Building a powerhouse rig - advice is appreciated

[Lalji]

Hello All,

I'm building a new rig after several years and I'm hoping I can get some advice. I've done my due diligence, but I may have missed something subtle, such as the RAM isn't ideal for this mobo, or that the GPU won't fit with that case, etc. So, any help is appreciated.

1. Primary Use:
- Gaming and Work. I want the PC to be ultra fast, I want to load windows in seconds and I want to load my applications quickly. I want to support 4K gaming at 144Hz.

2. Budget:
I'm looking at $10,000.00 with monitors, tax, shipping, etc... All in.

3. Country:
Canada!

4. Preferences:
I want the case and components to be mostly white.

5. Parts I'm Reusing:
Just my KB (Logitech), Mouse (Logitech), External HDDs, Headphones (Sennheiser), and smaller components.

6. Build date:
As soon as I can buy the darn CPU and GPU.

7. Gaming Resolution:
I'll be getting the LG 27GN950-B, so I plan to game at 4K at 144Hz. I'll reduce settings if my rig can't support 4K.

Please note, I'm okay to downgrade the CPU to 5900X and the price of the GPU on pcpartpicker is incorrect, I don't know why. https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/q3PGRT

Thank you in advance!

 

[lutgnature]

power supply 850w
I'd take more, over 900-950 minimum.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Hi! Thats a fair sized budget, and you've obviously done your research.

My thoughts:

Are you really going for triple monitors? Even a 3090 wouldn't provide decent frame rates across three 4k screens, and I'm not sure but I think you'd need to look into whether you have 3 ports on the GPU capable of feeding 3 high refresh 4K monitors. Might be worth looking into a single LC CX 4K series giant TV's with GSync instead, if you wanted to be hitting 120hz plus in newer AAA games and still have that massive amount of screen .

You may get lucky with the RAM at 4000 but not all Ryzen chips are capable of running Infinity fabric at that speed. If you found you couldn't run it 1:1 with the RAM, performance would be worse than running the RAM slower. If your chip 'only' runs at 1900 Infinity Fabric then you should be able to manually input the primary timings and set the RAM to 3800, which would still give very good performance. Just something to consider.

You don't need to spend that much on the motherboard, I guess at your budget your not worried about saving money, but I believe the Strix X570-E has exactly the same VRM setup as the Hero for a bit less, and something like the MSI MEG Unify or Gigabyte Aorus Master would be a bit cheaper and just as good as long as they have all the other connectivity/features you really need.

Looking at several reviews, we are talking under 200 watts for the 5950X in a stress test, and around 480 for the 3090 in Furmark. The 850w RMx should be more than enough for your components.

I was looking at the Lian Li PC011 Dynamic myself a while ago. What puts me off is that its designed around full custom water cooling, and I'm unsure how well it would cool an air cooled GPU, especially one putting out near 500 watts of heat into my case. Another thing I would look into a little more if I were you.

 

[Lalji]

Hi! Thats a fair sized budget, and you've obviously done your research.

My thoughts:

Are you really going for triple monitors? Even a 3090 wouldn't provide decent frame rates across three 4k screens, and I'm not sure but I think you'd need to look into whether you have 3 ports on the GPU capable of feeding 3 high refresh 4K monitors. Might be worth looking into a single LC CX 4K series giant TV's with GSync instead, if you wanted to be hitting 120hz plus in newer AAA games and still have that massive amount of screen .

You may get lucky with the RAM at 4000 but not all Ryzen chips are capable of running Infinity fabric at that speed. If you found you couldn't run it 1:1 with the RAM, performance would be worse than running the RAM slower. If your chip 'only' runs at 1900 Infinity Fabric then you should be able to manually input the primary timings and set the RAM to 3800, which would still give very good performance. Just something to consider.

You don't need to spend that much on the motherboard, I guess at your budget your not worried about saving money, but I believe the Strix X570-E has exactly the same VRM setup as the Hero for a bit less, and something like the MSI MEG Unify or Gigabyte Aorus Master would be a bit cheaper and just as good as long as they have all the other connectivity/features you really need.

Looking at several reviews, we are talking under 200 watts for the 5950X in a stress test, and around 480 for the 3090 in Furmark. The 850w RMx should be more than enough for your components.

I was looking at the Lian Li PC011 Dynamic myself a while ago. What puts me off is that its designed around full custom water cooling, and I'm unsure how well it would cool an air cooled GPU, especially one putting out near 500 watts of heat into my case. Another thing I would look into a little more if I were you.

Thank you for the thorough reply!!!

I only plan to game on the centre monitor, so it'll be one monitor for gaming and the other two are for productivity and work.

The RAM is the wrong one, I don't know how that happened. I'm getting the 3600 with a much lower CAS. Sorry about the mistake.

For mobo, which one do you recommend out of those 3? I think mobo is where I know the least. I picked the Crosshair because it had great reviews and I wanted to be safe and ensure I don't hit any mobo bottlenecks, because that would suck.

Thanks again!

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

No problem Honestly I havent looked thoroughly at the higher end X570 boards, I guess you want to stick with X570 over B550 as you're getting 2 PCI-E 4.0 NVME.

If you check thís list I also linked in my first post it will tell you whether any of the boards there can handle a 3950X overclocked, which should be a comparable amount of power to a 5950X. Pretty much all of the Asus range can do it down to the TUF Gaming X570 Plus. Figure out how many back panel USB's you need and what kind of RGB control and other features, and of course whichever you also think looks best.

I'd also recommend reading plenty of reviews and Googling for comments on forums about whatever boards you're interested in to find of there are any common complaints not mentioned in reviews. A spreadsheet makes it easier to compare features.

