PC Pc Gaming/building thread

[dwwaino]

CPU AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D 12 Core 24 Thread Up To 5.5GHz AM5 - No HSF, Retail Box
Motherboard Gigabyte B850 AORUS ELITE WIFI7 AM5 ATX Desktop Motherboard
Memory Kingston Fury Beast 32GB Kit (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 C36
Graphics Card Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5080 Gaming OC 16GB GDDR7
OS Drive Crucial P3 PCIe Gen3 NVMe M.2 SSD - 1TB
Power Supply Seasonic FOCUS V4 GX 1000W Gold PCIe 5.1 ATX 3.1 Modular PSU
Case Antec C8 - Tempered Glass Full Tower Case (Wood)
CPU Cooler MSI MAG CoreLiquid A15 360mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
Fans Montech GF120 3 Pack - ARGB PWM 120mm Fans (Black)
Keyboard ASUS ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - SnowSwitch
Monitor ViewSonic Omni VX2728-2K 27" 2K 1440p 180Hz IPS Monitor
Mouse Pulsar X2H v3 - 53g Lightweight Wireless Gaming Mouse (Black)

$6,457

Thoughts dwwaino and others?

My initial thoughts is that the NVMe SSD should be at least 2TB, and I'm also thinking Gen4 for what I'm being quoted.

I will research every single component today but would appreciate any advice.

Do you need a 9900x3d? If you need to think about it then the answer is no. Consider a 9800x3d or even a 7800x3d as it will work on the same motherboard, give very near gaming results and then still have the option to update to whatever Ryzen is next as it sounds like next gen is staying on the same socket. This will give you room to upgrade that gen 3 SSD to a gen 4 with higher capacity.

Also what's your use case? As in just gaming, a bit of work? Do you want to add more nvme drives over time? I need to go home and check the block diagram of the b850 Aorus Elite (just leaving work at the moment) but Gigabyte, especially on their X chipsets so I don't know about the B boards, design around users who want to use all their pcie slots. There are a limited number of pcie lanes between the CPU and chipset and it's up to the manufacturer's discretion how they use them so different boards will have different configurations.

Good choice on PSU. I've always been a subscriber that if you're going to spend a little extra on anything it should be a good quality PSU for peace of mind.

+1 what blackshadow said about KB and mouse. Mice are super personal and subjective, stick to what you're comfortable but I'm a fan of the Razer Basilisk series as well. Good builds, reliable brand and I'm just used to the profile in my hand. Wireless mice make sense but if you don't plan on using your KB away from your desk save your cash and get a wired.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Thank you all, this is exactly what I wanted.

Use case is primarily gaming. Single player FPS are my thing, so think Doom (Dark Ages my most anticipated upcoming game), Stalker, Cyberpunk, Far Cry etc. I do play other genres but single player FPS dominate my collection. I don't play online. I'm not a huge fan of WFH but will do so on an ad-hoc basis. But for that I log in remotely anyway. To a PC that shits all over my current one so it will be nice to have a home PC better than my work PC again

Good advice on keyboard and mouse. I didn't suggest brands, I was interested to see what they came back with. My current set up is wired Razer for both. This is my second mouse in 10 years, the original one (also Razer) ended up with a cracked left mouse button quite early on, never experienced something like that before, current one is a better Razer model and has been fine. Keyboard's been solid, keys are starting to get a bit stuck, especially my most used ones (WSAD haha), and the colour on those keys has started to fade. Left arrow key too. I could probably pull it apart and clean it but also, it's 10 years old.

Yeah, the 1TB Gen 3 they went with stuck out to me like dog's balls. Definitely need an upgrade there.

Do you want to add more nvme drives over time? I need to go home and check the block diagram of the b850 Aorus Elite (just leaving work at the moment) but Gigabyte, especially on their X chipsets so I don't know about the B boards, design around users who want to use all their pcie slots. There are a limited number of pcie lanes between the CPU and chipset and it's up to the manufacturer's discretion how they use them so different boards will have different configurations.

See, this is stuff I really don't understand so advice here would be excellent.

Current PC initially had a 120GB SSD for Windows, and a 2TB mechanical hard drive for everything else. Over time I added a second 2TB mechanical drive, and a 500GB NVMe (initially just for Cyberpunk, it currently has the three Warhammer Total War games installed on it).

My inital thoughts here was something similar, a relatively small but super fast NVMe for Windows then something bigger but slower (if NVMe can even be called slow!) for everything else (like 4TB or something).

