New PC - so many questions

[AccessDenied]

Hi All

Hope you can help. I managed to pick up a 3090 FE a couple of weeks ago and my 5 year old system needs a refresh. I will be using it mainly for games (1440p) and would like the potential for it to be used for streaming and video editing. I also want to put some effort in and make it look good. Going for a black case with a mix of white lighting and cable sleeves. (but this is pretty new to me). (not overclocking).

Here is a rough idea of my proposed spec;

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Lian-Li Lancool II Mesh performance Midi-Tower Case - Black= £96.95
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core 4.7GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £382.99
• 1 x Asus ROG Strix X570-E Gaming (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset ATX Motherboard= £289.99
• 2 x Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO Black 16GB (2x8GB) 3600 MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Dual Kit= £98.99
• 1 x WD Blue SN550 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS200T2B0C)= £199.99
• 1 x NZXT Kraken Z63 AIO CPU Water Cooler with LCD Screen - 280mm= £219.95

Total: £1,402.55 (includes shipping: £14.70)​

​

I originally had £1500 for this lot in mind. so im within budget but a few questions I have;

1. How much should you spend on a motherboard - I want one that looks pretty cool, have wifi and at least 2 x m.2 slots.

2. What RAM speed do I want? 3600 the norm? Better to have faster or is that more if your overclocking? also - can the corsair vengeance be set to a white light?

3. Any suggestions for the m.2 drives? size wise 2tb is what i am after. leaving room to add one later.

4. I have a Corsair 750w PSU - will that cover this spec with 3090 and a few extra fans? or need bigger?

5. How would you change the spec above based on the brief? recommendations and advise are welcome

 

[Tetras]

I would buy a much cheaper motherboard and get a second SSD (500GB-ish) just for the OS and desktop stuff.

 

[mickyflinn]

Should go for the rgb version of the case.

3090 on a 750w is close especially power spikes in games, some getting away with 750w and others needing more . Try it and see.

3600mhz memory is spot on.

 

[EsaT]

Expensive board won't make CPU any faster, or longer good staying, but only you that much poorer.
And in case of Asus X570 you'll get failure timer in bad chipset cooler design:
Those marketing excrements hide that chipset heatsink is tiny, directly under heat of graphics card and relies on fan constricted by more BS and sucking heat from graphics card to actually cool well.

MSI X570 Tomahawk has far superior chipset cooler capable to working passively, if you just have good case cooling.
MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk WiFi (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 ATX Motherboard= £209.99

Also well below £200 B550 boards would do fine, if you don't need high PCIe bandwidth.
MSI MPG B550 Gaming Carbon WiFi (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard= £163.99
Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming (Wi-Fi) (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard= £169.99
By now we would start talking about fitting Ryzen 5900X into same budget...


Also those Corsair memories are brand and Ridiculously Grossly Bloated overpriced for generic latencies.
£75 would get little faster latency non-RGB memory:
Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS416G360C8K)= £74.99
If wanting RGB, Crucial would at least have the tightest latencies available before price per GB taking rocket ride to orbit.
Crucial Ballistix RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C16 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit= £98.99

Also for 32GB one 2x16GB kit would be usually recommendable instead of two 2x8GB kits:
While sold with same product name/number, different individual kits might use different memory chips potentially causing problems.
Kingston HyperX Predator 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX436C17PB3K2/32)= £179.99
Crucial Ballistix RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C16 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit= £188.99

Though in one thing four 8GB DIMMs is better:
It automatically guarantees two ranks per channel giving command interleaving, which boosts achieved performance.
3200MHz memory in dual rank config basically matches single rank 3600MHz config and so on.
In 16GB DIMMs only very expensive ones using Samsung B-die chips are guaranteed to have two ranks per DIMM.
But "quad channel" kits would have four matching/tested together DIMMs:
Kingston HyperX Predator RGB 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 PC4-29000C17 3600MHz Quad Channel Kit (HX436C17PB4AK4= £199.99


Also that NZXT Kraken really takes the cake in brand and RGB overpricing.
Average size slim radiator should make price at most half of that.
Despite of all the marketing pee and hype it would struggle in continuous cooling per noise against top heatpipe coolers.
And for AMD's lot more honest TDPs than Intels £50 level coolers would do fine.

Anyway 50% thicker radiators using Arctic would have still beefier radiator for still lower price.
Arctic Liquid Freezer II A-RGB High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 240mm= £94.99
And very high surface area radiator would be still cheap in comparison.
Arctic Liquid Freezer II A-RGB High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 360mm= £119.99

So by now besides 5900X we could even upgrade SSD from entry level to full speed PCIe v3 model.
Corsair Force MP510 series 1920GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F1920GBMP510)= £248.99
PCIe v4 NVMes again have price jumping lot...
TeamGroup T-Force Cardea Zero Z440 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive= £329.99

 

[AccessDenied]

Thanks so much for all that info - somehow i still end up with more questions.

