Advice on new high end PC build

[Ulah]

How tech savvy are you? You ready to troubleshoot DDR5 and a brand new AMD Platform?

If you want a PC now, get a PC now but be aware that things are going to change in the future and you're no longer going to be on an absolute top spec computer and something that'll match your build will come in at cheaper. That being said, what are you going to use it for?

Additionally disregarding all of the issues with waiting vs buying now. Your build is okay... definitely consider a different motherboard depending on purpose or any specific set of requirements of the PC will be able to advise. Then that CPU cooler man... its decent for budget builds but not appropriate for something of this class.

I'd say I'm tech savvy, but my hardware research these days is focused on other types of hardware, so my knowledge of personal computers is limited at this point. If I only have two hours a day to myself, I'd rather spend it gaming or reading than tweaking my computer. I would rather pay someone to advise me or do those things for me. Have enough research to do as it is.

It will be used for:
Gaming
Several linux VM's for assessments (only start them when required)
Research

Thank you everyone for all the input. Different opinions \recommendations was exactly what I was looking for. any CPU cooler\mobo recommendations?

 

[Ulah]

I haven't tested it myself. I'm just gauging by the sources I've consulted.
But yea, I do agree that DDR5 is horribly expensive for any perceived gains.

Check this out

Thank you. I'll look into it.

 

[Ulah]

DDR5 is great. Rules:

1. Buy a Hynix kit. The Kingston 6000C40 is dirt cheap on the Kingston Takealot store.
2. Get a RAM fan.
3. Don't buy Asus.
4. Don't buy Gigabyte.

There, that's all you need to know.

You lost me at Hynix kit. LOL
I probably need someone to do this for me, but the consensus is to wait a few months. Know of anyone? lol
If I must then Ill do the research, but prefer not to. I just want max FPS on the best quality.

 

[Ulah]

Most of the kinks we dealt with will be ironed our with Raptor Lake and Zen 4 . The caveat is that ironing out those kinks could only be achieved through extra R&D, brute forcing more PCB layers, and having tighter QC tolerances with regards to the final PCB cut out. Do not expect X670E and Z790 boards to be cheap. Don't expect it at all. And further than that, do not ever expect D5-7000 out of anything in the R5000 range. It's just not going to happen. Maybe one day.

This is like a completely different language. You've just gone expert mode on me.

 

[Ulah]

To round it off with a basic guide:

• Buying 13900K/7950X - 420mm
• Buying 13700K/7900X - 360mm
• Buying 13600K/7800X - 280mm

I want DDR5-7000 to be daily'able:

• Wait for Hynix A-die kits ~ R7000-7500 for 2x16 when readily available
• Motherboard with no fewer than 10 PCB layers
• EVGA, MSI, or ASRock
• Active cooling, regardless of voltage, there's a power supply chip on the RAM stick and even if vendors start putting thermal pads on them, you'd need hectic case airflow to get away with it

OR:

• Get a good board
• Purchase a R5000-6000 Hynix M-die kit
• Learn to manually tune

Thanks. Want to check in with you again in a few months if you don't mind. Know of anyone that knows what they are doing with the cooling and tuning that can build my PC? As mentioned, just want max FPS and quality on games. Don't really care about having the best of a specific component.

 

[ThatGuyJD]

This is like a completely different language. You've just gone expert mode on me.

Wait until he starts sending you VNs about how DDR5... jk, love @affxct but he's the closest you're going to find to an expert you can talk to about it.

I'd say I'm tech savvy, but my hardware research these days is focused on other types of hardware, so my knowledge of personal computers is limited at this point. If I only have two hours a day to myself, I'd rather spend it gaming or reading than tweaking my computer. I would rather pay someone to advise me or do those things for me. Have enough research to do as it is.

It will be used for:
Gaming
Several linux VM's for assessments (only start them when required)
Research

Thank you everyone for all the input. Different opinions \recommendations was exactly what I was looking for. any CPU cooler\mobo recommendations?

