$3K budget for new PC

[JG1_Vonrd]

Time for a new PC. I have a budget of about $3000 but can go up a bit if necessary. I've been doing numerous Partpicker build examples and also looking at pre-builds. My head is swimming. I built my last PC and would have no issue building this one but it seems that pre-builds might be a better deal initially. It seems that there are lots of companies out there. Does anyone have recommendations for reputable builders?

 

Also, I'm wondering about the 7900XTX coming out in Dec. I've always had Nvidia but they seem to be overpricing everything at this point (not to mention the melting connector fiasco... yeah, probably user induced by not fully seating the connector but their response has been not very reassuring). Seems like a good GPU for the price. Thoughts?

 

And the CPU... again, I've always been Intel but what about the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X? Looks good as well and has been recommended by others. I seem to recall an issue with IL2 and AMD though.

 

This will be a dedicated gaming PC with VR emphasized. Besides IL2, DCS and MS Flight Sim are the main interest. Because of DCS antiquated game engine, high end components won't make as much difference but I would think that MS Flight Sim would benefit. IL2 runs surprisingly well in VR for me as opposed to DCS. And DCS may, in the future, switch to a multicore engine.

 

Bottom line is that I'm now retired and on a fixed income so I need to future proof as much as possible. I may be able to do some upgrade in the future but this will possibly be my last all new PC.

 

I would greatly appreciate suggestions from those more knowledgeable about the tech involved than I am (I know you're out there since I've seen some really good posts on the subject).  

Edited November 21, 2022 by JG1_Vonrd

[Voyager]

First question is what do you have currently? If it's already an AM4 platform, your best bet is probably a 5800X3D.

 

Next question is, do you live near a Microcenter? They've been doing some fantastic deals on AM5 stuff, with $50 off the motherboard and free 32GB of DDR5-6000. No-one has tested Zen 4 with Il-2 or DCS yet, but from the MSFS results, a 7700X should be good. 

 

On GPUs, you may want to look into used 3090 cards. RDNA2 has a weird issue with Il-2 that may or may not be on RDNA3, but used 30 series cards are definitely coming into channels now and the used prices are dropping. Right now the 3090 and 3080 Ti are about the same price, but DCS loves VRam, especially multiplayer, so I'd go with the 3090.

 

If you have to buy right now, and have those options available, that should run about $1800 leaving a decent chunk for other stuff. 

 

Q1 next year should see the Ryzen R7-7700X3D launch, used GPU prices fall further, and benchmarks of the RX 7900XTX to see if it works in Il-2, but it will probably also see the end of the free DDR5 deals, and inflation. So, different risks to trade against. 

[AngleOff66]

Amd Just had some price drops on AM5 CPU and looks like the 4080 is selling, but possibly not as well as N would like?

 

If the 7900 series is close in performace, it may push the 4080 down a touch as well.

 

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-has-sold-160k-geforce-rtx-40-graphics-cards-already-but-stores-are-still-full-of-rtx-4080s

 

 

[TG-55Panthercules]

I just happen to have picked up a new pre-built rig for right at $3,000 on NewEgg, that I'm hoping will perform well for IL-2 in VR and keep me in good shape for a while at least.  I haven't had much time to test it out, but I did run the SYN_Vander v6 benchmark for monitors (1080P) and the results seemed to be decently in line with expectations. Specs are below:

 

Skytech Prism II Gaming PC Desktop, INTEL Core i9 12900K 3.2 GHz, RTX 3090, 1TB NVME Gen4 SSD, 32G DDR5 RGB, 1000W GOLD PSU at New Egg for $2,999.00

 

Motherboard:  ASRock Z690-C/D5
CPU: Intel Core i9 12900K
CPU Freq: 5087.56 MHz
Cores: 8P+8E
Threads: 24
RAM Size: 32 GB (2x16GB)
RAM Freq: 4800 MHz (2x2394.1 MHz)
NB Freq: 3591.2 MHz
RAM Timings: 38-38-38-70
GPU:  3090

Windows 10 (w/free upgrade to Windows 11 if you want it)

 

I usually build my own, but at that price it seemed like it might be time to go with a prebuilt this time around.  Might be something to consider.  The experience wasn't flawless - the PSU was DOA, but their customer support was great and they wound up giving me a credit/refund for the cost of the PSU I got on Amazon to test and confirm that it really was the PSU that was the problem.  They would have replaced the entire machine if I'd wanted them to, but since everything seemed to be working just fine with the new PSU I decided the credit/refund was the way to go.

