New build advice needed, been 9 years since my last!

[jabokai]

Hi folks!

Now, please don't shoot me, but I'm planning on doing a "pretty" build - first one for me, ever! I have always placed performance and the bang-for-buck factors as the most important things, with aesthetics not even being any kind of consideration. However, I've decided I want to build a pretty PC just for the hell of it, so my starting point is all backwards from what I've always done. Oh, and I'll be paying the white tax!

I'm going to need help with the core parts as I am quite out of the PC building scene - last one was an i7-5820K and I'm still using it, albeit with the GPU upgraded to a GTX1080 a couple of years after the initial build.

Let's get the looks out of the way first, all Lian li, all white...

O11 Vision case (when it's available, hopefully soon) - £144.95 as listed on OCUK just now
Galahad II LCD SL-INF AIO 360mm Performance ARGB CPU Water Cooler - £269.99
3 x UNI SL120 Infinity Reverse Blade fans - £89.97
2 x UNI SL120 Infinity fans - £89.99*
Strimer Plus 240 pin - £59.99
Strimer Plus 80 pin (double or triple depending on GPU) - £49.99

*looks like I need to buy the triple pack of these to get the controller - there is no triple pack of the reverse fans, which is weird as surely you will always have more intakes! I suppose I could buy a couple of extra singles and have a push/pull on the radiator.

Now that is going to cost £704.88 which will leave me up to £1800 to spend on the actual important bits (no peripherals, just the gubbins.)

This is where I get stuck - I'm really not sure where the bang/buck lies currently, in particular thinking about the CPU/GPU combo. All but one of my previous builds have been Intel/nVidia as I had lots of issues the one time I went ATI/AMD. Is that all "fixed" now? Are there still driver issues, particularly on the games side, with AMD?

My basic thinking here is 32Gb memory and 2 x 4Tb M2 cards - other than that I'm open to ideas! Oh, and it all needs to be white where relevant! With the looks out of the way I want to maximise the bang/buck factor, as I used to do in the past.

The only other thing I would say is that the only upgrades I would be likely to do are storage and possibly the GPU after a few years, so the rest of the stuff should have a little headroom for that change if possible.

I also have a couple of supplementary questions - what is the situation with Windows just now... I have 3 legit copies (OEM IIRC) - one on my current PC, one on the old/backup and one on a VM (which was from the even older PC!) Will I be able to reuse any, or do they still check for component change and say "this is a new PC"?

Second, is there any kind of charity for recycling old stuff? I have a lot of working gear and just wondering if there any places that take that stuff in for teaching, or for rebuilding for charities or something?

Sorry this is a bit long!

 

[Typhoon]

I to am upgrading from a 5820k and have my list saved ready for Black Friday. I went for AM5 ( as this is the only option for a CPU upgrade in the future). I am going with Ryzen 7700x. The thinking is that it is a significant upgrade over what I have been using, relatively cheap, and will allow me to get a 12 core or more Ryzen 8000 in a couple years and that too will feel like another significant upgrade. And I can upgrade my sons computer with the 7700x and a cheap MB, so it won’t go to waste. GPU wise going for a 4070 as I am on 1440p and play mainly older games.

 

[Tetras]

This is where I get stuck - I'm really not sure where the bang/buck lies currently, in particular thinking about the CPU/GPU combo. All but one of my previous builds have been Intel/nVidia as I had lots of issues the one time I went ATI/AMD. Is that all "fixed" now? Are there still driver issues, particularly on the games side, with AMD?

This is pretty much impossible for us to answer because if we say "yeah, everything is fine" and you have issues, then the first thing you're going to do is say "I KNEW IT!!! AMD!!"

I'll just do a spec for both builds, Intel/nvidia and AMD/AMD.

My basic thinking here is 32Gb memory and 2 x 4Tb M2 cards - other than that I'm open to ideas! Oh, and it all needs to be white where relevant! With the looks out of the way I want to maximise the bang/buck factor, as I used to do in the past.

32GB is fine, but 2x4TB is going to destroy your budget, even if you buy the cheapest ones. What are you using these drives for? If some of that storage is long-term and rarely accessed, you might be better off with a HDD or two.

