Build Advice New gaming PC build.

[p0t3nt1al]

Hi,

I am in the market for a custom gaming PC.

I am looking to play mostly on 1440p on high settings. If it could do 4k great but its not a deal breaker if it couldn't.

This is what I have put together and looking for some general advice/notes on any red flags, areas I might be able to save some money or areas I might need to spend more.

Case
CORSAIR 4000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING X670E-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
16GB AMD RADEON™ RX 7900 GRE - HDMI, DP - DX® 12
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SOLIDIGM P41+ GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 4125MB/sR, 3325MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMe SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE LCD XT RGB CPU Cooler
Monitor
MSI 32" CURVED G32CQ4 E2 - 2560 x 1440, 1ms, 170Hz

I have some basic knowledge. This will be my second custom build but my old one is very old now and not worth upgrading so starting fresh.

Looking forward to hearing peoples comments and advice!

 

[Lucky_SLS]

Where are you buying from and what is your budget?

 

[p0t3nt1al]

Uncertain where buying it from.
I bought previously from PC Specialist in the UK, but I may buy the parts and put it together myself.
Looking to not overspend of course, and get the best deal available. I think the one I put together above was around £2.2k including building. If I could save then great, but not looking to spend significantly more if possible.

 

[p0t3nt1al]

If it helps - this is the link I put it together on where different options are available.

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/czDY5tvQkw/

 

[Why_Me]

Uncertain where buying it from.
I bought previously from PC Specialist in the UK, but I may buy the parts and put it together myself.
Looking to not overspend of course, and get the best deal available. I think the one I put together above was around £2.2k including building. If I could save then great, but not looking to spend significantly more if possible.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£349.99 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: *Deepcool GAMMAXX AG620 ARGB 67.88 CFM CPU Cooler (£49.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Motherboard: *MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard (£149.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Memory: *Kingston FURY Beast 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£97.55 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: *Western Digital Blue SN580 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£97.98 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: *Asus ProArt OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB Video Card (£745.99 @ MoreCoCo)
Case: *Montech AIR 903 MAX ATX Mid Tower Case (£65.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: *MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£89.99 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: *Microsoft Windows 11 Home Retail - Download 64-bit (£100.52 @ Senetic)
Total: £1745.49
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-08-30 13:02 BST+0100

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RbcQeSO-1U

 

[Lafong]

Did you consider any other motherboards? The one you have chosen supports PCIe 5.0, but your drives cannot take advantage of it. Your board has 4 ports for NVMe drives, but you will only use 2. You might be able to save by looking at MSI or Gigabyte..........but maybe you have a very strong reason for your choice?

Are you wedded to a liquid cooler?

Good choices on the CPU and RAM.

 

[p0t3nt1al]

Monitor is in OP

MSI 32" CURVED G32CQ4 E2

To be honest, I don't know really why most of the parts are good. Motherboard wise just chose one someone recommended. I don't know if they recommended it to future proof the build.

How much of a difference would I see by selecting a different one? Would it make it less future proof or perform significantly worse?

No, im not wedded to a liquid cooler. Again, selected one based on recommendations and articles I read but don't know if it was overkill for my build.

I am sure there are various places I could save money here which I guess is the goal, if I can do it without seriously compromising performance.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

This is what you can expect, price wise, if you put it together youself.

The case has a digital temp readout, instead of the AIO (cheaper that way and you dont really need a 360 AIO for the 7800X3D)

The mobo supports pcie 5.0 SSD and decent VRMs.

The other parts are top tier models, no entry level cheap models.