Cpu cooler liquid freezer 2 360/420, the corsair elite capellix in 360/420 or the EK AIO in 360/420 is great too for your R/I9 class chip. With the LF2 being the best bet for AM4.
Would advise maybe waiting on deciding on one for AM5 right now as it could change but those three should still be safe options.
For LGA1700 corsair has an amazing mount on the elite capellix.

AM4 for all intents and purposes is dead. So wouldn't build on that now with AMD announcing AM5 products next week. Launch should be around end of September for chips and boards at least for the X670/e platform and the best 7600x, 77/800x, 7900x, 7950x. With 13th gen about a month later again. And the X3D parts for AMD April next year latest.

Seeing as you're pretty technical you should be fine on AM5 release but there are going to be issues, without a doubt just because it's a new platform. 13th gen should have less issues as 12th gen worked a lot of kinks out but is probably end of the line for the socket where AM5 should have at least 3 or 4 total generations on the socket.

 

[Ulah]

Wait until he starts sending you VNs about how DDR5... jk, love @affxct but he's the closest you're going to find to an expert you can talk to about it.


Cpu cooler liquid freezer 2 360/420, the corsair elite capellix in 360/420 or the EK AIO in 360/420 is great too for your R/I9 class chip. With the LF2 being the best bet for AM4.
Would advise maybe waiting on deciding on one for AM5 right now as it could change but those three should still be safe options.
For LGA1700 corsair has an amazing mount on the elite capellix.

AM4 for all intents and purposes is dead. So wouldn't build on that now with AMD announcing AM5 products next week. Launch should be around end of September for chips and boards at least for the X670/e platform and the best 7600x, 77/800x, 7900x, 7950x. With 13th gen about a month later again. And the X3D parts for AMD April next year latest.

Seeing as you're pretty technical you should be fine on AM5 release but there are going to be issues, without a doubt just because it's a new platform. 13th gen should have less issues as 12th gen worked a lot of kinks out but is probably end of the line for the socket where AM5 should have at least 3 or 4 total generations on the socket.

Thanks. This is fantastic information. After everyone's comments I now have a much better understanding of the wait for next-generation comments. Do you have any favorite hardware YouTube channels or websites? While I'm waiting, I might as well brush up on my knowledge. Do you buy from suppliers or from online stores? Which do you recommend?

 

[PsychoErtjie]

Thanks. This is fantastic information. After everyone's comments I now have a much better understanding of the wait for next-generation comments. Do you have any favorite hardware YouTube channels or websites? While I'm waiting, I might as well brush up on my knowledge. Do you buy from suppliers or from online stores? Which do you recommend?

Buy from these people

 

[Ulah]

Thanks. This is fantastic information. After everyone's comments I now have a much better understanding of the wait for next-generation comments. Do you have any favorite hardware YouTube channels or websites? While I'm waiting, I might as well brush up on my knowledge. Do you buy from suppliers or from online stores? Which do you recommend?

Thank you!

 

[ThatGuyJD]

Thanks. This is fantastic information. After everyone's comments I now have a much better understanding of the wait for next-generation comments. Do you have any favorite hardware YouTube channels or websites? While I'm waiting, I might as well brush up on my knowledge. Do you buy from suppliers or from online stores? Which do you recommend?

Gamers nexus YouTube is very good testing but information dense as is Hardware unboxed. GN should have a website with articles and techspot is Hardware unboxed's platform and they'll post reviews of products there that is basically just the video in text form so nice to just grab a quick overview again.

Then TechPowerUp has great article only reviews on most hardware.

For all things PSU related Aris from hardware busters, he also writes reviews for Tom's hardware among others. He's work is of such standard that intel has recognised his standards for PSUs in the new ATX spec alongside 80Plus.

Unfortunately standard tech reviewers are bad at ram. If you have wayyy too much time Buildzoid is the go to but like someone else describes him. He's just a stream of conscious so it's up to you to understand what he's saying when he's saying it. Same applies for motherboard and GPU power delivery focused stuff where Gigabyte gets him to give input on some of their motherboards... but not really what you're looking for. And @affxct would probably do a better job of explaining and he just so happens to have a youtube channel as well...

