Need Advice on New Build

[cjb4]

My wife always gets my hand me down rig and she has been complaining about her current rig so time to build. I haven't stayed current since 2021 so would apriciate advice on my proposed build outlined below. My use is gaming, work, and just playing around. I Always build more than I need, I just like the latest (or almost the latest).

10/1/2021 Build		New Build
Intel Core i9-11900K		Intel Core i9-14900K 3.2 GHz 24
Corsair H115i 104.7 CFM Liquid		Phanteks GLACIER ONE 360D30 64.3 CFM
ROG Strix Z590-A Gaming WiFi 6 LGA 1200 ATX		Asus ROG STRIX Z790-A GAMING WIFI II ATX LGA1700
G.Skill TridentZ Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3200		G.Skill Ripjaws S5 48 GB (2 x 24 GB) DDR5-6400 CL36
Samsung 980 PRO 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen4		Crucial T700 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME SSD
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB FTW Gaming ACX 3.0		Asus DUAL OC Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB
Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX ATX Mid Tower Case		Phanteks XT PRO ULTRA ATX Mid Tower
EVGA SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum		Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1000 W 80+
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit		Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit

Thanks in advance
cjb4

 

[unsafesteagle]

Review your configuration options with Intel Based Systems and PCIe 5.0 Storage.

 

[Woomack]

I wouldn't get a 6400 CL36 kit when there are so many 7200+ CL34 around at a reasonable price.
I also wouldn't buy the Crucial T700 because it costs much more than PCIe 4.0 x4 options and is not really faster in most tasks. If you want a PCIe 5.0 SSD, then get something 14GB/s like Crucial T705, which also runs cooler for some reason (I have no idea how, but it did in my tests).
Btw. that ASUS mobo doesn't support M.2 PCIe 5.0.
RX7800XT is a mistake. It's "just right" but heats up, uses a lot of power, and isn't really so fast for the money. It's better to pay some more for the RTX4070 Super, which is significantly cooler and performs better, or grab the RX7900 GRE, which is faster and costs almost as much as the RX7800XT. I also wouldn't recommend the RX7900 GRE, but at least it's faster than the RX7800XT.
As much as you may not like Win11, Win10 is a mistake as a new OS, too (unless you reuse an older key).
I know there are Intel people and AMD people, but I wouldn't spend my money on Intel right now. AMD performs the same, uses less power, and heats up less. New AMD CPUs will be available in the next month and will offer much better performance, while the new Intel will be available in October/November.

 

[cjb4]

Thanks Woomack, very helpful. I have always built with intel, but now might be the time to switch. Maybe wait for the new stuff next month. Where is the best source for early reviews? Here?

 

[Woomack]

There is no problem with processors, as we already know they will perform 10%+ better than the current generation.
Most motherboard reviews are pretty bad on most websites, and typically, you can get similar info from manufacturers' product pages. It's still good to browse some reviews to find out if anyone had early-product issues. You can check Tom's Hardware, as I know that Joe does more detailed reviews with PCB descriptions.
I will probably get some motherboards for review, but I wouldn't count on many models. Because a motherboard review takes so much time, I highly doubt that anything will be close to the premiere date. Reviewing is not my full-time job, so I must balance my free time.

The main problem with early reviews is that problems appear up to 3-4 months after the premiere, and sadly, manufacturers use us as beta testers. Usually, there are no significant issues, but we know problems like turned-around capacitors on ASUS motherboards that started to be a loud problem over a month after release.

Try to calculate something like:
- Ryzen 9950X
- Mid-shelf, but still higher series motherboard
- 48GB DDR5-6400 CL30/32 or 7200-7600 CL34
- RTX4070 Super from a trusted brand like ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI
- If you pick RTX4070 Super, then you don't need more than 650-750W PSU, but I recommend something at least 80+ Gold
- I recommend 2x PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs, like 1 TB for the OS + 2 TB for games/other programs (anything TLC with DRAM will be good, like Crucial T500 ... there are many good options). It will probably cost less than a 2TB PCIe 5.0 x4 SSD. If you still want PCIe 5.0, then Crucial T705 or Corsair MP700 Pro SE are verified to be problem-free and perform well. Both are available without heatsinks at a slightly lower price, and I'm sure that PCIe 5.0 slots on any new motherboard will have large heatsinks.
- Case+cooler like you want. I like other brands than Phanteks, but it doesn't matter much. If I'm right, then their AIOs are based on Asetek, and the last gens perform well and are quiet.

