Question Opinion on this prebuilt

[joestein514]

I am looking at a Velztorm Praetix. The cost is $3,876 plus shipping and tax. This is from their website, not from a third party seller like newegg or amazon. I am in the US.

The components:

Hyte Y60 case (I LOVE this case - plus I have a limit of around 19" of headroom - so this works)
i9-13900KF
RTX 4090
32 GB DDR5 (speed not listed)
1TB M.2 PCIe SSD
850 W PS (it doesn't specify certification)
360 AIO CPU liquid cooler

I think this is a pretty good deal for a SI. However, they do not tell you what brands the memory, motherboard or PS are. I called them and they told me they use various brands. I saw one breakdown of one of their PCs on youtube and the PS was EVGA which would be fine. The motherboard is Asus Z790-P Prime in the pic, but not listed in the specs.

Anybody with any thoughts/experience on this system or on this builder?

BTW.....I haven't built a PC in over 20 years - I just don't have the free time to even try at this point in my life.

Any comments appreciated.

Joe

 

[Lafong]

Would you consider a so-called "Boutique" builder where you would get more control over name brand parts, rather than mystery brands? Even if you might have to step down to a 13700 or 13600 if need be to match the $3876 price?

Is there any chance you could buy your own parts and pay someone or some business 150 or 200 to assemble those parts?

Really tough to get excited over most "pre-builts" for the reasons you mention.

You could of course have a fabulous experience with it.

You just have to evaluate how much doing something else might put the odds more in your favor. That of course is more speculation.

 

[Eximo]

PSU is a little light, 32GB of DDR4? or DDR5? Kind of important.

Slapped this together without much effort. 64GB of RAM, 2TB SSD, 1000W PSU with 12VHPWR connector

Still cheaper, room for lots of RGB or other improvements.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K 3 GHz 24-Core Processor ($569.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: MSI MAG CORELIQUID P360 78.73 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($103.50 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-A WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($259.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL32 Memory ($297.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($161.99 @ Adorama)
Video Card: MSI GAMING TRIO GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB Video Card ($1618.99 @ Newegg)
Case: HYTE Y40 ATX Mid Tower Case ($149.99 @ Adorama)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 TT Premium 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($199.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $3362.43
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-02-16 16:07 EST-0500

 

[joestein514]

PSU is a little light, 32GB of DDR4? or DDR5? Kind of important.

Slapped this together without much effort. 64GB of RAM, 2TB SSD, 1000W PSU with 12VHPWR connector

Still cheaper, room for lots of RGB or other improvements.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K 3 GHz 24-Core Processor ($569.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: MSI MAG CORELIQUID P360 78.73 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($103.50 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-A WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($259.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL32 Memory ($297.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($161.99 @ Adorama)
Video Card: MSI GAMING TRIO GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB Video Card ($1618.99 @ Newegg)
Case: HYTE Y40 ATX Mid Tower Case ($149.99 @ Adorama)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 TT Premium 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($199.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $3362.43
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-02-16 16:07 EST-0500

It is DDR5 - typo on my part

 

[Eximo]

450W GPU, 253W CPU, plus everything else. 850W is cutting it close. I would avoid it for that alone could last a year and blow, or reboot when you stress the system as soon as you get it.

32GB not bad for gaming system. But we've seen lots of problems with trying to use 4 memory sticks (assuming they provide two , safer to get two 32GB sticks now than have to worry about it later.

1TB SSD is very light these days. There are high end games that use 200GB on their own. Additional drives aren't too hard to install, but you only have so many M.2 slots, unless you don't mind SATA drives.

 

[derekullo]

If you are spending nearly $4000 on a computer and you aren't building it yourself you might as well get a name brand computer like Dell/Alienware with a longer than 1 year warranty.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/gam.../spd/alienware-aurora-r15-desktop/wdr15aur50h

13th Gen Intel® Core™ i9 13900KF
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4090
32GB, 2x16GB, DDR5, 4800MHz
1TB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)
1350 Watt Power supply ... 850 watt is laughably low for these parts lol

Of course the above can be upgraded to your needs ... for a price

 

[Why_Me]

That Asus Prime isn't going to handle that cpu.

 

[joestein514]

If you are spending nearly $4000 on a computer and you aren't building it yourself you might as well get a name brand computer like Dell/Alienware with a longer than 1 year warranty.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/gam.../spd/alienware-aurora-r15-desktop/wdr15aur50h

13th Gen Intel® Core™ i9 13900KF
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4090
32GB, 2x16GB, DDR5, 4800MHz
1TB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)
1350 Watt Power supply ... 850 watt is laughably low for these parts lol

Of course the above can be upgraded to your needs ... for a price

I would be more worried about what is in an Alienware PC than what is in these other pre-builts. Alienware PCs are an oven and poorly designed in general. I might be unsure about the Velstorm, but not about the Alienware.