I also have a couple of supplementary questions - what is the situation with Windows just now... I have 3 legit copies (OEM IIRC) - one on my current PC, one on the old/backup and one on a VM (which was from the even older PC!) Will I be able to reuse any, or do they still check for component change and say "this is a new PC"?

Microsoft have made some big changes to their activation system and older keys don't seem to work anymore (I've tried it and my old Windows 7/8 keys no longer work with Windows 10 or 11), but it's all trial and error really, you just put the key in (or sign into your Microsoft account) and pray it works. If not, then I guess you won't be changing your desktop background for awhile.

Intel/nvidia

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i7-13700F (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6BD-IN) = £359.99
• 1 x Asus ROG Strix B760-A Gaming WIFI D4 (LGA 1700) DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6KE-AS) = £189.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (FF4D532G6000HC30DC01) (SKU: MY-0B6-TG) = £119.99
• 1 x Asus GeForce RTX 4070 Dual White 12GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-49D-AS) = £629.99
• 1 x MSI SPATIUM M480 Pro 4TB SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-MSI-00991) = £259.99
• 1 x WD 4TB Blue HDD 5400rpm 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (WD40EZAZ) (SKU: HD-57S-WD) = £84.95
• 1 x Phanteks AMP 1000W V2 80PLUS Gold Power Supply - White (SKU: CA-0C6-PT) = £169.99

Total: £1,814.89 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

AMD/AMD

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7700 Eight Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DV-AM) = £308.99
• 1 x MSI MPG B650 Edge WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-373-MS) = £229.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Vulcan EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLABD532G5600HC40BDC01) (SKU: MY-0B3-TG) = £99.95
• 1 x SAPPHIRE PURE AMD Radeon™ RX 7800 XT Gaming Graphics Card with 16GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA™ 3 architecture (SKU: GRA-SPR-00765) = £539.99
• 1 x Seagate FireCuda 530 4TB SSD PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (ZP4000GM3A013) (SKU: HD-3DZ-SE) = £309.94
• 1 x Seagate 4TB Barracuda HDD 5400RPM 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (ST4000DM004) (SKU: HD-37T-SE) = £95.00
• 1 x Phanteks Revolt 1000W ATX 3.0 PCIe 5.0 Modular 80 Plus Platinum Cable Free Power Supply - White (SKU: CA-0CP-PT) = £174.98
• 1 x Phanteks Revolt Cable Kit, PCIe Gen5 Starter Set, White (SKU: POW-PHK-00589) = £69.98

Total: £1,828.82 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

Notes
- I chose different parts on purpose, to give you more options to look for, but the AMD build has more expensive ones than are needed, e.g. the Firecuda 530 is a lot more than the MSI M480 Pro and the B650 Edge is more expensive than the B650-A Strix, except I had already included the equivalent in the Intel build.
- The PSUs are both silly overkill, you don't need 1000 watt for either of those PCs, but I assume you want a white PSU (with white cables), so you're limited in options with what I could find available to order.
- I've swapped the 2x4TB SSD requirement to 1x SSD and 1x HDD as suggested above. I can make a modified build that includes it, but I really think you're losing too much of your budget, when you want a decent CPU and GPU upgrade to make this worthwhile. There might be some offers around that can help you out, except I can't speak about those.
- Gigabyte Aero G graphics cards are white and Zotac and MSI do a few white versions, like the 4070 Ventus 2X.
- OCUK don't have any white EXPO memory for the AMD build (that I could find), so I substituted the Vulcans.

A more (gaming) performance optimised build with less white and much less storage:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7700 Eight Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DV-AM) = £308.99
• 1 x Asus Prime B650-Plus (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K4-AS) = £124.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Vulcan EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLABD532G5600HC40BDC01) (SKU: MY-0B3-TG) = £99.95
• 1 x Powercolor Radeon RX 7900 XTX HellHound Spectral White 24GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-1AW-PC) = £998.99
• 1 x Crucial P5 Plus 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 3D NAND NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-075-CR) = £114.94
• 1 x Phanteks AMP 1000W V2 80PLUS Gold Power Supply - White (SKU: CA-0C6-PT) = £170.00

Total: £1,817.86 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[jabokai]

Wow, thank you for the very detailed reply, I really appreciate it! I will take some time to go through the components individually but my gut reaction , and a few points, would be...

