Question Advice on new build for games, coding and 2D/3D creation

[retrochill]

What will it be used for?

• Amateur C++ and Web Development
• Occasional Photoshop and Blender 3D
• Casual gaming in major open-world titles (Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin's Creed, etc.). I mainly just game when something anticipated comes out and then just uninstall it once I finish the story or 100% complete progression. I'm not an obsessive gamer. I don't need to play games in RTX or need Ultra graphics at all times, but would like to enable RTX for fun just to experience it for a little while and do some fancy photography.
• Dual-boot Windows/Linux

What's your budget?
About $1800 - $2000 excluding:

• Windows 11 Pro
• 27" 1440p color accurate monitor that will need 100% sRGB and low deltaE
• Color calibrator tool

Which country will you be purchasing parts from?
US

Brand preferences?
I've mostly used Intel and Nvidia. Currently using a 4790K and GTX 1080 for the past 10 years or so. I wouldn't mind considering AMD for CPU, but prefer Nvidia for the GPU since some of the software I use (or may use in the future) seems to favor Nvidia.

Reusing any existing parts?
Keyboard and mouse

Overclocking?
No

What resolution?
2560x1440 at ideally around 120-144Hz refresh

When do you plan to build it?
Within few months

Do you need to purchase any software?
No

Anything else?
Would be nice to have a fairly quiet machine even at load.

Here's my attempt at putting a build together.

 

[Tech Junky]

Well, you're already using PCP to sort things out which is usually my starting point for these threads.

AMD will offer more longevity when it comes to the MOBO / CPU options. Of course it's a rolling cycle and in a couple of months there's a rumor of a new release coming but, there's also the 8700G which packs a bit of a punch for an iGPU. Though if you're going to put money into a dGPU anyway I would probably go for the 7900 CPU as it's a good price/performance pick.

GPU's can be a point of contention though. Intel's A770/16GB right now is pretty cheap in comparison to either N/A. $300

It all depends on the workloads though. I added an A380 for $100 to do transcoding of media files which cut my time / CPU down to 1/8th of the power demands which will pay off over time pretty quickly. I could have opted for a higher tier but, they all work at the same speed for that specific task.

To keep things quiet air flow and larger fans that spin slower means things will be quieter. The issue is going to come down to the GPU though when it comes to heat/noise as they tend to run hot and spin fast. Check some reviews to find a quieter card and then pop it open and repaste it with some better stuff to push it down further. I did this on a couple of RX580's and it dropped the temps enough to lower the fan profiles to a decent middle ground that was much quieter.

I built a 7900/X670E/32GB base system for ~$800 and then added the GPU for $100. I ported over a bunch of stuff though from prior builds but. it still was a ready to run system w/o that being factored in.

One thing to consider though is drives. SS charges too much for what they offer and lately have been having some issues. Right now I'm running a couple of WD SN850's for my OS drives on 2 systems and they're decent enough though they do run a bit warm but, I paired them with SN770's for secondary storage. The SN770's are a bit odd though as they don't have DRAM but they outperform the 850's in some cases. When I was testing Thunder Bolt they performed about 50% better which didn't make sense as they're supposed to be a step down in performance.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tkCqgB

Just a general gathering of parts to play with and whittle down.

 

[retrochill]

AMD will offer more longevity when it comes to the MOBO / CPU options. Of course it's a rolling cycle and in a couple of months there's a rumor of a new release coming but, there's also the 8700G which packs a bit of a punch for an iGPU. Though if you're going to put money into a dGPU anyway I would probably go for the 7900 CPU as it's a good price/performance pick.

The future upgrade path does sound nice with AMD. I guess I've gotten accustomed to sticking with a well spec'd Intel system that could go on for years. I don't know if that's the case any longer these days, though.

I'm a bit surprised with the 7900 choice. I've mainly been looking at AMD X3D's, X's and Intel K/KFs. Looks like it has lower frequencies along with better TDP wattage. I'll check into it some more and see if I can find some graphs on performance comparison.

To keep things quiet air flow and larger fans that spin slower means things will be quieter. The issue is going to come down to the GPU though when it comes to heat/noise as they tend to run hot and spin fast. Check some reviews to find a quieter card and then pop it open and repaste it with some better stuff to push it down further. I did this on a couple of RX580's and it dropped the temps enough to lower the fan profiles to a decent middle ground that was much quieter.

