Just got a big raise. Upgrade or New Start?

Loony BoB

Loony BoB

Loony BoB

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I'm getting a promotion next month and a hefty pay rise on the back of it, so I'm thinking I'll spend maybe £3k on a PC upgrade, perhaps close to £5k (preferring notably lower though) if I go for an completely new computer. I'm just not sure which would be better at the moment. My PC is pretty solid but when playing some of the higher end games it can stutter a bit, so looking to just ensure I'm more capable in that end of things.

My current specs:
MBD: Asus ROG Strix B350-F AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Six-Core Processor (12 CPUs) ~3.6GHz
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
RAM: Team Group Dark Pro 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Grey (TDPGD416G3
PSU: EVGA SuperNova G2 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply
Drives: 2x 500GB SSD (both pretty full), 3x HDD (500GB, 1TB, 3TB, probably could use another 3TB to replace the 500GB tbh)
Case: Lian Li PC-7FN
Monitors: 2x Asus PB287Q using 2560x1440 resolution
Cooling: Arctic Freezer 33 Plus CPU Cooler - 120/120mm

- Gut feeling says to replace the entire thing, even though it's honestly only struggling with games like RDR2. Monitors can obviously stay as-is. I'm wanting something that will last me a while, so don't mind going for the good stuff, but if you guys think there is room to stay low on a certain component and then upgrade later then just mention that.
- I'm not an overclocker, personally. I have a fair chunk of experience with putting machines together from my previous rigs and work, but I just don't care to meddle in the BIOS if I can avoid it. If it's overclocked pre-shipping then that's fine.
- I don't care for flashiness - I like a nice dark black PC that kind of hides away, with ports at the front/top for easy access. I'm not against windows or anything, but my rig stays underneath my desk so it's not really that beneficial other than making the cat want to mess around with it :D
- For cooling, I'd prefer to not require any kind of plumbing requirement, but don't mind the idea of my first watercooled unit if it's standalone and doesn't require much (if any) maintenance.

Also, I know this might be a stupid question, but... with the pre-built rigs from the site, most of the better gaming PCs are 100% SSD with no option for storage. Is there any reason for that? I feel like having a £500 3TB SSD is a bit overkill for media storage when you can get a HDD of the same capacity for one fifth of the cost or better. I know they're gaming PCs but not EVERY single drive needs to be a SSD, surely? I feel like anything more than one big drive for OS and one big drive for games is overkill, but maybe there's a reason to it, like physical space or something, that I'm not very aware of. Hoping that if I do think about and go for a pre-built rig that I can throw some 2.5" drives in there for the bulk capacity rather than shelling out huge amounts for something that does the same job (and if it's just data storage, probably won't benefit that much from speed).
 
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The most affordable upgrade would be something like a 5600 (£140) or 5700X (£180) in your current motherboard and a 6700 XT (£380), but I'm guessing that's not ambitious enough in this circumstance.

Another upgrade option would be to max your board out with a 5800X3D (£330) and get a 4070 Ti or 7900 XT, which are both pretty capable options for 1440p.
 
Loony BoB said:
Also, I know this might be a stupid question, but... with the pre-built rigs from the site, most of the better gaming PCs are 100% SSD with no option for storage. Is there any reason for that? I feel like having a £500 3TB SSD is a bit overkill for media storage when you can get a HDD of the same capacity for one fifth of the cost or better. I know they're gaming PCs but not EVERY single drive needs to be a SSD, surely? I feel like anything more than one big drive for OS and one big drive for games is overkill, but maybe there's a reason to it, like physical space or something, that I'm not very aware of. Hoping that if I do think about and go for a pre-built rig that I can throw some 2.5" drives in there for the bulk capacity rather than shelling out huge amounts for something that does the same job (and if it's just data storage, probably won't benefit that much from speed).
Click to expand...
Having built my current rig purely around ssd's (work related reasons) I'll give an honest answer... ssd's aren't really meant for long term media storage like movies etc, yes you can use them and there are obvious benefits in terms of access speeds etc which come from an ssd versus hard drive but you're usually better off using a hard drive for 'bulk storage'. In all honesty I'd even go as far as suggest looking for a NAS, with redundancy, or even converting the old rig into a truenas/unraid server for storing bulk stuff these days... cases in general don't seem to have as much space for storage as they did in the past.

