New Tower build

DocWhitneyEst89

DocWhitneyEst89

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35
Alright guys, I got that reenlistment bonus coming and I am going crazy to build my first pc (I've always just bought gaming laptops since their easy in the military). I'm super excited building my desk in the garage and plan on running two curved monitors, Costco has some good deals currently on some Ultra HDs. I'm looking for advice and/or build recommendation for around $1200 bucks, I've found a few websites that update monthly their builds at certain price points but want some more input since this is A LOT of money to me I'm dropping. Should I go AMD or Intel??? What processor's core, speeds, etc.

Please help!
 
DocWhitneyEst89 said:
Alright guys, I got that reenlistment bonus coming and I am going crazy to build my first pc (I've always just bought gaming laptops since their easy in the military). I'm super excited building my desk in the garage and plan on running two curved monitors, Costco has some good deals currently on some Ultra HDs. I'm looking for advice and/or build recommendation for around $1200 bucks, I've found a few websites that update monthly their builds at certain price points but want some more input since this is A LOT of money to me I'm dropping. Should I go AMD or Intel??? What processor's core, speeds, etc.

Please help!
Click to expand...

As an Intel guy the answer is AMD lol. Does the budget include the monitors or is that a separate budget? That is going to make a huge difference in the answers here.

3800X unless you want to save $30 and get the 3700X or have more budget to step up another notch. Main question there is really going to be do you do anything other than gaming, do you stream etc.

Start small, figure out the GPU and then pump the rest of the build back up until you run out of budget.
 
Price is just tower. Monitors, mouse, keyboard, headset I already have or picked out. And only playing my games, no streaming them.
 
dual monitors with eat up half of your budget and leave nothing for your build. 1200 would just be for your build and run a regular monitor. I spent around 1000 on my own build but i had the video card already (GTX 1080Ti). but now that they have good AMD I wouldn't know which amd to get. and already thinking about upgrading my m.2 drive to a 1tb. for a monitor I use a 55" TCL 4k tv.. works great for my gaming. also, I bought the deepcool processor fan to do a push/pull configuration.
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processor and m.2 drive cost me 425 bucks alone.
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DocWhitneyEst89 said:
Price is just tower. Monitors, mouse, keyboard, headset I already have or picked out. And only playing my games, no streaming them.
Click to expand...

Well for just gaming one way to approach it you can buy a 3600X and then blow most of the budget on a graphics card and be great. If you are the kind of person to upgrade a CPU this could even hold you over until the Zen 3 stuff comes out next year. It's going to save some dough on only lose a couple fps. But if in reality you will never upgrade the CPU ever this is probably a bad move for the long haul.

I do alot of video editing, 3d rendering, etc. Outside of gaming having more than 6 cores 12 threads is always an advantage for me. But saving $100 on the CPU and putting it into a GPU to drive those nice monitors you want is still something to think about.

That's my take on it. The GPU discussion shifts towards what games you play, the refresh rate and resolution on the monitors. I play 1440p but stuck on 60hz monitors my 2060 is great. A 2070 Super or 5700 XT is a good step up from that especially for high hz 1080p or medium hz 1440p. But with your budget a 2080 Super is probably on the table.
 
whats the specs on the monitors you want to run??? (i see you have them picked out)....this will factor in to a lot of things in setting up the system

1...as for CPU's go AMD....intel is just not worth the money right now when you look at everything AMD has to offer.....as RAIN said the 3800x would be killer to start with but it may not be needed (and you could be able to put that extra 200 bucks in to a better GPU if you go with something like the ryzen 5 3600)....the 3800x is only 10% better at gaming then the stock 3600 but there is 200 bucks between them on price!...if you want to stream your gaming the 3800x will be the better option...not streaming stick to the 3600 and dont get the X version...its only 5% better at gaming then the stock 3600 but costs 60 bucks more...NO MATTER WHAT AVOID INTEL
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-7-3800X-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-3600/4047vs4040

2...memory....the 3rd gen ryzens love faster memory and even see improved performance running higher speeds....start at the 3600mhz mark for your memory speeds.....16gb is the min and NEVER buy a single stick always make sure its 2 sticks to get dual channel memory working on the CPU.....32gb would be nice but again gaming at 1440p myself i never see anything over a 12gb load on my system.....32gb will future proof you BUT you maybe able to get away with 16gb of a faster memory now and get 16gb more at a later time....right now a 16gb 2 stick set of 3600mhz will set you back about 80 to a 100 bucks even getting RGB lighting on them.....https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820232728

3...motherboards....read reviews and check many sites to see what their really saying in places like Tom's hardware or even youtube videos from people like "linus touched tips" (hehe....its a joke its really linus tech tips).....spending a little extra on the motherboard to get a 570 based motherboard over a 470 board will make it last longer as it will have CPU support going farther in to the future then a 470 board(simply put a better motherboard now means you can upgrade CPU's down the road without changing boards or even reinstalling windows)....also remember that the form factor ITX, mini ATX and full sized ATX will factor in to your case you must buy.....ITX can cost a lot of money and be cramped to work with do to its small size....full sized ATX motherboards might give you a case to big for your liking....mini ATX might not give you all the options you want so look around and look hard....no easy answer on this....new motherboards come out almost everyday