I'm thinking that, as there's not a categoric AMD/AMD is absolutely fine and, to all intents and purposes, equivalent to Intel/Nvidia then I'd probably go with what I know. I'll look into that a bit more though as people are buying it so it can't totally suck!

I could kick off with 1 x 4Tb M2 and figure in any extra as a future upgrade. I don't want any mechanical drives at all - I don't have anything against them (I have an 8 bay NAS!) but I want the machine to be sort of futuristic and unencumbered with "old" tech. Okay so if that was REALLY true then I'd have no fans and it'd be all watercooled but, hypocritically, I sort of like the visible movement of fans.

The PSU would be in a separate side chamber, not visible, in that case so can easily be black. The cables - well, white better, but there wouldn't be much visible of them considering I'm already replacing the mobo and GPU ones with the Lian Li Strimers. I'll paste in the pic of pretty much what I'm aiming for in terms of aesthetics with that case...

 

[sx_turbo]

AMD is fine these days, I'd go for amd/ Nvidia combo

 

[Tetras]

I'm thinking that, as there's not a categoric AMD/AMD is absolutely fine and, to all intents and purposes, equivalent to Intel/Nvidia then I'd probably go with what I know. I'll look into that a bit more though as people are buying it so it can't totally suck!

CPUs:

Generally speaking: if you're ONLY gaming, then the 7800X3D is the best gaming CPU for performance and for power efficiency and when it does lose, it is a minor loss. You can get a taste for that here.

The Intel CPUs can be undervolted and power limited, which makes them more competitive, but you can't put the X3D's cache into an Intel CPU.

The 14700K and 14900K do have APO, which from the few benchmarks I've seen can lead to nice gains, but it is game dependent based on a profile that Intel have to create individually and those CPUs are likely to be outside of your budget anyway.

The 14th gen CPUs are a bit better than the 13th gen, the 14700K is a lot better than the 13th gen (because of the extra E-Cores), but you either need a 14th gen compatible motherboard, or be comfortable with flashing (USB flashback is required as they just don't boot with an incompatible CPU).

Graphics cards:

AMD are usually better value, but it does depend on the card and the deal.

I'd say that the 4070 is actually one of the best cards in their range, since the 4060 Ti is overpriced and the 4070 Ti is a silly price for only 12GB.

The 7800 XT is a decent card, though £500 is still quite a lot for one. If you care about this stuff, the RX 7000 cards have (versus RX 6000) better productivity performance, support (though don't always have) DP 2.1 and can encode AV1. If all you care about is raster, then the 6800 and 6800 XT are still available at decent prices, though stock is thinning out fast.

The 7900 XT was around £700 (or lower) awhile back and would make a good longer-term option, with plenty of performance and VRAM.

The 7900 XTX competes with the 4080, which is a better buy relatively, now that the 4090 is getting scarce/more expensive. In some games the XTX is even competitive with the 4090, but the ray tracing performance of AMD cards is always weaker than the RTX equivalent, except when they run out of VRAM.

We'd really need to know what resolution you're planning to play at, to suggest the best/most appropriate options.

I could kick off with 1 x 4Tb M2 and figure in any extra as a future upgrade.

The PSU would be in a separate side chamber, not visible, in that case so can easily be black. The cables - well, white better, but there wouldn't be much visible of them considering I'm already replacing the mobo and GPU ones with the Lian Li Strimers. I'll paste in the pic of pretty much what I'm aiming for in terms of aesthetics with that case...

An adjusted spec. I dropped the white PSU and squeezed in the 2x4TB.

The motherboard has white heatsinks, but it does not have flashback, so I wouldn't pair it with a 14th gen CPU.

