Question Recommendations for all new gaming build, high budget

[whalemonger]

Hi all, been away from building for about 10 years, and trying to absorb all the newer technology. I am starting on a new gaming build, budget about $5000 and looking for some recommendations for basically everything. I am not set on any particular CPU/GPU, and would like to make it upgradable going forward.

A little background: This will be a father/son build to teach my son some skills and hopefully refresh my own. Our goal is a system that will play any game at 4k smoothly, in addition he is a budding coder, and potentially running some 3D design software in the future. The only assumptions I have is that we will need everything, including sound card, monitor, "gaming" keyboard/mouse, etc. As previously stated, more than happy to consider AMD or Intel, and whichever GPU, memory and storage devices will work together smoothly. I should add that, being 12 years old, my son would like some RGB bling on the case, cooler, etc. Dang kids.

Sorry if the request is a bit wide open, I have read extensively through existing threads, but there seem to be many interlocked synergies in some of these builds it's hard to keep track! Appreciate any recommendations the board can make.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Hi there, welcome to posting on the Anadtech forum (member since 2010? haha )

AM4 Platform is just about ending. The only desktop gaming chip coming from them is the 5800X3D, AM5 should be out by 3rd Quarter this year which will feature DDR5, PCIe 5.0, and CPUs that can do 5GHz all core. AFAIK they will offer 24 CPU PCIe lanes as well: someone correct me if I am wrong. Rumors also say it should get a 25% increase in IPC.

EDIT: AM5 was said it will hold the longevity that AM4 had.

Intel, on the other hand already is on DDR5, PCIe 5.0. 13th Gen Intel is supposedly going to use the same socket, so going that route and wanting to upgrade down the road would just be a CPU drop in + bios support. Also if you go Intel right now with DDR5 and you're not happy with them you could use the DDR5 in an AM5 system later on.

If you're really into reducing input lag your peripherals are a huge place to start. But since you'll be playing 4k resolution KB & Mouse will be the place to look into. Most of mine have been 1000Hz devices over the years but recently I decided to try 8000Hz input devices and for the right price it can be worth it.

I can't comment on comparing a 12900K vs a 5950X with gaming so I'll leave that to someone else, however MLC says the memory latency on DDR4 & DDR5 Intel systems is lower than AMD I'm guessing the avg is 40-50 ns VS 55-70ns *depending on configurations* which should translate to higher minimum fps but in the low single digit percentage. Again correct me if I am wrong.

Personally I'm seeing a lot of GPU availability at my local Micro Center. Prices are slowly dropping but rather still high for the 3090 at around $2200 vs 6900XTs around $1500

Anything else you care to comment about with your build?

 

[whalemonger]

Hi there, welcome to posting on the Anadtech forum (member since 2010? haha )

correct me if I am wrong.

Personally I'm seeing a lot of GPU availability at my local Micro Center. Prices are slowly dropping but rather still high for the 3090 at around $2200 vs 6900XTs around $1500

Anything else you care to comment about with your build?

Yeah, 2010, it's been awhile since posting. I'm hoping to make this build a sort of current technology showcase for my son, so we are thinking liquid cooling, maxed out processing/graphics power, etc. For sure we will look at appropriate peripherals to make the most of the gaming experience. Note sure I can choke down $2200 for a video card, though. Also, we are in Bahrain, local shops are pretty skimpy on this sort of hardware, so I will be buying lots through Amazon/Newegg.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Do you plan to build all at once or over a month or two?

You could start out by choosing an accommodating case. I still have my very first case bought in 2000 so if you purchase the right one it could last a long while. Same with the right PSU.

Will you be doing custom H20 cooling or pre-built AIO? This could determine your computer case.

 

[OlyAR15]

My recommendations: Intel 12700K with a Z690 mobo supporting DDR5, at least 32GB of the fastest DDR5 you can find, and a 3080Ti or 3090. A 2TB NVMe gen 4 SSD will tide you over for a while, unless you want to spend the bucks on a 4TB model. You are probably better off getting a SATA 4TB SSD for your storage needs. Note that for games at least, there isn't a huge difference in performance between the various drives, so get whatever is on sale. You don't really need a soundcard, and case is up to you since that is so subjective. Personally, I can't stand the RGB crap that all the so-called gamers employ. Same for monitors and peripherals: you should see them for yourself and try them out.

