Current Events > My first PC build. Opinions?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ZGXWyk

After 6 years of being on the fence I'm going to commit to building a PC.

I'm mainly going to use the computer for gaming and for programs like AutoCAD/Matlab etc. I've had my old laptop for like 10 years and figured it's time for an upgrade.

$1500 is a little steep since I don't have a mouse, keyboard, desk, or screen. So I'm open to revisions if I'm doing extra. I'm unsure of the specifics of what is necessary or if I'm going completely overboard. I would like a 2nd opinion before I commit.

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i usually get paid to consult

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I'd recommend a bigger monitor.

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A white tower? In 2020?

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The Dark Crystal is better than Labyrinth.

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Get a better monitor

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If you can sit like 8-11 feet away from the screen get a 65" tv. I got one this year and it's been amazing for console.

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Get a cheaper processor and use it either on a better card or monitor

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Don't get a liquid cooler. Air cooling will perform better and be quieter than an AIO at a lower cost

3900x...with a 1660ti? wut

You may as well just save the money and get a next gen console at this point lol

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Honestly, save up the money and make it better. The money is worth it. No point in blowing $1500 when something like $2000 would be better. Don't hold me on this cause I'm not a PC gamer.

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What? No. No no noooooo. A 3900x, with an x570 board, an m.2 nvme that isn't taking advantage of PCIe 4.0, and a GeForce 1660 graphics card? Whew lad. No.

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Damn my newbness is showing HARD

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Depending on what kind of gaming you want out of it and how much you're willing to save up, find the recommended specs for a brand new game that you want and see what they recommend for like 4K Ultra settings then work backwards off of those processor and card recommendations to figure out what motherboard you'd want and what monitor.

Like someone else said, might as well splurge a little bit now than wind up having wasted like $1500 and have to spend another $1500+ in a few years

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sylverlolol posted...

3900x...with a 1660ti? wut

this.
why?

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My suggestions: change CPU to the 3700X, halve the RAM to 16GB, and get an RTX 2070 Super instead. If you need to reduce the price, consider reducing the H100i to the H80i.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KYdzCL
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Yeah there is absolutely no point in getting a 1660ti instead of a 2080rtx

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i ordered my first pc build a few days ago with also a $1500 budget and this is what i got with the help of some friends

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/32mgq3

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3900x is overkill

Good mobo. I have the same one but the Pro one.

I have the same RAM too.

SSD is meh, I would have went Samsung.

1660ti adds to the fact your CPU is overkill. You're going to bottleneck it in very short time. If you were going nVidia, I would have went with a 2070 Super at the least and gotten the 3700x instead.

NZXT makes good cases. I have a full tower myself.

EVGA is a good PSU. I would have done more watts though just to be safe. The good thing about EVGA is that they have the best customer service of any PC brand around, so if you have any issues they can take care of it pretty easily.

I wouldn't have went for a 1080p monitor if I was building a new PC. Unless you went ultrawide. 1440p and 144hz would have been an absolute minimum for your build.

tl;dr: Go lesser on the CPU, upgrade your GPU, and try to get a 1440p monitor. If you need to cut prices look into the AMD equivalent of the 2070 which should be almost just as good, and maybe get rid of the liquid cooler (you really don't need it with anything you're buying - the Ryzen CPUs run very cool and have their own case fan)

super tl;dr: 3700x, evga 2070 super, samsung nvme ssd, remove liquid cooler, upgrade your watts, go 1440p/144hz

Slaya4 posted...

Damn my newbness is showing HARD

I don't mean to do a drive-by criticism, but I don't have the time right now to put together a comprehensive criticism of your build and what parts you should be use it instead.

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Always ball out harder on the GPU than the CPU.