Get the K (instead of KF) if you can afford it, because the IGP can come in handy if something goes wrong with your build or the graphics card.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-13600KF (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6B8-IN) = £289.99
• 1 x Asus Prime Z790-A WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6JQ-AS) = £239.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (FF4D532G6000HC30DC01) (SKU: MY-0B6-TG) = £119.99
• 1 x Asus GeForce RTX 4070 Dual White 12GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-49D-AS) = £629.98
• 1 x MSI SPATIUM M480 Pro 4TB SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-MSI-00991) = £260.00
• 1 x MSI SPATIUM M461 4TB SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-MSI-00992) = £169.99
• 1 x Seasonic Focus GX-750 ATX3.0 750W 80 Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-08N-SS) = £119.99

Total: £1,829.93 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[Quartz]

Galahad II LCD SL-INF AIO 360mm Performance ARGB CPU Water Cooler - £269.99

You could save yourself a lot of money by going for a white air cooler. For instance Noctua have white covers (NA-HC8) for their D15 cooler. I have them in a white Fractal Torrent and they look fine.

 

[Noughtboy]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as such I would go with @Tetras third build with a different MB and the Seasonic Focus PSU.

However, as white seems to be an important concern for you, this may be difficult to fit within budget.

As an aside, according to MLID on YT, Nvidia are going to be announcing and releasing the Super refresh range in January which would be competitively priced and bring GPUs to a less insane level.

 

[jabokai]

Good afternoon! First, thanks to everyone for their input, I'm really appreciating it. It's leading off to look at issues/reviews/benchmarks/etc , and giving me a bit of a catch-up on the building scene... I'm still working through that process!

I'll try and address some points -

I appreciate that cost of the Lian Li cooler is way, way OTT and completely unnecessary, but for this build aesthetics is up there as a primary consideration and I just like it. I know I could put the money to better use, in terms of performance, but I'm okay with the cost. Bear in mind that my budget in the past has been around £1300 and that included the cooler/case/fans. So having a budget of around £2500 this time, I'm kinda committing more to the nuts and bolts, as well as the looks. And I also realise that many people will look at the result and think "yuck", that's okay too.

The PC doesn't need to be solely focused on gaming, I use it for a load of general stuff as well. For example, the last game I bought was Far Cry 6. Out of interest I went to see what settings I had been playing on and it was 1440 with everything set to Ultra. I generally sacrifice resolution and framerate (as long as it's averaging about 60) for the quality of the visuals. I ran the Far Cry 6 benchmark and it averaged 56, although I have vsync on so that just means it dips a bit now ang again - I never notice! One of the reasons for this build is I do want to experience some ray tracing stuff - I have watched the demos and it looks pretty neat to me. I have a 4k monitor, but it's just a regular one (LG 27"), no gaming features at all. Again, most of the time I'm not gaming so it's okay. I also actually play VR titles about 50/50 along with regular titles - Half Life Alyx is my favourite game, ever!

Based on the above I'm leaning towards the initial Intel build with the 13700 (although I'd get the K version) and the 4070 GPU. However, Noughtboy led me to have a look at the MLID information and it seems like waiting on the GPU would be a wise move. It also kind of reminds me of all my previous builds - there's always something better and/or cheaper coming just around the corner! I could stick my 1080 in it for a couple of months.

I don't understand the Intel CPU/Mobo issue - I need to read up on that! I would like, if possible, the foundations (mobo/memory/storage/PSU) be be able to support the potential to upgrade for definite the GPU, but possibly also the CPU. I like the mobo in Tetras last build but if it can't handle at least 1 tier of upgrade then it's a bit of a dead end.

I'm also interested in the different 4Tb M2 cards - how much real world speed difference is there with them? Like, if it's a game loading in 20 seconds rather than 25 I'd be happy enough with the "slow" one, I'm not terribly impatient. I'm also thinking I could have a "little" 1Tb, or even 500Gb, top speed one for the OS and regular apps and then the slow 4Tb for games and general storage.

Thanks again folks!

 

[Tetras]

One of the reasons for this build is I do want to experience some ray tracing stuff

I have a 4k monitor, but it's just a regular one (LG 27")

Out of interest I went to see what settings I had been playing on and it was 1440 with everything set to Ultra. I generally sacrifice resolution and framerate (as long as it's averaging about 60) for the quality of the visuals.

Umm, that's not going to work with your budget I'm afraid

To play @ ultra settings with ray tracing in the latest games is a struggle even for a 4090 and that costs at least £1500 (approaching 2000, with the price increases).