The monitor is the cheapest 400 nits brightness 32" IPS option. Look at RTings reviews for more indepth info.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£349.99 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit EVO 69 CFM CPU Cooler (£52.90 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX ATX AM5 Motherboard (£174.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston FURY Beast 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£112.06 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Kingston KC3000 2.048 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£118.49 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: PowerColor Red Devil OC Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB Video Card (£506.76 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Deepcool CH510 MESH DIGITAL ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Power Supply: MSI MPG A850G PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£105.46 @ Scan.co.uk)
Monitor: Asus TUF Gaming VG32AQL1A 31.5" 2560 x 1440 170 Hz Monitor (£349.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1828.64
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-08-30 13:12 BST+0100

 

[Lafong]

Motherboards......I'd spend time looking over the specific features on boards from MSI and Gigabyte within your price range. They will differ and maybe you need something in particular....a lot of USB ports or 4 NVMe drive ports or a particular audio chip. There's no point in buying features you don't need.

I wouldn't get caught up in lingo like "gaming" or "future proof".

You need a bit of luck on motherboards. Any can be DOA or die prematurely. You shouldn't need to overspend on a board. PCIe 5.0 is of little value. You'd like to be able to pay extra for reliability, but the correlation between cost and reliability is not particularly strong.

I wouldn't go with liquid cooling unless you like it for some reason other than cooling per se. You should be able to get high quality air cooling for circa 50 or 75 pounds.

I've heard good things about the Solidigm drives.....but there's not a world of difference among NVMe drives from the better known names. Maybe lean toward Gen 4 drives with DRAM.

Case choice is highly personal. Think about airflow/fans. Case needs to be wide enough to accept your air cooler.

 

[p0t3nt1al]

Realistically speaking, is putting the parts together do-able if you have no idea what you are doing - following some YouTube videos or advice you read online?

It certainly seems a good way to save some money.

 

[logainofhades]

More in line with how I would build it.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£349.99 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler (£35.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX V2 ATX AM5 Motherboard (£139.97 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£106.03 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Silicon Power UD90 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£99.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB Video Card (£629.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Montech AIR 903 MAX ATX Mid Tower Case (£65.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 TT Premium 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£119.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Monitor: ViewSonic VX3218C-2K 32.0" 2560 x 1440 165 Hz Curved Monitor (£199.99 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1746.42
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-08-30 16:51 BST+0100

 

[Why_Me]

Realistically speaking, is putting the parts together do-able if you have no idea what you are doing - following some YouTube videos or advice you read online?

It certainly seems a good way to save some money.

This ^^ ... Youtube is a godsend for first time builders.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

Realistically speaking, is putting the parts together do-able if you have no idea what you are doing - following some YouTube videos or advice you read online?

It certainly seems a good way to save some money.

I have built 3 computers till now. My first was in my high school about 10 years back. Second was for my friend a year after I built my first PC and the last one was my current rig in last year.

I followed PC build videos and I was fine.

We are more than happy to help you if you have any trouble shooting problems or questions.

 

[p0t3nt1al]

This is what you can expect, price wise, if you put it together youself.

The case has a digital temp readout, instead of the AIO (cheaper that way and you dont really need a 360 AIO for the 7800X3D)

The mobo supports pcie 5.0 SSD and decent VRMs.

The other parts are top tier models, no entry level cheap models.

The monitor is the cheapest 400 nits brightness 32" IPS option. Look at RTings reviews for more indepth info.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£349.99 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit EVO 69 CFM CPU Cooler (£52.90 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX ATX AM5 Motherboard (£174.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston FURY Beast 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£112.06 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Kingston KC3000 2.048 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£118.49 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: PowerColor Red Devil OC Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB Video Card (£506.76 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Deepcool CH510 MESH DIGITAL ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Power Supply: MSI MPG A850G PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£105.46 @ Scan.co.uk)
Monitor: Asus TUF Gaming VG32AQL1A 31.5" 2560 x 1440 170 Hz Monitor (£349.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1828.64
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-08-30 13:12 BST+0100

Sorry for my ignorance, but what do you mean by 400 nit brightness?

When I look at monitor options to go with this, I see a lot about refresh rate (hz), response time (ms) and resolution mainly. I kind of understand them to a basic level but also kinda don;t.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what do you mean by 400 nit brightness?

When I look at monitor options to go with this, I see a lot about refresh rate (hz), response time (ms) and resolution mainly. I kind of understand them to a basic level but also kinda don;t.