Something else I just noticed, if you do intend to play around with overclocking either manually or by PBO, then the 5950X will use a lot more power. In that case you should jump up to a 1000w PSU as @lutgnature said. Considering your budget its not much of a problem. Just get the RMx 1000W and you'd be good. Sorry I should have thought about that earlier.

 

[Lalji]

I don't intend to OC, but I guess it's good to be safe!

 

[mainer]

That's an awesome budget you have! I get a new custom system about every 4 years and can usually only alot between $5000-6000 (US dollars). You should be able to get anything you want, but availability is going to be the real issue, especially with GPUs.

I'm not a master PC builder by any means, but I can throw in a couple of recommendations from my experience.

GPU: I would avoid paying the scalper pricing that one sees on Ebay or even Amazon. I think it's best to get on a wait list somewhere for whatever card you're looking for. I did that on the EVGA site with their "auto notify" system. It took 2 months, but I didn't have to pay a ridiculous price to get an RTX 3080. It can't hurt to get yourself on the list if you're considering an Nvidia card. Another note about the 3080s or 3090s, is that they take up 2 slots on your MOBO (using 1 and covering the other).

Link: EVGA - Products - Graphics

Also of note, SLI, running 2, or even 3 cards is basically dead. If that's something that you were considering, take a look at a couple articles on that subject:
RIP: Nvidia slams the final nail in SLI's coffin, no new profiles after 2020 | PCWorld

The End of SLI As We Know It: Nvidia Reveals New Model | Tom's Hardware

PSU: This is just my opinion, but overkill is good when it comes to PSUs, especially if you're going to be running 3 monitors. This is the one I use with an RTX3080 and a 43"4k monitor:
EVGA - Products - EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G3, 80 Plus Gold 1000W, Fully Modular, Eco Mode with New HDB Fan, 10 Year Warranty, Includes Power ON Self Tester, Compact 150mm Size, Power Supply 220-G3-1000-X1 - 220-G3-1000-X1

I'm big on EVGA parts, not only because they're good, but the customer support & warranty for their parts is the best anywhere.

 

[Lalji]

if your going to use that many monitors wouldn't it be better to run dual vid cards? I don't run that many monitors, but i'd have to think keeping a decidated gaming vid card/main and a secondary for your others stuff, my guess is other programs/surfing/streaming?


could you pair a 3080 and a 3060? like i said i'm not all that familiar with doing that.


as far as your build, well you need to ask yourself, AMD or intell. To me that budget is way over what you need unless your just way over paying for things. I personally would just wait another month or two, grab a new z-590 board and the intell 11900k chip, add 32 gigs of ram, grab two vid cards and call it a day. Though really, if your gaming your most likely not going to be doing much else, so having a static second monitor with a web page open is not going to do much to your performance. So in all honesty you could just get away with the main vid card, especially one like that.

going with a primary drive, then a second for your games, and maybe even a big HDD, or sata SSD for large space storage.

I'll only be gaming on the central monitor, so I should be fine with that.

I used to have SLI several years ago and I decided against it this time around. I figure I can always pick up another 3090 in the future if I really wanted to.

I was originally goin gto wait for the 590 and 11900K, but the benchmark on the 11700K changed my mind. Of course, I can't find the GPU/CPU, so right now I'm just waiting, which SUUUCKS!

I have a server with a bunch of HDDs, so I don't need that on my main rig.

Thank you!

 

[Lalji]

That's an awesome budget you have! I get a new custom system about every 4 years and can usually only alot between $5000-6000 (US dollars). You should be able to get anything you want, but availability is going to be the real issue, especially with GPUs.

I'm not a master PC builder by any means, but I can throw in a couple of recommendations from my experience.

GPU: I would avoid paying the scalper pricing that one sees on Ebay or even Amazon. I think it's best to get on a wait list somewhere for whatever card you're looking for. I did that on the EVGA site with their "auto notify" system. It took 2 months, but I didn't have to pay a ridiculous price to get an RTX 3080. It can't hurt to get yourself on the list if you're considering an Nvidia card. Another note about the 3080s or 3090s, is that they take up 2 slots on your MOBO (using 1 and covering the other).

Link: EVGA - Products - Graphics

Also of note, SLI, running 2, or even 3 cards is basically dead. If that's something that you were considering, take a look at a couple articles on that subject:
RIP: Nvidia slams the final nail in SLI's coffin, no new profiles after 2020 | PCWorld

The End of SLI As We Know It: Nvidia Reveals New Model | Tom's Hardware

PSU: This is just my opinion, but overkill is good when it comes to PSUs, especially if you're going to be running 3 monitors. This is the one I use with an RTX3080 and a 43"4k monitor:
EVGA - Products - EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G3, 80 Plus Gold 1000W, Fully Modular, Eco Mode with New HDB Fan, 10 Year Warranty, Includes Power ON Self Tester, Compact 150mm Size, Power Supply 220-G3-1000-X1 - 220-G3-1000-X1

I'm big on EVGA parts, not only because they're good, but the customer support & warranty for their parts is the best anywhere.

Thank you, and I agree. I'm on a waiting list with a bunch of companies EVGA, Canada Computers, Newegg, and more. I don't want to pay the scalper prices, but I'm getting desperate. It just seems impossible to find any parts.

Yeah, I love EVGA, but I chose that PSU based on this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...SvH1_juom7SMG5SCNzP2Uov8w/edit#gid=1529225916

 

[Lalji]

LOL! I hope not, I hope I can get the parts this week!

As for the local shops, I tried one, they wanted to charge me just over $500 for their fee. I thought that was overpriced and decided to look for the parts myself.