As somebody who has both worked in tech, is a gamer, and has worked with AI on my local devices, I don't see prices coming down any time soon.
I bought a 3090 TI in 2022, and since my initial purchase, the price of my graphics card has doubled.
None of this is to say that you shouldn't try to get a nice computer, but I'll be frank and say that it's going to be very difficult to get something that can push 4K frames at a very decent rate in ultra settings on the latest games.
I think it is a great idea to accept the 3070 from your friend if he's genuinely willing to do that.
I have not tried them, but I've also heard great things from the latest Intel Arc series of GPUs.
I think the prices you've listed are par for the course, but it is kind of sad.
What sort of games do you play? This will dictate heavily what sort of system you need. Personally speaking I don't play anything that's very intensive anymore, mostly games from long ago. So I don't have much system demand.
M.2 generation virtually does not matter at all for most game load times. When a game loads, any vital resources will also be in system memory so it will not matter on that front either. You will probably want at least 16gb of ram. I have 64gb of ddr4, and I never come close to using all of that when gaming. You could probably get away comfortably with 32gb of ddr4 instead of ddr5. If you can find available sticks.
Do you intend to do anything beyond gaming with the system?
You could probably get away comfortably with 32gb of ddr4 instead of ddr5. If you can find available sticks.
The issue is less of the sticks and more of supported CPUs/mobos. They would have to use a previous gen CPU, and not only are those rare now, but IMO it's not worth saving the money for a worse processor.
I agree that for new build ddr4 is probably not worth it. A ddr4 platform may have enough performance but if you are starting from scratch might as well get ddr5. If you come into some ddr4 in the meantime for free or REALLY cheap then it's worth consideration, but probably not worth seeking out.
I'll second the recommendation to use the 3070, as that is still a respectable GPU and would cut down on cost so much. I've also heard good things about the Intel Arc GPUs, but if you do decide to use one, make sure you enable PCIe ReBAR, as it can make a large difference in performance. Also seconding the M.2 generation not mattering. And personally I've never used different drives for the OS and games since moving to M.2 from SATA.
Unless you need a new case to fit the full ATX motherboard or a long GPU, can you reuse your existing case? That would reduce the cost some as well.
Also, since you said you're not buying this until next summer, are you meaning northern or southern hemisphere summer? If you're looking to buy 6 months from now, that could impact what parts are available (either new releases or changes in stock) and their prices as well.
3070 (8 GB) / Ryzen 5600X / 16 GB DDR4 user here who was forced to "settle" for it instead of a 3080 during pandemic pricing because I wasn't willing to add 50% to the total price of my ~$2050 USD prebuilt (ugh) PC replacement for an aging microstuttering 2012 build. My use case is very different from the TC as I stay far away from AAA anything, but I do game a lot across varied engines and I'm on an unusual monitor setup - two 1440p / 144 monitors with HDMI link to a 4k TV that I often mirror to, so I'm used to tinkering around when things don't work quite right.
And for the most part its met my needs. I don't touch anything based in Unreal Engine 5 as they all seem to perform terribly, but I suspect that's more UE5's fault and there isn't much I'm missing out on there. I suspect I'll hit some important limitations if I ever manage to make it through the Steam Frame waitlist, but otherwise I've been happy with this build. Having dabbled in the past with Stable Diffusion for potential use in a game I've been making, it can handle up to SDXL models without much issue but nothing newer than that, and I've since replaced those "assets" with non-AI art made using tools such as EmoteLab.
For some games or videos, I will use Lossless Scaling to force frame generation or scaled "fullscreen", and it handles that fine too. I'm usually able to do things like have a video play off a streaming site or my HD while a decently intensive game is being played on the main monitor and being mirrored to the TV, all at the desired framerates.
And I continue to believe that 1440p/144 is the sweet spot. I'm prone to being motion sick and fussy to framerate irregularities, and I'd rather not give that up in favor of pushing 4k or 240 fps.
Northern hemisphere! Summer 2027 is admittedly rosy. 12+ months is more realistic, and at that point new graphics cards are presumably due for release, which is why I'm inclined to take the 3070 for now.
I think it’s a good time to question if you actually need to run the latest games at 4k. Modern games can separate the UI resolution from the graphics resolution. Keeping the text and ui sharp while the 3D graphics get rendered at a lower resolution. In my experience this feels as good as rendering the whole game in 4K but massively more forgiving on the hardware.
Most of what I play is decades old, but someone gifted me Cyberpunk 2077 which I haven't been able to run. As I work through the old Tomb Raider games, I'll eventually get to the new fancy-looking ones. I like all the nice sunsets and detailed grass textures in AAA games, which my 970 could never handle.