 

[derekullo]

I would be more worried about what is in an Alienware PC than what is in these other pre-builts. Alienware PCs are an oven and poorly designed in general. I might be unsure about the Velstorm, but not about the Alienware.

At work (public library) we have 8 Alienware Area-51 R5 that have performed flawlessly since we bought them in January of 2019.

They are incredibly heavy at least for a desktop computer (about 60 pounds), but that is a good thing, much harder to steal!

We have a state contract with Dell so that is mostly all we buy.

 

[DSzymborski]

Meh, I'd rather a builder I know who is using aftermarket parts than a Dell. Too many of those Dells, even good ones, are upgrade dead ends.

A prebuilt like this at this budget calls for a true boutique builder. I'd be more comfortable with a builder with a long track record like Falcon NW.

 

[joestein514]

At work (public library) we have 8 Alienware Area-51 R5 that have performed flawlessly since we bought them in January of 2019.

They are incredibly heavy at least for a desktop computer (about 60 pounds), but that is a good thing, much harder to steal!

We have a state contract with Dell so that is mostly all we buy.

The Alienware computers have extremely poor airflow - resulting in components that are throttled due to heat or just die. I have had a alienware computers in the past and have had issues - not looking to repeat. Plus the amount of bloatware on a dell is enormous.

 

[joestein514]

So, one of my problems is headroom - I have a spot for my computer that has a little more than 19" of headroom. it does actually have 21" of space, but the hutch door comes down 2" past the rest of the hutch.

There are two other pre-builts I am looking at:

Corsair Vengance i7400 - $3949.
PC, i9-13900K, RTX 4090, 2TB M.2, 64GB DDR5-5600

As you can imagine - everything is by Corsair (other than motherboard, CPU and GPU). However, they don't tell you what the motherboard is- other than Z690 (I would prefer Z790). I saw someone bought it online and it looks like it is the ASUS Prime Z690-A. I called and asked them about what they use and they said - 'whatever they have on hand'. Gotta love the answer and the honesty.

The Other PC is:

PowerSpec G471 Gaming PC from Microcenter.

• Intel Core i9 13th Gen 13900KF 3.0GHz Processor
• Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
• G.Skill 32GB DDR5-5600 RAM
• 2TB Solid State Drive
• Intel 2.5GbE LAN
• 2x2 Wi-Fi 6E
• Bluetooth 5.3
• LianLi Galahad AIO Liquid Cooler

This PC is $3,299 but comes with a 4080 - rather than 4090. Everything in the PC looks pretty good, but they don't tell you the powersuppy, other than to say 850 watts - they dont mention if it is Bronze, gold, etc. I am pretty sure it is a powerspec power supply - which is not great.

 

[bill001g]

Do you live near a microcenter. They will put together and test a system for a fairly low cost.

You seem to have a basic list of parts you want I would go into the store and talk to a sales guy and get them to help you put together a list. Microcenter has lots of good deals you can only get by going in person, helps prevent the scalping.

Note be very sure you know why you want things. For example what exact feature do you want on a z790 that a z690 can't do. The cheaper z790 motherboard you have been looking at can not even use the feature like the extra m.2 slots that most people will never use.

 

[Lafong]

See how far you can go here

https://www.pugetsystems.com

Configure a Custom PC Workstation

Customize a Puget Systems workstation PC for your unique workflow. Our custom configuration tool lets you pick the parts and specs you want.

www.pugetsystems.com

 

[joestein514]

Do you live near a microcenter. They will put together and test a system for a fairly low cost.

You seem to have a basic list of parts you want I would go into the store and talk to a sales guy and get them to help you put together a list. Microcenter has lots of good deals you can only get by going in person, helps prevent the scalping.

Note be very sure you know why you want things. For example what exact feature do you want on a z790 that a z690 can't do. The cheaper z790 motherboard you have been looking at can not even use the feature like the extra m.2 slots that most people will never use.

I went to Microcenter today and are having them build a PC for me.

I got everything I wanted at a pretty fair price.

Hyte Y60 Case
i9-13900
RTX 4090 MSI SUPRIM water cooled
Gigabyte Z790 Aero G motherboard
360 MM Galahad AIO cooler
MSI 1000 watt 80+ gold powersupply
G Skill Trident 6400 DDR 5 16 X 2
WD Black 2TB SSD
Extra Fans & white sleeved cables


all for just under $4K.