpg-gammix-s70-blade-2tb-pcie-gen4-m-2-2280-internal-ssd/).

(Wasn't allowing me to quote you due to spam or something, not sure)
Click to expand...

the 4070ti is a nice step up from 4070 non ti. you can be sure that the gpu will last a good 5 years with the 4070ti. cant really say the same with 4070.

unfortunately the 7900 XT is a bit higher in price compared to the 4070ti, the 7900XT is also a very good deal if you dont care that much about ray tracing.

as @Bob.B said, the mobo supports pcie 3.0 so i would recommend this: https://www.vedantcomputers.com/pc-...m2-2tb-ssd-mz-v7s2t0bw?sort=p.price&order=ASC

look for random read write speeds. not sequential. and games will benefit little from speeds more than 3000mbps.
 
geofelt said:
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.

If the best is too pricey, see what a Thermalright Peerless asassin costs:
www.tomshardware.com

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE Review: Incredible, Affordable Air Cooling Performance

Shockingly cool and quiet, less than $40!
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com
Click to expand...
Yeah, I did check the Peerless Assassin, and it was ridiculously expensive at the time, so I had disregarded it. Looks like it's available for around the same price as the AK620 now though, and the two are roughly equal in performance, right?

geofelt said:
Graphics card vendors bin their chips and use the better ones in factory overclocked versions
that they can sell for more. You may be able to OC more, but then again, perhaps not.
They try to differentiate by adding cosmetics and fancy coolers which also sell for more.
I do think you get fair value from a modest factory overclocked card.
The cards that are pushing limits are more likely to have issues.
I would look for non overclocked versions or those with only a minimal overclock.
If you need more performance, then buy a higher tier card in the first place.
Click to expand...
To be fair, I don't intend to overclock the GPU at all - heck, I prefer to undervolt where possible, as long as the performance doesn't suffer for it.
So essentially, avoid something like an MSI Gaming X Trio, and prefer something along the lines of an Asus TUF Gaming? Basically avoid anything with an overly high clock speed out of the box?

geofelt said:
Unlike ryzen, intel does not depend on fast ram for performance.
This article came out two years ago, but is still relevant, I think.

Userbenchmark is considered as junk science by many.

A more respected comparison might be passmark.
Your R5 3500 has 6 processing threads and a passmark rating of 12835.
That is when all 6 threads are fully loaded. Not so likely with most games.
Multiplayer may be an exception.
Of more import is the single thread rating which is 2511:

A i5-13600K has 20 threads and a rating of 38442/4187; a very healthy upgrade.

Some amd users here are touting the X3D processors.
If you truly run only one game, the X3D processors are good.
But on anything else, they are not so good.
R7-5800X3D has 16 threads and a rating of 35130/3120
Click to expand...
My use case is basically just gaming and some lightweight stuff like programming and browsing, so the heaviest part of it is definitely gaming. I guess the main advantage of the 5800X3D here would be how I can skip out on upgrading the motherboard and RAM for quite a while longer, but that only comes into the picture if the CPU limits the performance in the first place.
Passmark looks good though, seems like a more reliable source.

Bob.B said:
Keep in mind that the m.2 slot is gen3 not that gen3 is a deal breaker.
Click to expand...
Yeah, my motherboard has a gen3 slot, the only reason I was considering a gen4 one now was so that I won't have to go through the hassle of replacing it later down the line when I upgrade the motherboard. That specific XPG model was around the same cost as gen3, so I figured I might as well haha.

Lucky_SLS said:
the 4070ti is a nice step up from 4070 non ti. you can be sure that the gpu will last a good 5 years with the 4070ti. cant really say the same with 4070.

unfortunately the 7900 XT is a bit higher in price compared to the 4070ti, the 7900XT is also a very good deal if you dont care that much about ray tracing.

as @Bob.B said, the mobo supports pcie 3.0 so i would recommend this: https://www.vedantcomputers.com/pc-...m2-2tb-ssd-mz-v7s2t0bw?sort=p.price&order=ASC

look for random read write speeds. not sequential. and games will benefit little from speeds more than 3000mbps.
Click to expand...
Seems like the 4070ti offers a 16-19% difference in performance for a ~31% price difference.. And an additional 42.5% TDP. I'd have jumped at the opportunity if the 4070ti had more VRAM at least, but given how both have 12GB, I think the 4070 fits my bill a bit better.
I'm not even considering the 7900XT though, it not only costs more, but would lead to some crazy power bills haha. To be fair though, it does give some great performance for the cost, just that the TDP is way too high for my taste.
The random read/write point makes sense, that would represent gaming workloads a lot better.
 