I had some fun with Cities: Skylines and would play a more advanced city sim if they ever invent one. Sometime I'd like to try Kerbal Space Program. And I'll probably never play much of it again, but I used to love Minecraft. Those all feel CPU-bound to me. Seems like I just want expensive everything.
No plans for any special use-cases. I can do most of my work in a word processor. I might spend more time in virtual machines in the future, but I'm rarely working with large amounts of data. When I was younger I thought I might like to make videos, but realistically I will never do that.
I've been looking through your component list. Everything looks very solid for a $3,500 budget. If you wanted to lower the price a bit there's some wiggle room:
You have two SSDs on the list. You could just buy the single 1TB and save yourself nearly $400. Windows only takes up something like 40GB these days, which gives you plenty of room for Steam, games, and docs. It's easy to add another one if you find yourself running out of space in the future (or just uninstall old games).
The monitor seems way overpriced. You could get a 2K monitor at the same size for around $75. Personally, as long as I have a stable frame rate I don't notice the resolution difference. Been using a 2K monitor for 15+ years and I'm not compelled to upgrade (Happy to hear from any Tilderinos that really love their 4K and want to make the counterpoint)
Liquid cooler is massive overkill. Unless you're overclocking your processor, a stock heat sink and fan will do the job just fine. No need to introduce liquids to your sensitive electronics. That processor looks solid enough it won't need any overclocking.
The RAM... It sucks, but yeah, you've got to eat the price tag. You could probably get away with 16GB, especially if you're not playing AAA titles, but you might as well double up to get some future proofing out of the build.
Having multiple games I frequently play in the 100+GB range, I’d actually recommend not dropping to 1TB. At least get the 2TB, 100% more storage for 50% more cost.
I don’t think 2k vs 4k makes a difference for gaming, but it is very noticeable when using the same monitor for productivity. Text is noticeably sharper and better on a 4k monitor. Tbh I prefer 5k monitors, as even 4k when stretched to a screen over 27 inches becomes fairly low dpi. In that respect, Apple’s retina DPI requirement is a useful benchmark.
It feels bad when your phone has a sharper and higher DPI screen than your primary monitor.
Makes a lot of sense. I'm generally 3 to 5 feet away from my monitor while gaming, and I don't think you're going to notice the sharpness loss from that far away.
I do notice the difference on my phone, but my eyes are like 8 inches away from the screen when I'm using it. It doesn't help that I'm nearsighted and tend to take off my glasses when looking at my phone.
I think you'd be surprised. I can't see myself ever going back down from 4k for desktop stuff now. It's spoiled me to where every time I see a generic lower res monitor, I can't help but notice how pixellated it looks. Even for games, though, I still remember the first time that I fired up a game in native 4k and marveled at how crisp the graphics were. But for modern games with more demanding graphics, I can either use a fancy upscaler, or just set the game to 2k res, and have my monitor pretend it's a 2k display with 2x integer scaling - no big deal.
And FWIW, I'm also nearsighted and like to remove my glasses for phone, Kindle, and sometime reading book use.
If you’re seeing QD-OLED for $75 let me know where because I’m buying four! Strong opinion from me is that the panel itself becomes the real differentiator nowadays in ways that just refresh and resolution won’t tell you. The colours, contrast, and (perhaps the biggest impact that most people don’t expect) motion rendering thanks to instant pixel response on an OLED are significant for what it’s like to use day to day. I won’t claim to know MSI’s alphabet soup to judge that one in particular, but they make decent QD-OLED displays in general (a friend has one that’s very solid) and I’d call that a good price from what I know. I’m also on team QD-OLED over WOLED from what I’ve seen of both, although that is getting down into the finest of fine differences.
Cooler, it’s an AIO, everyone uses them nowadays (for better or worse!). I actually do kinda agree with you, I’d only bother liquid cooling a CPU if it’s part of a custom loop to cool the GPU anyway, but if you look at the 9800X3D it is getting towards the spec limits for an NH-D15 or similar. Extra fan surface area by putting them side by side on the AIO rather than one giant one that’s gotta still fit between the motherboard and side panel can win out at lower RPM if you do it right.
Oh and @Atvelonis: great build in my opinion, one thing I’d say if it were me is go Corsair for the PSU if you can. Nothing wrong with MSI PSUs that I know of, but Corsair are the guys with the “absolutely bulletproof, exceeds spec in almost every destructive test” track record that I’d say you want in the part that’s got the theoretical ability to fry all the others.
Looking into QD-OLED now, it seems pretty fascinating. No backlight is a tremendous advantage, and I do like the sound of near-instantaneous response time. I'm not sure I'm 100% sold, but I may need to stop into a brick and mortar to see how they actually look.
It seems like they can develop burn-in images though. That was a nightmare back in the CRT days.
I'm seeing the headline that burn-in "hasn't improved" in the last few years, but if 2023 model lifespan is similar to 2017 at much higher (+52%) brightness, it follows that reducing brightness lengthens lifespan.