To give you an example, a 4070 playing at native 4K (high) gets 29 FPS in Starfield in HUB's benchmark here.

if possible, the foundations (mobo/memory/storage/PSU) be be able to support the potential to upgrade for definite the GPU, but possibly also the CPU. I like the mobo in Tetras last build but if it can't handle at least 1 tier of upgrade then it's a bit of a dead end.

To be clear: any 12th - 14th gen motherboard will support any 12th - 14th gen CPU, the problem is that they might not work "out of the box" and if you don't have a spare CPU (which you don't) then you're stuffed.

USB flashback is the only solution to this problem, because it can flash the bios without a supported CPU. Asus do not include flashback on their Intel Prime boards, so the one in my spec is not suitable for a 14th gen CPU, which I'd have included otherwise (because their price is pretty much the same).

If you want a future CPU upgrade, so far as we know, 15th gen will be on a new socket, so your motherboard will be junk. AM5 should be supported at least through 2025.

I'm also interested in the different 4Tb M2 cards - how much real world speed difference is there with them? Like, if it's a game loading in 20 seconds rather than 25 I'd be happy enough with the "slow" one, I'm not terribly impatient. I'm also thinking I could have a "little" 1Tb, or even 500Gb, top speed one for the OS and regular apps and then the slow 4Tb for games and general storage.

I can only talk for my specs: I'm not bothered at the speed, but I can't recommend a drive that uses (or might use) QLC drive for a boot drive. I'd consider Intel's 670p, but that's pretty much the only one.

 

[jabokai]

No, I don't expect ray tracing at ultra settings at 4k on the build - I'm not that naive or optimistic! What I was saying was that, although I have a 4K monitor, the last game I bought was set to Ultra, and then the resolution set to whatever level achieved, roughly, 60fps at Ultra settings - in that case, 1440. I possibly tested 4k to start and turned it down, I can't remember. I would expect to play things with ray tracing at a maximum resolution of 1440, and possibly only 1080, and that is fine. It's the overall quality of the visuals I value, rather than outright resolution (or framerate over 60 seeing as my monitor can't even handle it!)... although obviously I ain't gonna play at 640x480! I am assuming that these cards can ray trace at these lower resolutions, otherwise what is the point in them!

Hmm, the 12-14 thing just sounds dumb! Whose fault is that - Intel or the mobo manufacturer? I don't knwo when the 14s came out but I'd have thought the mobo manufacturer would be pre-flashing to support them... but maybe 14 is too new just now.

I wouldn't use the slow drive for a boot, no - hence my thinking to have something like a 1Tb 990 Pro or whatever, for booting and regular apps. Then the "crappy" drive just for general storage and games. But I don't like what I've just read about QLC (I value longevity even if I don't actually reach the limit), so will probably go for a fancy 1Tb and fancy 4Tb.

 

[Quartz]

I'm also interested in the different 4Tb M2 cards

For most gaming and normal usages there's scant difference. LTT did a blind testing session a while back and found no difference. That may change with DirectStorage but so far nothing's made use of that. Only if you're doing intensive database work or large file manipulation - e.g. video editing or file copying - or similar will you see a difference.

 

[Tetras]

No, I don't expect ray tracing at ultra settings at 4k on the build - I'm not that naive or optimistic!

I would expect to play things with ray tracing at a maximum resolution of 1440, and possibly only 1080, and that is fine. It's the overall quality of the visuals I value, rather than outright resolution (or framerate over 60 seeing as my monitor can't even handle it!)... although obviously I ain't gonna play at 640x480!

What I'm getting at is that the latest games (which I assume were in the demos you watched?) have really high requirements and they are hammering everything, even a 4090. We don't know yet if this is just optimisation, or a sign of what's to come, but it really isn't looking good. If you're happy to stay "behind the times", then a 4070 is a decent card and it'll blow through old games @ ultra, even at native 4K, but these latest ones.., nope.

You do have DLSS to help out and previously I'd have not been worried, but developers seem to be going: "oh hey, there's this new tech we can use to be even lazier" rather than it being a boon for making your card last longer.

I am assuming that these cards can ray trace at these lower resolutions, otherwise what is the point in them!