If this were my rig, I'd obviously upgrade the CPU/platform first.
Since you're already on AM4 though, you might as well just upgrade the CPU to a Ryzen 7 5800X3D. I think your motherboard has beefy enough VRMs to handle this. Unless you really need the features of a higher end chipset such as B550 or X570, or want to upgrade the entire platform to AM5, I see no reason to change it.
I'd say your RAM is fine, but Ryzen is really not a fan of Corsair Vengeance RAM, I have tried it in multiple rigs and have always had issues. I suggest you get Kingston Fury Beast RGB memory instead.
Upgrading the cooler might not even be necessary, but if you do want to uprgade it, a Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 is an amazing cooler especially for the price. Am considering it for my 5950x.
Then you'll also want to upgrade your GPU, and the GPU you suggested will work very well for this.
I think a 13600KF would be a bit underpowered for it though, but it should go very well with a 5800X3D.
 
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Flay_Gunnar said:
Another interesting idea - keeping the motherboard and RAM would save me quite a bit there, especially if the rest of it won't have nay huge performance impact. The main reason why I was considering Intel was because the benckmarks from... cough cough userbenchmark... Said that the 13600KF was ~51% faster than my present chip, which I figured was a good generational jump to upgrade for. I know that Userbenchmark tends to be super biased in favor of Intel though.
Click to expand...
LOL, yeah, userbench 🙄

The 13600k and the 5800x3d are pretty well matched in terms of gaming. The 13600k does have a slew more cores, and so gives you a bit more than the 5800x3d in most other tasks. It is a conundrum, but one worth dealing with :)

Savings to be made with the 5800x3d, keeping your own bits from current build.
 
I Mess With Windows said:
If this were my rig, I'd obviously upgrade the CPU/platform first.
Since you're already on AM4 though, you might as well just upgrade the CPU to a Ryzen 7 5800X3D. I think your motherboard has beefy enough VRMs to handle this. Unless you really need the features of a higher end chipset such as B550 or X570, or want to upgrade the entire platform to AM5, I see no reason to change it.
I'd say your RAM is fine, but Ryzen is really not a fan of Corsair Vengeance RAM, I have tried it in multiple rigs and have always had issues. I suggest you get Kingston Fury Beast RGB memory instead.
Upgrading the cooler might not even be necessary, but if you do want to uprgade it, a Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 is an amazing cooler especially for the price. Am considering it for my 5950x.
Then you'll also want to upgrade your GPU, and the GPU you suggested will work very well for this.
I think a 13600KF would be a bit underpowered for it though, but it should go very well with a 5800X3D.
Click to expand...

Yeah, at this point, I'm mostly just thinking of swapping out the CPU and GPU alone, since that would give me the majority of the benefit at around half the cost. It also allows me to use my current components for the most part for another 3-5 years, which is great.
For now, the idea is to grab a 5800X3D and perhaps a Gigabyte AERO OC 4070 (mainly since it looks nice while performing well, the Asus TUF is an alternative).
Hmm... What sort of issues have you noticed with the RAM? I started out with 8 x2, and added another 2 sticks in later, and so far, I haven't had any issues with it. I did have some crash issues due to dust in the GPU, but that's mostly unrelated (got fixed each time by just taking the GPU out and cleaning it). Could you give me some details on this, so that I'd know what to look out for?
Sadly, the Dark Rock Pro 4 is like ~$250 here... The perks of living in a third world country haha. I can get the Thermalright Peerless Assassin and Deepcool AK620 at ~$65 each, and the Noctua NH-D15 at around $100, but I think either of the former two should mostly do it.

Roland Of Gilead said:
LOL, yeah, userbench 🙄

The 13600k and the 5800x3d are pretty well matched in terms of gaming. The 13600k does have a slew more cores, and so gives you a bit more than the 5800x3d in most other tasks. It is a conundrum, but one worth dealing with :)

Savings to be made with the 5800x3d, keeping your own bits from current build.
Click to expand...

Exactly, if I can save 50% of the budget while getting ~90-95% the gaming performance, the 5800X3D sounds like a good idea to me. Frankly, my R5 3500 serves me perfectly well in non-gaming tasks, so I doubt if I need the upgrade in those that would come with the 13600K anyway.
 
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Well, some bad luck there, it seems like the 5800X3D is simply not available in India anymore. Pretty much every online store is sold out (except Amazon, which is scalping hard at INR 48k / $585). Are there any other options I could go for, without a full revamp?
Also, @Lucky_SLS , do you know any other online store that may have it? It seems to be out of stock in all the places I know of, like MD Computers, Vedant, Prime ABGB, etc.
 
Hey everyone, just to drop an update on this one, everything somehow worked out, and I managed to get my hands on a 5800X3D. With that, I upgraded the GPU (to an Asus TUF 7800 XT, figured it was better value than the 4070) and the cooler (to a Deepcool AK620). Overall, it seems pretty good so far, although I'll be testing it extensively over the next couple of days. Thank you all for your help! Here's what it looks like:

amAO4d9_700bwp.webp
 
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