I'll be sticking with an Nvidia. I will check into the choices some more to see what I can find in terms of noise level. Otherwise, I would be switching to Radeon GPU if I didn't have software mainly optimized for Nvidia.

One thing to consider though is drives. SS charges too much for what they offer and lately have been having some issues. Right now I'm running a couple of WD SN850's for my OS drives on 2 systems and they're decent enough though they do run a bit warm but, I paired them with SN770's for secondary storage.

I've come across the WD SSD model in the past where I was watching some benchmark reviews of it. It's been a while to recall why I didn't choose it. I'll have to find it again. Anyways, there are a few programs I use where frequent large disk caching occurs during the entire operation of the program.

Thanks for the parts list. 👍

 

[Tech Junky]

accustomed to sticking with a well spec'd Intel system that could go on for years

More like complacent and the price difference kept me from jumping the fence again to AMD. The other thing was Gen 5 and just waiting it out.

X3D's

Only really a perk for games.

optimized for Nvidia.

Yeah, that puts you in a captive spot for sure.

caching

I think the 770 takes advantage of the ram vs cache on the stick. Only reason I can think it got higher speeds in TB testing.

lower frequencies

The difference is full cores. More full cores gets you more compute vs the E cores on Intel.

 

[retrochill]

Only really a perk for games.

Yea. Definitely noticed that looking over graphs and reviews.

The difference is full cores. More full cores gets you more compute vs the E cores on Intel.

I forgot to mention that was in comparison to the 7900X. That's why I was initially surprised in the 7900 choice. A 7900X is just a little over $10 extra.

 

[Tech Junky]

7900X

I forgot the X. I'm running the X version actually.


Most of the time it's sitting at these levels. There seems to be some RAM bloat though over time but, a reboot brings it back down under 10%. I run it as my router though so it's on 24/7 and tied a bunch of other functions into a single box back in 2015 to minimize the number of devices overall.

The X though for quite awhile has been the better deal vs similar adjacent options. AMD is a bit odd when it comes to pricing compared to the clear tiers with Intel.

I figured going from a 12700K >> 7900X was more of a lateral move in terms of capabilities and having waited out the newness of AMD avoided the early adopter tax as well. It's still not my perfect setup though as there's a few things that I want to see them improve upon. One of them is the DMI equiv on AMD boosting to X8 like Intel to not bottleneck anything hanging off the chipset like drives or additional cards beyond slot 1. There's some talk about some improvements in the upcoming X880 chipset though but, not enough details right now to confirm much.

For my use Intel QSV makes a huge difference in media processing time / resources and I though the CPU might be able to power through the tasks but, it was quite evident that QSV makes a huge difference and thus adding an A380 for $100 to accomplish that. The other options would have been N/A GPUs though but, they were 2-3X the price.

There's no real apples to apples comparison between the two options though. There's a 3rd player that's intriguing though w/ Qualcomm jumping into the game with some impressive numbers. The issue with QC though is a different approach to how things get processed and / or how to troubleshoot them if there's an issue. But, AMD offers a bit more value at this point and should hold the equity longer w/o messing up your data routines w/ hybrid cores being accounted for. Intel just bugs me a bit with all of these releases for the past few years w/o much innovation or improvement other than renaming the process vs actually improving it. Not to mention the MOBO revisions every 2 cycles before needing a new one but, AMD is only capturing 4-5 years at this point with AM5 but, that's still better than Intel. I would consider updating to X880 though if they remove some of the pinch points in their current designs but, I would also wait for the premium pricing to drop before bothering with ripping my system apart and putting it back together.

 

[In2Photos]

I don't see anything glaring in your build. If you wanted to save a little bot of money you could look at something like the Lian Li 216 case instead of the Corsair. It offers 2-160mm fans in front and 1-140mm fan in the rear which honestly provides enough air flow for most builds. It also provides a second USB Type A port up front. It's a little cheaper than the Corsair and doesn't need the extra fans you have on your list.