Higher light output generally places more cumulative stress on OLED pixels. Lowering the brightness setting should therefore reduce wear when the TV regularly displays bright static elements.
It might be overblown, though:
Burn-in is unlikely to be an issue for the vast majority of viewers, as most will regularly vary their content. The risk increases when the same bright static elements are displayed for thousands of hours, particularly with prolonged news viewing, desktop use, or repeated play of the same game.
Visible permanent image retention developed primarily where static elements remained on screen. [...] Areas that displayed varied content didn't exhibit any noticeable burn-in. [...] Eighteen thousand hours is equivalent to roughly 10 years of viewing at five hours per day.
They didn't test monitors from 2024–26, which presumably follow the same trend. I can imagine some eventual burn-in from desktop use, but I'm not too worried about video game HUDs. It seems like a CRT screensaver would minimize the risk. Some monitor companies apparently use software tricks to minimize the problem and suggest behavioral changes.
The first is called “Orbit”: this feature shifts the entire picture by a single pixel, in a circle, every three minutes. It’s imperceptible, too, which makes it a very user friendly solution. The other feature to help is that the monitor will run an “image retention refresh” cycle when you turn it off, but only if it’s been on for eight or more hours. This refresh cycle takes about six minutes.
For gamers, keep HUD opacity at 50–70% or use dynamic/minimal interfaces that change frequently. Auto-hiding the taskbar and enabling dark mode for Windows or browsers dramatically reduces static bright elements that drive localized wear.
If desktop burn-in becomes noticeable at, say, 10,000 hours and my screen time is 70% desktop/browser and 30% videos/games, then at 6 hours per day, the monitor would be pristine for 6–7 years. (I'd be surprised if I used it that often.) Reducing brightness by just 10% would extend the lifespan by another year or two. That's not far off from my LCD/TN monitor, which has had failures of its own.
At that point, I feel like taskbar tweaks and dark mode would largely eliminate the problem in any practical timeframe. I wish that someone would publish more realistic test cases!
Has anyone here used an OLED monitor for this length of time? Is it really that bad?
It seems to me that the color depths outweigh the longevity concerns, but I've never used one of these screens.
Yeah they’re genuinely impressive, the only LCD I’ve seen that I think meaningfully outperforms a good OLED is the Apple Studio XDR, and that costs $3,500, so… yeah. I’m three years in on an OLED TV with no signs of burn in, but obviously that’s a lot less likely to have a static image on it for 8+ hours/day!
My new work laptop also came with an OLED display and I do keep that turned off when it’s docked; it’d proooobably be fine based on the numbers just above, but for the sake of an extra bit of display space off to the side of my big monitors that I’d rarely actually use I just went with the minor inconvenience of disabling it when plugged in. On that basis an LCD would’ve actually done me better there, so it’s not totally clear cut, but I do think the newer panel tech broadly lives up to the hype.
I’ve been meaning to try a CRT-style line by line renderer on my TV actually, I’m interested to see if it gives a better perception of motion for cinematic content (CRT lines had a natural brightness falloff as the frame refreshed and it was good for naturally smoothing out the perceived transition between frames; we’ve come full circle now and can potentially replicate that by rendering multiple frames on a high refresh display with the brightness gradient calculated appropriately because it’s got the pixel response for it to make sense and we’re still watching sometimes as low as 24fps content on displays that can often do 10x that or more!)
Liquid cooler is massive overkill. Unless you're overclocking your processor, a stock heat sink and fan will do the job just fine. No need to introduce liquids to your sensitive electronics. That processor looks solid enough it won't need any overclocking.
From the looks of it, the CPU they've picked does not have a stock cooler, so they will need to buy something for that regardless. I tend to share the same sentiment about keeping liquids in my computer's components, but from what I understand, liquid coolers like the one picked out are pretty safe and are nearly as plug-and-play as a regular heat sink and fan.
That said, yeah, absolutely. Using a regular heat sink and fan will absolutely provide enough cooling, and even with overclocking, would really only mean a larger heat sink is required. I can personally attest to a mostly basic Noctua cooler of the same price being more than enough for a CPU of the same wattage and remains fairly quiet even under load. And there very well may be better and/or cheaper heat sink cooler options out there.
I don’t know how things will look this year (given the prices of things), but historically Microcenter has had bundles that save a little during Black Friday if there’s one in your area. Same thing for Newegg online, again if that’s something available to deliver in your area.
The 9800X3D is a beast of a CPU and should last you a long time. I have a very similar build to one you're considering, with the 9800X3D and a 3070. It handles most games fine, though the GPU is showing its limitations and I have to turn some settings down, generally it handles most games at 1440p acceptably.