Here is revised basket;

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk WiFi (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 ATX Motherboard= £209.99
• 1 x Lian-Li Lancool II USB3.1 Type-C Cable= £11.99
• 1 x Lian-Li Lancool II Side ARGB LED Strip= £13.99
• 1 x Lian-Li Strimer Plus Addressable RGB 24 Pin Motherboard Cable= £44.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 5900X Twelve Core 4.8GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £529.99
• 1 x Crucial Ballistix RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C16 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit= £188.99
• 1 x Lian-Li Lancool II Mesh RGB Midi-Tower Case - Black= £96.95
• 1 x Corsair Force MP510 series 1920GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F1920GBMP510)= £248.99
• 1 x Lian-Li GALAHAD 240mm High Performance RGB CPU Water Cooler - White= £109.99

Total: £1,469.07 (includes shipping: £13.20)


So other questions;

1. Any recommendations on new PSU to manage this lot?
2. I read somewhere that if I use the 2nd m.2 slot for a 2nd nvme drive it will slow the GPU?
3. My initial idea was to front mount the AIO cooler. Went for smaller one to mount at the top of the front, leaving a gap at the bottom for a 3rd fan to better cool the gpu area? make sense? or silly idea?
4. btw - chose the lian li for matching brand component and in white to match theme. didnt like the look for the artic freezer.
5. Any suggestions for power leads to the 3090 fe 12-pin connector. the dual 8-pin adaptor looks really messing, especially in the awkward position of the connectors on the card?​

 

[heatonpkmassive]

I'd still ditch that board and get a decent B550 just so I didn't have to deal with a chipset fan, it's the reason why I got this board instead of an X570.

 

[Joxeon]

1. Any recommendations on new PSU to manage this lot?
2. I read somewhere that if I use the 2nd m.2 slot for a 2nd nvme drive it will slow the GPU?
3. My initial idea was to front mount the AIO cooler. Went for smaller one to mount at the top of the front, leaving a gap at the bottom for a 3rd fan to better cool the gpu area? make sense? or silly idea?
4. btw - chose the lian li for matching brand component and in white to match theme. didnt like the look for the artic freezer.
5. Any suggestions for power leads to the 3090 fe 12-pin connector. the dual 8-pin adaptor looks really messing, especially in the awkward position of the connectors on the card?

1 I'd go for an 850-1kw with 7-10 year warranty.
2 the GPU will not be effected by adding a 2nd nvme.
3 why not mount the aio in the top since if you mount at the front you will get higher GPU temps.

 

[Cadder]

@AccessDenied I have the mobo and NVMe drive (although a bit smaller) in your revised basket and I'm incredibly happy with both.

It looks like you have a nice build ahead of you.

 

[alec]

why not mount the aio in the top since if you mount at the front you will get higher GPU temps.

I disagree. 125 extra watts of heat from CPU will make little difference to GPU. Whereas cool outside air for CPU will allow higher/longer boost clocks.

On PSU side, 750W should cope

 

[Joxeon]

I disagree. 125 extra watts of heat from CPU will make little difference to GPU. Whereas cool outside air for CPU will allow higher/longer boost clocks.

On PSU side, 750W should cope

Depends if the priority is gaming though vs all core CPU workloads, even just removing my dust filter increases GPU temps by 3c so I'd imagine a hot thick rad would increase them by more than that. Also the unless your gaming at 1080p the CPUs boost will make little to no difference to fps.

Also you could likely offset any CPU temp rise by using a 280mm aio at the top although it's only listed that 240mm fit on the lancool product page there are plenty of reports of people using 280mm with no issues.

 

[Tetras]

2. I read somewhere that if I use the 2nd m.2 slot for a 2nd nvme drive it will slow the GPU?​

Zen 3 + X570 has enough lanes to run 2 m.2 slots. I'd assume you were reading about a board with a different chipset.