The monitor brightness dictates the HDR performance. How bright the monitor can get, both on a localised area in the screen and full screen. You have diffferent tiers of HDR as well. This would be the starting level HDR400 certified model.

Did a quick check and the Asus actually does not have great reviews. The points would apply for the 32" panel as well:

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/asus/tuf-gaming-vg27aql1a

Alternative:

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product...-315-2560-x-1440-165-hz-monitor-cm-9020007-na

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/corsair/xeneon-32qhd165

 

[p0t3nt1al]

Thank you everyone for all the replies. Very helpful indeed.

I have now decided I want to build an all white machine where possible.

For reminder - I want to play 1440p gaming on high settings. Hopefully achieve a high frame rate and not the 60fps I was used to before.

Would this change your recommendations?

 

[Lafong]

You can easily find white RAM and white cases. Probably white fans.

Not sure about power supplies and drives.

Gigabyte has a series of off-white/silverish motherboards for both Intel and AMD. Look for the word "Ice" in the full model name.

Here is an example. There are others.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X870E-AORUS-PRO-ICE#kf

I'd guess other brands have similar color schemes, but I haven't looked.

 

[p0t3nt1al]

I have been looking at the following motherboard. It seems similar to the one above but a different model.

GIGABYTE X670E AORUS PRO X WHITE​

Would this be a suitable pick to combine with something like a 78003XD and a graphics card along the lines of a 7900GRE?

 

[Lafong]

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B650-AORUS-ELITE-AX-ICE#kf

Above is the specifications for that board at Gigabyte.com.

Aorus is generally a good product line.

Looks over the individual features.

It has 3 NVMe ports, one of them gen 5, the others gen 4.

Supports Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 series.

HDMI and Display Port connections;

Q Flash Plus so you can update the BIOS easily.

Lots of USB ports.

4 SATA drive connectors.

Looks OK to me if you want a recent AMD processor.

There are other ICE models.

Let others comment.

 

[p0t3nt1al]

I think the thing that baffles me the most is looking at the options and seeing how many similar named items there is.

For example you have mentioned B650-AORUS-ELITE-AX-ICE while I have been looking at B650e-AORUS-ELITE-AX-ICE. A lot of the time you see a product with different letters at the end. In this case the one I seen has an e and its not always super clear what the differences are.

 

[Lafong]

I researched the ICE B650. Now you are looking at the X670. You can easily find the spec sheet at Gigabyte.

 

[Lafong]

I think the thing that baffles me the most is looking at the options and seeing how many similar named items there is.

For example you have mentioned B650-AORUS-ELITE-AX-ICE while I have been looking at B650e-AORUS-ELITE-AX-ICE. A lot of the time you see a product with different letters at the end. In this case the one I seen has an e and its not always super clear what the differences are.

Its up to you to walk down the spec sheets for each individual model at the manufacturer's web site, looking for small differences and/or pound on a search engine.

There isn't likely to be a significant difference. Likely a small revision, but you need to identify what that is.

It's tedious. You can ignore the search if you want and take a chance.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

White build, something like this?

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£349.98 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler (£40.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX ICE ATX AM5 Motherboard (£182.49 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£106.15 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Kingston KC3000 2.048 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£122.33 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: ASRock Steel Legend OC Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB Video Card (£530.96 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Montech SKY TWO GX ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 Snow 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£137.36 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1529.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-09-01 15:30 BST+0100

 

[p0t3nt1al]

Its up to you to walk down the spec sheets for each individual model at the manufacturer's web site, looking for small differences and/or pound on a search engine.

There isn't likely to be a significant difference. Likely a small revision, but you need to identify what that is.

It's tedious. You can ignore the search if you want and take a chance.

Thank you! Its exactly what im doing but I guess the issue im having is it might show you the differences, but I don't understand half of it!

I will stick at it and I am sure Google can help.

 

[p0t3nt1al]

My next question is

In regards to GPU's, do more games support Nvidia features than AMD features?
I read something about the 'upscaling' software that both suppliers have, it seems that more games have exclusive support to one and not the other.