Don't feel like you need anything more than air cooling for the CPU. I've got a Peerless Assassin and I don't think I've seen my CPU rack 70 C yet.
Seems fine. Honestly just buy the best computer you can get for your budget and leave it at that. Some people get really neurotic about specs but it just doesn’t really matter. Same on prices: who knows if it’ll go up or down, and it doesn’t really matter that much anyway.
Same on prices: who knows if it’ll go up or down, and it doesn’t really matter that much anyway.
Given budgets, I imagine it matters immensely. imagine if I could have doubled my memory by waiting 6 months. Or on an installment plan you pay some $100 less a month. If you're not using your machine to generate income, it adds up.
imagine if I could have doubled my memory by waiting 6 months.
Doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. Would having 16 vs 32 gb of ram make a big difference for gamers? Probably not? I'm sure it may matter for some benchmark, but in practice just lower some texture settings and move on.
And moreover, how do you weigh saving some $200 against not having a computer for 6 months? A gaming computer is something you buy to enjoy, not enjoying it is a price in it and of itself.
Just buy what you can at the current time, play your games and don't worry about it. It's not worth playing stock simulator for your entertainment device.
I feel like the best option is to just buy something affordable and mid range. You’ll feel better about it and will have just as much fun playing games. While buying top end parts leaves you agonising over benchmarks and fps counters perpetually dissatisfied.
60hz to 144hz was the greatest upgrade I ever made and now it seems like 180hz or 240hz is the new 144hz. I've also wanted to move to 1440p for years. I reviewed the Gamers Nexus GPU benchmarks and it seems like 120fps+ is broadly possible at this resolution.
I had a similar reaction from 60 to 144, but can’t say I’ve noticed the same going from 144 to 360 for what it’s worth (even among the games that run at 360fps)
IPS or OLED? WOLED or QD-OLED? Is Freesync Premium sufficient? (@AugustusFerdinand we spoke about this some time ago; has your opinion changed?)
OLED is nice and QD-OLEDs are very affordable these days. At $3500 and how expensive everything else has gotten, I’d go for the OLED. I don’t have a WOLED to compare but my centre monitor is QD-OLED and my side monitors are IPS so get to compare those every day. I paid like $750 for my dell one when it was new tech and I’m seeing 4k options for less than that now lol (and I may buy one in the medium term, something in the internal power supply in my dell is failing)
If you are looking at the best bang for your buck, it doesn’t make sense to do custom builds these days, you can get a better, more powerful prebuilt system.
Otherwise, that looks like a great system. The only thing I would change is an NVIDIA GPU I think DLSS is worth it, but that is just a matter of preference.
I recently upgraded from a 3070 to a 5070ti but I exclusively game in 1440p and the 3070 was plenty capable, especially as a stop gap measure. I could run most modern games that are technically demanding in the medium to high range with the 3070 and still pull over 60 fps. That's honestly all I care about. If that's fine for you, the 3070 will do the job. If you want 120+ fps then you will probably need to invest in a newer card.
That said, I feel like 1440p is the perfect resolution. Noticeably better than 1080p but significantly easier to run than 4k. The step up from 1080p might be a similar revelation for you.
While you're probably fine with the 850W PSU, if you can step up to 1000W for a similar price then you might appreciate that. Not an expert, so could be overkill, but I got a 1000W PSU with my 2021 build and made upgrading to the 50 series cards less concerning.
I can't speak to the performance of the parts vs your objectives as I have never chased high frame rates but in general seems fine. If it's within budget I don't think you would regret it.
On cooler: As someone who also keeps PCs running for a long time air coolers have been near zero maintenance, besides reapplying thermal paste after 5 years ish. Water cooling might get you lower noise if you can turn the fans down, at the cost of complexity.
On drive configuration: I only did separate boot drive back when 128GB SSDs were new but it's not really necessary unless you expect windows updates to break your install. If you were concerned about that a 1TB boot drive is be overkill for just windows.
Personally I would consider how many drives you might want to add to the PC over it's lifetime. If you expect to need to add more storage over the years starting with just one 2TB drive might make more sense to keep m.2 slots open. Then add another 2TB when needed.
On Windows License: Depending how you feel about TOS, Microsoft Activation Scripts is a thing that exists (massgrave). I've not had any issues with it. You will need a way to create windows install media but that just requires another PC with space to download and a USB drive.
I strongly agree on your comments about the cooler. Air coolers just work. And the case is going to be air cooled anyway (along with PSU, GPU, and potentially the RAM). As long as air is flowing everything's fine.
I disagree about the Windows license. I feel like it's worth paying for. Looking at this build, it's one of the cheapest line items, and if you don't pay for it, you potentially expose yourself to security vulnerabilities, missing bug fixes, and version compatibility problems.
I can only speak from my personal experience - and I'm not going to tell anyone how they should manage their PC's OS - but for me, paying for the Windows license just made everything much much easier.