4...power supply.....Seasonic, EVGA and corsair are the only 1's i would ever look at.....and i am bias towards EVGA's super nova line simply because they come with a 10 year warranty from a company that has been around for decades.....do not cheap out on the power supply....its the 1 thing that can fry your system if you get a cheap 1.....its worth the extra money here as you will keep this part for many years (my current 750watt EVGA super nova is 7 years old and has been in 4 total PC's builds)....if its not broke dont fix it!!! and get at least 750watt as the extra power maybe needed down the road

5...SSD drives and storage.....for speed you want to make sure you get a M.2 PCI-E 3.0 X4....the X4 is a big factor as its using 4 PCI-E lanes....there are options for X2 that only use 2 PCI lanes but they are slower.....speed here will cost you....i would go with a samsung 500gb main and then buy a slower Intel M.2 1tb drive for storage.....samsung is running 3500mb a second read speeds BUT to get a 1tb drive at this speed its 220 bucks.....the 500gb is only a 100 bucks most days....the intel 1tb storage drive is 120.....the intel reads at 1800mb a second so its still 3 times faster then the best SATA base SSD drive on the market...NO harddrives unless you need music, movies and file storage were a slow speed wont be a factor
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-plus-500gb/p/N82E16820147742
https://www.newegg.com/intel-660p-series-1tb/p/N82E16820167462

6...case.....to me i never go crazy on buying a case....i bought my coolermaster 922 used for all of 25 dollars years ago and it still hold up just fine being powder coated (but i do wish i had front panel USB 3.0 ports) you should be able to find a good case for under 75 dollars.....50 on sale

7...the graphics card....well this is were the monitor meets the road....this will be factored mostly by the monitor you want to run with the resolution being the first factor followed by the refresh rate.....if you go with 16gb of memory, a stock 3600 CPU, the SSD drives i listed and a EVGA PSU you should have about 500 to 600 bucks left to buy a GPU.....


this is just my opinion on what you could do....it will come down to what you want out of the system....
 
Mostly due to good price I’m looking at 27 or 32” Samsung curved monitors that are 1080 and 60hz refresh. But I’m looking at other sites trying to find 144hz on sale too
 
I upgraded my tower last week with a 3700x, new x570 mb and ram. Most reviewers agree no need to spend extra $100 for 3800x since it doesn't add that much over 3700x.
 
oh yeah the 2070 is great place to start....factoring in 500 dollar price range it should fit in the budget well....and @Alteredacer is right....the 3700x is only 2% behind the 3800x and there is 70 bucks between them right now (sales may change that)....that 70 bucks could be your memory if you get something without RGB....
 
The other big difference is 3700x @65watts and 3800x @105watts. 3700x runs much cooler even with stock cooler.
 
If you decide to add some EVGA products to your shopping list, they have a D.I.Y. page that adds discounts when you buy products together like a graphics card, case, and power supply. It's a nice way to save some money at the www.evga.com web store. The bundle page can be found here: https://www.evga.com/products/diy/

Plus, I have a discount code that will save you even more on top of the bundle discount, it's good for everything at www.evga.com including items already on sale. Just apply this code to your shopping cart before you check out: XX95PJN1T76IONP

They don't sell AMD motherboards, but they have a lot of items with a great warranty and terrific customer service, plus free shipping. Good luck with your build!
 
Just built a new tower myself, first time building, and I'll never look back.

Here is what I would build if you have a ~$1,200. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/YWdkJb

If you have a MicroCenter nearby you can save an additional $20 on the i5 and $20 on the MB. I have one in my neighborhood if you really want, happy to ship to you.

If you are only gaming Intel is the best pure gaming performance. An i5 with a good air cooler (Hyper 212 Evo) and solid MB (Aorus Pro) should OC to 5.0 GHz.

2070 SUPER is a great high-end value card (if there is such a thing) and hsould shred 1080 gaming. Its the best card you can get in your price range (next step would be 2080 Super which is +$250.

If you have a little extra money to spend I would first upgrade to the CPU to an i7 9700K, then add a 1TB NVMe SSD and finally increase RAM to 32GB.
 
I appreciate all the help guys, I’ve got 2 list running on Amazon to keep track I’ll post the one I’m leaning towards here shortly. See if any of you guys see something I’m drastically fucking up
 
Disregard the attachments, after playing around on the pc part picker I’ve built
My order and made sure all compatible be placing it shortly I think
 
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i just finished my build, reused my xfire vega56s, it was based on 3800x, on MSI x570 gaming edge mobo, with 970 evo 1tb m.2, 2tb samsung 860 evo, corsair 1200atx PS, couple 8 gig tridents that light up(changed the timings to get the full 3600 speed they are rated for , and some cheap tower i dont remember the name of, its beasting, i dont think this PC is breaking a sweat playing games..i load pretty much first all the time in most games.
 
Holy smokes, just got an email from EVGA. If you haven't bought your video cards yet, here's a sweet bit of news about a special sale on 2 really nice cards with big discounts.

Here are the two deals plus the extra savings with my associate code.

EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 XC HYBRID GAMING was 839.99 - now 624.99 with 140 instant rebate, 40 dollar mail in rebate and an extra 35 dollars off with my associate code. https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=08G-P4-2184-KR&associatecode=XX95PJN1T76IONP

EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 FTW3 ULTRA HYDRO COPPER GAMING Reg 999.99 - now 681.99 after 140 instant rebate, 40 dollar mail in rebate plus my associate discount code. https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=08G-P4-2289-KR&associatecode=XX95PJN1T76IONP

Just make sure you apply the coupon code XX95PJN1T76IONP to your cart if it isn't there automatically with the links I sent.
 
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