So my initial thoughts are to go back and ask them to drop the CPU to the 9800x3d, swap out the keyboard and mouse for Razer (wireless mouse and wired keyboard), and increase the NVMe from 1TB Gen 3 to at least 2TB (ideally 4TB) Gen 4. Thoughts?

 

[Jimmy Yamazaki]

CPU AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D 12 Core 24 Thread Up To 5.5GHz AM5 - No HSF, Retail Box
Motherboard Gigabyte B850 AORUS ELITE WIFI7 AM5 ATX Desktop Motherboard
Memory Kingston Fury Beast 32GB Kit (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 C36
Graphics Card Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5080 Gaming OC 16GB GDDR7
OS Drive Crucial P3 PCIe Gen3 NVMe M.2 SSD - 1TB
Power Supply Seasonic FOCUS V4 GX 1000W Gold PCIe 5.1 ATX 3.1 Modular PSU
Case Antec C8 - Tempered Glass Full Tower Case (Wood)
CPU Cooler MSI MAG CoreLiquid A15 360mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
Fans Montech GF120 3 Pack - ARGB PWM 120mm Fans (Black)
Keyboard ASUS ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - SnowSwitch
Monitor ViewSonic Omni VX2728-2K 27" 2K 1440p 180Hz IPS Monitor
Mouse Pulsar X2H v3 - 53g Lightweight Wireless Gaming Mouse (Black)

$6,457

Thoughts dwwaino and others?

My initial thoughts is that the NVMe SSD should be at least 2TB, and I'm also thinking Gen4 for what I'm being quoted.

I will research every single component today but would appreciate any advice.

Too expensive by about 1K.

• 6K on a PC and they give you a cheap $340 monitor seems terrible to me.
• The nvme SSD is 2 gens old and 1tb is too small. At least get a 4th gen with 2tb minimum (I would suggest to get 2, 1 for windows and 2nd exclusively for gaming so 4tb all up)
• The Keyboard and mouse combined is $400 which is more than your monitor. There will be better for cheaper imo (of course that's personal preference)
• The 9900x3d is completely unnecessary and gaming wise, has the same performance as the 9800x3d.
• 1000w power supply is not really needed either, can get away with an 850w

If you're spending this much on a PC, then you want a monitor to match especially for FPS games. I would research a monitor that's best suited for FPS games and use some of the money you save to spend extra on it, it's worth it to make use of the 5080.

 

[dwwaino]

Thank you all, this is exactly what I wanted.

Use case is primarily gaming. Single player FPS are my thing, so think Doom (Dark Ages my most anticipated upcoming game), Stalker, Cyberpunk, Far Cry etc. I do play other genres but single player FPS dominate my collection. I don't play online. I'm not a huge fan of WFH but will do so on an ad-hoc basis. But for that I log in remotely anyway. To a PC that shits all over my current one so it will be nice to have a home PC better than my work PC again

Good advice on keyboard and mouse. I didn't suggest brands, I was interested to see what they came back with. My current set up is wired Razer for both. This is my second mouse in 10 years, the original one (also Razer) ended up with a cracked left mouse button quite early on, never experienced something like that before, current one is a better Razer model and has been fine. Keyboard's been solid, keys are starting to get a bit stuck, especially my most used ones (WSAD haha), and the colour on those keys has started to fade. Left arrow key too. I could probably pull it apart and clean it but also, it's 10 years old.

Yeah, the 1TB Gen 3 they went with stuck out to me like dog's balls. Definitely need an upgrade there.



See, this is stuff I really don't understand so advice here would be excellent.

Current PC initially had a 120GB SSD for Windows, and a 2TB mechanical hard drive for everything else. Over time I added a second 2TB mechanical drive, and a 500GB NVMe (initially just for Cyberpunk, it currently has the three Warhammer Total War games installed on it).

My inital thoughts here was something similar, a relatively small but super fast NVMe for Windows then something bigger but slower (if NVMe can even be called slow!) for everything else (like 4TB or something).

So my initial thoughts are to go back and ask them to drop the CPU to the 9800x3d, swap out the keyboard and mouse for Razer (wireless mouse and wired keyboard), and increase the NVMe from 1TB Gen 3 to at least 2TB (ideally 4TB) Gen 4. Thoughts?

I just checked the manual of the b850 Aorus Elite and there is no lane sharing. It looks like the first M2 slot and the main pcie slot share a bus but not lanes. At first I thought they did share lanes as that's how other manufacturers draw their block diagrams but I checked the x870 Aorus Master which definitely does have sharing and it specifically mentions a switch so the b850 Aorus Elite is fine to populate all the M2 slots as you wish. Replies to others asking this on Reddit have also stated it doesn't have any lane sharing at all.