 

[cjb4]

Great stuff Womack, thanks. My last 2 builds have been with Phanteks, the first when they were new and innovative. What’s new an interesting/innovative?

 

[infinitevalence]

My wife always gets my hand me down rig and she has been complaining about her current rig so time to build. I haven't stayed current since 2021 so would apriciate advice on my proposed build outlined below. My use is gaming, work, and just playing around. I Always build more than I need, I just like the latest (or almost the latest).

10/1/2021 Build		New Build
Intel Core i9-11900K		Intel Core i9-14900K 3.2 GHz 24
Corsair H115i 104.7 CFM Liquid		Phanteks GLACIER ONE 360D30 64.3 CFM
ROG Strix Z590-A Gaming WiFi 6 LGA 1200 ATX		Asus ROG STRIX Z790-A GAMING WIFI II ATX LGA1700
G.Skill TridentZ Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3200		G.Skill Ripjaws S5 48 GB (2 x 24 GB) DDR5-6400 CL36
Samsung 980 PRO 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen4		Crucial T700 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME SSD
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB FTW Gaming ACX 3.0		Asus DUAL OC Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB
Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX ATX Mid Tower Case		Phanteks XT PRO ULTRA ATX Mid Tower
EVGA SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum		Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1000 W 80+
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit		Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit

Thanks in advance
cjb4

Do you have to stay intel? Right now the current Intel generations really kinda suck. They run hotter, they run slower, they cost as much or more, and e-cores are almost worthless.

also, AMD is releasing Zen 5 next month and Intel wont have anything even in the ballpark at that point.

Part List - AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Radeon RX 7800 XT, Phanteks XT PRO ULTRA ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker

Part List - AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Radeon RX 7800 XT, Phanteks XT PRO ULTRA ATX Mid Tower

pcpartpicker.com

I grabbed more or less the same parts, but made a few different choices, but its all about the same just with much higher CPU performance.

Post magically merged: Jun 28, 2024

There is no problem with processors, as we already know they will perform 10%+ better than the current generation.
Most motherboard reviews are pretty bad on most websites, and typically, you can get similar info from manufacturers' product pages. It's still good to browse some reviews to find out if anyone had early-product issues. You can check Tom's Hardware, as I know that Joe does more detailed reviews with PCB descriptions.
I will probably get some motherboards for review, but I wouldn't count on many models. Because a motherboard review takes so much time, I highly doubt that anything will be close to the premiere date. Reviewing is not my full-time job, so I must balance my free time.

The main problem with early reviews is that problems appear up to 3-4 months after the premiere, and sadly, manufacturers use us as beta testers. Usually, there are no significant issues, but we know problems like turned-around capacitors on ASUS motherboards that started to be a loud problem over a month after release.

Try to calculate something like:
- Ryzen 9950X
- Mid-shelf, but still higher series motherboard
- 48GB DDR5-6400 CL30/32 or 7200-7600 CL34
- RTX4070 Super from a trusted brand like ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI
- If you pick RTX4070 Super, then you don't need more than 650-750W PSU, but I recommend something at least 80+ Gold
- I recommend 2x PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs, like 1 TB for the OS + 2 TB for games/other programs (anything TLC with DRAM will be good, like Crucial T500 ... there are many good options). It will probably cost less than a 2TB PCIe 5.0 x4 SSD. If you still want PCIe 5.0, then Crucial T705 or Corsair MP700 Pro SE are verified to be problem-free and perform well. Both are available without heatsinks at a slightly lower price, and I'm sure that PCIe 5.0 slots on any new motherboard will have large heatsinks.
- Case+cooler like you want. I like other brands than Phanteks, but it doesn't matter much. If I'm right, then their AIOs are based on Asetek, and the last gens perform well and are quiet.

Compared to the 7800xt the 4070 Super is a poor choice, it costs more, AND has less vram for only about 20w better power. For the same $599 of the 4070 Super they could get a 7900 GRE and OC the crap out of it Other than that, agree with lots of your other suggestions. I would add that PCIe 4.0 is already overkill for NVME, so even 2x 2+TB on PCIe 3.0 is better than a single PCIe 5.0 NVME.

 

[cjb4]

Good points on the GPU, should have done a bit more research. And yes may be time to switch to AMD.