That's the thing though, the ray tracing on lower to midrange cards is pretty much just marketing and next to useless.

Hmm, the 12-14 thing just sounds dumb! Whose fault is that - Intel or the mobo manufacturer? I don't knwo when the 14s came out but I'd have thought the mobo manufacturer would be pre-flashing to support them... but maybe 14 is too new just now.

The main problem is that the 14th gen CPUs are just a refresh and so the motherboards are just a refresh too. Intel didn't release new chipsets for the new CPUs, so you either buy a board with explicit support, or you buy a board with flashback.

There's not much point upgrading from 13th gen to 14th gen, so from that perspective it makes sense, but for a new builder 14th gen is a little awkward right now, as your motherboard choice is rather limited. I would expect in the coming months that most (if not all) boards will get a V2 to indicate that they have a bios that works with 14th gen.

I wouldn't use the slow drive for a boot, no - hence my thinking to have something like a 1Tb 990 Pro or whatever, for booting and regular apps. Then the "crappy" drive just for general storage and games. But I don't like what I've just read about QLC (I value longevity even if I don't actually reach the limit), so will probably go for a fancy 1Tb and fancy 4Tb.

A decent boot drive and a slower secondary drive is a good move, it is just that 4TB gives you very limited choices. I'd be more inclined to get something like a 2TB P5 Plus (primary) and a 2TB SN580 (secondary), but that's 2 of your m.2 slots gone and some boards (even Z790) only have 3.

 

[jabokai]

Okay, I'm not liking the Intel thing so, you've convinced me - AMD!

This is a rough idea - I still have to go through the details and figure out if there are better solutions once I read reviews and benchmarks and reliability reports... it's a process! That mobo has 4 M2 slots - I like that! Aside from that, not sure the x670 chipset is better or worse than the b650. Looked at a slightly higher power PSU even if not needed, just for a touch of future proofing. The memory, 6400, seems to match the mobo and same price as the 6000 - I doubt there is any real difference. I put the GPU in but will probably wait until the Super refresh in January.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Asus Prime X670E-Pro WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6JB-AS) = £280.00
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £379.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-51200C40 6400MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (SKU: MY-0AW-TG) = £119.99
• 1 x MSI SPATIUM M480 Pro 4TB SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-MSI-00991) = £259.99
• 1 x MSI SPATIUM M480 Pro 1TB SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-MSI-00814) = £64.99
• 1 x Asus GeForce RTX 4070 Dual White 12GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-49D-AS) = £629.99
• 1 x Seasonic Focus GX-850 ATX3.0 850W 80 Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-08M-SS) = £139.99

Total: £1,874.94 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[Tetras]

That mobo has 4 M2 slots - I like that! Aside from that, not sure the x670 chipset is better or worse than the b650.

X670E and B650E have PCI-E 5.0 graphics, that's the most noticeable difference between the boards. B650 and X670 can have a PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slot, but some of them are PCI-E 4.0 only.

Since you like lots of storage, one thing to be aware of is that most of these boards only have 4x SATA. The B650 Tomahawk has 6, so does Asrock X670E Pro RS. For Intel, the Z790 Riptide has 8.

The memory, 6400, seems to match the mobo and same price as the 6000 - I doubt there is any real difference. I put the GPU in but will probably wait until the Super refresh in January.

Yeah, the X3Ds don't really care that much, there's some benchmarks here that compare the most common speeds:

Ryzen 9 7950X3D Memory Scaling Benchmark, Does DDR5 Performance Matter?

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Okay, I'm not liking the Intel thing so, you've convinced me - AMD!

I'm pretty sure it'll get sorted out in awhile. If you were determined to go 14th gen, you could get a board that has the right model, e.g. Gigabyte use an "X", such as Z790 Aorus Elite X. I believe MSI use "MAX", like MSI Z790-A Max (which also happens to have white heatsinks).

 

[Jupiter]

Have you considered small form factor?

 

[jabokai]

I do like storage! But I have a 64Tb NAS (although 16Tb of that is for redundancy) and I have decided I can shovel stuff I rarely use onto there. And then 4 M2s will be plenty so wouldn't need any SATA.