You also might be able to just transfer the license to the new PC, I’ve done that in the past.
I went through some flow where I basically said (accurately) that I upgraded my computer, but in doing so I had replaced the CPU and Motherboard which is why it was no longer detected as the “same” computer.
If you have an existing Windows account, I believe that should still work.
Tukajo | a day ago
As somebody who has both worked in tech, is a gamer, and has worked with AI on my local devices, I don't see prices coming down any time soon.
I bought a 3090 TI in 2022, and since my initial purchase, the price of my graphics card has doubled.
None of this is to say that you shouldn't try to get a nice computer, but I'll be frank and say that it's going to be very difficult to get something that can push 4K frames at a very decent rate in ultra settings on the latest games.
I think it is a great idea to accept the 3070 from your friend if he's genuinely willing to do that.
I have not tried them, but I've also heard great things from the latest Intel Arc series of GPUs.
I think the prices you've listed are par for the course, but it is kind of sad.
What sort of games do you play? This will dictate heavily what sort of system you need. Personally speaking I don't play anything that's very intensive anymore, mostly games from long ago. So I don't have much system demand.
M.2 generation virtually does not matter at all for most game load times. When a game loads, any vital resources will also be in system memory so it will not matter on that front either. You will probably want at least 16gb of ram. I have 64gb of ddr4, and I never come close to using all of that when gaming. You could probably get away comfortably with 32gb of ddr4 instead of ddr5. If you can find available sticks.
Do you intend to do anything beyond gaming with the system?
stu2b50 | 21 hours ago
The issue is less of the sticks and more of supported CPUs/mobos. They would have to use a previous gen CPU, and not only are those rare now, but IMO it's not worth saving the money for a worse processor.
kram21 | 19 hours ago
I agree that for new build ddr4 is probably not worth it. A ddr4 platform may have enough performance but if you are starting from scratch might as well get ddr5. If you come into some ddr4 in the meantime for free or REALLY cheap then it's worth consideration, but probably not worth seeking out.
pmheavy | 23 hours ago
I'll second the recommendation to use the 3070, as that is still a respectable GPU and would cut down on cost so much. I've also heard good things about the Intel Arc GPUs, but if you do decide to use one, make sure you enable PCIe ReBAR, as it can make a large difference in performance. Also seconding the M.2 generation not mattering. And personally I've never used different drives for the OS and games since moving to M.2 from SATA.
Unless you need a new case to fit the full ATX motherboard or a long GPU, can you reuse your existing case? That would reduce the cost some as well.
Also, since you said you're not buying this until next summer, are you meaning northern or southern hemisphere summer? If you're looking to buy 6 months from now, that could impact what parts are available (either new releases or changes in stock) and their prices as well.
Xuande | 22 hours ago
3070 (8 GB) / Ryzen 5600X / 16 GB DDR4 user here who was forced to "settle" for it instead of a 3080 during pandemic pricing because I wasn't willing to add 50% to the total price of my ~$2050 USD prebuilt (ugh) PC replacement for an aging microstuttering 2012 build. My use case is very different from the TC as I stay far away from AAA anything, but I do game a lot across varied engines and I'm on an unusual monitor setup - two 1440p / 144 monitors with HDMI link to a 4k TV that I often mirror to, so I'm used to tinkering around when things don't work quite right.
And for the most part its met my needs. I don't touch anything based in Unreal Engine 5 as they all seem to perform terribly, but I suspect that's more UE5's fault and there isn't much I'm missing out on there. I suspect I'll hit some important limitations if I ever manage to make it through the Steam Frame waitlist, but otherwise I've been happy with this build. Having dabbled in the past with Stable Diffusion for potential use in a game I've been making, it can handle up to SDXL models without much issue but nothing newer than that, and I've since replaced those "assets" with non-AI art made using tools such as EmoteLab.
For some games or videos, I will use Lossless Scaling to force frame generation or scaled "fullscreen", and it handles that fine too. I'm usually able to do things like have a video play off a streaming site or my HD while a decently intensive game is being played on the main monitor and being mirrored to the TV, all at the desired framerates.
And I continue to believe that 1440p/144 is the sweet spot. I'm prone to being motion sick and fussy to framerate irregularities, and I'd rather not give that up in favor of pushing 4k or 240 fps.
[OP] Atvelonis | 23 hours ago
Northern hemisphere! Summer 2027 is admittedly rosy. 12+ months is more realistic, and at that point new graphics cards are presumably due for release, which is why I'm inclined to take the 3070 for now.
Octofox | 17 hours ago
I think it’s a good time to question if you actually need to run the latest games at 4k. Modern games can separate the UI resolution from the graphics resolution. Keeping the text and ui sharp while the 3D graphics get rendered at a lower resolution. In my experience this feels as good as rendering the whole game in 4K but massively more forgiving on the hardware.