[chiliwili69]

There is a number of questions that you will need to ask yourself before deciding the hardware:

 

- Do you play VR only, or VR and monitor as well? What VR device?  (not all of them require the same power, ie, Index versus Aero). This will determine your GPU requirements

- Do you go for 16GB of RAM or 32Gb of RAM?  Currently IL-2 don´t need more that 16Gb (BON only need 11.5Gb look here). I think FS2020 prefers faster 16Gb than 32Gb. So for the same spending you can go to better 2x8Gb sticks (higher freq, lower latencies) rather than 2x16Gb sticks (lower freq, higher latencies)

- What is your current system? can you re-use GPU?

- Do not go to an AMD GPU until the IL-2 issues with AMD cards are solved. (look here).

- In your case go for DDR5. Even if DDR4 systems could give same performance for a lower budget PC, for the long term (6-years) and upgrades it could be better to go to a system based on DDR5. If the term would be 3 years then DDR4 could be considered.

- Go for 240 or 360 AIO liquid cooling. Either AMD or Intel, both line do overclock based on temps, so better cooling is simply better performance. Liquid AIO based on my experience seems to be reliable for long term. my NZXT x-52 kraken has been running for more than 5 years without a single issue.

- We still don´t know if Zen4 is better than 13thgen of Intel. Noboday has tested Zen4 yet in IL-2

- Go to a 1000W PSU or higher. Depending of your final config you would need less but for the long term it is better to have margin there. The extra cost is low.

[DBCOOPER011]

I would build it. A quick check of pcpartpicker indicates that you can get really good componets now for cheap. Either a 7700X/X670 setup or 13700K/Z790. 32GB DDR5 that will run 6000Mhz, 2TB M2 SSD, a good airflow Case, quality 360 AIO, and a 1000W platinum PSU. Thats pretty much all you need for between 1200-1300 USD approximately, except for the video card. You could pretty much get the best video card out at around your budget...

[JG1_Vonrd]

Thanks for the replies all! 

11 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

Do you play VR only, or VR and monitor as well? What VR device? 

It will mostly be VR and currently Reverb G2. I would still go 2D at times.

11 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

Do you go for 16GB of RAM or 32Gb of RAM

Understood about the quality vs quantity but I'm leaning toward 32GB DDR5

11 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

What is your current system?

i7 7700K, GTX 1080Ti, Maximus IX Hero MoBo, 32GB DDR4

I will be using this for most of my other than gaming activities. The MoBo restricts updating CPU.

11 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

Do not go to an AMD GPU until the IL-2 issues with AMD cards are solved.

Yeah, that's what I was worried about.

11 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

Go to a 1000W PSU or higher

Agreed!

 

 

This looks like a really good deal. @TG-55Panthercules, is this the same as yours? It doesn't specify what the PSU is.

https://www.newegg.com/p/3D5-000Z-000D9?Item=9SIA08CJ7U8104

[TG-55Panthercules]

34 minutes ago, JG1_Vonrd said:

This looks like a really good deal. @TG-55Panthercules, is this the same as yours? It doesn't specify what the PSU is.

https://www.newegg.com/p/3D5-000Z-000D9?Item=9SIA08CJ7U8104

 

Yep - that's it.  Looks like they dropped it another $200 for Black Friday.  The PSU in the one they sent me was a Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 1000W 80+ Gold model, but they pick whatever equivalent 1000W PSU they happen to have in stock at the time they build it so you might get a different 1000W unit.  One downside to this kind of prebuilt is you don't get to choose your own brands of RAM, PSU, GPU, etc. - you get what they promise in the way of specs, but they may not be the specific brands you would choose for yourself.  

