Thoughts on new build, about €1700 (£1500)

[Mr Jack]

Looking to put together a new build, budget about what is shown below, which is about £1500. Any feedback welcome?

I use the computer primarily for software (including game) development, but I also like to have a capable computer for gaming but stuff like Satisfactory is more my jam than twitch FPS. Quiet is important to me. The storage here will be augmented with a 2Tb SATA SSD and a 1Tb SATA SSHD from my old computer so there's no need for more storage space. I'd initially intended to carry components from my old computer, but at seven years old I guess carrying over the PSU is probably not a great plan? So the old system is going to go to my wife instead. I also looked at going DDR5 but it seems like the extra costs aren't worth it? I'd probably have to drop down a GPU in order to pay for it.

I plan on pairing this with a dual monitor setup with the main monitor being this 1440p LG monitor. It should be up to a stable frame rate with that, right? I don't need it to be maxing out the monitor.

Also: yeah I know prices are likely to drop soon and there's new stuff coming but I've been putting this off for months for various reasons and I don't want to wait any longer

408,35 € Intel Core i7-12700 2,10 GHz (Alder Lake-S) Sockel 1700 - boxed
259,90 € MSI Pro Z690-A WiFi DDR4, Intel Z690 Mainboard - Sockel 1700, DDR4
519,00 € Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Eagle OC 8G LHR, 8192 MB GDDR6
129,90 € Corsair Vengeance LPX schwarz, DDR4-3600, CL18 - 32 GB Dual-Kit
69,90 € Super Flower Leadex III ARGB 80 PLUS Gold Netzteil, modular - 650 Watt
145,90 € Fractal Design Define 7 Compact Black Midi-Tower - gedämmt, schwarz
34,90 € Raijintek CPU Kühler ELEOS 12 DUO RBW
159,90 € Corsair MP600 Pro NVMe SSD, PCIe 4.0 M.2 Typ 2280 - 1 TB

Total: ~€1730.

I don't actually want any of that RGB but the same PSU without it costs €40 more and the cooler isn't available without it. That cooler, btw, performs really well in the benchmarks I can find, despite the cheap price. To improve on it I think an AIO would be the only real upgrade but I don't think it's worth the cash since I'm not going to OC the CPU.

(Those links are to caseking.de, but since OCUK doesn't deliver to Germany, recommends CaseKing to customers in Germany, and is owned by the same group I'm assuming that's okay. CaseKing has patchy English language support on their website so feel free to link to OCUK instead, I can probably find more or less the same).

 

[philo-sofa]

I like the system; it’s a good build. Also good to see another quietness seeker. I’ve got a similar case (every intake and exhaust is shrouded) and six fans operating at low RPM, it’s satisfying when things are quiet.

However were I building, I’d delay things as AMD release their Zen 4/Ryzen 7000 series next week. You get a very decent per core performance uplift (over 25%) and more importantly the motherboard should be good until 2025 at the very least, meaning you get at least three further gens of slot-in CPU upgrades, rather than Intel’s one. Unless you need Intel for a game dev reason, Zen 4 will be worth the small wait.

GPU wise I’d suggest picking up a used GPU from the MM, or waiting until you see more cards appear. I appreciate you know this is coming so it’s your call, but you should go able to get much more power for far less that way. If you do want to go right now, or import taxes are too high look up how much Nvidia FEs are in Germany, as I’m sure you can get a 3070 Ti for about €100 more.

Finally: if you’ve got a genuinely quality PSU and haven’t thrashed it for the last seven years, it should be fine. But TBH I’d still upgrade myself, and probably beef up the power supply to at least an 850w, as power requirements are likely to go up and up over the next half decade.

 

[keyser van someone]

I think you'll need to remove all the competitor links!

I would say now might not be the best time to get a GPU, prices are falling and there will also be 4000 series soon, 4060 would be out in early 2023 I think.

 

[Mr Jack]

I like the system; it’s a good build. Also good to see another quietness seeker. I’ve got a similar case (every intake and exhaust is shrouded) and six fans operating at low RPM, it’s satisfying when things are quiet.

Thanks and good to know.

However were I building, I’d delay things as AMD release their Zen 4/Ryzen 7000 series next week. You get a very decent per core performance uplift (over 25%) and more importantly the motherboard should be good until 2025 at the very least, meaning you get at least three further gens of slot-in CPU upgrades, rather than Intel’s one. Unless you need Intel for a game dev reason, Zen 4 will be worth the small wait.