 

[AccessDenied]

Hi All

I think I have almost made my mind up - clearly a white theme going on - here's my updated basket;

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Gigabyte B550 VISION D-P (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard= £189.95
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 5900X Twelve Core 4.8GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £529.99
• 2 x Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - White= £109.99
• 1 x Lian-Li Lancool II Side ARGB LED Strip= £13.99
• 1 x Lian-Li Strimer Plus Addressable RGB 24 Pin Motherboard Cable= £44.99
• 1 x Corsair Force MP510 series 1920GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F1920GBMP510)= £248.99
• 1 x Seasonic Prime GX-850 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply= £179.99
• 1 x Lian-Li Lancool II USB3.1 Type-C Cable= £11.99
• 1 x Lian-Li Lancool II Mesh RGB Midi-Tower Case - White= £96.95
• 1 x Lian-Li GALAHAD 240mm High Performance RGB CPU Water Cooler - White= £109.99
• 1 x Lian-Li UNI SL120 Addressable RGB White 120mm Fan Triple Pack with Controller= £74.99

Total: £1,736.50 (includes shipping: £14.70)​

​

a few questions;

1. the ram is 3200mhz - will this be okay?
2. any other suggestions on the psu? i heard seasonic are one of the better brands.
3. I have a 3090 FE going in this build - the power is akwardly placed on the card - are there any nicer cables that I can get for this card ?
4. any problems with this build?

p.s - thank you to everyone who took the time to post and help out.

 

[Cadder]

The ram should "be okay" but that's a top end ryzen CPU you have there. 3600 MHz C16 RAM is the sweet spot and shouldn't cost much difference.

Would you prefer the RAM to be white or would you prefer it to perform to a level that does your CPU justice?

The RAM I bought is on offer again. 32gb may be overkill but would fit in with your build:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...00c16-3600mhz-dual-channel-kit-my-002-8p.html

 

[Cadder]

Alternatively you can set the LEDs on this to white

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cruc...5b8723d620c-1628455395-0-gqNtZGzNAnijcnBszQ4O

You might want some input with all the dual channel, dual rank and other deeper RAM stuff though.

 

[Haz123]

1. the ram is 3200mhz - will this be okay?
2. any other suggestions on the psu? i heard seasonic are one of the better brands.
3. I have a 3090 FE going in this build - the power is akwardly placed on the card - are there any nicer cables that I can get for this card ?
4. any problems with this build?

1- I have a 5900x with that exact ram setup 4x8gb Corsair 3200 mhz white ram. Yes I am leaving performance on the table by not using 3600mhz ram but it is only 1-2% difference so I am willing to lose it to have white sticks. I am more than happy with the performance I have and it is way more than I require for anything I do

2- Yes Seasonic are amazing psus, I have 2 currently running in my pcs and I trust them.

3- Nividia really really messed up with those power cables. They are hideous. I am sure you can get replacement cables or if you vertically mount the card you can hide most of the cable behind the pcb.

4- Build overall looks good. I wish I had seen the Gigabyte Vision mobo before I purchased my Asus X570 Prime. Fans, the SL120 look amazing and are fantastic quality products but they are not the quietest. They also only light on the sides so do not throw light into the case. You may want to think about the AL120 , hard to get hold of at moment but ment to be quieter and have different RGB that would match the Galahad cooler a little better.


I see you asked about changing the colour of the ram sticks. I used the Corsair icue software to change mine and they are now stuck on blue. I do not mind because that is the colour I want them to be but I can no longer alter them. If you want white them do that as one of the first things you do and then leave them alone and hope they work ok.

 

[AccessDenied]

thanks guys - your comments are reassuring

I may look to some alternative white RAM sticks available @ 3600 mhz - seems OC dont offer any.

I am about to press the button on the order;

1. i asked this earlier when I had specced a b570 mobo - now with the 550 - can I run 2 x m.2 drives without effecting the GPU?
2. do I need to purchase thermal paste? or just use the pre-applied paste that comes with the AIO (assume it does)?

 

[mickyflinn]

thanks guys - your comments are reassuring

I may look to some alternative white RAM sticks available @ 3600 mhz - seems OC dont offer any.

I am about to press the button on the order;

1. i asked this earlier when I had specced a b570 mobo - now with the 550 - can I run 2 x m.2 drives without effecting the GPU?
2. do I need to purchase thermal paste? or just use the pre-applied paste that comes with the AIO (assume it does)?

B550 motherboards only let's you run 1 x m2 pcie4 and the rest at pcie3 speed No restriction. X570 motherboards will let you run 2 x m2 pcie4 drives without limitation if you plan on 2 x pcie4 m2 drives then x570.

Could always grab some extra thermal paste very handy to have, i think the lian li cooler comes with a tube of paste.

 

[Haz123]

You can run 2 M.2 drives in a B550 mobo and it will not effect the GPU at all. The second slot will only be pcie 3 so any ssd in that slot will be limited to those speeds.

Just buy some thermal paste, is good to have some spare in case you do not mount the heatsink perfectly the first time. Get some cleaning stuff as well , it lasts for ages.

 

[AccessDenied]

Looking for some white ram sticks @ 3600mhz

Would this be okay?

Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO SL DDR4 32GB (4x8GB) 3600MHz Memory

 

[Joxeon]

The difference between 3200 and 3600 would likely only be noticeable if your gaming at 1080p.