 

[whalemonger]

My recommendations: Intel 12700K with a Z690 mobo supporting DDR5, at least 32GB of the fastest DDR5 you can find, and a 3080Ti or 3090. A 2TB NVMe gen 4 SSD will tide you over for a while, unless you want to spend the bucks on a 4TB model. You are probably better off getting a SATA 4TB SSD for your storage needs. Note that for games at least, there isn't a huge difference in performance between the various drives, so get whatever is on sale. You don't really need a soundcard, and case is up to you since that is so subjective. Personally, I can't stand the RGB crap that all the so-called gamers employ. Same for monitors and peripherals: you should see them for yourself and try them out.

Thanks for the info. Is there any reason to wait for the AM5 platform, in terms of future expansion/longevity vs current Intel? Are the Intel CPUs sensitive to RAM quality as I understand the AMDs to be?

 

[OlyAR15]

It's really up to you if you want to wait and see what AMD has to offer. Keep in mind that if you plan on gaming at 4K, your GPU is going to make most of the difference, as most games will be gpu-bound at that resolution. So chances are that you will upgrade the GPU more often than the CPU. I think either Alder Lake or the new AMD chip will serve you well for a long time. As for RAM, it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference for most games. Also keep in mind that DDR5 is new tech. The RAM modules should get better over time, so it's likely that you will eventually upgrade that in the future too.

 

[whalemonger]

Thanks all for the input. I'm leaning toward an i7 or i9/Z690 board, 32 or 64 BG of DDR5, and likely an AIO setup. Can't quite decide whether to bite the bullet, pay the exorbitant price for a 3080 or 3090, or just grab a 3070 at half the price and wait for sanity to prevail in the GPU market down the road.

This would be my first go at water cooling, so suggestions for a good system straightforward to install and compatible with the above choices is appreciated. Preferably something with some RGB bling for the young'un.

 

[UsandThem]

Thanks all for the input. I'm leaning toward an i9/Z680 board, 32 or 64 BG of DDR5, and likely an AIO setup. Can't quite decide whether to bite the bullet, pay the exorbitant price for a 3080 or 3090, or just grab a 3070 at half the price and wait for sanity to prevail in the GPU market down the road.

You're already paying the exorbitant price for DDR5, so why not spend the exorbitant amount on the GPU you want now without waiting for prices to drop?

 

[whalemonger]

Fair point, I suppose it's just that the DDR5 exorbitant is an extra $200 to $300, while the GPU exorbitant is an extra $1500.

 

[OlyAR15]

An alternative is to go with a 1440p monitor instead of a 4K monitor. Then you can save money on the video card. You can always upgrade in the future.

 

[igor_kavinski]

If you can wait, end of year would be a better time as Zen 4 may provide a years long upgrade path. With Intel, you have to forget about upgradability. 3D design software may also work better on AMD if it is highly multi-threaded. DDR5's high bandwidth is a boon for multi-threaded workloads and Zen 4 is expected to make the most of it.

4K gaming is not going to depend that much on CPU anyway. You should wait till year end and just get the latest RTX 4000 series graphics card as that will be more future proof. At this moment in time, I wouldn't spend $5000 to get the best because it will get bested in a few months and the new stuff is expected to be significantly faster.

How about just getting a reasonably priced Ryzen 6000 series laptop for the time being?

 

[Tech Junky]

You should wait till year end and just get the latest

The problem is that year end of every year moving forward is when things are being released. Intel is on a 12 month release schedule with new tech if you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core

 

[lakedude]

Fair point, I suppose it's just that the DDR5 exorbitant is an extra $200 to $300, while the GPU exorbitant is an extra $1500.

I vote against wasting $1000 on a 3070 if a 3070 is not what you really want.

Prices are showing signs of dropping and people are reporting some stock at Microcenters. Can't predict the future but it seems like a bad time to buy a video card.

 

[igor_kavinski]

The problem is that year end of every year moving forward is when things are being released.

True. But OP prefers an upgrade path and 4K gaming. He would be better served with Zen 4 and RTX 4000 series GPU.

 

[Tech Junky]

He would be better served with Zen 4 and RTX 4000 series GPU.

Why?

12xxxK + alchemist coming out soon stands a fighting chance and lower cost. Z4 vs Arrow Lake coming soon in 2023.

It's always a fight to stay current with things moving along at a quicker pace these days. It's not like 2000 where innovations come every couple of years or more. There have been dramatic leaps from PCI3 to PCI5 in just a couple of gens of Intel CPU's quadrupling the bandwidth for cards being put into those slots. Some boards even have 2 @ gen 5 already like the ASRock Velocita.