 

[ThatGuyJD]

Buy from these people

Good people's here. Personally I'm most likely to browse on Progenix.co.za but that's mostly because I just like his website the most.

 

[moedeez]

4. Do you have any favorite hardware YouTube channels or websites?

@affxct 's channel https://www.youtube.com/user/awesomenessDAIN1

 

[Ulah]

@affxct 's channel https://www.youtube.com/user/awesomenessDAIN1

Thanks. ThatguyJD also mentioned it, so I went and looked for it last night and found it.

 

[xplodinfart]

Whatever you do don't buy a new RTX 3090 Ti .... The end.

Why not?

 

[NI∀ƆOƆ‾⊥ᴚ∩ʞ]

@affxct 's channel https://www.youtube.com/user/awesomenessDAIN1

Subbed

 

[Eon]

Don't expect to buy anything other than a good 360 or a 420.

This is heavily brand and quality of cooler dependent. The Arctic Freezer II 280 puts most 360's to shame.

 

[ThatGuyJD]

This is heavily brand and quality of cooler dependent. The Arctic Freezer II 280 puts most 360's to shame.

Ehh while kinda true has no baring on the comment by @affxct due to the "good" inclusion, ie anything non Asetek. All the good AIOs perform very similarly. AF2 overperforms on AM4 compared to LGA1700 due to the flatness of the coldplate and the IHS on AM4 as opposed to convex shape of Intel CPUs, especially with the bending caused by ILM on LGA1700.

 

[dainluke]

This is heavily brand and quality of cooler dependent. The Arctic Freezer II 280 puts most 360's to shame.

I don't really know what the spread is like, but the Arctic coolers don't do as well when compared to a lot of other high-RPM setups. The InWin SR36 Pro I used to own definitely outperforms the Arctic 360. It makes absolute sense as well because the pump and fan speed combined with the sheer pump size explain a lot. The Arctic radiators are thicker, but have less fin density. For this reason, FrameChasers stopped defaulting to the LF II for his builds and recommendations.

At its core you have a point for sure, and you definitely can't be getting away with a bad AIO. The thing is, what constitutes bad comes from a lot of places. I said good assuming the actual tested capability and factoring in nuance. If one can't properly mount their LF II (realistic issue for Alder Lake setups), D5 training can break and cooling can be abysmal.

I had to attempt mounting the pump 5-6 times because I just couldn't get it screwed down evenly and the paste spread kept being bad. It genuinely was one of the most frustrating experiences ever because you sometimes don't know what you're doing wrong.

The Arctic series are definitely a solid lineup, but unless one is getting the 420, it's best to avoid them, and stick to the SR36 Pro or something like the Lian Li Galahad or EK AIO. Essentially for anything between a 5900X/12700K and up, you need 250-300W of cooling capacity (not factoring in paste spread and mounting pressure or die size). AMD chips are disproportionately hard to cool under heavy AVX loads because they have the chiplet design. Alder Lake is also fairly hard to cool because of how some P-cores are sandwiched into the package.

No matter how good, I just can't see one doing a 280 unless they were dead set on an undervolt. I guess I should specify that, but most 12900Ks do 1.28-1.3V AVX load voltage at stock. On a 25-30c day, that stock voltage will already land you at 90c+ running Linpack Xtreme 4GB at completely stock. That's with reference to what I've seen out of my SR36 Pro and my old H150i Elite LCD (also a very good AIO surprisingly).

For something like that 12900KS with its stock 5.2GHz all-core (similar to the K's 4.9), you can expect well over 300W at stock in Linpack Xtreme or y-cruncher due to the higher clock speeds. This will extend to actual heavy AVX workloads, but I like to reference stress tests because one should make sure their system isn't going to simply heat crash. A lot of KS users experience issues at stock because they can't prevent heat crashes at the stock 5.2GHz all-core.