 

[infinitevalence]

Good points on the GPU, should have done a bit more research. And yes may be time to switch to AMD.

Asking questions and for help is a type of research.

 

[Woomack]

Compared to the 7800xt the 4070 Super is a poor choice, it costs more, AND has less vram for only about 20w better power. For the same $599 of the 4070 Super they could get a 7900 GRE and OC the crap out of it Other than that, agree with lots of your other suggestions. I would add that PCIe 4.0 is already overkill for NVME, so even 2x 2+TB on PCIe 3.0 is better than a single PCIe 5.0 NVME.

RTX4070 Super is about the same as RX7900GRE as long as you won't use RT. Then AMD cards get destroyed by lower Nvidia models. However, RTX4070 Super heats up significantly less and uses 100W+ less on average in 3D. You can't really ignore ~170W vs ~320W in games ( or ~280W if you look at the RX7800XT). Don't look at the TDP as it's far from reality.
Nvidia has better texture compression. It doesn't matter it has 12GB when it handles everything the same as 16GB AMD cards.
I was reviewing Gigabyte RX7900 GRE, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone over RTX4070 Super.

 

[Flamethrower1972]

My wife always gets my hand me down rig and she has been complaining about her current rig so time to build. I haven't stayed current since 2021 so would apriciate advice on my proposed build outlined below. My use is gaming, work, and just playing around. I Always build more than I need, I just like the latest (or almost the latest).

10/1/2021 Build		New Build
Intel Core i9-11900K		Intel Core i9-14900K 3.2 GHz 24
Corsair H115i 104.7 CFM Liquid		Phanteks GLACIER ONE 360D30 64.3 CFM
ROG Strix Z590-A Gaming WiFi 6 LGA 1200 ATX		Asus ROG STRIX Z790-A GAMING WIFI II ATX LGA1700
G.Skill TridentZ Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3200		G.Skill Ripjaws S5 48 GB (2 x 24 GB) DDR5-6400 CL36
Samsung 980 PRO 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen4		Crucial T700 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME SSD
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB FTW Gaming ACX 3.0		Asus DUAL OC Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB
Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX ATX Mid Tower Case		Phanteks XT PRO ULTRA ATX Mid Tower
EVGA SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum		Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1000 W 80+
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit		Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit

Thanks in advance
cjb4

The new build is a hell of a rig.

 

[infinitevalence]

RTX4070 Super is about the same as RX7900GRE as long as you won't use RT. Then AMD cards get destroyed by lower Nvidia models. However, RTX4070 Super heats up significantly less and uses 100W+ less on average in 3D. You can't really ignore ~170W vs ~320W in games ( or ~280W if you look at the RX7800XT). Don't look at the TDP as it's far from reality.
Nvidia has better texture compression. It doesn't matter it has 12GB when it handles everything the same as 16GB AMD cards.
I was reviewing Gigabyte RX7900 GRE, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone over RTX4070 Super.

HWUB saw much less difference in power use, but i wont discount that the 4070 super is the more efficient of the two.

 

[Woomack]

HWUB saw much less difference in power use, but i wont discount that the 4070 super is the more efficient of the two.

I saw it on my test rig. I don't have to browse the web for other people's results. I wish AMD cards were competitive overall, but they aren't. I was really disappointed about the RX7900 GRE, which is still a better option than the RX7800XT. In general, it performs well. It handles all games at acceptable FPS ... unless you want to use RT, as it's closer to the RTX4070 than the Super. So price/performance seems fine ... however, at auto, the RX7900 GRE peaks at 370W+ spin fans at 3k RPM, and is really loud. I'm talking about the 3-fan solution with a large heatsink. There is barely any gain from OC. No one says about the memory OC bug in these cards and some other things. AMD is supposed to fix it with the latest drivers, but it often ends on a green screen.
As much as Nvidia options are overpriced, AMD options feel like a desperate move to fit the price tag. I wait for the next generation, but right now, it's a mistake unless you don't care about the heat and noise and don't plan on using RT.
We are at the spot which is really annoying for anyone who is planning on a new and expensive PC. The current generation is already old, and we must wait 6-8 months for the new one. It's hard to recommend anything. With all the options in stores, it's better to get the RTX4070 Super or just wait.

 

[infinitevalence]

I don't ignore RT results but until most games people want to play require or have a massive image quality improvement from it I see it as something nice to have if it's free or all things equal.

