£1,700 new PC bare unit

Vegeta

Vegeta

Vegeta

Soldato
Joined
6 Nov 2004
Posts
5,795
My cousin is after his first PC

He already has a:
Mouse
Keyboard
Monitor
Case

So looking to get the rest a:

2TB hard drive at least
Decent PSU to allow for upgrades
CPU
CPU cooler
GPU
Motherboard
Ram :/

Hes buying a Lian Li Lancool 217 I think an AIO for the CPU cooler would be better? But if I'm wrong correct me.

His max budget is £1,700 for the lot thank you
 
My basket at OcUK:

Total: £1,685.88 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

Depending on the games he plays he might be better off with a 9600, but the extra L3 of an X3D will be helpful in a lot of cases.

The AiO is massive overkill, but it's also only £40, make sure the case supports it.

The RAM might not run at 6400 with the CPU, but it's one of the cheapest 32gb sets on OCUK currently, at worst you should be able to manually dial in 6000/c30.
 
Gigabyte Aorus 7300 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive
STO-GIG-05732
£250 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-51200C40 6400MHz Dual Channel Ki
MY-0AV-TG
£400 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
FSP VITA-850GM 850W 80+ Gold ATX 3.1 PCIE 5.1 Modular Power Supply
POW-FSP-06657
£110 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Sapphire Nitro+ B850A WiFi 7 (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard
MOT-SPR-05688
£158 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 XT Reaper 16GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card
GRA-PWC-04017
£630 (incl. VAT)
£620 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Thermalright Aqua Elite 360 Black ARGB V3 All In One CPU Cooler
COO-TLR-03256
£50 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D Six Core 4.5GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail
PRO-AMD-06394
£240 (incl. VAT)
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Slightly over budget but gone with fastest gaming CPU and 1000w PSU.

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £1,837.88 (includes delivery: £0.00)​
 
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core 5.20GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail
PRO-AMD-03517
£420 (incl. VAT)
£400 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Kingston FURY Beast EXPO 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit
MEM-KNG-02960
£420 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Sapphire Nitro+ B850A WiFi 7 (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard
MOT-SPR-05688
£158 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
FSP VITA-1000GM 1000W 80+ Gold ATX 3.1 PCIE 5.1 Modular Power Supply
POW-FSP-06658
£130 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 XT Reaper 16GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card
GRA-PWC-04017
£630 (incl. VAT)
£620 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE CPU Cooler - 120mm
COO-TLR-02665
£30 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
I've spoke to him and decided to go for the higher spec CPU. What's a good 360 AIO is the one above sufficient or can he get a much better performing one for extra? At this point he may as well spend that little bit extra and get better cooling
 
Vegeta said:
I've spoke to him and decided to go for the higher spec CPU. What's a good 360 AIO is the one above sufficient or can he get a much better performing one for extra? At this point he may as well spend that little bit extra and get better cooling
Click to expand...
The 9800x3d is easy to cool so the air cooler peerless assassin is more than capable and can match some aio.

The thermalright aio offer good value for money but arctic freezer 3 is the best imo, it has a thicker radiator than most 38mm compared to the 27mm norm so be aware of clearances.
 
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X3D SKUs do not have much heat to justify the use of AIO (with the leakage risk taken into consideration), personally I would opt for a high quality tower cooler, a dual tower from Thermalright if you are on a tight budget, if you can afford a little more I would recommend the Sudokoo SK700/SK700V (~£70 on Amazon), the best overall cooler of 2025 recommended by Gamers Nexus.
 
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ingramli said:
X3D SKUs do not have much heat to justify the use of AIO (with the leakage risk taken into consideration), personally I would opt for a high quality tower cooler, a dual tower from Thermalright if you are on a tight budget, if you can afford a little more I would recommend the Sudokoo SK70000V/SK7 (~£70 on Amazon), the best overall cooler of 2025 recommended by Gamers Nexus.
Click to expand...

