New build for 1440p gaming

[johnnypiper]

Hi all, I'm looking to build a new system for 1440p gaming. I'll be playing mostly whatever comes out on Game Pass and some older titles I have on my Steam account. I don't really have a budget but don't want to go crazy. Maybe around $1500-1800ish. I do need everything but a case including keyboard, mouse and monitor. Thinking along the lines of a 27 inch 144hz monitor. I can wait on the monitor and use a small 24 inch tv for a week or so then buy a monitor. I have a Lian Li Lancool 2 case incoming along with 5 Noctua NF-A14 fans 3 for the case, 2 for the heatsink. I'd like to overclock too just for fun and will need a good cooler that will support 2-140mm fans. Haven't built a system in around 8 years. Last build was an AMD 955BE build. Pretty much looking for a bang for my buck build. Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[trents]

As far as the cooler goes, are you open to AIO water or do you insist on air? https://www.newegg.com/evga-liquid-cooling-system/p/N82E16835288008 about $110

If your want to overclock but still get lots of bang for the buck the I would suggest the Ryzen 3600 for the CPU. about $175

The GPU will be the most expensive component. Maybe a GTX 2070. https://www.newegg.com/msi-geforce-...tx 2070&cm_re=gtx_2070-_-14-137-504-_-Product about $400

16-32gb of DDR4 3600 RAM. GSKill tends to offer the best compatibility with Ryzen systems. GSkill Platinum Z would be a good choice. 16gb is plenty for gaming. https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820232728 $100. You'd want 32 gb for video editing if you do that.

PSU. https://www.newegg.com/evga-supernova-g3-series-220-g3-0650-y1-650w/p/N82E16817438094 $138

Motherboard: https://www.newegg.com/msi-mpg-x570-gaming-edge-wifi/p/N82E16813144261 about $200

System drive: 1TB m.2 NVME https://www.newegg.com/western-digital-blue-1tb/p/N82E16820250092 about $130

Windows 10 Pro OEM: https://www.urcdkeys.com/ about $17.50


Approximate total of $1270.50 pre tax USA dollars.

 

[johnnypiper]

Thanks trents! I have been looking at the 3600 and 2070 combo. Seems pretty solid Any advantage to go with the 3700x? It's like $100 more but have heard good things about it. Haven't been able to decide on the motherboard. I don't need wifi but would like solid VRM. Was looking at the Asus Prime X570-P for a budget solution or the Gigabyte Aorus Elite. For PSU, are Corsair still really good? I saw a RM750x on amazon for 130ish. I have no problem with the EVGA you linked but the Corsair is a bit cheaper.... I'm cool with using AIO, just don't know the latest and greatest. I had a Corsair H100 on my 955BE build. Sadly I lost all my computer equipment about 5 years ago so don't have anything to carry over.

 

[trents]

I edited and added som compoents for a more complete list. Since my total came out considerably less than your low budget figure, go for a higher end Ryzen CPU and/or more memory.

Corsair still makes good PSUs but go for something better than their CX series. Most on this forum recommend EVGA.

All AIO coolers with same radiator and fan size will perform within a few degrees of one another. The biggest differential will be due to fan power (and noise, accordingly).

I am recommending MSI motherboards for Ryzen since it seems to me MSI has done the best job of working out RAM compatibility issues in the Ryzen platform. But there are a lot of good choices for motherboards for this platform. VRM considerations seem not as important as they used to be for overclocking like it was in the old days. The Ryzen (and newer Intels) will fight you to stay within the CPU TDP set by the manufacturer. There is some real benefit to overclocking the non X Ryzens since their clocks are set lower from the factory. With the X Ryzens, however, it is a different story. They come from the factory pretty much topped out and many of us don't even bother with trying to overclock them anymore. Just not much to gain.

Yes, if you can fit it in the budget, go for the $3700x and don't bother to spend a bunch on the motherboard since it won't overclock much anyway.

 

[johnnypiper]

Thanks again, trents! If there isn't any sense in overclocking the 3700x, I might as well stick with a 3600 and the AIO for the fun of the overclocking. Will the vanilla 2070 be able to overclock comparable to the 2070 Super or would it be better to spend the $500 on the Super? Looks like EVGA is using Seasonic PSUs now? That's pretty sweet. I remember Seasonic being the very best.

 

[trents]

Thanks again, trents! If there isn't any sense in overclocking the 3700x, I might as well stick with a 3600 and the AIO for the fun of the overclocking. Will the vanilla 2070 be able to overclock comparable to the 2070 Super or would it be better to spend the $500 on the Super? Looks like EVGA is using Seasonic PSUs now? That's pretty sweet. I remember Seasonic being the very best.