And unlike vram RT won't get better with age. So while having a bigger buffer will let me run the same card for 3-5 years the speed that RT is evolving means today's cores won't run games any better in the near future.

It's far more likely that a person upgrading today is going to get a 1440p or 4k screen before the bulk of their games get RT support.

The power, heat, and noise is a vary good point and it's possible that you got a bad test sample or that others got better but if I saw the same difference you did I would come to a similar conclusion. Doubly because I don't turn off my computers so idle draw matters to me.

There were times where Nvidia earned the default choice but right now the gap in raster performance, vram, and price has me leaning AMD for nearly all but top end and maybe power limited applications.

 

[cjb4]

What are the down sides to purchasing and building an AMD system now with all components and installing the Zen 5 when it is available? A mobo firmware upgrade for sure, but any other unknowns?

 

[Woomack]

What are the down sides to purchasing and building an AMD system now with all components and installing the Zen 5 when it is available? A mobo firmware upgrade for sure, but any other unknowns?

It looks like nothing. You only have to update BIOS for new CPUs, and it's already available for a few weeks.
Somehow, I thought that AMD would release motherboards together with CPUs, but this generation, they made a surprise, and we have to wait for new mobos until about October. Even if some models will be available earlier, then not all of them, and we can expect problems with early BIOS releases or other things.
I don't get why, but AMD always fails premieres of new CPUs or motherboards. Regarding CPUs, I mean they provided BIOS to their partners too late multiple times, and not all motherboards had updates on time. There were cases when brands like ASRock had two weeks to prepare BIOS for all their models, so of course, they only provided a basic version without further adjustments. New motherboards are ready for a few months, but I bet we will be "beta testers" again, so current models seem a safer bet until the end of this year.

 

[cjb4]

Thanks Woomack, guess I proceed.

 

[cjb4]

Would this work as a placholder build for the coming Ryzen 9950X?

CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor
CPU Cooler	NZXT Kraken 360 78.02 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard
Memory	TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 48 GB (2 x 24 GB) DDR5-7200 CL34 Memory
Storage	Crucial T705 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
	Crucial T700 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Video Card	Gigabyte GAMING OC V2 GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card
Case	Phanteks XT View ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply	Super Flower Leadex VI Platinum PRO 1000 W 80+ Platinum

 

[Flamethrower1972]

Would this work as a placholder build for the coming Ryzen 9950X?

CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor
CPU Cooler	NZXT Kraken 360 78.02 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard
Memory	TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 48 GB (2 x 24 GB) DDR5-7200 CL34 Memory
Storage	Crucial T705 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
	Crucial T700 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Video Card	Gigabyte GAMING OC V2 GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card
Case	Phanteks XT View ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply	Super Flower Leadex VI Platinum PRO 1000 W 80+ Platinum

Very nice but I would change one thing the GPU to a 4070 Super or the TI IMO.

 

[Woomack]

Would this work as a placholder build for the coming Ryzen 9950X?

CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor
CPU Cooler	NZXT Kraken 360 78.02 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard
Memory	TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 48 GB (2 x 24 GB) DDR5-7200 CL34 Memory
Storage	Crucial T705 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
	Crucial T700 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Video Card	Gigabyte GAMING OC V2 GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card
Case	Phanteks XT View ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply	Super Flower Leadex VI Platinum PRO 1000 W 80+ Platinum

The 9k series will be here in 2 weeks, and I see that the 9700X is already in some stores (there were leaks about the prices of this specific model). It's weird that AMD already listed it before the official premiere - click. Of course, you can go with the 9950X.
I don't know about the recent TUF series motherboards. Somehow, they feel like budget products. Maybe it's just me, as I can't see people complaining. It supports BIOS flashback, so you are covered if it won't start with the new CPU (you can update BIOS without the CPU).
I would change SSDs. This motherboard doesn't support 2x PCIe 5.0 SSDs, and they are a waste of money anyway. If you want, then pick Crucial T705 for games and Crucial T500 for OS and everything else. Crucial T700 is worse than T705 in everything. For some reason, it even heats up more, even though it uses almost the same components (at least it was this way in my tests).
RTX4070 Super is significantly faster than the RTX4070 and doesn't cost much more. Switch SSDs to PCIe 4.0 and you will cover the graphics card difference.
You don't need 1kW PSU for anything. I run a stronger setup on a 750W PSU. So again, you can save some on the PSU price.