 

[JG1_Vonrd]

This is what I came up with as sorta similar to the Newegg Skytech Prism II. Some of the stuff is a guess since the Skytech ad doesn't specify some components. 

$3,477 for build it as opposed to $2,800 for the Skytech pre-built.

 

 

Component		Selection		Base	Promo	Shipping	Tax	Price	Where
CPU			Intel Core i9-12900KF 3.2 GHz 16-Core Processor	$487.93				$487.93		Buy
CPU Cooler			Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$179.99	-$20.00 1	FREE		$159.99		Buy
Motherboard			Asus ROG STRIX Z790-A GAMING WIFI D4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard	$379.99		FREE		$379.99		Buy
Memory			Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro SL 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory	$109.99				$109.99		Buy
Storage			Sabrent Rocket Q4 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	$89.99				$89.99		Buy
Video Card			NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24 GB Video Card	$1449.00				$1449.00		Buy
Case			Lian Li O11 Dynamic EVO ATX Mid Tower Case	$319.95				$319.95		Buy
Power Supply			Super Flower Leadex Titanium 1600 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$349.99	-$50.00 2	FREE		$299.99		Buy
Operating System			Microsoft Windows 11 Home OEM - DVD 64-bit	$119.99	-$20.00 3	FREE		$99.99		Buy
Case Fan			Lian Li UNI SL120 58.54 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack	$79.90		FREE		$79.90		Buy
Base Total:								$3566.72
Promo Discounts:								-$70.00
Mail-in Rebates:								-$20.00
Total:								$3476.72

[TG-55Panthercules]

Looks like you're comparing a few apples and oranges - better video card (3090Ti vs 3090), older RAM (DDR4-3600 vs. DDR5-4800), bigger power supply (1600W vs 1000W), different processor (i9-12900KF vs i9-12900K) - so a little hard to tell what's causing the price differential you're seeing.

[JG1_Vonrd]

27 minutes ago, TG-55Panthercules said:

you don't get to choose your own brands of RAM, PSU, GPU, etc. - you get what they promise in the way of specs, but they may not be the specific brands you would choose for yourself.  

Yeah, that's the dilemma isn't it? Still, with an apparent savings of $600+ I could conceivably upgrade some components later on if needed.

 

Have you had a chance to wring it out some more?

19 minutes ago, TG-55Panthercules said:

Looks like you're comparing a few apples and oranges - better video card (3090Ti vs 3090), older RAM (DDR4-3600 vs. DDR5-4800), bigger power supply (1600W vs 1000W), different processor (i9-12900KF vs i9-12900K) - so a little hard to tell what's causing the price differential you're seeing.

Actually, the 3090Ti was the lesser of the GPUs on parts picker. The CPU was only a few $ more. PSU... well yeah but not that much more than a good 1000w. 

Actually I meant to spec DDR5 but that should drive the price up as opposed to DDR4.

 

If you have the time and wouldn't mind could you give me a parts list of what's in your machine?

Edited November 21, 2022 by JG1_Vonrd

[TG-55Panthercules]

Not yet - RL is getting in the way a bit.  Haven't even had a chance to unbox my new Reverb G2 yet.  I'm planning on loading up some other benchmarking programs and doing a few more tests later tonight, so I can get some better baselines and compare better to my old i7-7700K/1080Ti rig.

[Dagwoodyt]

I had my first 'real' PC custom built in the mid 1980's. Even then I specified and supplied every component to the builder and had spent ~6 months researching components beforehand. Ever since then I have built from scratch. If anything goes wrong I have only myself to answer to.  ?

[JG1_Vonrd]

13 minutes ago, TG-55Panthercules said:

Not yet - RL is getting in the way a bit.  Haven't even had a chance to unbox my new Reverb G2 yet.  I'm planning on loading up some other benchmarking programs and doing a few more tests later tonight, so I can get some better baselines and compare better to my old i7-7700K/1080Ti rig.

I'd love to read the results!

[JG1_Vonrd]

If I go for a home build...