What we typically find in overclocking the Ryzen 3xxx series is that we cannot reach Turbo speed on all cores. So, for instance, if Turbo is 4.4 ghz then we might be able to reach 4.2 on all cores. Thus, overclocking will give some modest benefit in benchmarks and applications that can efficiently utilize as many cores as you throw at them (like Cinebench or good rendering software) but games may actually suffer since games depend heavily on per core performance and most games don't use more than six cores. The non X Ryzens have a considerably lower base clock frequency and do benefit from overclocking, at least for general computing as opposed to games. AMD has put a lot of sophisticated power management technology in place in the Ryzen series and it's just hard to improve on it.

I'm not big on overclocking GPUs. I've read too many horror stories of people frying their expensive GPU trying to squeeze a few more frames out of it through overclocking. For my money, I'd sped the extra $100 and get the super.

I think it's fair to say that EVGA is what Seasonic used to be as far as being the "go to" brand for PC enthusiasts and do it your selfers. But Corsair, EVGA and Seasonic all make great PSU's. But they all now make some budget-oriented not so great ones as well.

 

[johnnypiper]

Okay, then I'd be better off with the 3700x? Would it be beneficial then to go Intel for a 9700k? It's quite a bit more money but you are saying clock speeds are going to be more important for gaming. Just not sure if that would be worth adding another $70 but you can get the 9700k to 5GHz....

 

[trents]

I would get the 3700k over the 3600.

The 9700k will give you slightly better game performance but cannot match the 3700k in well-multi-threaded tasks. Depends on what your priorities are. I would also point out that you may get better overclocking from the 8700k as opposed to the 9700k.


Edit: Have you checked the prices of a 9700k v. the 3700x? In the first post you state you were going for bang for the buck. I would also point out that the socket used by the LGA 1151 socket for 9th generation Intels appears to be end of the road.

Edit 2: Another thing to consider is that as time goes on, games are beginning coded to take advantage of more cores and threads. Since this is the direction CPU architecture is taking, game coders are falling into step with it.

 

[johnnypiper]

Intel was just a thought. I'm here to ask advice and you know much more than I do I'll grab a 3700x. If there isn't any sense in overclocking it, I'll likely just stick with the stock cooler on it. Any advantage other than the video editing for 32gb of RAM? Not really planning on doing any video editing. That would involve getting a camera setup and such. Could be fun and maybe something to think about down the road.

 

[trents]

You can always add more RAM later if you want. No particular advantage to having more than 16gb of RAM for games and general computing. So-called, "creative content" computing like video editing benefits from more.

AMD has so engineered the Ryzen series such that voltage and frequency (and so, performance also) adjusts to cooling power, to some extent. So what I'm saying is that the stock cooler is sufficient to protect the CPU from damage but you may see some throttling with it under heavy load and the cooler fan may also be objectionably loud. But I use the term "throttling" in an unofficial way to refer to the fact that higher temps will reduce the amount of turboing time. So what you would see is, for instance, if you ran the Cinebench R20 benchmark, is somewhat better scores with good aftermarket cooling than you would with the stock cooler.

But it's your money. And you can always change the cooling solution later.

 

[johnnypiper]

Gotcha. So the AIO will help out even at stock. I'll put that on the list. I found an EVGA Super KO which I didn't even know existed and it's about the same price as the regular Super. What do you think about this motherboard since I'm not going to really be overclocking? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T4M4XPG/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
I'm probably going to look for some non-RGB RAM but not sure. The case has RGB but can be set to just one color. Would that be the same for the RAM? I'm not too keen on the whole Christmas tree thing going on in my computer

 

[trents]

The MSI X570-A PRO Motherboard will do just as well as the one I linked originally but it doesn't have built-in Wife. Really, that's the only major difference. In fact, I almost recommended that one originally.

Yeah, I'm not much on RGB bling either. Don't blame you there. I would still stay with GSkill for compatibility sake, however.

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007611 601349177 601203950 600006072 50008476These have the coveted Samsung B die chips which have the reputation of being overclockable and also the most compatible with AMD. Actually, however, any of the Ripjaws V series will probably work well of the Trident Z series as well these days since the motherboard manufacturers have improved compatibility across the board. I would stay away from Corsair RAM and the off brands like OLOy, at least at this point, on the AMD Ryzen platform.

