Need Build Suggestions

[Mr. Fri]

My son is building a new rig and needs some advice. His budget is $1500-$1800. He wants something for gaming and possiablly for a future VR setup. This forum has always given me great advice so I want to ask for help.

His first thoughts on a configuration would be the following, but I think he could do better.
Intel i7-12700k 3.6 GHz 12 core processor
Asus ROG STRIX Z690-E Gaming Wifi ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III A-RGB 48.82 CFM cooler
Asus Dual OC GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB video card
Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 memory
Samsung 980 Pro 2TB M.2-2280 PCle 4.0x4 NVME solid state drive
EVGA SuperNOVA 850 GT 850W 80+ Gold Certified ATX power supply
NZXT H9 Flow ATX Mid Tower Case

OK, go at it and let me know could be better. I'm not up on the latest gear.

(For laughs I left in my old rig configuation in my sig. Back in the day it was da bomb!)

 

[don256us]

I've been partial to AMD CPUs for a while now. I would go with a newer generation than Intel's 12th gen. 13th and 14th are already on the market but there are complaints about stability, socket retention and those awful e-cores.

AMD's 9000 series is set to go on sale and rumors are that they will be easy on pricing. This will, of course, change the MB and RAM recommendations but otherwise, it's a good selection. I currently run a 3000 series and 5000 series CPUs and they are very good for me. People seem to like the 7000 series too.

NOTE: Pay close attention to the naming schemes. They have changed and are making it more difficult to decipher old from new CPUs.

I have a personal preference to have the OS on a different drive from my data. I would get a smaller NVMe for the OS to go along with the 2TB NVMe. But that's just the way I like to do it. I couldn't say that it is actually a better idea.

 

[Woomack]

As mentioned, the Ryzen 9000 is a good option, even one of the lower chips (it should be available in a week or something).
There are plenty of good motherboards. Anything B650E will probably be more than enough. The new motherboards that will be released around October won't bring anything really new. They will probably only offer native USB4 from new features (I could be wrong here, as we haven't seen many of them). The only thing I recommend is a mobo with a BIOS flashback option so you can update the BIOS with a new CPU, even if the motherboard doesn't have any newer BIOS already installed (it may happen).
RTX4070 Super, as it's significantly faster than RTX4070, but doesn't cost much more. I would also pick something with a larger cooler, as ASUS Dual sets fans at higher RPM under load, and if you limit the speed below 50%, then the GPU gets hot and limits the frequency. It's a larger graphics card cooler or additional fans in the case (so additional cost and noise).
I don't know if I would buy a PSU from a dying company. If the price is high, pick something 750W or even 650W from the 80+ Gold series. It will be more than enough for a 150W CPU and 200W GPU.

 

[dfonda]

The only advice I would give is to have you spend more money....No spare PSU's or cases ?

I would replace the GPU with a Super or Ti Super. The extra RAM to future proof it.