Intel Arc Alchemist Release Date, Price, Performance, Specs [2024 ]

Intel Arc Alchemist is coming, but what exactly is it? Can it compete with AMD and Nvidia in the ultra-competitive graphics card market? Find out here.

www.gpumag.com

The game is heating up to a 3-way battle with Intel stepping up their game on the GPU side finally after decades of languishing basic video output on chip. There's an aggressive roadmap as well moving forward to take some market share from NVIDIA / AMD.

I'm on a rolling upgrade cycle at this point now that some major upgrades came with ADL and will probably skip RL as there's not a huge jump between the two but, Arrow Lake might see the next jump to PCI6

Intel Next-Gen Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake, Nova Lake CPUs Rumored To Succeed Meteor Lake

Intel's next-gen CPUs succeeding its Meteor Lake 2023 lineup have allegedly leaked out which include Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake & Nova Lake.

wccftech.com

There's a definite need to be ready to swap out parts if you want to stay current with the best possible solutions to the changes that come with new software and hardware. I had a fully built 8700K system sans GPU and the upgrade + dual NVME drives to 12700K cost me less than the price of the CPU for a ground up build. If you keep a moderate pace / skip every other release you can make incremental upgrades to keep performance up and costs down. GPU's are always a gamble until they start locking out the crypto function or FPGA's takeover the demand and loosen the stranglehold over them.

 

[whalemonger]

Thanks all for the input. I will likely go ahead with an Alder Lake CPU (12900?), and take a month or so to see if prices drop on 3080/ti/3090. Will future-proof as much as I can at the moment, and go DDR5 also.

 

[igor_kavinski]

If I wanted to future-proof my system at this exact point in time, I would get a good Z690 mobo, one stick of 32GB DDR5-6200 CL32 RAM and Core i3-12100. Then I would upgrade the CPU to i9-13900K when that is released by end of year.

 

[lakedude]

If I wanted to future-proof my system at this exact point in time, I would get a good Z690 mobo, one stick of 32GB DDR5-6200 CL32 RAM and Core i3-12100. Then I would upgrade the CPU to i9-13900K when that is released by end of year.

Intel had a bad habit of requiring new motherboards all too frequently (with the notable exception of the BX which lasted forever). Are we sure the Z690 has legs? I actually don't know, just wondering based on history.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Are we sure the Z690 has legs? I actually don't know, just wondering based on history.

True. With Intel, you never know. They might annoy existing Z690 owners by keeping some feature of Raptor Lake exclusive to Z790, just to make extra money.

 

[whalemonger]

My current build list:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/c4xWXy

Given approximate wattage 738, is an 850W PS adequate, or perhaps a 1kW PS to allow the next gen GPU?

 

[Tech Junky]

Should be fine but, doesn't leave room for growth if you want to upgrade the GPU down the road. But then again prices should come down on both and the swap out of PSU/GPU shouldn't be that big of a deal.

 

[igor_kavinski]

My current build list:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/c4xWXy

Given approximate wattage 738, is an 850W PS adequate, or perhaps a 1kW PS to allow the next gen GPU?

If the main purpose is gaming, swap out the 12900K and go with one of the Core i5's without the E-cores. You can get the 13900K when that launches. It should hopefully have an improved Thread Director and maybe even better, faster E-cores. I think that would give you more bang for the buck.

Regarding the PSU, I believe 1kW should be future proof, unless both Nvidia and Intel decide to let TDPs go through the roof. 12900K is already consuming 350W in worst case scenarios and if Nvidia debuts a 800W GPU that you then acquire eagerly, there is a chance that someone might release a AAA title that will punish both the CPU and GPU, leading to a very sweaty PSU, not to mention you

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel 12th-Gen Core Alder Lake Architectural Benchmark | TechSpot

Typically, P-cores take 37ns to communicate with one another whereas the E-cores take 57ns and this cripples performance in games and for any other workload that relies heavily on core crosstalk.

Conclusion: Disable E-cores for gaming.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I've been seeing reports of the next Gen 4K series Nvidia GPUs using a new 16pin connector. 4 are sensor pins the rest is power, IIRC. I've had a Seasonic Prime TX-1000w sitting as a replacement for one of my AMD rigs. Likely it will replace my 2009 Seasonic Gold. Shame Johnny Guru completely shut down his site.

EDIT: I would opt for the 1000w, great choice in brand btw.