With your sort of budget you could easily get away with primarily nvme (assuming new build) for games and os (2x 2tb min imo), maybe add in 1 or 2 sata ssd's or another nvme for 'documents' and 'downloads' and then spend a bit on 2+ bay NAS plus a minimum of 2 hard drives. You could then consolidate and even use the nas for backing up your pc depending on capacity etc.

Personally I'd go with a new build, you'll just end up doing it in the future anyway imo... you've already budget 3-5k for it and you've only just got your raise (we'd all do the same lol)
 
Yeah, thankfully I was already in a pretty healthy financial position and am due a bonus in March too. It's a weird time because of job change (had to rush it because my old role is being outsourced, but it certainly paid off for me).

I'll have to do some research into the NAS side of things, but if it's documents backup I'm all for it. I can indeed use this PC as a backup server once everything is moved to the new one which is a big plus. I've been doing some digging around the pre-built options at OcUK and I must concede they're rather tempting, although I'd probably want to tweak a couple of things. Does anyone here (perhaps OcUK staff?) know if OcUK are the kind of guys to allow custom tweaking on their already heavily configured PC options?

I'm thinking the following, but with a better PSU for future-proofing and also some storage disks (perhaps that NAS you've mentioned). Not sure on how viable it is but I feel like the remaining specs are all really solid. Would love your thoughts on it though!

TitleOcUK Gaming Khopesh - Ryzen 7600X, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming PC
CasePhanteks Eclipse P400 Air Midi Tower DRGB Case - Black
MBDASUS TUF B650 WIFI Motherboard
CPUAMD Ryzen 9 7900X Twelve Core 4.9GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Tray
GPUNvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12GB GDDR6X Graphics Card
RAMCorsair Vengeance EXPO 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-41600C40 5200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black
SSD1WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E)
SSD2Samsung 2TB 870 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 64 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-77E2T0B/EU)
PSU750W 80 Plus Gold Rated PSU
CoolingLian-Li GALAHAD AIO 240mm High Performance RGB CPU Water Cooler - Black
Cost£ 2,673.04

EDIT: Would be the first time I've bought a pre-built PC since the Compaq I got back in 2002 :D
 
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Loony BoB said:
I'm getting a promotion next month and a hefty pay rise on the back of it, so I'm thinking I'll spend maybe £3k on a PC upgrade, perhaps close to £5k (preferring notably lower though) if I go for an completely new computer.
Click to expand...

Option one (money no object):

AMD Ryzen 7 7700 Eight Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail - £338.99
Asus TUF Gaming X670E-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £349.99
Corsair Vengeance EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK32GX5M2D6000Z36) - £179.99

Zotac GeForce RTX 4090 Trinity 24GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card - £1,699.99 (only picked for the 5-year warranty)

2x WD Black SN770 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS200T3X0E) - £149.99

Phanteks Eclipse P600S Silent Midi Tower Case - Black - £139.99
Phanteks Glacier One 360MP All In One CPU Water Cooler D-RGB Black - 360mm - £154.99
ASUS ROG THOR 1000W Platinum II Modular Power Supply - £314.99

Grand Total: £3,490.90 (includes delivery, £11.99)

Option two (swapped a few parts for more price conscious options):

Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £237.95

MSI MPG A1000G UK PSU 1000W 80 Plus Gold certified Fully Modular - £159.94

Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XTX Pulse 24GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £1,079.99

Grand Total: £2,603.81 (includes delivery, £11.99)

Loony BoB said:
Does anyone here (perhaps OcUK staff?) know if OcUK are the kind of guys to allow custom tweaking on their already heavily configured PC options?