Speaking of M2 - in my travels over the web reading about all these things I recall somewhere mentioning that, for Intel, if you have something in the PCIe 5.0 M2 slot then your GPU drops from x16 to x8... I haven't noticed that mentioned for AMD - I assume they don't have that issue? Not that I specced a 5.0 card for now, but it's nice to have it as a possible future upgrade.

You did get me looking at Intel again anyway - stop it! There is a very pretty board - Gigabyte Z790 AORUS Pro X - with a white PCB (unlike all these other "white" mobos) but for the amount of board that is visible under all the other gubbins even I am not going to pay that!

As for the small form factor question - no! The essence of this build is around that Lian Li O11 Vision case... if it ever actually gets in stock!

 

[Tetras]

Speaking of M2 - in my travels over the web reading about all these things I recall somewhere mentioning that, for Intel, if you have something in the PCIe 5.0 M2 slot then your GPU drops from x16 to x8... I haven't noticed that mentioned for AMD - I assume they don't have that issue? Not that I specced a 5.0 card for now, but it's nice to have it as a possible future upgrade.

12th and 13th gen CPUs have 16 PCI-E 5.0 lanes and they use this for the graphics card. They have 4 lanes for the CPU-driven M.2 slot, but this is only PCI-E 4.0.

If a 12th or 13th gen motherboard wants a PCI-E 5.0 M.2, then it has to steal the lanes from the graphics card. They have to steal 8 because the CPU only supports splitting the 16 graphics lanes into 8/8, not 12/4.

AMD 7000 CPUs have 4 independent M.2 lanes for a PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slot and 4 for whatever else (including a second PCI-E 5.0 M.2 slot), but realistically it depends on the motherboard, since some B650 boards (like the TUF B650-Plus) have 1x PCI-E 5.0 M.2, but some boards don't (like the B650 Tomahawk).

Gigabyte Z790 AORUS Pro X - with a white PCB (unlike all these other "white" mobos) but for the amount of board that is visible under all the other gubbins even I am not going to pay that!

If you're willing to accept black, I'd be very tempted to get the TUF B650-Plus. True, it only has 3x M.2 slots and PCI-E 4.0 graphics, but the price gives you a hefty chunk to put into the graphics card, or the storage.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £379.99
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £149.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Vulcan EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C38 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLABD532G6000HC38ADC01) (SKU: MY-0B2-TG) = £119.99
• 1 x MSI SPATIUM M480 Pro 4TB SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-MSI-00991) = £259.99
• 1 x MSI SPATIUM M480 Pro 1TB SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-MSI-00814) = £64.99
• 1 x Asus GeForce RTX 4070 Dual White 12GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-49D-AS) = £629.99
• 1 x Phanteks AMP 1000W V2 80PLUS Gold Power Supply - White (SKU: CA-0C6-PT) = £169.99

Total: £1,774.93 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

1 x TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-51200C40 6400MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (SKU: MY-0AW-TG) = £119.99

If you're not aware, I believe this is XMP, which is why I swapped it out with the Vulcans in my earlier AMD builds.

 

[jabokai]

So Gen 14 doesn't have that issue? Seeing as you specifically mention 12 and 13, I mean?

TUF - Stop trying to add black into the system! Although, an all black mobo like that would actually be a plausible design choice and might even make the white stuff pop more... but I want the PC to look like it'd fit in the Nostromo (Alien) medical bay!

And I didn't even realise that XMP was an Intel thing so thanks for pointing that out! So I googled stuff and read the AMD equivalent is EXPO... are either of them really worth it? The new memory you specced me there is black! After a bit of digging the only white DDR5 EXPO memory I could find was on Kingston's own site - the part number doesn't seem to exist anywhere else. But it is £133.99 for 2x16 6000 sticks so it's not terrible... if EXPO is worth it.

My £1800 budget is not absolute - I don't really want to spend more than 2.5k (inc. all the white stuff in the initial post) in total as that feels to me about the most I want to spend. But I can push it up some more to make things work well together and to maintain the aesthetics.

 

[jabokai]

The O11 Vision is actually very pretty in black too, when the RGB colours are used subtley and classily (no rainbows!)