How does this look?

Copy / paste from here: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/rkdodge/saved/#view=KxDPJx

Component		Selection		Price
CPU			Intel Core i9-12900K 3.2 GHz 16-Core Processor	$459.00	Buy
CPU Cooler			Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$159.99	Buy
Thermal Compound			Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5 g Thermal Paste	$7.49	Buy
Motherboard			Asus ROG STRIX Z690-G GAMING WIFI Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard	$322.99	Buy
Memory			Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5200 CL40 Memory	$134.99	Buy
Storage			Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	$99.99	Buy
Video Card			NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24 GB Video Card	$1449.00	Buy
Case			Phanteks Eclipse G360A ATX Mid Tower Case	$89.99	Buy
Power Supply			Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1200 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$179.99	Buy
Operating System			Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM - DVD 64-bit	$99.99	Buy
Case Fan			Cooler Master SickleFlow 62 CFM 120 mm Fans 3-Pack	$59.99	Buy
Total:				$3063.41

[JG1_Vonrd]

The folks at NZXT Discord were extremely helpful. This is what Typhanie came up with. Very convincing argument regarding AMD CPU. 

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/rkdodge/saved/#view=MCBXRB

[DBCOOPER011]

Everything looks good on your list except I would change the CPU to a 13700K, DDR5 to this higher speed Hynix M-die kit, and the GPU to a 4080. These are all better/faster componets for cheaper then what you have listed..

 

https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i7-13700k-core-i7-13th-gen/p/N82E16819118414?Item=N82E16819118414&nm_mc=AFC-RAN-COM&cm_mmc=afc-ran-com-_-PCPartPicker&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=afc-ran-com-_-PCPartPicker&utm_source=afc-PCPartPicker&AFFID=2558510&AFFNAME=PCPartPicker&ACRID=1&ASID=https%3a%2f%2fpcpartpicker.com%2f&ranMID=44583&ranEAID=2558510&ranSiteID=8BacdVP0GFs-QzwrlqidCrKEsHu40uoAIg

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09YTTCQKT?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1

 

https://www.newegg.com/gigabyte-geforce-rtx-4080-gv-n4080gaming-oc-16gd/p/N82E16814932561?Item=N82E16814932561&nm_mc=AFC-RAN-COM&cm_mmc=afc-ran-com-_-PCPartPicker&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=afc-ran-com-_-PCPartPicker&utm_source=afc-PCPartPicker&AFFID=2558510&AFFNAME=PCPartPicker&ACRID=1&ASID=https%3a%2f%2fpcpartpicker.com%2f&ranMID=44583&ranEAID=2558510&ranSiteID=8BacdVP0GFs-wX0q4RtU7hnAl8HqZRdd.g

 

This is what I would recommend as a modification of your build..

 

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Nd3h8r

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by DBCOOPER011

[Sokol1]

i5-13600K vs  i9-12900K - test with RTX 4090.

 

 

 

 

[TG-55Panthercules]

20 hours ago, JG1_Vonrd said:

If you have the time and wouldn't mind could you give me a parts list of what's in your machine?

 

Sure - see below:

 

Motherboard:  ASRock Z690-C/D5
CPU: Intel Core i9 12900K
CPU Freq: 5087.56 MHz
Cores: 8P+8E
Threads: 24
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast 32 GB (2x16GB) DDR5
RAM Freq: 4800 MHz (2x2394.1 MHz)
NB Freq: 3591.2 MHz
RAM Timings: 38-38-38-70
GPU:  Zotac RTX 3090 

CPU Cooler: DeepCool LS720 360mm AIO liquid cooler

PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 1000W 80+ Gold

Case - not sure about brand/model, but cool case with 6 fans, glass front/side, lots of space and good airflow

 

But again, there's no telling which specific brands they would put in one you might order now.