I'm thinking the following, but with a better PSU for future-proofing and also some storage disks (perhaps that NAS you've mentioned). Not sure on how viable it is but I feel like the remaining specs are all really solid. Would love your thoughts on it though!
Click to expand...

They do allow this, they'll even build you an entirely custom-spec if you ask.

On your spec:
AMD AM5 CPUs unfortunately lose quite a lot of performance with 5200 memory, so unless you need 64GB, I wouldn't do this.
SATA SSD: in the days of DirectStorage I wouldn't buy a SATA SSD anymore, if it's only for storage doesn't matter quite so much, I guess. The 870 Evo line unfortunately has some major problems.
 
Loony BoB said:
snip
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As much as I like AMD, I'm running a 5950x, I wouldn't necessarily pick an AM5 build primarily because of the memory controller.... obviously mileage will vary depending on user but I've seen so many issues popping up around ram speeds that I'd probably pick a 13th gen intel if I was looking at ddr5 right now, especially if I wanted a large amount of ram.

I'd be aiming for a case that supports a 360mm AIO and a 360mm AIO, new chips do run pretty hot and 240mm might be a bit borderline imo.

GPU - I'd probably try and stretch to a 4080, even though it is overpriced like the 4070ti, or even a 4090... I normally run nvidia because of cuda so I can't comment on AMD options.

SSD's - Now I do actually run sata ssd's in my build, 6 in fact, along with 2 nvme. My nvme are 2TB seagate firecuda 530's, in my case set up with one as OS/Programs and one as scratch disk (scratch could easily be a gaming drive). I'd personally pick an nvme with dram but they do cost more. As for sata drives, I've got 2 of mine in a storage spaces mirrored array (documents etc), 1 for downloads, and 3 for 'quick access' storage. Important stuff is backed up by software etc to external drive/nas/server.


As for a NAS or external bulk storage, you basically have 2 approaches...
Old PC - repurpose it and either run windows and utilise storage spaces/raid for redundancy... pretty easy and windows will be familiar albeit not exactly designed for the task. It will work, I've done this without redundancy in the past.
Alternatively you could install unraid (paid) or truenas (linux is another option) and essentially turn it into a server with a simplified 'nas' style interface. It will be far quicker for you to look at unraid/truenas websites to get a feel for these but unraid doesn't require matched disks so you could reuse your old disks etc.

NAS - probably the easiest option... you pick your brand, you pick how many drives (2 minimum for redundancy) you want it to house and then buy within your budget... personally I'd probably be looking at asustor because even their 'budget' options come with 2.5gbe lan in most cases. They're pretty much plug and play at the most basic level but you obviously can go deeper with things like plex (also an option with unraid/truenas/windows), configuring individual shares for users etc, depending on the model.
 
Cheers for all the advice guys. I decided that I'd check out what I could come up with if I pick and choose, like the old days...

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £3,205.84 (includes delivery: £11.99)​

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Cooling: I legitimately struggle with cooler knowledge, so I'm really not sure what this would warrant, or whether all these components would fit nicely alongside a good AIO cooler or anything like that - it's not the biggest case, after all. Went for the Fractal case as I really prefer the reserved look and also wanted a 'closed' top as my cat likes to hang out on top of my PC way too much for me to trust any topside vent to deflect all the cat hair! And most importantly, it fits my under desk space with room to breathe a little. Although speaking of breathing, the bottom intake fan does concern me a little, not used to that position for a fan.

Internal Components: Drives chosen based on pricing and capacity - 1/2TB SSDs for software/gaming respectively (I know I can fit my games onto 500GB but I figured 2TB would give me a bit of future-proofing), 2TB WD Black for document storage and 6TB Barracuda for media storage should mean I can decrease the total disk drives I'm holding onto (as I've got six drives in my existing PC). 4080 on lsg1r's advice, Intel CPU because all this mention of RAM issues sounds like potential regret. Trying to combine base specs and reliability across the board. Motherboard... honestly I've no idea if this one is overkill or not, but I like the volume of ports, I've had great experience in the past with Gigabyte, and I'd like to have some Wifi and Bluetooth on my board. Again, still not really certain on what to do for cooling... and also admittedly not 100% sure if I should jump into Win11 just yet, but might throw that on just to keep myself tidy for having two Windows licences for my two desktops. Guessing cooling + Windows would jump my cost roughly £300 total.

