Rakk's new machine :)

[Rakk]

So, this is my thoughts for my new machine that I've been wanting to get for a bit

Case
CORSAIR iCUE 4000X RGB Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX Case
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 16-Core Processor i7-13700K (3.4GHz) 36MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z690-F GAMING WIFI (LGA1700, USB 3.2, PCIe 5.0) - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX RGB Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Price: £1,546.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z790-ddr5-pc/YPG9FFErdu/

Notes:
Mostly for my gaming, this comes to a slightly under1550quid, I've got a bit more wiggle room but not too much

The 13700k was chosen cos the game I play is very CPU based and wants as much single-core clock speed as it can get its hands on, and I think the high RAM speed should help that too.
I'm putting my 3070 into this machine - this isn't changing - am using a 1440p 144/165Mhz monitor for my main monitor for reference, and a 1440p for my secondary 'everything else' monitor.

I also have some extra drives to shovel in as well - a SATA SSD and 2 HDD's

I picked the ASUS mobo cos the Gigabyte ones don't seem to have the audio stuff for a 5:1 speaker system 😦
Don't need WiFi but most of the ASUS boards seem to have it anyway

I was going to pick the non-RGB RAM (I cant see it from where I sit anyway) but apparently PCS have had some hiccups with the Vengeance 6000MHz with the Z690 boards, so don't offer the non-RGB RAM on the Z690 boards
RGB is not high on my list as the PC is on my left so I cant see its insides from where I sit anyway, but I didn't want something ugly looking from the front (or right hand side)

I figure the 850W PSU is good enough, I never go for top end GPU's anyway
The cooler may be slightly overdoing it - though possibly only slightly and I reckon it'll look better (its only 11 quid difference from the H115i anyway)

So yeah, any thoughts and comments appreciated

 

[SpyderTracks]

Looks groovy.

The PSU gives you around 25% headroom, personally I'd want it at 50%, but I'm a real weirdo with PSUs. Just be aware though, if you get any instability at high GPU loads, it could be transient spikes affecting the GPU, it is a real thing on 3000 and 4000 series nvidia.

The only thing worth mentioning is the upcoming 7000X3D chips may be quite beneficial for single core performance, but we don't even have a release date as yet, nor pricing.

 

[MrWilson]

Solid build as we would expect.
One thing I would check with PCS is that the 4000X only supports a 360mm radiator on the front, with the roof only supporting 280mm. If you’re happy with a front mounted rad you’re golden, but you could also consider going for a H115 on the roof, and checking that it’ll be cleared by PCS (usually RAM height is their reasoning for not roof mounting AIOs), or go for maximum RGB flair and opt for the 5000X/D now it’s back in stock!

 

[Rakk]

Solid build as we would expect.
One thing I would check with PCS is that the 4000X only supports a 360mm radiator on the front, with the roof only supporting 280mm. If you’re happy with a front mounted rad you’re golden, but you could also consider going for a H115 on the roof, and checking that it’ll be cleared by PCS (usually RAM height is their reasoning for not roof mounting AIOs), or go for maximum RGB flair and opt for the 5000X/D now it’s back in stock!

I've decided I'm happy with the AIO being front mounted
And yes I was considering the H115i, but for the Z690 board only the RGB 6000 RAM can be used (PCS apparently found some issues with the smaller non-RGB 6000 RAM and the Z690) so I think it'd be front mounted anyway, so I thought I'd pick the heftier cooler

And no the 5000X/D is too big/tall, I have plenty of airspace around my PC but height is limited on the left hand side cos its under the staircase - in fact my whole PC desk is under said staircase - mostly under the slopey bit lol

 

[MrWilson]

Sounds like you’re all set then! I’m expecting some funky photos, either on here or on discord! 😊

 

[Rakk]

The PSU gives you around 25% headroom, personally I'd want it at 50%, but I'm a real weirdo with PSUs. Just be aware though, if you get any instability at high GPU loads, it could be transient spikes affecting the GPU, it is a real thing on 3000 and 4000 series nvidia.

Well, lets put it like this, for the last year I've been running it on a 650W supply lol and it hasn't had any issues so I would think 850W should be plenty

The only thing worth mentioning is the upcoming 7000X3D chips may be quite beneficial for single core performance, but we don't even have a release date as yet, nor pricing.