Yeah, I guess I worry about how long it will be until I can actually get my hands on them. Will stocks be there or will I end up waiting a month or two to be able to get a CPU/Motherboard? Also, the need for DDR5 pushes the price up some. I don't worry too much about upgradeability, because I nearly always build new systems rather than doing piece-meal upgrades to an existing one. Only keeping stuff like storage, sometimes a case, or some ram, as well as peripherals.

GPU wise I’d suggest picking up a used GPU from the MM, or waiting until you see more cards appear. I appreciate you know this is coming so it’s your call, but you should go able to get much more power for far less that way. If you do want to go right now, or import taxes are too high look up how much Nvidia FEs are in Germany, as I’m sure you can get a 3070 Ti for about €100 more.

Importing anything is too much of a hassle these days , which I guess it why most businesses just don't do it any more. I'm kind of suspicious of buying used graphic cards, especially at the moment, and 3070 Ti is getting on for €200 more. Tbh, the 3060 Ti is already more than I was planning on for a GPU.

I think you'll need to remove all the competitor links!

I checked with a Mod, and it's okay for the reasons given at the bottom of my opening post

I would say now might not be the best time to get a GPU, prices are falling and there will also be 4000 series soon, 4060 would be out in early 2023 I think.

It isn't, no, although a lot better than it was. Waiting until next year is going to be too long for me, but I guess I could keep the 970 in my current build for now, and look at buying next year, might be the best of both worlds. Hmmm.

 

[EsaT]

That basic level and budget design cooler would be grossly misplaced for real full load TDPs of Intels.
You can basically double marketing number for heavy multithreaded workloads.

And unless Intel has finally straightened their heatspreaders from long time tradition of having dent in the middle, direct touch heatpipe cooler has risk of loose contact right over die.
Traditional solid base design coolers with convexity are surer bets for good contact with Intel.
Scythes like Mugen 5/Fuma 2 are such.

Ryzens with chiplet design again prefer flat based cooler.
Their heatspreader is toward convex and two convex surfaces would make good contact only at very small area...


Difference for better cooler could be taken from SSD.
Would need extremely demanding workload to see performance difference to more reasonably priced drives.
And if usage trashes drive with lots of writes, Phison E16 based drives would have far higher TBW rating and hence statistically higher life time under lots of writes.

 

[Mr Jack]

That basic level and budget design cooler would be grossly misplaced for real full load TDPs of Intels.
You can basically double marketing number for heavy multithreaded workloads.

It is cheap, yeah, but it gets surprisingly good reviews regardless (that one is with a 12900K and if it can handle that then I figure it should be fine for a 12700). Mind you, you're probably right that it isn't worth skimping but then the price difference to going AIO doesn't really seem worth it either. Maybe that really is what I should do, although I admit to a certain amount of nervousness about AIOs, I know that the failures are rare but they can be so much worse. If I did go AIO what kind of cooler would be needed for this system?

Difference for better cooler could be taken from SSD.
Would need extremely demanding workload to see performance difference to more reasonably priced drives.

You're right there. Actually, I'm not sure why I picked that one. I think I'd meant to pick the €30 cheaper Corsair MP600 R2 and picked the wrong one when I was putting the basket together.

 

[philo-sofa]

Thanks and good to know.



Yeah, I guess I worry about how long it will be until I can actually get my hands on them. Will stocks be there or will I end up waiting a month or two to be able to get a CPU/Motherboard? Also, the need for DDR5 pushes the price up some. I don't worry too much about upgradeability, because I nearly always build new systems rather than doing piece-meal upgrades to an existing one. Only keeping stuff like storage, sometimes a case, or some ram, as well as peripherals.

Fair enough on the other points. With this one though, imagine you'd bought your current mobo six years ago, and could upgrade to a 5800 X3D and some faster memory. No entire rebuilds, just a new GPU, swap out a processor etc. It'd be easy so much so you'd probably have already upgraded once. I got used to having to do whole upgrades during the Intel years as it was necessary, but it shouldn't be: as of now we're moving to DDR5, PCIe 5 and a new processor socket. The key pipelines in an AM5 build will be upgradable for years to come.

Availability, from what I can read, will be fine this time. Much more like a normal processor launch than 2020.