 

[johnnypiper]

Cool. I don't need the wifi anyway. I'll be running a cable from my router. The 2070 Super KO recommends at least a 650w PSU. Should I go with this one instead of the 650W EVGA? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079HGN5QS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

I'm probably looking at close to a $2k cost for the build now... I'm at about $1400 plus tax and shipping right now. A little more than I was expecting but I'm going to need a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Looking at a 27inch Acer Predator for the monitor. Not sure if that is overkill for the setup or not

 

[trents]

GPU manufacturers commonly pad the wattage requirements for their video cards because they realize many people will cheap out on some no name PSU that inflates the wattage in the advertisements. Typically, the no name PSU manufacturers supply a "peak" not a "sustained" wattage figure. A quality 650 watt PSU should power any system with only one GPU, no matter what that GPU is. I believe all the experienced builders on this forum would tell you the same thing. I bet if you were to put a kilowatt meter and measure the entire watt draw of this planned system at the wall under heavy load you would not exceed 500 watts.


Edit: In fact, you should get one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Century-Ener...id=1586827055&sprefix=kilowatt,aps,207&sr=8-8

 

[johnnypiper]

Well I ordered all my parts this morning. Total cost ~$2300 with tax and shipping including the case and fans. I went way off budget but that's how it goes...

CPU: 3700X
Cooler: EVGA CLC 360 (went with this over the 280 because it was $100 after rebate)
Motherboard: Gigabyte x570 Aorus Elite
GPU: Sapphire Pulse 5700xt (came with Resident Evil 3 and Monster Hunter World)
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws 3600 CL16 (CL16 and possibly Samsung B-die?)
SSD: Crucial P1 1TB m.2 ($10 cheaper than the WD)
PSU: Corsair RM750x
Monitor: LG 32GK650F-B
Keyboard: Corsair K70
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder Elite

Hopefully I'll be starting the build this weekend. I think the parts will be here before the case does. I ordered the case approximately a week ago and it just shipped yesterday from CA (I'm in NY). I'm sure to be asking lots of questions about getting the timings and all down. I spent a lot of tonight setting up a flash drive with Windows 10. This laptop is incredibly slow...

trents, I want to thank you sincerely for taking the time guiding me on parts. I know I didn't choose much of what you recommended but I had to put some personal flair into it. I was all over the place on graphic card.... I ended up going with the 5700xt because of price/performance and I've always really been an ATI guy at heart. My first card was a 9800Pro way back when while I was running a 2500m Barton chip on my NF7. That was a really cool experience and I ended up trading that rig for a car. Anyway... now for the wait....

 

[Zerileous]

Looks like a great system, trents for the great advice! I think you'll like the lancool 2. I also think you picked one of the finer 5700XT models in the Pulse. Please update us when it all comes together!

I to cut my teeth on a similar system, was my first gaming system really, the barton and NF7-s. I remember you could set the FSB to a higher setting (since those CPUs had a locked multiplier) and the board would automatically set appropriate dividers for I/O and memory, recognizing the chip as a 3200 . Also had a bios flash for turning the 9800Pro into an XT. System is still sitting in my garage, now in then I ponder seeing if I can fire it up again.

 

[johnnypiper]

Looks like a great system, trents for the great advice! I think you'll like the lancool 2. I also think you picked one of the finer 5700XT models in the Pulse. Please update us when it all comes together!

I to cut my teeth on a similar system, was my first gaming system really, the barton and NF7-s. I remember you could set the FSB to a higher setting (since those CPUs had a locked multiplier) and the board would automatically set appropriate dividers for I/O and memory, recognizing the chip as a 3200 . Also had a bios flash for turning the 9800Pro into an XT. System is still sitting in my garage, now in then I ponder seeing if I can fire it up again.

I almost want to say that the 2500m had an unlocked multiplier. It's been at least 15 years so I could be wrong. I do remember having an all copper Thermalright heatsink SP-97? on it with some Delta fans throughout the case. That thing was loud lol.

 

[trents]

Johnny, when you get your new rig assembled please create a signature so that the components list of your rig will travel with every post. To do that, go to Settings and then look down the left side of the page for "Edit Signature."

 

[johnnypiper]

Johnny, when you get your new rig assembled please create a signature so that the components list of your rig will travel with every post. To do that, go to Settings and then look down the left side of the page for "Edit Signature."

Will do. Everything shipped today and it's looking like Monday for the build. I was really hoping it would ship yesterday for a Saturday delivery but no dice

 

[johnnypiper]

Looks like the parts left Buffalo a couple hours ago and I'm about an hour or so south of Syracuse sooo.... I might get lucky and have a Saturday delivery *fingers crossed*. The case won't be here til Monday or Tuesday but at least I can test and make sure everything is working.