Help!: Criticism absolutely continues to be welcome! Also, if I were to be lazy (and kind of curious), how would I go about asking OcUK to custom build this and ship intact? I've enjoyed my time building machines in the past but honestly I'm swamped lately and wouldn't mind having it all done tidily for me (I've seen great things about the quality of the build work done in the reviews across OcUK pre-built rigs).

EDIT: Also, thinking I'll try and set up my current PC as a backup machine for the new PC... only really will be wanting to backup my documents drive, not too worried about media/game/software drives.
 
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Loony BoB said:
Cheers for all the advice guys. I decided that I'd check out what I could come up with if I pick and choose, like the old days...

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £3,205.84 (includes delivery: £11.99)​
​

Criticism absolutely continues to be welcome!
Click to expand...

CPU: I personally wouldn't bother with the 13900K, it has the same 8 P-cores of the 13700K & non-K, but doubles the E-cores to 16. For heavily multi-threaded stuff like rendering, this is pretty handy, but gaming? Not so much, except for the cache & the clocks. There is a similar logic in suggesting the Ryzen 7 7700 over the 9 7900 or 7950.

Motherboard: in games, the 13900K rarely exceeds 150 watts, at least, when the CPU isn't acting as the bottleneck. In TPU's testing the average across 12 games was 117.9 watts, so I'd expect any Z790 board to handle that without breaking a sweat. Believe it or not, your board is not expensive for Z790 :o I'd say it is upper entry-level, or lower midrange. Higher-end boards have features like USB 4/Thunderbolt on the rear I/O (your choice only has an internal Thunderbolt header), a PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slot & 10Gig Lan. The main loss I can see with downgrading to the Z790 UD AX (aside from a weaker VRM) would be an M.2 slot & rear SPDIF.

PSU: with a 4080 or 4090 I would buy an ATX 3.0 / PCI-E 5.0 PSU like MSI's A1000G PCIE5 or Thermaltake GF3 1000, but if you want the Corsair, there's a kit you can buy here to get a 'native' connector rather than having to use an adapter (check the compatibility chart first).

Storage: I'll leave this part to lsg1r, but I must say, while I understand the logic of buying a slow HDD for archive storage, I don't understand spending £120 on a fast one. I'd also avoid the 980 Pro, if it was me, given the recent problems. SN850X is an alternative high-end drive that has DRAM.

Cooling: if you're only gaming then your cooler doesn't need to be that great, but if you're ever going to peg the CPU at 100% for long periods, I'd be buying a good one, which really applies for any 13th gen K CPU, but especially the 13900K. This review might help give you an idea how they compare. If you're getting an AIO you'll need to plan the purchase of your fans (or moving the pre-installed ones), based on the AIO's placement. If you're not using the top, then realistically that only leaves the front, Fractal mention a max thickness of 55mm (radiator and fan combined) for a front-mounted 420mm or 280mm AIO, so keep this in mind.

Edit: I think I got the thickness issue the wrong way around, it applies to the top, not the front.

RAM: The 13900K does still lose some performance with 5200 (this is pretty slow in DDR5 terms), but fortunately it is less (keep in mind these benches are at 1080p, which is pretty unrealistic if you're buying a 13900K :D ).
 
Intel Core i9-13900K (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail
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£480 (incl. VAT)
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Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard
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Loony BoB said:
Cooling: I legitimately struggle with cooler knowledge, so I'm really not sure what this would warrant, or whether all these components would fit nicely alongside a good AIO cooler or anything like that - it's not the biggest case, after all. Went for the Fractal case as I really prefer the reserved look and also wanted a 'closed' top as my cat likes to hang out on top of my PC way too much for me to trust any topside vent to deflect all the cat hair! And most importantly, it fits my under desk space with room to breathe a little. Although speaking of breathing, the bottom intake fan does concern me a little, not used to that position for a fan.
Click to expand...

