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I'm planning my first PC Build, does anyone have some advice/input on what I've got so far?
Please help lol
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-12700KF 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor | $239.99 @ Newegg |
| CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler | $119.95 @ Amazon |
| Motherboard | Asus ROG STRIX Z690-A GAMING WIFI D4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard | $299.99 @ Amazon |
| Memory | \*Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory | $94.99 @ Amazon |
| Storage | Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive | $54.99 @ Amazon |
| Storage | Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive | $49.99 @ Amazon |
| Video Card | MSI RTX 3060 Ventus 3X 12G OC GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 12 GB Video Card | $289.99 @ Amazon |
| Power Supply | Corsair RM750 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | |
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts | ||
| Total | $1249.88 | |
| *Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria | ||
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-06-06 10:27 EDT-0400 |
Personally I'd bump up the SSD to 2TB instead of 1TB, and skip the 2TB HDD.
If you need more storage, I'd just buy a larger HDD afterwards, as the price per TB will likely keep going down so you can postpone the purchase until you actually need it.
If they really need terabytes of HDD storage, I think a NAS may be a fun option too.
I love my synology. I can’t recommend it enough. My only advice would be to not make the mistake I did by cheaping out on size. I got a 2 Bay with a pair of 4GB hard drives thinking all I wanted it for was to back up my photo, ebook, and music libraries and have Time Machine backups of my family’s computers.
But once you have the NAS you keep thinking of more you can do with it. And your appetite for media in need of storing only grows. I have a huge collection of digital comics now and they take up a lotta space.
So I say splurge. Go with the 4 bay and throw some big ass drives in there. Run a Plex server off the thing and have your personal streaming service. Never worry about shows you like disappearing due to esoteric contracting gamesmanship by corporate behemoths again. Go wild!
I have a four bay and I’m just about at the point where I need to plop serious money down in on the five bay expansion unit.
Not looking forward to the price of that but I definitely want larger than the 4TB drives I currently have in there.
Honestly the only thing holding me back from upgrading at the moment is that my days of hoisting the black flag are so far behind me that I don't even know where to begin anymore with finding enough content to make it worthwhile to store it all.
(Please note, this is not an invitation to inform me. This isn't the place for that).
To be honest, I use my NAS to back all my self hosted applications. It keeps track of my notes, photos, recipes… all kinds of stuff. I hear you, though. :)
That's another fun project 🙂
One could simply need terabytes of storage for games. Why waste bandwidth when you can keep them handy?
You can also just keep games on the NAS and move them to your computer when you need them. Honestly, in 2023 I think we should think of local storage options the same way we think of appliances like fridges and washing machines.
In fact, it saves bandwidth since you wouldn’t have to download a whole game twice in case you need to delete one to make room on your rig.
I'd second the advice on the storage. If you can at all spare the extra $100, get a 2TB M.2, it's so much faster, convenient and quieter.
Thanks so much everyone, sorry for not adding extra context. @bret @gryel @arp242 I was hoping for a machine that could serve multiple functions. I wanted to use it to play games at decent settings, create high-resolution art in Photoshop/Illustrator/etc, and develop applications in Android Studio (and VM), Unity, Eclipse, and other similar programs. For the time being, I'd guess my budget tops out around $2k. The plan was to start with something basic that I could gradually improve over time.
Swapping out the 4x8GB for 2x16GB is a good idea for future upgrades then. Not completely sure just yet about changing the CPU. I was hoping to have something that would hold up over time, but maybe it is overkill?
@TheJorro My case is a MUSETEX 903-S4 ATX. It's a case I already have on hand, so it wasn't included with the rest of the list. In hindsight, I should have added it anyway for posterity.
@sparksbet Yeah, I was surprised too! Thank god they can't be used to mine Ethereum anymore...
@mild_takes @vord @m-p-3 @NaraVara @niege The idea was to use the HDD as general bulk storage for files I wouldn't access very often (video, photos, docs), and then use the SSD for actual applications. I could see this being more worth it if the HDD were bigger, but maybe I should just go with a much larger SDD instead? This is something I've been thinking about pretty often.
Neato.
So with your desired use case, I'd recommend you consider going AMD instead of Intel. Much more bang for your buck for productivity and they still take on any game you throw at them. You can go with a cheaper B-series board too, no need to have all the bells and whistles of a fancier motherboard. Just make sure it has all the ports and networking you need.
Also there's usually some complications between PCI-e lanes for GPU and secondary/tertiary m2 SSD slots (many motherboards only let you use one at a time since they're on the same power line in the circuitry), so this is another plus in favour of a quality HDD over a similarly priced SSD, especially just for media storage.