Going AMD does give you an upgrade path over the Intel platform, but since you kept your last build 10 years that may not matter. Only other thing I might try to do is squeeze for the 4080 Super if you can get one for a decent price. It's quite a step up from the 4070 Super and would last you a little while longer, especially with 4GB of vRAM more.

 

[retrochill]

I don't see anything glaring in your build. If you wanted to save a little bot of money you could look at something like the Lian Li 216 case instead of the Corsair. It offers 2-160mm fans in front and 1-140mm fan in the rear which honestly provides enough air flow for most builds. It also provides a second USB Type A port up front. It's a little cheaper than the Corsair and doesn't need the extra fans you have on your list.

Going AMD does give you an upgrade path over the Intel platform, but since you kept your last build 10 years that may not matter. Only other thing I might try to do is squeeze for the 4080 Super if you can get one for a decent price. It's quite a step up from the 4070 Super and would last you a little while longer, especially with 4GB of vRAM more.

Appreciate the suggestions on the case and 4080 Super. I'll check them out.

 

[manly]

OP, welcome to the forums.

I don't see anything glaring in your build. If you wanted to save a little bot of money you could look at something like the Lian Li 216 case instead of the Corsair. It offers 2-160mm fans in front and 1-140mm fan in the rear which honestly provides enough air flow for most builds. It also provides a second USB Type A port up front. It's a little cheaper than the Corsair and doesn't need the extra fans you have on your list.

Going AMD does give you an upgrade path over the Intel platform, but since you kept your last build 10 years that may not matter. Only other thing I might try to do is squeeze for the 4080 Super if you can get one for a decent price. It's quite a step up from the 4070 Super and would last you a little while longer, especially with 4GB of vRAM more.

For his stated use cases, I think the 4070 Super is very good. It looks like you don't get enough performance jump for the money, so you're paying a lot extra for VRAM and future proofing. The 4080 FE costs a whopping 67% more; TechPowerUp says you get 38% higher performance. It doesn't seem like Nvidia actually wants people to buy the 4080 Super FE for $1000; availability seems tight and most of the AIB partner products are at least $100 higher.

If you really want the VRAM, I'd lean towards the 4070 Ti Super for $800 (which also seems mostly out of stock, but OP doesn't need one today). The 4070 Ti Super and 4080 Super cards are 3-slot behemoths, and you'll want to step up to an 850W PSU if you go that route. Speaking of PSU, I'd recommend ATX 3.0 (seems like 3.1 is taking a long time to come to market).

Platform is a bit tricky. I think Ryzen is a better product (i.e. perf/watt); but for his content creation use cases, Intel and its extra E-cores actually wins in a lot of benchmarks. In general, I think upgrading is overrated outside of enthusiasts circles. BUT if you're keeping a high-end desktop for 10 years, I'd argue AM5 is actually more attractive. Ultimately you and I may never upgrade the CPU, but at least you could do so 5 years down the road if you wanted to.

 

[In2Photos]

For his stated use cases, I think the 4070 Super is very good. It looks like you don't get enough performance jump for the money, so you're paying a lot extra for VRAM and future proofing. The 4080 FE costs a whopping 67% more; TechPowerUp says you get 38% higher performance. It doesn't seem like Nvidia actually wants people to buy the 4080 Super FE for $1000; availability seems tight and most of the AIB partner products are at least $100 higher.

If you really want the VRAM, I'd lean towards the 4070 Ti Super for $800 (which also seems mostly out of stock, but OP doesn't need one today). The 4070 Ti Super and 4080 Super cards are 3-slot behemoths, and you'll want to step up to an 850W PSU if you go that route. Speaking of PSU, I'd recommend ATX 3.0 (seems like 3.1 is taking a long time to come to market).

I didn't say the 4070 Super was a bad choice, I simply said the 4080 Super would possibly last a little longer before needing an upgrade. And if we were talking about value I wouldn't suggest an Nvidia card at all.

 

[manly]

I didn't say the 4070 Super was a bad choice, I simply said the 4080 Super would possibly last a little longer before needing an upgrade. And if we were talking about value I wouldn't suggest an Nvidia card at all.

I get it, but I think he's such a casual gamer that a 4070 Super is very well suited to his use cases (it's already overkill to be honest). He can save the $450, invest it in NVDA/AMD, and be able to guy a new graphics card in 5 years.