Assuming the define S Midi is the same as the define s window on fractal site you've got plenty of options for AIO sizes... Front will take up to 360mm and top can take up to 420mm as long as the total thickness for rad and fan stays below 55mm..I personally use a 360mm EK Basic AIO with 3x Noctua Chromax NF-A12x25, the stock fans are NOISY (no rgb for me :P)... If I was you I would grab the 360mm EK Basic I have and front mount it. I'd then have 3x120 or 3x140mm at the top extracting air, along with the rear 120mm.
As for the bottom fan... by the time you consider cables from the psu you likely won't be able to fit one there anyway so just ignore it imo.
Having said that you can't beat the simplicity of an air cooler... you will need a pretty beefy one though which then can cause no end of issues with avoiding heatsinks on the vrm or ram... so if you want the easy life when it comes to fitting AIO is the way to go lol

Internal Components: Drives chosen based on pricing and capacity - 1/2TB SSDs for software/gaming respectively (I know I can fit my games onto 500GB but I figured 2TB would give me a bit of future-proofing), 2TB WD Black for document storage and 6TB Barracuda for media storage should mean I can decrease the total disk drives I'm holding onto (as I've got six drives in my existing PC). 4080 on lsg1r's advice, Intel CPU because all this mention of RAM issues sounds like potential regret. Trying to combine base specs and reliability across the board. Motherboard... honestly I've no idea if this one is overkill or not, but I like the volume of ports, I've had great experience in the past with Gigabyte, and I'd like to have some Wifi and Bluetooth on my board. Again, still not really certain on what to do for cooling... and also admittedly not 100% sure if I should jump into Win11 just yet, but might throw that on just to keep myself tidy for having two Windows licences for my two desktops. Guessing cooling + Windows would jump my cost roughly £300 total.
Click to expand...
I've got 10x 120mm noctua fans in my case (o11 evo)... they're 30 quid a pop which is the going rate for 'higher tier' fans so that's probably about right if you include the OS.... Bequiet Silent Wings Pro 4 and Phanteks T30 (I think) are good alternatives, if you want RGB I'd probably be looking at Phanteks D30's, not sure they're out yet though.

As for the OS, do you have a spare win 7 laying around. I just used a win 7 code on my current rig and installed straight to windows 10... worked fine and I can upgrade to 11 if I wanted to (I don't lol), you will need win 11 for the intel 13th gen though.

Help!: Criticism absolutely continues to be welcome! Also, if I were to be lazy (and kind of curious), how would I go about asking OcUK to custom build this and ship intact? I've enjoyed my time building machines in the past but honestly I'm swamped lately and wouldn't mind having it all done tidily for me (I've seen great things about the quality of the build work done in the reviews across OcUK pre-built rigs).
Click to expand...
Like Tetras said, you could probably drop down to the 13700k because unless you're doing 3D etc the extra efficiency cores won't do much.
Agree with the comments on motherboard too, it's actually not that expensive these days... yes prices have become stupid on certain parts of a new pc.
PSU - I haven't seen a good atx3.0 psu review yet but to be fair I've not been looking hard. I'm running an 850w version of that PSU on my rig (edit I mean corsair).
I'd also avoid the samsung 980pro, it might be firmware related but too risky imo, my 2TB seagate 530's have been fine and have dram, I've not heard anything bad about the WD options either. I'd also ditch the 2TB hard drive, you can get a 2TB mx500 for around the same price (I paid £125 for mine), it will be faster, quieter and cooler.


EDIT: Also, thinking I'll try and set up my current PC as a backup machine for the new PC... only really will be wanting to backup my documents drive, not too worried about media/game/software drives.
Click to expand...
Honestly if this is all you intend to back up you could probably get away with an external usb drive... I've got an WD elements 6tb as my 'real time' external backup.
 
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First up: This is exactly why I love posting here, you guys know freakin' everything I don't. I genuinely appreciate it!