Unless you're using the computer also for CPU intensive tasks

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get a ryzen 5 3600 or a ryzen 7 2700 and then get a rtx 2060 super or rx 5700xt or a 5600xt (yes i know the internet will say amd has driver issues, but im sure 99.99% of those people just swapped their cards, didn't uninstall the nvidia drivers and it had issues. yeah no shit. but since its a clean new install of windows, i dont think youll have issues)

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amd does indeed have driver issues if he wants to play modern warfare

activision sucks when it comes to optimizing their PC games

Alucard188 posted...

I don't mean to do a drive-by criticism, but I don't have the time right now to put together a comprehensive criticism of your build and what parts you should be use it instead.

Lol nah, it's cool. I figured my build would have been bad. I was prepared to get roasted.

Paragon21XX posted...

My suggestions: change CPU to the 3700X, halve the RAM to 16GB, and get an RTX 2070 Super instead. If you need to reduce the price, consider reducing the H100i to the H80i.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KYdzCL

This seems like more or less aligned with what some of the people are saying. I'd swap out some stuff here and there based on the comments in here, but overall seems solid.

Edit- oh shit my bad. I thought this was the other link that was posted. I like this build.

I'll build another one later when Im done studying with the feedback given in this topic and post it.

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It's a lot easier and better to just get an Alienware instead of building one yourself.
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kidding! Don't attack me!

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Alright, I'm home now, and more able to go over your build. Like the others have said in this topic, that CPU is too strong for what you want to do, with respect to your GPU and your budget. If you were building in the $800 range, I'd give leeway for the 1660 TI, but you've almost double that. We've established that you are primarily gaming on your new computer, with some light video rendering, encoding, and graphic design, it looks like.

In that case, we can't undervalue the CPU too much relative to the emphasis on the GPU, so we'll need to strike a balance.

This is what I came up with: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LKQN27

It's relatively within your budget, as your budget outlined above didn't include the cost of the monitor, so I didn't include one in this build. You don't need an X570 if you don't plan on taking advantage of what it has to offer, which at this point is purely PCIe 4.0 for NVMe support. The B450 Tomahawk Max is about half the cost, retains all the features, and is Ryzen 3000 compatible right out of the box. It doesn't have PCIe 4.0, but almost nothing uses it. Shit, the GeForce 2080 Ti uses just half the access speeds of 3.0, and it's the best card on the market right now.

You'll notice that I went without RGB on the parts I chose, because I find RGB to be ancillary to the overall package. You want to be fast first, flashy second. I also chose the 2070 for you, but at this point, you could go down to the 2060 Super and have really high framerates at 1440p gaming. I also strongly recommend you get a better PSU. A 500w 80+ bronze is decent, but its power efficacy isn't as good as it could be, and you want more power if you're running a stronger machine. A 650w gives you a lot more headroom for things like upgrading and OCing your components. I chose a fully modular PSU for you, but you could go with a non-modular one and just stash the excess cables in the PSU shroud, which the NZXT H510 has.

So, these are my thoughts.

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I'd say use an air cooler.

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Noctua's NH-D15 is better and cheaper than an AIO

MarthGoomba posted...

Noctua's NH-D15 is better and cheaper than an AIO

True, but Noctua's fans have a habit of being fucking butt ass ugly. Need to get the black ones for better aesthetics.

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Using Alucards build I decided that this may be the best route

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VcMgq3

All I did was take off the cooler, went down to a rtx2060 super, and added a monitor along with some of the necessities. I did some research and I don't think the rtx2070 was worth that much more than the rtx2060s. Cutting those 2 really put the computer more in the price range I would like for the complete setup. I don't have an ethernet cable so I am stuck with Wifi and added an adapter. The keyboard and mouse I am not necessarily in love with and could really just skimp out on those.

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You have a built in ethernet adapter on your motherboard, so unless you're that far away from your modem/router, just buy a Cat-6 cable for 1/3rd the cost of your WIFI adapter.

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If that is for gaming, you're gonna need a bigger hard drive. A single 1tb won't cut it. I have a (combined) 6tb storage, and it's about 75% full.

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