Reduce my expensive build. Advice plz

[PaulW]

Hi All,

First Build in ten years so i am splashing out, but also trying to reduce the cost. The new AMD chips and the 40 series GPUs which have gut punched my budget coming out pretty much 40% more than i orginally planned.
I am looking for options that i could possibly consider. i have a few things that i really want and i am willing to pay the extra for.
i am very near having a list i am ok with , but may wait a month or so to see what the 7800X3D brings to the table and if prices in generaly across the board come down a bit.
so what to i need it for? i do a lot of 3d games work, UE5, mostly modeling and some odd bit of rendering, i play some games. generally i spend quite a bit of time on my PC, so want a good rig.
atm i have a 2k monitor but want a wide screen 4k one when i win the lottery.

Here is the list. I cant quite believe its this high, but hey, its the over inflated PC market these days.
things in Orange i kind of want / have settled on. things in green i am undecided on.

Case Lian Li O11 Air Mini - Black
CPU Ryzen 9 / 7950X3D
RAM 64gb Kingston FURY Beast RGB 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz
GCard Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080
PWR Supply Existing PSU Seasonic 850 focus ( no cost)
CPU water cooler NZXT Kraken Z63 AIO CPU Water Cooler with LCD Screen - 280mm
Motherboard Asus ROG Strix X670E-F Gaming WIFI
HDD M2 2tb Samsung 990 Pro 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.3c Solid State Drive
WINDOWS 11 Pro

Optional
Noctua fans 120 x5
Noctua fans 140 x2
Fan controller NZXT RGB & Fan Controller

Total so far 3.4k
Orginal budget was 3k

so things i have considered are
Getting a cheaper GPU, i have considered somthing less but the 4070Ti i think wont help with 4k gaming when i go that way, i'd rather get a 3090Ti for more Vram.
Getting a cheaper Processor, but as i need it mostly for 3d work and gaming its a bit tough to decide on which one now. the 7800X3D will be cheaper and better for games if i was only doing that. but it would not be as good for 3D rendering / video editing. i could go last gen CPU
Reduce the ram to 32gb but kind of want 64.
get a 1TB SSD
using my existing PSU for that saves me £250
i did consider a B650 Mobo but have settled upon the X670E for about £70 more.
kind of want the Kraken just for asthetic reasons and keeping and eye on temps.

I also want a quiet PC so will replace the fans with Noctua ones for the AIO and case
Anyway there it is, i am probably going a bit nuts but i only buiild a PC every 7 - 10 years
Thanks, any suggestions i could consider would be great or if you think somthing could be better let me know.

Thanks

Paul

 

[PaulW]

Yeah it would be a CUDA system that i need to invest in so my choices is only Nvidia. i chose the 4080 as i read that it is pretty efficent power wise. i could go for the founders edition over the Gigabyte one which would save £100 but the giga runs cooler and is a bit less noisey.
if i splashed out on a 4090 i think i'd need a new PSU which would be + £250
i have thought about getting an arctic freezer cooler 2. which seems to be the best one for price and performance. out of intrest how much performance overhead would the cam software be to run?
in terms of fans they are not 100% essential right now. the case and the cooler comes with fans so i could use them for now and replace them on black friday if they were cheeper. the fans all come to about £190. noctua fans have never failed me i have ones still going strong after 10 years while all teh others have died.
so i guess if i could save £300 if i reduce those things and get rid of the bling.

 

[PaulW]

Missed you'd picked the gigabyte gpu... if you intend to keep the lian li o11 air mini make sure it fits, it doesn't fit in my evo without using after market cables according to lian li.

AM5 and intel 13th gen run hot, don't cheap out on the cooler.

I've used bequiet fans and noctua and imo I'd argue the bequiet are easily their equal if not actually being better on the noise front.