CPU: Makes sense. I'm going to assume that since I'm going for a GPU (obviously) that I may as well save a £20 and get the 13700KF.

Motherboard: Knowing me, it's not entirely likely I'll use 4x M.2 so dropping one slot isn't an issue to me. SPDIF isn't something I believe I've used and I'm not much of an audiophile, so I expect it's not important. VRM variance between the boards... how important? Probably not much, I'm assuming? I'll switch down and save some more cash.

PSU: Picking up the MSI option (Thermaltake one not in stock at the moment, pre-order only unless I drop to 850W). £20 more, but I saved that on the CPU so it's a neutral ending position.

Storage: This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about at the start of this post. Switched the 980 for the SN850X. Also switched out the 2TB HDD for a 2TB WD Black 2.5" SSD.

RAM: How would the 5200 fly with a 13700K? May as well drop down to 5000 or 4800 or just keep the 5200?

Cooling: Yeah, I did read about the size issue when looking through the various Fractals. I'm genuinely a bit clueless about cooling, in all honesty. It's definitely the area I have the least knowledge of when building a PC and every single time I've just ended up going with whatever people here suggest. Which I'll probably do again :D Having dug around online, it seems like watercooling isn't as big a deal as I had thought, so I'm starting to wonder if I should just go with pure air cooling like you mentioned... It's not a dealbreaker to get a AIO, but one thing that is absolutely crossing my mind is the nervousness about a big cooling unit wobbling around in the back of a DPD van. I do wonder how well OcUK's custom rigs travel when it comes to that end of things! I know I could just build it myself... again... but I think the novelty of that has worn off for me after years of working in IT. Having enough money to let someone build a rig for me and do it really nice and tidy like I hear OcUK does is admittedly very appealing. xD

And yeah, RGB means pretty much nothing to me, as you can probably tell from my Fractal case choice :D

Current basket, still pending cooling/OS... £300 or so saved already thanks to your advice, guys, while also having generally more reliable gear based on your knowledge!

My basket at OcUK:
Total: £2,936.76 (includes delivery: £0.00)

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Intel Core i7-13700KF (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail
CP-6B7-IN
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Gigabyte Z790 UD AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard
MB-5BN-GI
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MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 UK PSU 1000W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
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Loony BoB said:
snip
Click to expand...
For £20 I'd buy the cpu with the igpu, it's a safety net if your main gpu fails and/or there for troubleshooting issues....it's the one thing I miss on my 5950x, well that and quicksync encoding/decoding but that's what cuda's for :).

I can't comment much else on the hardware, the motherboard looks fine to me although I have no real world experience of it. SPDIF, aka optical, is arguably the cleanest way to get audio from a pc but it usually is used to connect to an amp, personally my speakers (audioengine hd3) connect via usb so I'm not even using the audio sockets these days lol.

Had a thought about your internal hard drive, while not a huge issue the drive you've picked is smr (shingled)... I'd probably pay a little more and get a CMR drive such as the Seagate Ironwolf NAS 6TB (£135) or WD 6TB red PLUS (plus is important, it's definitely cmr) which is a little bit more at 150
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External hard drive, are you sure you want a 2.5inch drive for this, you'll be paying a premium for it being small but at the same time you don't need a plug socket for it.. for about £20 more you can get double the space, if you keep an eye on WD for deals you might even get bigger as they often have deals, I paid £85 for 6TB version of this when they had an offer on for example.
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If you're going to have it built, think about what you want to do with fans (do you want stock fans or say noctua etc) etc and ask OCUK what way they would go with the cooling, I just have concerns with space for an air cooler with a motherboard with larger vrm heatsinks etc.

Oh and a side note... do you want a windowed case if you're not going rgb... says the person with a non rgb primarily black build in an o11 evo lol
 
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CPU: Regarding the igpu, that's fair. I'll switch it just in case. Especially will be useful if in the distant future I convert the PC to a game server.

Storage: Okay, firstly I'm just going to call myself a complete moron for picking an external drive because that was absolutely supposed to be an internal one. Facepalm moment. No need for an external drive.