Leakage from AIO's isn't really a thing is it. I think I seen one pump fail since LGA1150 was a thing. Can't remember the last time someone said their AIO leaked.

I myself prefer air, but an AIO simply suits more modern cases, because so much intake simply is lost through PC roofs. Heat wise I agree, but they do peak, running Cinebench can easily see these CPU's hit bang on their thermal limits and the fan ramp up can be intrusive, with an AIO you can have looks, less ramp up and in general quieter operation especially during boost clocks.

With a 217 I would want 2/3rd of the roof with a blank panel if running air, with a rear panel/rear roof exhaust. And would prefer the Phantom Spirit or Peerless Assassin with heatpipe covers in all black at £40. Not a huge fan of many of these budget coolers such as the Sudokoo, sounds like a rebranded board game instead of a rebranded cooler.
If pushing £65 you are in branded AIO/Air cooling territory that will have broader compatibility. The Suckdooku cooler is limited to AM5 only and has compatibility issues with some motherboards.
 
It is true that many modern case are designed towards AIO cooling, but there are still cases good for tower cooling setup. I am sort of biased but I just prefer the reliability and peace of mind of air cooling, especially when we are talking about AMD build, which IMO AIO is only really required on the very hot Intel 13/14th gen with poor efficiency in term of performance per watt, for something below 200W under full load, I rather not to mess with water, but that's my choice.

P.S. if cross platform compatibility is a concern (where SK700/SK700V are AM5 only), ID-Cooling A720 is also a solid choice.
 
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ingramli said:
It is true that many modern case are designed towards AIO cooling, but there are still cases good for tower cooling setup. I am sort of biased but I just prefer the reliability and peace of mind of air cooling, especially when we are talking about AMD build, which IMO AIO is only really required on the very hot Intel 13/14th gen with poor efficiency in term of performance per watt, for something below 200W under full load, I rather not to mess with water, but that's my choice.

P.S. if cross platform compatibility is a concern (where SK700/SK700V are AM5 only), ID-Cooling A720 is also a solid choice.
Click to expand...

The Thermalright Royal Pretor can be had for £40 last I checked, pretty much impossible to beat at that price for air cooling. Socket compatibility is as good as any of their HSF's, the only real concern is whether or not it'll fit as it's bloody massive.
 
Vegeta said:
He prefers the aesthetics of an AIO over the air coolers
Click to expand...


My basket at OcUK:

Total: £143.98 (includes delivery: £3.99)​

Pick your poison.

The Freezer III is the better cooler, but it can have compatibility issues due to the thicker radiators as mentioned by micky.

Both are total overkill for the 9800X3D either way, it isn't a hot running CPU.
 
just choose an aio you like. any 360mm will do. if your cpu runs 1 or 2 degrees different depending on the aio it will have 0% impact on performance as it'll only start to throttle at 95 degrees or something that it'll never reach. I just choose one with a 5yrs warranty at least..
I've go an 9800x3d on an arctic freezer 36 rgb air cooler (which I'm using atm), and also in other room an 217 inf case with a lian li hydroshyft II aio with the cl fans(as they were cheaper). AIO gives a much cleaner look though you pay for it
 
I think in some instances an air cooler can actually look better than an AIO.

I loved the look of the Arctic Freezer 36 and ended up using that over my Noctua coolers.
Yet it's noisier and the 7600x that cools runs hotter than I would like.
The case (NZXT H510) is the biggest culprit on that build but by far the most heat is exhausted via the rear roof fan.

In contrast the BeQuiet Silent Loop 240 AIO is cooler quieter and ramps up less. But you have ugly hoses.

On something like an NZXT H6 or H9 if you have fans running bottom side and top with an air cooler in the middle, you can actually have detrimental air flow.

It's also why HAVN state the 1st roof fan should be intake.

Quite a few cases on the market would benefit from roof blanking plates for people using air coolers, but the fact is that modern cases Inc the Lian Li 217 and Antec Flux Pro are designed with an air cooler as a secondary consideration in a market pretty much directed at PC gaming and AIO use.
 
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