need input on building new gaming PC

It has been about 25 years since I have built a PC. I have bought pre-built just for convenience, but I’d like to experience the joy and challenge of building a PC again, especially because I’d like to make it a little project with my daughter.

I admittedly have very little idea of what exactly I’m doing these days. I am looking for a high-end gaming rig, so I put together what seems to be reasonable? Just wanted opinions on what was overkill? Does anything need to be upgraded further? Is everything compatible with one another (in particular, will everything fit the case)?

Money is not a big issue, so I don’t mind spending around $4000. I always tend to err on the “overkill” side. But if there are components that are not going to give me any additional bang for my buck, I am ok at exploring a cheaper version.

Newegg PC Builder Component List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X - Ryzen 9 9000 Series Granite Ridge (Zen 5) 16-Core 4.3 GHz

Motherboard: MSI MPG X870E CARBON WIFI AM5 AMD X870E ATX Motherboard

Memory: 2 x G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 64GB (2 x 32GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6400 (PC5 51200) Desktop Memory Model F5-6400J3239G32GX2-TZ5RK

Graphics Cards: ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 Ti OC Edition 16GB GDDR7 TUF-RTX5070TI-O16G-GAMING PCI-Express 5.0 DLSS 4.0 Graphics Card

Case: MONTECH, KING 95 PRO Dual-Chamber ATX Mid-Tower PC Gaming Case, High-Airflow, Toolless Panels, Sturdy Curved Tempered Glass Front, Six ARGB PWM Fan Pre-installed with Fan Hub, Black

Power Supply: CORSAIR RMe Series RM1200e ATX Power Supply – Fully Modular – ATX 3.1 – 80 PLUS Gold – Cybenetics Platinum – Low-Noise – 1200 Watts – Ten-Year Warranty

Storage: SAMSUNG SSD 9100 PRO 4TB, PCIe 5.0x4 M.2 2280, Seq. Read Speeds Up to 14,800MB/s, Best for AI Computing, Gaming, and Heavy Duty Workstations (MZ-VAP4T0B/AM)

CPU Cooler: CORSAIR NAUTILUS 360 RS ARGB Liquid CPU Cooler – RS120 ARGB Fans – Fits Intel® LGA 1851, AMD® AM5/AM4 – Simple Daisy-Chain Connections - Direct Motherboard Connection

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (USB)

Monitors: Acer Predator X27U X1bmiiphx 27" WQHD (2560 x 1440) Widescreen OLED Gaming Monitor with AMD FreeSync Premium pro, 240Hz Refresh Rate

Total: $4,008.74

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What a great start to your build. What are your needs? Just straight amazing performance? I’d try to look for a RTX 5080 with your level of budget. You can cut back on your storage of 4 Tb and upgrade that later. Try 2 Tb starting point. I’d also look for an X3D model AMD cpu as well. Those are the ones designed for gaming. You can also get cheaper RAM for 64 Gb that look just as good as well.

Someone chip in for the Monitor for me. It’s a good monitor for sure.

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, pretty much just power. It serves as a general home computer for everything else we do, but I have Steam and a number of high-end games I like to play.

For the CPU, I noticed the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which I had initially picked, it was on back order. Just wasn’t sure how the wait might be, and if going with that vs the one currently listed was a big upgrade in performance.

For the storage and RAM, I can certainly look at lower options. Looks like Corsair is a bit cheaper on RAM.

Thanks for the help!

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Looks like a rock solid parts list man :ok_hand: definitely high end all around. Cant wait to see how it turns out once its all built this is no dial up machine thats for sure :sweat_smile::rocket:

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Hey Ham! Oh boy, if it’s been 25 years since you built a PC, then you’re used to looking for which FSB your Pentium III is, getting the right speed SDRAM, and shelling out for a high-end Sound Blaster Audigy card. Welcome to the new millenium.

For the CPU - you’ve chosen a Ryzen 9 9950X. This is actually not the fastest gaming CPU on the market today, that honor belongs to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. 3D V-Cache smooths out performance, so that you not only get a high average framerate, but stutters are minimized - those tiny drops to single-digit FPS that happen for fractions of a second at a time are gone. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D also exists, but serves a different purpose - it is designed for content creation professionals who need 16 cores for workstation tasks, but who use the same machine to run high-end games in their downtime. Precious few games utilize more than 8 cores today, and the 9800X3D is the only CPU that can hold over 60fps in the newest Microsoft Flight Sim at 4K resolution.

There’s nothing negative I can say about your motherboard choice, no critiques whatsoever. Power delivery to the CPU and GPU on that board is top-notch, you’ll be served well for many years.

As far as memory goes, this is a nuance topic. For AMD systems you want the Trident Z5 Neo not the regular version; the regular one is Intel XMP only and will have stability issues on an AMD system… I’ve personally run into issues with just 2 sticks. The Neo version won’t have that problem. That said, AMD CPUs use a modern FSB equivalent called Infinity Fabric which handles all communications between the CPU, RAM, and CPU-connected PCIe slots… it can reliably run at up to 2000MHz on almost all Ryzen 9000 series CPUs and it must be an even divider of the RAM speed. If you run 6400MHz RAM, your options for infinity fabric speed are 2133 at 1:3, or 1600 at 1:4, and most chips won’t do 2133MHz Infinity Fabric. This is a silicon lottery type thing. For that reason you’d be better served by a good quality 6000MHz kit with CL30 or tighter timings. CL28 exists. The RAM latency is infinitely less important on a system with 3D V-Cache, as the super-sized cache on the processor makes up for almost any RAM latency issues.