Another thing I just checked was memory. I'm assuming they quoted you 6000cl36 memory because they are trying to clear stock, but you may as well swap that for a 2x16gb 6000cl30 kit as they're typically the same price. It might only result in a percent or two in performance but Ryzen is more sensitive to RAM speed and timings than Intel and technically 6000cl30 is better. If you're going with an x3d CPU then make the most of that bad boy.

I think they're also trying to flip you the gen 3 SSD to clear their inventory. For help in deciding on the SSD make sure to filter wherever you're looking to pcie 4 and I find it helps to sort by price. Then if you look at the really cheap stuff if you look at the speeds it's still technically pcie 3 just running on a pcie 4 controller. Technically there is still nothing wrong with gen 3 but if you're paying pcie 4 prices then you want to actually a proper gen 4. So you want to be looking at anything 5000-6000mb/s and up. This will put you around the really common and popular drives like Kingston Fury, KC3000, MP44Q/MP44L, SN700, P3 Plus etc. Then you'll see a bunch that are suddenly more expensive like the 990 Pro and SN850x. Not only are these drives much faster (and you won't even notice lol) but they come with their own DRAM. This is up to you if you want to spend the extra but unless you've got a use case that requires constantly writing and moving massive files then it's not something you'll ever notice whether it uses DRAM or HBM. I only have a couple 990 Pros because they were heavily discounted at the time and for wank factor but I don't notice the difference from my old pcie 3 970 Evos or even the old SATA SSD I had to be honest.

Lastly I just noticed the C8 case is a fish tank. For aesthetics you might want to add 4 more fans. They've quoted you a 3 pack which will fill the front (side? damn fish tanks) intakes leaving the 360mm radiator for the top exhaust (presuming that's the configuration you want). There is room for 3 more intakes at the bottom of the case and one more for rear exhaust. You could get away without them but aesthetically you might want to populate them as that's the whole reason for fish tank cases. Also with my own 5080 I have noticed the impact of the 3 intake fans at the bottom of my case (I have the 2024 revision of the NZXT H7 Flow). Even when I'm punishing the 5080 I've never seen it touch 60c because it is constantly being fed with air straight up through the heatsinks.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Thanks dwwaino (and everyone else!)

I think you're right on the clearing stock thing. I'm going to do some research on PLE's website for component swaps (that Gen 3 top of the list), prepare an email to PLE this afternoon after the footy and see what they come back with. Getting excited. I don't think I need to change a lot, it's mostly redistributing the budget for better bang for buck and to suit my requirements.

Appreciate the advice boys (and girls?). Will post the quote they come back with for any final tweaking advice probably Monday I'm guessing.

My birthday is the 26th, will be cool if it's ready for pick up by then. Was never my plan but it will be nice!

 

[dwwaino]

Happy bday for the 26th!

 

[blackshadow]

Lastly I just noticed the C8 case is a fish tank. For aesthetics you might want to add 4 more fans. They've quoted you a 3 pack which will fill the front (side? damn fish tanks) intakes leaving the 360mm radiator for the top exhaust (presuming that's the configuration you want). There is room for 3 more intakes at the bottom of the case and one more for rear exhaust. You could get away without them but aesthetically you might want to populate them as that's the whole reason for fish tank cases.

I've got a fishtank - Lian Li 011 mini and I've got 9 fans in the sucker - it's pretty with its royal blue and white lighting and my Lemmy Funko Pop! 3 on the bottom, 2 on the side, 3 on top and one out the back - and it keeps everything cool.
That said, next build I think it will be an all black minimal RGB stealth machine.

 

[dwwaino]

I've got a fishtank - Lian Li 011 mini and I've got 9 fans in the sucker - it's pretty with its royal blue and white lighting and my Lemmy Funko Pop! 3 on the bottom, 2 on the side, 3 on top and one out the back - and it keeps everything cool.
That said, next build I think it will be an all black minimal RGB stealth machine.

Mine started that way, that's why I don't have RGB RAM. Then this is how it ended up lol. It looks brighter and the lights are shining more on camera but in person it's actually quite dark with only the distinct rings showing.

 

[gaskin]

That is what I want. A black build where I can choose to have some cool lighting if I so choose. I've never really been a fan of full on RGB builds.

 

[Xtreme]

That is what I want. A black build where I can choose to have some cool lighting if I so choose. I've never really been a fan of full on RGB builds.