To build on this, and my prior post...
AMD just switched to AM5, with DDR5. AMD historically uses the same CPU socket for more generations than Intel. It'll be a lot more futureproof. Even if you don't go AMD, going with a DDR5 will save you needing to rebuy RAM later.
Also I think they higher-end AMD mobos now often have dual m.2 slots. AMD has a lot of pcie lanes on-die.
You could go really wild and build yourself a SECOND PC to use as a NAS with TrueNAS or OpenMediaVault.
If a big SSD is in your budget I would always opt for that though.
I'd buy an HDD only if the SSD starts becoming too full.
If it were me... at this point I would just get the bigger ssd and then cold store old photos/videos on 2.5" SSD's labeled with masking tape + sharpie. When you go digging for old photos or videos you'll want the speed of an SSD while you sift through stuff.
Without knowing what you are using your computer for, hard to give you advice
IMO HDD's are now obsolete. If you can't afford enough storage then buy what you can afford now and just slap in another SSD later on.
I lack the experience to comment on the rest of the build, but I will ask other people... is it maybe worth it to upgrade to the 13th gen processor?
I disagree. HDDs are great for just having a large volume drive for cheap when you don't care about noise or speed. I have a pair in a 2-bay NAS just to back up all of my media. There's no reason to overspec those or spend more than I have to on it since it's basically just "warm storage" of backup drives, photos, and movies. The NAS itself monitors the drive health and since there's two of them they're redundantly backed up if one of the drives fails. I have been meaning to figure out how to backup the NAS to an off-site service, like Backblaze, in case my house burns down or something as well.
I also have one in my gaming rig that I don't really have a use for, but it's nice to just have more space than I know what to do with and not really care about the cost.
A large home NAS is the only use case I could see for HDD's. Inside a new build PC though... I just disagree. $30 more gets you an ssd, or in OP's case just cut the secondary drive, upgrade the main drive and/or add storage later.
As someone with a DH-15: you don't need a DH-15 unless you have some serious cooling concerns (e.g. a "silent" case that doesn't allow a lot of air to move) or you are going to be heavily and constantly stress-testing or overclocking your machine.
Also, what case are you using? I hope you're not planning on using a small form factor case with that cooler.
I'm also going to go against the grain and support the HDD choice if you will archiving a lot of low-speed data (e.g. video files, photos, etc.). The storage demands of those adds up real quick, and you will still get far more storage per dollar than an SSD with the exact same end result performance. Any 7200rpm HDD is more than enough to stream a full 4K HDR blu-ray rip and transmit it over a local network.
Here's my AMD take. I'm a never-Nvidia guy now though. I went the 2TB SSD, though I do agree with @NaraVara that if you need large quantities of storage 7200RPMs are the way to go. Though I probably wouldn't bother for a 2TB spinning disk, at 4 or 8 TB it makes a lot more sense.
It's about the same price when you take off the case and fan (which I didn't see in yours). The CPU is less powerful than the intel, but still not going to be noticable without a $1000+ video card.
But going DDR5 now will save you a bundle going forward, as DDR4 is on the way out.
I don't have any good advice to improve your build, but I'm kinda floored how much cheaper 3000-series GPUs have gotten.
The only input I really have is the mobo actually. I've only had issues with Asus' Z690 boards, just a ton of odd issues, mostly related to a garbage BIOS. Also, it seems odd to spend more on a mobo than a CPU or GPU. I would consider something like a MSI PRO Z690-A, it's a more basic board, but I've deployed a few of them and they are rock solid. Use the savings to get rid of the 2TB HDD and upgrade the SSD to a 2TB 980 Pro or 4TB something else.
Of course if you need Wifi on the mobo, get whatever you think is best there.
I don't know much about that PSU, but just advice in general for you and others - do not skimp on PSUs. You don't have to go all out and spend big money on one, but don't cheap out either.
There's a "Tier List" for PSUs so you can check what's decent and what's not. So looking at the one you're going to use, looks like it's rated highly (Tier A - High End) by the community that maintains the list.
And when in doubt buy Corsair. I have one of theirs 600W from 2012 thats still going strong (tho this is its last migration juuusst in case).
I laugh at the people who were telling me it was vastly overspecced for the build. I have no doubts spending the extra $30 saved me $200+ in replacements or upgrades in that time.
You’ve selected a CPU without integrated GPU. If you have any issues with the 3060, you’d need another dedicated GPU just to connect the computer to a display.
For $20 more, you can get the non-F CPU, which includes integrated graphics. Probably worth it.
Also consider the 3060 TI, which is arguably better bang for buck. It has less VRAM at 8gb but is a substantial upgrade over the 3060 for not much more money.