[OP] Atvelonis | 23 hours ago
Most of what I play is decades old, but someone gifted me Cyberpunk 2077 which I haven't been able to run. As I work through the old Tomb Raider games, I'll eventually get to the new fancy-looking ones. I like all the nice sunsets and detailed grass textures in AAA games, which my 970 could never handle.
I had some fun with Cities: Skylines and would play a more advanced city sim if they ever invent one. Sometime I'd like to try Kerbal Space Program. And I'll probably never play much of it again, but I used to love Minecraft. Those all feel CPU-bound to me. Seems like I just want expensive everything.
No plans for any special use-cases. I can do most of my work in a word processor. I might spend more time in virtual machines in the future, but I'm rarely working with large amounts of data. When I was younger I thought I might like to make videos, but realistically I will never do that.
Knockout_Mouse | 19 hours ago
I've been looking through your component list. Everything looks very solid for a $3,500 budget. If you wanted to lower the price a bit there's some wiggle room:
You have two SSDs on the list. You could just buy the single 1TB and save yourself nearly $400. Windows only takes up something like 40GB these days, which gives you plenty of room for Steam, games, and docs. It's easy to add another one if you find yourself running out of space in the future (or just uninstall old games).
The monitor seems way overpriced. You could get a 2K monitor at the same size for around $75. Personally, as long as I have a stable frame rate I don't notice the resolution difference. Been using a 2K monitor for 15+ years and I'm not compelled to upgrade (Happy to hear from any Tilderinos that really love their 4K and want to make the counterpoint)
Liquid cooler is massive overkill. Unless you're overclocking your processor, a stock heat sink and fan will do the job just fine. No need to introduce liquids to your sensitive electronics. That processor looks solid enough it won't need any overclocking.
The RAM... It sucks, but yeah, you've got to eat the price tag. You could probably get away with 16GB, especially if you're not playing AAA titles, but you might as well double up to get some future proofing out of the build.
Macha | 16 hours ago
Having multiple games I frequently play in the 100+GB range, I’d actually recommend not dropping to 1TB. At least get the 2TB, 100% more storage for 50% more cost.
stu2b50 | 19 hours ago
I don’t think 2k vs 4k makes a difference for gaming, but it is very noticeable when using the same monitor for productivity. Text is noticeably sharper and better on a 4k monitor. Tbh I prefer 5k monitors, as even 4k when stretched to a screen over 27 inches becomes fairly low dpi. In that respect, Apple’s retina DPI requirement is a useful benchmark.
It feels bad when your phone has a sharper and higher DPI screen than your primary monitor.
Knockout_Mouse | 19 hours ago
Makes a lot of sense. I'm generally 3 to 5 feet away from my monitor while gaming, and I don't think you're going to notice the sharpness loss from that far away.
I do notice the difference on my phone, but my eyes are like 8 inches away from the screen when I'm using it. It doesn't help that I'm nearsighted and tend to take off my glasses when looking at my phone.
I might need to try 4k for productivity.
Boojum | 14 hours ago
I think you'd be surprised. I can't see myself ever going back down from 4k for desktop stuff now. It's spoiled me to where every time I see a generic lower res monitor, I can't help but notice how pixellated it looks. Even for games, though, I still remember the first time that I fired up a game in native 4k and marveled at how crisp the graphics were. But for modern games with more demanding graphics, I can either use a fancy upscaler, or just set the game to 2k res, and have my monitor pretend it's a 2k display with 2x integer scaling - no big deal.
And FWIW, I'm also nearsighted and like to remove my glasses for phone, Kindle, and sometime reading book use.
Greg | 14 hours ago
If you’re seeing QD-OLED for $75 let me know where because I’m buying four! Strong opinion from me is that the panel itself becomes the real differentiator nowadays in ways that just refresh and resolution won’t tell you. The colours, contrast, and (perhaps the biggest impact that most people don’t expect) motion rendering thanks to instant pixel response on an OLED are significant for what it’s like to use day to day. I won’t claim to know MSI’s alphabet soup to judge that one in particular, but they make decent QD-OLED displays in general (a friend has one that’s very solid) and I’d call that a good price from what I know. I’m also on team QD-OLED over WOLED from what I’ve seen of both, although that is getting down into the finest of fine differences.
Cooler, it’s an AIO, everyone uses them nowadays (for better or worse!). I actually do kinda agree with you, I’d only bother liquid cooling a CPU if it’s part of a custom loop to cool the GPU anyway, but if you look at the 9800X3D it is getting towards the spec limits for an NH-D15 or similar. Extra fan surface area by putting them side by side on the AIO rather than one giant one that’s gotta still fit between the motherboard and side panel can win out at lower RPM if you do it right.