I hate the clear cases, give me traditional where I don't have to see fancy lights or cabling

 

[dwwaino]

I hate the clear cases, give me traditional where I don't have to see fancy lights or cabling

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Email sent, basically looking at shaving money off the CPU, keyboard and mouse, and possibly the case (I'd be happy with something more conservative if more fans can't be added to the fishbowl under budget so long as it's still functional), and money added to the RAM, the NVMe and possibly the monitor.

 

[dwwaino]

Rebuilt the old system to sell today.

Of course look who shows up straight away



Happy with how it came out not having to worry about AIOs and RGB and shit. Besides the RAM and whatever is on the motherboard and GPU it's mostly stealth. Won't be able to see the RAM anyway.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Has admitted to paying for stuff at JB hifi in silver change.

 

[dwwaino]

Has admitted to paying for stuff at JB hifi in silver change.

It was Harvey Norman thank you very much

 

[biaseddustyfan]

In one of my old PC's I had blue light fans (it was before RGB was standard) and I just ended up turning them off most of the time because it was annoying. new PC only has RGB on the ram and GPU and that's more than enough. No way in hell I'd want 9 RGB fans lol

my ideal setup one day is to have the PC hidden away from the desk to minimise noise. Though with the Asus pa602 case fans and Noctua cooler it's pretty quiet and a nice sound profile - on that note I had to get Scorptec to send me a new case fan as one of the 200mm case fans was making a clicking noise, it took 7 weeks but I got a new one and it's good now, arrived only a few days before my GPU finally arrived

 

[dwwaino]

I don't mind a bit of RGB, just not overboard with strimers and stuff. It's something I spend a lot of money and time on and I want to be able to at least customise it from time to time if my mood changes. Even if I ever went full stealth I'd still get tempered glass because I love looking at tidy work. It's the thing that sucks about my job - I can make an electric motor look like a work of art but literally nobody is going to ever see it.

 

[dwwaino]

Phew it posts. BIOS flashed to latest and Windows going on now. Apparently Sunday is the best time to list stuff on marketplace so hopefully I can get rid of this thing in the next few weeks as I got a quote to install a new garage door. Believe it or not it's less than a 5090.

 

[Simon_Says]

Hey, just a PSI Shoutout to myself
Not quite a PC, but Yesterday i took apart my PS5 and gave it a massive clean. (i susspect it was overheating, found the Power Supply, can confirm that was the problem)
By no means am i qualified to do this, Im pretty unco in close quarters.
Missed a couple of screws but should be alright
Closest i came to taking apart a machine was five years ago during a lockdown, tried to Take the electronics out of one of my guitars and the re solder was so bad i needed a Tech to fix it, alas

Got to the putting it Back together, from the wifi Cable to the Ribbons (NFI what they do), the disk drive reinstallation, ect

still goes, does indeed boot up.
so stoked, never thought id completely Take it apart to put it back together.

 

[dwwaino]

When the wife is away this is what I have to put up with. How am I supposed to do anything? He also drank my water without even asking.

 

[Chief]

When the wife is away this is what I have to put up with. How am I supposed to do anything? He also drank my water without even asking.

View attachment 2288949

Maybe swap it for a dog?

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Email sent, basically looking at shaving money off the CPU, keyboard and mouse, and possibly the case (I'd be happy with something more conservative if more fans can't be added to the fishbowl under budget so long as it's still functional), and money added to the RAM, the NVMe and possibly the monitor.

So basically did all this. Same monitor and case, dropped back to the 9800X3D (wild to think that's a step back lol), went with Razer keyboard and mouse. Wired keyboard and wireless mouse. Both are essentially the 2025 versions of what I have now (from 2014 and 2016), but the mouse is now wireless. RAM upgraded to C30, NVMe bumped up to 2TB, and an extra 3 fans added (so it'll have 9 in total, 6 of the Montech GF120s, plus the 3 that come with the CPU cooler )

Downside? The PSU is out of stock (silly me didn't check that) so the waiting game has begun sigh

 

[gaskin]

Downside? The PSU is out of stock (silly me didn't check that) so the waiting game has begun sigh

Why not just go with a different PSU that is in stock?

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Why not just go with a different PSU that is in stock?

Couldn't be arsed doing more research when the one they quoted got great reviews.

 

[biaseddustyfan]

any opinions on 3440x1440 monitors? good models, or whether it's even worth it? never used more than a 27" 16:9 flat monitor. but now that I have a good PC been tempted to give a 21:9 a go. might have to try find a shop where I can get a feel for the 21:9, but we have limited stores here in ACT

I'd want to have at least 120-165hz capability, don't care about getting 240hz though. never had an OLED monitor, so no opinions on that really, I'm sure it's great