I agree that Radeon arguably gives you better value today in the mid-range. However, there are those who want or need Nvidia and the 4070 Super hits the price/performance sweet spot in their line-up. I don't disagree with spending a little more if it lasts you longer.* In fact, I was going to add that if I was going to buy into LGA 1700 today and aiming for a very long window, I would consider the i7-13700K over the i5-13600K. Because you simply won't have any upgrade path (besides an i9 at high cost), so you might just pick up the 2 extra P-cores now while you're at it.

* Like I said, the 4080 Super is about 70% more cost. That's a lot more and based on what he's doing, he probably won't derive any tangible benefits for years. Now if he adds ML/LLM to his workloads, then yes I'd suggest spending on a 16GB VRAM card now. Final note is that the build cost with 4080 Super would surge past his stated budget.

 

[Tech Junky]

4070

While on the subject....

Laptops don't give me much choice when it comes to a GPU and I usually land on the middle ground like my current 12700H/3060. If I had the choice on the laptop side I'd prefer something other than NVIDIA because they're the Intel of GPUs. Well, maybe not Intel but there's a bit of a GPU cartel vibe. There's a couple of issues with the GPU side of the house though with limited competition. Now that Intel entered the market a couple of years ago now there's at least 3 fighters in the ring. As for AMD options on laptops there doesn't seem to be much push from AMD to get vendors to adopt using their GPU or CPU for that matter outside of a couple of whores that will sell you anything to make a buck.

The other issue with GPUs is their wildly vast TGP power abilities. Just because it's being sold as a 4070 doesn't mean it's 140W but could be a 45W version which won't perform as well under load. There's a lot of nuances when it comes to components the average person won't be looking at when making a list.

 

[retrochill]

Platform is a bit tricky. I think Ryzen is a better product (i.e. perf/watt); but for his content creation use cases, Intel and its extra E-cores actually wins in a lot of benchmarks. In general, I think upgrading is overrated outside of enthusiasts circles. BUT if you're keeping a high-end desktop for 10 years, I'd argue AM5 is actually more attractive. Ultimately you and I may never upgrade the CPU, but at least you could do so 5 years down the road if you wanted to.

One thing I would like to do is try to keep power usage down where I possibly can. The Intel's tend to be pretty power hungry during load. Although, it sounds like they can be tuned down a bit. I gotta admit, the AM5 path is getting pretty enticing. It would be my first ever AMD setup, too.

I get it, but I think he's such a casual gamer that a 4070 Super is very well suited to his use cases (it's already overkill to be honest). He can save the $450, invest it in NVDA/AMD, and be able to guy a new graphics card in 5 years.

I'm definitely a casual gamer. I jump on anticipated open-world games when they come out, play them till I get 100% game progression and then uninstall it. I don't play competitive games. Other times I may go back to an old game and run hi-rez texture mods, but not very often.

Will future PCIE5 GPUs be able to take full advtange of the current release of PCIE5 mobos?

I don't disagree with spending a little more if it lasts you longer.* In fact, I was going to add that if I was going to buy into LGA 1700 today and aiming for a very long window, I would consider the i7-13700K over the i5-13600K. Because you simply won't have any upgrade path (besides an i9 at high cost), so you might just pick up the 2 extra P-cores now while you're at it.

I'll keep this suggestion into consideration.

 

[manly]

One thing I would like to do is try to keep power usage down where I possibly can. The Intel's tend to be pretty power hungry during load. Although, it sounds like they can be tuned down a bit. I gotta admit, the AM5 path is getting pretty enticing. It would be my first ever AMD setup, too.

Electricity here in California costs roughly 3x the national average. It's good to see Intel rediscovered some of its mojo the last couple years, competing again with AMD. But yeah I'm somewhat mindful of power efficiency (usually when you run the math, it's not a big deal. Nobody games for 12 hours a day).

I'm definitely a casual gamer. I jump on anticipated open-world games when they come out, play them till I get 100% game progression and then uninstall it. I don't play competitive games. Other times I may go back to an old game and run hi-rez texture mods, but not very often.

Will future PCIE5 GPUs be able to take full advtange of the current release of PCIE5 mobos?

My basic understanding is that even PCIe 4.0 should be viable for a long time.