Oh and @Atvelonis: great build in my opinion, one thing I’d say if it were me is go Corsair for the PSU if you can. Nothing wrong with MSI PSUs that I know of, but Corsair are the guys with the “absolutely bulletproof, exceeds spec in almost every destructive test” track record that I’d say you want in the part that’s got the theoretical ability to fry all the others.
Knockout_Mouse | 8 hours ago
Looking into QD-OLED now, it seems pretty fascinating. No backlight is a tremendous advantage, and I do like the sound of near-instantaneous response time. I'm not sure I'm 100% sold, but I may need to stop into a brick and mortar to see how they actually look.
It seems like they can develop burn-in images though. That was a nightmare back in the CRT days.
[OP] Atvelonis | 6 hours ago
I'm seeing the headline that burn-in "hasn't improved" in the last few years, but if 2023 model lifespan is similar to 2017 at much higher (+52%) brightness, it follows that reducing brightness lengthens lifespan.
It might be overblown, though:
They didn't test monitors from 2024–26, which presumably follow the same trend. I can imagine some eventual burn-in from desktop use, but I'm not too worried about video game HUDs. It seems like a CRT screensaver would minimize the risk. Some monitor companies apparently use software tricks to minimize the problem and suggest behavioral changes.
If desktop burn-in becomes noticeable at, say, 10,000 hours and my screen time is 70% desktop/browser and 30% videos/games, then at 6 hours per day, the monitor would be pristine for 6–7 years. (I'd be surprised if I used it that often.) Reducing brightness by just 10% would extend the lifespan by another year or two. That's not far off from my LCD/TN monitor, which has had failures of its own.
At that point, I feel like taskbar tweaks and dark mode would largely eliminate the problem in any practical timeframe. I wish that someone would publish more realistic test cases!
Has anyone here used an OLED monitor for this length of time? Is it really that bad?
It seems to me that the color depths outweigh the longevity concerns, but I've never used one of these screens.
Greg | an hour ago
Yeah they’re genuinely impressive, the only LCD I’ve seen that I think meaningfully outperforms a good OLED is the Apple Studio XDR, and that costs $3,500, so… yeah. I’m three years in on an OLED TV with no signs of burn in, but obviously that’s a lot less likely to have a static image on it for 8+ hours/day!
My new work laptop also came with an OLED display and I do keep that turned off when it’s docked; it’d proooobably be fine based on the numbers just above, but for the sake of an extra bit of display space off to the side of my big monitors that I’d rarely actually use I just went with the minor inconvenience of disabling it when plugged in. On that basis an LCD would’ve actually done me better there, so it’s not totally clear cut, but I do think the newer panel tech broadly lives up to the hype.
I’ve been meaning to try a CRT-style line by line renderer on my TV actually, I’m interested to see if it gives a better perception of motion for cinematic content (CRT lines had a natural brightness falloff as the frame refreshed and it was good for naturally smoothing out the perceived transition between frames; we’ve come full circle now and can potentially replicate that by rendering multiple frames on a high refresh display with the brightness gradient calculated appropriately because it’s got the pixel response for it to make sense and we’re still watching sometimes as low as 24fps content on displays that can often do 10x that or more!)
Wuju | 16 hours ago
From the looks of it, the CPU they've picked does not have a stock cooler, so they will need to buy something for that regardless. I tend to share the same sentiment about keeping liquids in my computer's components, but from what I understand, liquid coolers like the one picked out are pretty safe and are nearly as plug-and-play as a regular heat sink and fan.
That said, yeah, absolutely. Using a regular heat sink and fan will absolutely provide enough cooling, and even with overclocking, would really only mean a larger heat sink is required. I can personally attest to a mostly basic Noctua cooler of the same price being more than enough for a CPU of the same wattage and remains fairly quiet even under load. And there very well may be better and/or cheaper heat sink cooler options out there.
Zorind | 19 hours ago
I don’t know how things will look this year (given the prices of things), but historically Microcenter has had bundles that save a little during Black Friday if there’s one in your area. Same thing for Newegg online, again if that’s something available to deliver in your area.
Autoxidation | 22 hours ago
The 9800X3D is a beast of a CPU and should last you a long time. I have a very similar build to one you're considering, with the 9800X3D and a 3070. It handles most games fine, though the GPU is showing its limitations and I have to turn some settings down, generally it handles most games at 1440p acceptably.
