After nearly a decade of unbelievable service, and with price increases likely on the horizon, it’s finally come time to retire my old desktop.
After some analysis, here’s what I’ve settled on:
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor | $250.00 |
| CPU Cooler | Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler | $39.90 @ Amazon |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX V2 ATX AM5 Motherboard | $179.99 @ Amazon |
| Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws S5 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory | $189.99 @ Newegg |
| Storage | Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive | $0.00 |
| Storage | Western Digital Red Pro 2 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive | $0.00 |
| Video Card | Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB Video Card | $799.99 @ Amazon |
| Case | Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case | $94.00 @ Newegg Sellers |
| Power Supply | EVGA SuperNOVA 850 GT 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | $109.99 @ Amazon |
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts | ||
| Total | $1663.86 | |
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-13 19:11 EST-0500 |
Some quick explanations on decision making:
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Primary usage is a mix of gaming and CAD / 3D modeling / rendering.
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After Intel shit the bed one too many times, I’m definitely taking an AMD CPU. I could be convinced to go to the 7600X3D, but there seems to be a noticeable dropoff on non-gaming tasks, such as 3D modeling, and some debate about the viability of a 6-core CPU going forward.
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The two hard drives are listed as $0 because I already own them, and will be transferring them into this unit.
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850W power supply should give me ample room for overclocking, adding future components, while still staying under that 80% load limit.
Open questions / things I’m uncertain on:
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CPU Cooler: I’ve heard that Ryzens can run hot, but I’m unsure if I need such a beefy one. For a 7700X, is it too much?
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RAM: Is 64GB a lot? Yes. RAM shortages plagued me until I brought my current machine up to 48GB. I thought 64 would carry me forward with room to spare. Is this silly?
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Went with a 4070 Ti Super for the 16GB RAM. Is it too much GPU for the rest of this rig?
Now, here’s my big question: Micro Center nearby me is running combo deals for a 7700X or 7600X3D, Gigabyte or Asus motherboard, and 32GB RAM. Looking at what I’m trying to build, does that make sense? Would upgrading to 64GB with 4 sticks later be a problem?
Regarding the 4070, the 7900xt is currently cheaper, at least where I live, and generally better, except for machine learning (no cuda) and maybe raytracing. It has even more vram at 20gb despite the lower cost, which makes it more future proof imo.
Here’s a comparison: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eM-z5LvQ4yo
It does have a lot of things going for it, yeah. Unfortunately, the CAD program I use is designed primarily to use the Nvidia and CUDA architecture, and so AMD cards show issues. Not just lower performance, but consistent reports of crashes and bugged results.