Regardless, what I'm going for is:
1TB M.2: Operating system and software - quality reasonable important.
2TB M.2: Gaming - quality less important because I can always download games again.
2TB drive: Unique files that require backup. Quality initially vital, but after a bit of research I think I'm going to change my backup system to a cloud option, probably OneDrive or something similar. This lowers the quality demand of the local drive once the backups are in place.
6TB HDD: Pure bulk media storage. Quality less important because I can always download media again (any unique media will go to the 2TB drive).

With the above in mind, is it worth CRM if I'm already backing up to a cloud location, and anything outside the backup location (My Docs drive) will be stuff that can simply be re-downloaded? Also, what would you suggest in the circumstances for the 2TB drive used for important documents - I'm considering just bumping it to a bog-standard 4TB drive since I'll have the comfort of backup.

Regarding fans and cooler, I think you're absolutely right that I reach out to OcUK and ask them what they think. The key things to be considered for me are that the cat spends a lot of time sitting on top of the PC so I don't want topside venting. I'm thinking I might just let them play with it within a budget, once I give them them a run-down of the limitations/criteria from my end.

As for windowed case, it's more so I can see if there's any dust buildup or anything without having to open it up. Honestly it's not a dealbreaker if I don't have a window, I've never had one before after all. I'm also not entirely against having ANY lights, I just prefer a muted experience where possible. I am still looking at the various options from Fractal though.

Once again, thank you. :)
 
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SPDIF isn't something I believe I've used and I'm not much of an audiophile, so I expect it's not important.
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OP, I love your overall build and I would only disagree with you on that audio related point.

SPDIF is great and all but I would still suggest getting a dedicated DAC. I know I'm an audio nut but I can attest to the difference.

Using the motherboard's onboard SPDIF is better than using the analogue audio connectors but you'd be surprised at how much of a difference a dedicated DAC will make to your enjoyment.

I would suggest you look at the Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M, here's a review. It had SPDIF connectors and a ton of features. The Ifi Zen V2 DAC that I use doesn't have SPDIF.
 
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Loony BoB said:
With the above in mind, is it worth CRM if I'm already backing up to a cloud location, and anything outside the backup location (My Docs drive) will be stuff that can simply be re-downloaded? Also, what would you suggest in the circumstances for the 2TB drive used for important documents - I'm considering just bumping it to a bog-standard 4TB drive since I'll have the comfort of backup.
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Honestly, I'd still go with an ssd at 2TB for your documents, you've got 2 options, one is nvme because you have a spare slot or you could just go sata, both will be more than fast enough and trust me you will love the speed if you ever need to search for something. It is so much nicer, my old rig had my documents on a hard drive and the comparison is night and day.

So essentially I'd suggest you go something like this
1TB M.2: Operating system and software - quality reasonable important.
2TB M.2: Gaming - quality less important because I can always download games again - I'd aim for gen 4 here too, purely for directstorage when it becomes more mainstream
* 2TB SSD (can be m.2 or sata, you'll not notice much difference with documents): Unique files that require backup. Quality initially vital, but after a bit of research I think I'm going to change my backup system to a cloud option, probably OneDrive or something similar. This lowers the quality demand of the local drive once the backups are in place.
6TB HDD: Pure bulk media storage. Quality less important because I can always download media again (any unique media will go to the 2TB drive).

Personally I'd pick CMR over SMR even though at a desktop level you'll likely not notice, you would notice if it ever got moved to a nas though... and I look at potential uses later down the line

* Now this is where I'm going to make a random suggestion and maybe cost you a little more. I actually have my documents folder running as a 2 drive storage spaces (windows built in 'software raid') in a mirrored array, in my case it's 2x1TB sata ssd's which with the mirroring give me 1TB of usable space. The documents stored there are duplicated on both drives automatically so there's a small amount of redundancy, as much as can be expected inside the same machine anyways, and if one drive is removed or fails I still have the data. I use this in conjunction with a usb external drive for 'real time' backups.... it's a one time cost versus one drive basically and arguably doesn't have personal data being uploaded to the cloud.