I really need to read posts better late at night... I'm not 100% sure how well 7950x3D is going to work with cad programs, every test/review I've seen has focused on games so you might be better just sacrificing a few fps in games and getting the 7950x which is better for multithreading etc. Just a note even though you've said windows 11, if you got 7950x3d it will also force you into using windows 11 due to needing the newer scheduler for the split chip design, the 7950x can still work with windows 10 if you prefer that os (I do ).

i'll be going Windows 11, i am not that bothered by the OS. i will check the giagbyte sizes with the case to be sure.
i'll have alook at the 7950x might be just as good for what i need and i can always upgrade at a later date and use the 7950x in another smaller build that i plan for home TV / Travel a SFF pc.

 

[PaulW]

+ £250? what PSUs are you looking at? theres plenty of good 850W and 1000W units below £200 that would be more than enough for a 4090

A seasonic platinum one. I Trust seasonic quite a bit. I really like there PSUs

 

[PaulW]

WD Black SN850X 2TB

They are great drives! and great value for money! The best for games for sure but the 990 Pro beats it in production work according to TechTesters by a good margin.

 

[PaulW]

Shop around and get 6000mhz

whats the real difference besides the steep price for going with 6000Mhz over 5600?

 

[PaulW]

AMD claims it's the sweet spot and it's basically to do with 1:1 infinity fabric ratio, it's like 3600mhz (or a little higher) for ryzen 5000 series. Essentially it makes the communication between the cpu and other parts a little faster which in turn makes the overall performance a little faster.
It's not 100% necessary as it will run fine on 5600, the infinity fabric will just run a little slower, not to mention 6000mhz or higher seems to be a consistent factor when memory issues crop up from what I've seen.

I wouldn't say don't do it but I'd do some research into the pros and cons.

well i am upgrading from some corsair 1333MHz ram for which my Mobo can only set at 400Mhz. its that old. so 5600Mhz should be lightning in comparison. i could always upgrade at a later date and recycle the 5600 for another ITX build

 

[PaulW]

I personally would not trust anything Asus makes to last 10 years. If I was spending as much as you are I would get the MSi Carbon buts thats a personal choice with longevity in mind.

What is wrong with ASUS these days? to me they seemed the best value for money with way more specs than the other manufactures.

 

[PaulW]

has the O-11 Mini been updated to fit standard ATX PSU’s now? Used to need a SFX.

i think the Air mini can fit ATX PSU's but not the Dynamic mini. i wish they would do a refresh of the Dynamic as i prefer the look of it.

 

[PaulW]

I'd go with a 13700k and a 4090 instead of a 7950X3D + 4080.

for that i would need a new PSU at +£ 200-250 both are very power hungry beasts

 

[PaulW]

My personal view

would you say you have a bit of ill feeling towards ASUS due to that? perfectly fine to have. i have the same about Corsair. my situation was one stick of ram failed which at the time led me to RMA an Asus MOBO. only to get a new gigabyte one and find it was the ram. i was a noob PC builder back then but i'll probably never trust corsair again even though they were really good and replaced the whole set for free.

 

[PaulW]

I'd go with a 13700k and a 4090 for a good mix of productivity and gaming instead of a 7950X3D + 4080.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i7-13700K (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AX-IN) = £424.99
• 1 x Gigabyte Z790 UD AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5BN-GI) = £269.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance RGB 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C36 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMH64GX5M2B5600C36) (SKU: MY-4DZ-CS) = £329.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 4090 Trinity 24GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-13E-ZT) = £1,699.99
• 1 x MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 UK PSU 1000W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply (SKU: CA-00W-MS) = £159.95

Total: £2,892.90 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

​

​

​

ok i have see your thinking on this and tbh i think you could be right for me going intel and a 4090 would be a better option for what i do. what about this?