An RTX 5070 Ti is an excellent choice of GPU, but it will leave your 9800X3D (or 9950X) sitting around twiddling its thumbs. You’ll have more CPU than your games know what to do with. Even an RTX 5090 does not fully saturate the capabilities of a 9800X3D CPU. If you’re opting for “only” (and I use heavy air quotes around the word “only”) a 5070 Ti, then you might as well scale back your CPU choice to something like a Ryzen 7 9700X - you’ll see almost no difference in gaming.

The King 95 Pro is one of the current top picks for out-of-the-box airflow, particularly for the price. And the view you get with the giant curved glass panel is unmatched.

This power supply is extreme overkill. The RTX 5070 Ti maxes out at only 300W of power usage, and you might hit about 180W on your CPU under extreme boost conditions. You’d be well served by an 850W unit as this gives you some headroom for future upgrades; if you’re going with a high-quality brand such as Corsair, PC Power and Cooling, Seasonic, etc… then you will likely never have a problem.

Your storage is a bit on the crazy side, and not because of the capacity but because of the speed. If this PC is for modern games, you won’t see a difference today between drives running at 7GB/second or drives running at over 10GB/second. Save yourself a chunk of change and go with something like a Silicon Power US75 4TB drive; if you want to stick with Samsung as a brand name then a 990 EVO Plus will serve your needs well. The only time you’d notice a difference is if you are editing large videos; moving them around, you’ll see a benefit to more throughput. You won’t see this in games.

As far as the cooler goes, Corsair is fine; Arctic Cooling is better. Their Liquid Freezer III lineup is objectively the best choice for cooling a current Ryzen CPU; the way the CPUs are designed, the actual CPU cores are offset slightly from center within the CPU package, and the I/O die is also under the heat spreader on the CPU, causing the cores to be offset. The Liquid Freezer III has offset mounting, so that the CPU cooler block is directly centered over where the cores are located for maximum cooling - most articles I’ve read are showing a 6 to 7 degree difference Celsius in CPU temperature. The radiator is also thicker at 38mm, so it has additional cooling capacity besides the advantages from the block mounting design.

Best of luck with your build, and I hope you enjoy!

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Thank you! Excellent help!

Yes, last time I built a system, a friend of mine in 7th grade referred to the build as “God like” because I could afford a 266 MHz CPU. Been a while!

I will take all advice into consideration for sure. The one area that’s the most confusing to me is the memory. Way over my head! If I were to stick with the Ryzen 9000 series CPU, per your recommendations, would this be a better option for memory?

G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo RGB Series 64GB (2 x 32GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6000 (PC5 48000) Desktop Memory Model F5-6000J2836G32GX2-TZ5NRW

It’s DDR5 6000 with CL 28.

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I’ll give you the short and dirty answer - Yes, the memory kit you mentioned is a perfect fit for Ryzen 7000 and Ryzen 9000 CPUs. The super low latency (CL28) makes more of a difference on the non 3D V-Cache CPUs, but it certainly doesn’t hurt on a CPU that has it.

The longer explanation, to reiterate.

Socket AM4 and Socket AM5 CPUs use an internal ring bus called the “Infinity Fabric.” It handles communications between the memory, CPU, PCIe slots. The closest thing I can relate this to on older PCs would be a FSB speed. Imagine if you had a Socket 370 CPU that you could run at basically any FSB you wanted, and that would make quite a difference to the overall performance. Now imagine the CPU itself played some role in how high of an FSB you could attain. That’s what Infinity Fabric is - since the old-school memory controller and some of the northbridge functions are now integrated into the CPU itself, the CPU’s overall silicon quality determines how high you can run the Infinity Fabric. And it makes a measurable difference in performance.

For Ryzen 7000 and 9000 series CPUs, the official maximum is 1600MHz for the Infinity Fabric. This is the equivalent to the 66, 100, 133MHz FSB you’d have on old school CPUs. It’s not directly linked to CPU speed with a multiplier like the old days - but it is directly linked to RAM speed. The Infinity Fabric on Ryzen 7000 and 9000 CPUs must run at an even divider off the RAM speed. If you were to run 6400MHz DDR5, then your motherboard would automatically run the divider at 1:4, so the Infinity Fabric would be 1600MHz and the DDR5 would be 4x that speed, 6400MHz.

Infinity Fabric is capable of 2000MHz on something like 99% of Ryzen 7000 and 9000 CPUs out there. If you run with 6000MHz DDR5, then your motherboard will likely automatically run Infinity Fabric at 2000MHz with a 1:3 divider. This ends up being faster overall than running with 6400MHz DDR5 and 1600MHz Infinity Fabric - the Infinity Fabric speed is more important.

A small percentage of Ryzen CPUs can run higher than 2000MHz on the Infinity Fabric. Running 6400MHz DDR5 with a divider at 1:3 would mean Infinity Fabric speed of 2133MHz, which very few chips can handle.

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