 

Ran a couple of benchmark programs on this rig last night:

 

Cinebench R23 CPU Benchmark:  Multicore: 25848 pts; Single Core: 2011 pts.  (Results for my old i7-7700K rig were 6234 / 1222)

3D Mark Basic (Firestrike DX11): 39042; Graphics 47727; Physics 42171; Combined 15768 (Results for old i7-7700K: 20935; 30103;13678;8414)

3D Mark Basic (TimeSpy DX12): 19006; Graphics 19044; CPU 18798 (Results for old i7-7700K: 8581; Graphics 9688; CPU 5210)

 

Per 3D Mark, the results for this new rig were slightly below what they considered average for similar builds - not sure if that reflects the fact that this rig hasn't been OC'd yet and maybe some of the other rigs tested were?  But there may have been something else going on, as it said the results for the i7-7700K were also slightly below average, and that one was OC'd.

 

 

[chiliwili69]

22 hours ago, JG1_Vonrd said:

It will mostly be VR and currently Reverb G2

 

For the G2 you are quite well covered with a 3080Ti or a 3090. You don´t need more. But if you have a good price, the 4080 gives an extra amount of performance for an small price difference.

[JG1_Vonrd]

20 hours ago, JG1_Vonrd said:

The folks at NZXT Discord were extremely helpful. This is what Typhanie came up with. Very convincing argument regarding AMD CPU. 

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/rkdodge/saved/#view=MCBXRB

I went ahead and ordered these parts. Wish me luck ?

[1Sascha]

On 11/21/2022 at 3:11 AM, JG1_Vonrd said:

I have a budget of about $3000 but can go up a bit if necessary. I've been doing numerous Partpicker build examples and also looking at pre-builds.

I wouldn't go pre-built:

1. Unless you're really careful with your vendor/system integrator, there's bound to be one or two weak-spots in those pre-built PCs.

2. You'll almost always pay more - especially if you select one with no/only minor weak-spots - or if you have to fix those weak-spots by having to upgrade one or two components.

3. It's just so much fun to put together/plan your own build and then unboxing everything and putting it together. Seriously: If I had endless money, that's all I'd do all day long.. ?

 

On 11/21/2022 at 9:59 AM, chiliwili69 said:

- In your case go for DDR5. Even if DDR4 systems could give same performance for a lower budget PC, for the long term (6-years) and upgrades it could be better to go to a system based on DDR5. If the term would be 3 years then DDR4 could be considered.

It's still a bit more expensive, but at this point I would agree to go with DDR5 if at all possible. Unlike back in March/April when I built mine and DDR5 was still way too expensive and there just wasn't much of the stuff available. That said: I think it's still agreed that, right now, real world performance is near identical between the two except for a few specific workloads/application (decoding? compression? can't remember exactly).

 

@JG1_Vonrd Why go 3090 Ti when you can get a 4080 for about the same money or for a little more? I did find some 4080s for around the same price on PCpartpicker, plus you might be able to get an even better deal on those, since they're not exactly selling like hot-cakes ATM due to NVidia's ambitious MSRP on launch. With your budget, you might as well get the latest stuff.

 

 

 

 

Unless you're doing a lot of CPU-heavy work on that PC, I'd ditch the i9 and drop it down to an i7-13700 or even i5-13600 and put the money into a 40xx GPU. You can probably also go a bit lower on your PSU - especially if you ditch the i9 in favor of an i7 or i5. 1200W seems a bit overkill, even with the i9 in there - might want to run your config through this PSU calculator and see what they recommend:

 

https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

 

EDIT:

i9 13900K

2x16 GB DDR5

2x M2 SSD

RTX 4090 (cause it's the most power-hungry GPU currently out there)

1x gaming mouse, 1x gaming keyboard

3x 140mm fans

1x 360 RGB AiO

5x USB 2.0 device

 

results in:

Max power-draw: 819 Watt

recommended PSU-Wattage: 869 Watt

Not sure if there are 900 Watt PSUs out there, but 1000 Watt should be more than enough. Personally, I wouldn't worry if I "only" had a high quality 850 W PSU to run this thing.

 

 

 

There are always pretty good guides up on YT with build-suggestions. Since BF is upon us, this seems like a great time to be building your own right now - especially in the US.

 

 

 

 

S.

Edited November 24, 2022 by 1Sascha