Loony BoB said:
Regarding fans and cooler, I think you're absolutely right that I reach out to OcUK and ask them what they think. The key things to be considered for me are that the cat spends a lot of time sitting on top of the PC so I don't want topside venting. I'm thinking I might just let them play with it within a budget, once I give them them a run-down of the limitations/criteria from my end.
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Because of the cat enjoying being on top of you case I'd maybe consider changing the case to something like a fractal torrent or similar which has a 'front to back' air flow rather than the 'front to top' air flow of the define.
 
My basket at OcUK:

Total: £2,216.87 (includes delivery: £0.00)​



​
 
Tetras said:
Storage: I'll leave this part to lsg1r, but I must say, while I understand the logic of buying a slow HDD for archive storage, I don't understand spending £120 on a fast one. I'd also avoid the 980 Pro, if it was me, given the recent problems. SN850X is an alternative high-end drive that has DRAM.
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My 2 x 1tb 980 Pro's have been fine. I keep my firmware up to date. That doesn't mean tomorrow that they arent, but from the article you posted I'd like to post this because not all are tech savvy and even if we are doesn't mean we are immune to castastophe.

However, the new firmware update from Samsung will prevent the failures from occurring in the first place if your drive is still functioning. So, if you have a 980 Pro running the 3B2QGXA7 firmware, you'll want to update to the newest firmware (5B2QGXA7) using the Samsung SSD Magician software (opens in new tab) ASAP. It should be noted that 980 Pro SSDs running the 4B2QGXA7 or 5B2QGXA7 firmware are not affected by this issue.
 
Loony BoB said:
VRM variance between the boards... how important? Probably not much, I'm assuming? I'll switch down and save some more cash.
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Buildzoid talks about the elite's VRM here, the pertinent part starts around 21:00. My impression is that he is pretty confident it can handle a 13900K with ease, even with a light overclock, or moderate overclock (with airflow) and multi-threaded load, so if only used for gaming, I have no concerns whatsoever with an i7 or i9. The UD AX also has 16 phases, but they're 60A (instead of 70A), without buildzoid's breakdown I don't know what other components are used, but I'd feel pretty confident it will handle a 13700K just fine. Based on what he mentions in the video about the elite's capabilities, if I was going to peg the CPU at 100% for long-periods (e.g. 6 hour long rendering sessions), then I would prefer to have the elite, but just for gaming, I'm comfortable with the UD AX.
 
Case: Yeah, I'd love for there to be more options for cases without a top vent, really. Or perhaps I'd just prefer that there were more cases that weren't so gaudy - I prefer an understated look (hence the Define). Prett much very single PC case has top venting these days which is a shame for us cat lovers! Cats love any warm flat surface and PCs are definitely no exception. She's always lounging on either the console or the PC. The vent issue, combined with my need for preference for a case that doesn't go over ~480mm in height, leaves me with a bit of a struggle to find that perfect system. Still, at least I live in Scotland so it's certainly not a hot environment... I feel for those in Arizona, Thailand, Australia etc. Still, if you guys have suggestions for a case that keeps a rather simple look to it but still has a closed top (and obviously still being decent quality materials etc), lemme know for sure.

I reckon I'll call up OcUK tomorrow and see if they can give me a few tips on the cooling area and see if they can throw me a rough quote for the work.
 
Loony BoB said:
The vent issue, combined with my need for preference for a case that doesn't go over ~480mm in height, leaves me with a bit of a struggle to find that perfect system.
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Akasa Mirage-62 would have fit the bill perfectly (I have one right here), but it is 15 years too late :D

The Bequiet 802 is unfortunately too tall, but it does have an interesting feature, where you are supplied with two top covers, one vented and one solid.

Antec's P5 has no top vent whatsoever, but is restricted to M-ATX, as does the Antec P101, but again, too tall :( Corsair's 110Q is a case I like a lot, but 330m max GPU length and top mounted power, reset and USB might be a problem.
 
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