When I say 360/420, I mean top of the charts - nothing less. Even then I'd say to buy a loop. I have had 3 of the highest performing desktop AIOs over the last few months and I still feel like I made an ignorant and poorly planned move to buy a 12900K. I simply didn't know what I was getting into with this level of heat output. The 10850K was deceptively easy to cool with my Waterforce X 360. The 13900K is a 24-core and the 7950X is on TSMC N5. Basically a 12900K with 50mV higher AVX load requirements + extra cores to sandwich one another further, and a harder-to-cool version of the 5950X with even less area for heat dissipation, never mind the incumbent 7950X3D. Buy a loop - absolutely. Gone are the days of 360s being overkill.

 

[th33machin3]

If you're intention is gaming why not consider the 5800x3d? Get a more medium end b550 mobo, standard 3200mhz ram and flip the cpu ram and mobo when next gens arrive?

 

[Eon]

If you're intention is gaming why not consider the 5800x3d? Get a more medium end b550 mobo, standard 3200mhz ram and flip the cpu ram and mobo when next gens arrive?

I actually did something similar to this. I was still on an 8700K and wanted something now while waiting for DDR5 to stabilise and the new gen to come in so I got a great deal on a 5900x with x570 combo on the forum. I threw on the AF II 280 cooler and have been very very happy. Once DDR5 is stable then I will look again.

 

[Ulah]

Thank you for all the advice I received. Some really good advice and special thanks to @EKD Online (Pty) Ltd for reaching out and building my machine.

I ended up going for the Ryzen 7000 build with an RTX 4090. I can now play Cyberpunk 2077 in 4k with Ray tracing on!
Only issue I had was my card was a bit too big and I had to remove one of my side mounted fans. Am I limited to 144hz on 4k since it only has a DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.1? I should be good in most games. My monitor supports 240hz, but would only really use that in CS maybe.

 

[Ulah]

ANONYMOUS - Filemail

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[Ulah]

Pic of the build from EKD online.

 

[moedeez]

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Wowsah, she's a beaut. I see you needed some citrus to get your electrolytes.
I"m just gonna critique 1 thing though, that cable management is killing me, not in the case....

 

[Stray]

nevermind, lol

 

[Ulah]

rofl yeah had to take the cables out a couple of times while I was setting it up. It is tucked behind the screen now, but still need some work.

 

[Ulah]

nevermind, lol

hehe, no worries man. We all have our opinions. Its fine to feel its a waste of money. We are all entitled to have our own opinions and feeldings.
To answer your questions. I do have kids yes and we just came from a vacation Some people buy expensive cars although they never drive fast. I've been driving a 1.4 polo for most of my life. Not my thing. Gaming at 144fps or hz on 4k for most single player games is something I would rather spend money on.

Thats the great thing about people. We are all different and reason differently.

 

[Stray]

I didn't mean it in a bad way at all,

Its just become a waste of money for me, and I have had top end PC's all my life, I was a big part of the LAN in cape town called Organized Chaos gaming always been a massive part of my life, and wanting the best was also a big part of PC's for me since I had kids, its become a very pretty ornament.

Your setup looks amazing tho! I have a Dell U4919DW that I use for work, and that's fine, but How do you find gaming on something that big?

 

[Ulah]

I didn't mean it in a bad way at all,

Its just become a waste of money for me, and I have had top end PC's all my life, I was a big part of the LAN in cape town called Organized Chaos gaming always been a massive part of my life, and wanting the best was also a big part of PC's for me since I had kids, its become a very pretty ornament.

Your setup looks amazing tho! I have a Dell U4919DW that I use for work, and that's fine, but How do you find gaming on something that big?

I lived for those OC Lans when they just started. There in milnerton right? Stopped going when it moved.

I wouldn't get this rig if I was playing cs, dota or were running a 1080p monitor. I play gfx intense single player games mostly.

Comparing this rig to my 3080 rig, it is something else. I've never been able to play on ultra settings at 144fps. It's a sight to behold. I'm going to replay some of them for sure. I don't think in 15 years I've ever been able to do that come to think of it. I can't describe it. You have to experience the difference.