The 4090 takes up 50% of the budget

Case	Lian Li O11 Air Mini - Black
CPU	Intel Core i7-13700K
RAM 64gb	Kingston FURY Beast RGB 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KF556C40BBAK2-64)
GCard	Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 WindForce 24GB
PWR Supply	Seasonic Prime GX-1000 1000W 80 Plus Gold Modular
CPU water cooler	NZXT Kraken Z63 AIO CPU Water Cooler with LCD Screen - 280mm
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX
HDD M2 2tb	Samsung 990 Pro 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.3c Solid State Drive

Total £3,517

 

[PaulW]

A big part of your spec price is the RGB. You've gone for the top end kraken cooler, iirc that's twice the price of their basic non-rgb version.

very true, somthings i am willing to spend a £100 more on just to get a brand i trust or somthing i want 3.5k is the max i think i can stretch to. its my first build in 10 years so i am willing to rethink stuff.
i could get a Arctic Freezer 2 360 RAD but i dont think it would fit in the case . worried the 4090 wont fit either so will have to check that or get the riser for the case if its to wide or re think it.

lots of things in flux atm thanks to everyones recommendations . sorry to be a pain. i am just planning things out right now to get that best set up for me that i am happy with / in budget if pos.

 

[PaulW]

or i could go a little over and remove the bling and reduce the SSD to one TB WD SN850X

Case	Lian Li O11 Air Mini - Black
CPU	Ryzen 9 7950X3D
RAM 64gb	Kingston FURY Beast RGB 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KF556C40BBAK2-64)
GCard	Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 WINDFORCE 24G
PWR Supply	Seasonic Prime GX-1000 1000W 80 Plus Gold Modular
CPU water cooler	NZXT Kraken X63 AIO CPU Water Cooler - 280mm
Motherboard	Asus ROG Strix X670E-F Gaming WIFI
HDD M2 1tb	WD Black SN850X 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T2X0E)

Total £3,686

 

[PaulW]

arctic liquid freezer ii 280

Thank Wing-man the NZXT cooler is an extra £20 - £30 to AF 2 i couldn't find a 280 AF2 cooler on OCUK.

seasonic means good

i like sea sonic from personal experience of owning one, linus has nothing to do with it and I personally i don't really rate him and rarely watch any of his videos, but i'll look at your recommendations so thanks for them.

 

[PaulW]

none RGB nzxt is £240

the NZXT Kraken X63 AIO CPU Water Cooler - 280mm is £139 on OCUK. this was the last one i added to my list, not the LCD one. i do listen some times

 

[PaulW]

I know this is a weird ask so far into the thread, but if you've not had a machine upgrade for around a decade, then why do you need to go full ham now on a build? Have you only just started using it for "i do a lot of 3d games work, UE5, mostly modeling and some odd bit of rendering, i play some games. generally i spend quite a bit of time on my PC, so want a good rig." be interesting to know, as you may end up with better value long term if you look to change your build before you commit.

i was going to build a new system before the pandemic but then prices sky rocketed so I foolishly i decided i would wait until prices came down. i am sure many other people did the same thing. i have been in the games industry for 16 years so no its not something i have just started. i would like top of the line system to do work and a bit of gaming with when i am not doing personal work. Yes i could set a lower budget and get a last gen system and it would be fine but i want to spend a decent amount which would have a bit of future proofing, i have saved up for it for a while and have waited long enough.

 

[PaulW]

someone in the games industry who managed on a system for 10 years

yeah i go to work where they have lots of lovely expensive workstations. atm i am not doing personal work. you can still do fairly ok modelling on the GTX 780 in blender or any other program.
You are right i could do another upgrade in 5 years time again but i'd rather get a system i am happy with now not in 5 years time. in theory not upgrading for 4 years has saved me a bunch of cash that i can spend now on this build.
new things are always around the corner and with the way prices are going my 4090 would still be the same price in 2 years time.

 

[PaulW]

I highly doubt that.

Why not? my mate bought a 3080 for 800 pounds almost two years ago and its still around 800 pounds of OCUK today, graphics card prices haven't really shifted for a long time, that is the problem.

i thank you all for your help. i have added in a lot of what you have said , ive considered other options like going down the intel route, and going for a 4090. now i have a lot of options
and lots of things i would not of considered this morning. ive not set out with the plan that i need an expensive system, i need a system i'd be happy with for a while . if graphics card prices and processors prices were not in general over priced i'd be super happy but we don't live in that time now where a bare basic bones last gen GPU is over £500 .

 

[PaulW]

a couple of years ago you would be able to get a 3080 new for your £410 easy by now. i hope one day things correct themselves but i doubt they will. i think they may get worse.