Help me spec a new PC

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6 Oct 2008
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Hey, so I think it's a good time for me to start looking into building a new PC, while this time I intend to have it built by OCuK I first want to get a solid idea of what parts I want hence this post requesting advice.

My current PC I built ~6 years ago now and while I've upgraded things as I've gone I feel I've hit a wall with being able to do that with my mobo not supporting ddr4 etc. I drop to very low fps (15-20) in games like Path of Exile and Borderlands 3 often drops low too playing at 1440p and I want to switch to a higher refresh rate monitor in the near future so being able to run at 120-140+ fps is the goal here.

(current pc below in spoiler if curious)
Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor
Gigabyte Z87-HD3 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX)
Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW)
CoolerCooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler
Samsung 960 1TB SSD + Samsung 840 Basic 250GB SSD + 4TB HDD
Gigabyte G1 Gaming 1080 GTX

Budget wise I don't know really I'd probably decide based on what price is looking like but certainly nothing crazy overkill. Thus far all I'm pretty sure of is that I'd want the Ryzen 3900 5900 as the 3950 5950 doesn't seem worth the increase in price for performance? GPU wise I'm thinking to go for the 3080 though I don't know which brand (and I'll be avoiding amd gpus given my issues with them in the past), one nitpick with my current GPU (gigabyte 1080) is that it has had very audible coil whine throughout its use and I'd really like to get a quiter tower this time around.

Other than that I've no idea - What do you guys think to that cpu+gpu combo and what motherboard should I be looking at? Also are nvme ssd's worth it for gaming yet/likely to be worth it anytime soon? Any specific ram? I'd like to future proof as much as possible so I'd probably go for 32gb DDR4 but beyond that, shrug, also I don't know if water cooling is something I'd need/want? I'm generally fine with the sound of fans as long as they are decent quality so I'd probably avoid water cooling unless highly recommended.

So in short, I'd like help to spec a PC from scratch for 1440p 140+fps gaming+occasional streaming&media etc

Thanks in advance
 
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If you're alright to wait a bit (which you'd have to for a 3080 anyway) I'd probably just go for the 5600x over the 3900 as you actually get a fair bit more gaming performance for less money and it's lower tdp so easier to cool. Also means you'd get more performance out of a 6000 series GPU if you ended up going for one of those.

My Palit 3070 seems pretty solid (and they changed to a black backplate which is nice) but I don't have much experience with Nvidia partner cards so not sure what to recommend there.

NVMe makes 0 noticeable difference for most things currently, and given how much prices have gone down over the past few years I wouldn't bother spending any more on one over just a SATA speed one, I'd just make sure to get a board with 2 m.2 slots. Maybe in a year or two there'll be games that make the speed difference noticeable, but even if there are and they're games you actually care about you'll probably be able to get 150-200% of the capacity for the same price at that point.

RAM wise just grab whatever has decent speed and latency and is on offer, there's probably gonna be lots on sale soon.

By water cooling do you mean AiO or custom loop? Custom loop is expensive and a ballache, not really worth it unless you want to tinker with it or are trying to push everything to its limit imo. AiOs are only really for aesthetics, a decent tower cooler will perform just as well for often lower prices, and even then a stock cooler will work fine unless you're overclocking.
 
Oops, I meant 5900x over 5950x, noted on the NVMe thanks

As for water cooling I'm completely clueless about it but the way you describe them none of them interest me, I'm not looking to overclock to the max and I prefer less flashiness not more
 
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