Don't feel like you need anything more than air cooling for the CPU. I've got a Peerless Assassin and I don't think I've seen my CPU rack 70 C yet.
stu2b50 | 22 hours ago
Seems fine. Honestly just buy the best computer you can get for your budget and leave it at that. Some people get really neurotic about specs but it just doesn’t really matter. Same on prices: who knows if it’ll go up or down, and it doesn’t really matter that much anyway.
raze2012 | 14 hours ago
Given budgets, I imagine it matters immensely. imagine if I could have doubled my memory by waiting 6 months. Or on an installment plan you pay some $100 less a month. If you're not using your machine to generate income, it adds up.
stu2b50 | 7 hours ago
Doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. Would having 16 vs 32 gb of ram make a big difference for gamers? Probably not? I'm sure it may matter for some benchmark, but in practice just lower some texture settings and move on.
And moreover, how do you weigh saving some $200 against not having a computer for 6 months? A gaming computer is something you buy to enjoy, not enjoying it is a price in it and of itself.
Just buy what you can at the current time, play your games and don't worry about it. It's not worth playing stock simulator for your entertainment device.
Octofox | 17 hours ago
I feel like the best option is to just buy something affordable and mid range. You’ll feel better about it and will have just as much fun playing games. While buying top end parts leaves you agonising over benchmarks and fps counters perpetually dissatisfied.
Macha | 16 hours ago
I had a similar reaction from 60 to 144, but can’t say I’ve noticed the same going from 144 to 360 for what it’s worth (even among the games that run at 360fps)
OLED is nice and QD-OLEDs are very affordable these days. At $3500 and how expensive everything else has gotten, I’d go for the OLED. I don’t have a WOLED to compare but my centre monitor is QD-OLED and my side monitors are IPS so get to compare those every day. I paid like $750 for my dell one when it was new tech and I’m seeing 4k options for less than that now lol (and I may buy one in the medium term, something in the internal power supply in my dell is failing)
AugustusFerdinand | an hour ago
Your memory is much better than mine, got a link to our previous conversation?
Bipolar | 11 hours ago
If you are looking at the best bang for your buck, it doesn’t make sense to do custom builds these days, you can get a better, more powerful prebuilt system.
Otherwise, that looks like a great system. The only thing I would change is an NVIDIA GPU I think DLSS is worth it, but that is just a matter of preference.
Wafik | 11 hours ago
I recently upgraded from a 3070 to a 5070ti but I exclusively game in 1440p and the 3070 was plenty capable, especially as a stop gap measure. I could run most modern games that are technically demanding in the medium to high range with the 3070 and still pull over 60 fps. That's honestly all I care about. If that's fine for you, the 3070 will do the job. If you want 120+ fps then you will probably need to invest in a newer card.
That said, I feel like 1440p is the perfect resolution. Noticeably better than 1080p but significantly easier to run than 4k. The step up from 1080p might be a similar revelation for you.
While you're probably fine with the 850W PSU, if you can step up to 1000W for a similar price then you might appreciate that. Not an expert, so could be overkill, but I got a 1000W PSU with my 2021 build and made upgrading to the 50 series cards less concerning.
kram21 | 19 hours ago
I can't speak to the performance of the parts vs your objectives as I have never chased high frame rates but in general seems fine. If it's within budget I don't think you would regret it.
On cooler: As someone who also keeps PCs running for a long time air coolers have been near zero maintenance, besides reapplying thermal paste after 5 years ish. Water cooling might get you lower noise if you can turn the fans down, at the cost of complexity.
On drive configuration: I only did separate boot drive back when 128GB SSDs were new but it's not really necessary unless you expect windows updates to break your install. If you were concerned about that a 1TB boot drive is be overkill for just windows.
Personally I would consider how many drives you might want to add to the PC over it's lifetime. If you expect to need to add more storage over the years starting with just one 2TB drive might make more sense to keep m.2 slots open. Then add another 2TB when needed.
On Windows License: Depending how you feel about TOS, Microsoft Activation Scripts is a thing that exists (massgrave). I've not had any issues with it. You will need a way to create windows install media but that just requires another PC with space to download and a USB drive.
Knockout_Mouse | 18 hours ago
I strongly agree on your comments about the cooler. Air coolers just work. And the case is going to be air cooled anyway (along with PSU, GPU, and potentially the RAM). As long as air is flowing everything's fine.
I disagree about the Windows license. I feel like it's worth paying for. Looking at this build, it's one of the cheapest line items, and if you don't pay for it, you potentially expose yourself to security vulnerabilities, missing bug fixes, and version compatibility problems.
I can only speak from my personal experience - and I'm not going to tell anyone how they should manage their PC's OS - but for me, paying for the Windows license just made everything much much easier.
Zorind | 17 hours ago
You also might be able to just transfer the license to the new PC, I’ve done that in the past.
I went through some flow where I basically said (accurately) that I upgraded my computer, but in doing so I had replaced the CPU and Motherboard which is why it was no longer detected as the “same” computer.
If you have an existing Windows account, I believe that should still work.
Knockout_Mouse | 9 hours ago
That's an excellent point. Transferring the license is completely legitimate and appropriate in this case.