Hehe, I've already put it off for long enough since my original plans for July last year, not waiting any longer, and its my birthday soon

 

[AgentCooper]

I've decided I'm happy with the AIO being front mounted
And yes I was considering the H115i, but for the Z690 board only the RGB 6000 RAM can be used (PCS apparently found some issues with the smaller non-RGB 6000 RAM and the Z690) so I think it'd be front mounted anyway, so I thought I'd pick the heftier cooler

And no the 5000X/D is too big/tall, I have plenty of airspace around my PC but height is limited on the left hand side cos its under the staircase - in fact my whole PC desk is under said staircase - mostly under the slopey bit lol

 

[SpyderTracks]

 

[Rakk]

It's been ordered btw, at about 2:30pm this afternoon.
Rakk's F5 key is already suffering .......

 

[B4zookaw]

It's been ordered btw, at about 2:30pm this afternoon.
Rakk's F5 key is already suffering .......

Not as much as your credit card....

 

[Rakk]

Not as much as your credit card....

Lets not even go there .......

 

[Scott]

I have a couple of thoughts with this as this has all been running around my head of late (I'm ready for a new system when the pricing/timing is right myself).

I have some hard and fast rules:

If opting for Intel, go for DDR4. DDR5 makes next to no difference and it costs a fortune.
If opting for AMD, wait for the X3D processors. You're stuck with DDR5 but don't worry too much about the speed as, similar to above, there's next to no difference in speed yet.

In your shoes I would probably hold off till February for the X3D chips being on offer. You're likely to see a nice uplift with the 7800X3D over all the Intel chips on offer right now. 1440p could very well benefit from this, especially with a strong card like the 3070.

With Intel, purely for gaming, I would opt for the 13600k with 32GB of DDR4 3600Mhz RAM. I would drop the cooler to the H115i purely because it's MUCH quieter than the 360 offering and has enough headroom for the 13600k without worry. For the PSU I would definitely be in for the 1000w RMx (Out of stock the last time I checked).

The system you have configured is absolutely fantastic but I do think there's a lot of money on the table that isn't offering any value at all.

Oh.... my thoughts on the RAM come after a ton of comparison video watching. It's actually making me a little sad as I had hoped once we hit into the 7000+mhz RAM that there would be a difference..... there still isn't. Even when comparing £500+ RAM sets to 3600Mhz DDR4 with an OC.

 

[Scott]

Oh, I would treat yourself to a fast M2 gaming drive as well. Something like the Firecuda. 2TB if the budget allows, 1TB if not (Depends on game library really).

The quality of life with a dedicated and fast M2 gaming drive is next level and it's only going to get better with direct storage.

 

[Rakk]

The CPU was one of the things I actually considered the most - since the game I play is very CPU clock speed dependent (it does use the GPU but its mostly dependent on the CPU speed and always has been) and out of those CPUs mentioned and the i7 I chose these are the turbo/boost speeds

• i7-13700k: 5.4
• i5-13600k: 5.1
• 7800X3D: 5.0

Therefore my choice of the i7-13700k seems to still be at the top for my uses at least
I know I did consider the 7700X at some point (also boosts to 5.4) and decided against it - though I can't remember the exact reasons anymore

The H150i is only 11 quid more then the H115i so I figured more cooling wouldn't hurt (especially on the i7) and slightly louder doesn't really bother me, I've never had 'quiet' machines - its still going to be a lot lot quieter than my work laptop (it does a fine impression of an aircraft carrier ....)

I was wondering about DDR4 vs DDR5 but at least now the prices are much much closer together than they were initially (where lets face it there was a hefty difference), so I figured I'd go with the newer stuff and you never know updates may well help the DDR5 - and the no council tax in Feb covers that difference anyway

Oh, I would treat yourself to a fast M2 gaming drive as well. Something like the Firecuda. 2TB if the budget allows, 1TB if not (Depends on game library really).

My main game will be on the main M.2 anyway, its one of those games you can just copy and paste over (it's about 30 GB in size)

I've only got about 5 or 6 other games actually installed on my normal SSD currently and they rarely get played anyway so I figure they'll be fine there - can always get another drive later if required

Thankyou for you thoughts though - definitely made me double check things

 

[Scott]

There shouldn't be too much between the AMD and the Intel but the clock speed isn't the only thing to consider. The IPC of the AMD offering is better, and the 3D Cache does some wizardry to make that IPC even more effective.

If you think of the frequency as the amount of times per second something is shovelled.... the IPC is the size of the shovel. The AMD does more per hz than the Intels do, and in gaming it can offer quite a gulf in numbers.

FS2020 with the 5800X3D is always my go-to example. It's massively single threaded still but even with the tiny 4.5ghz boost clock it smashes the competition.

The 7800X3D apparently has a 30% increase in performance. It's a shame about the 5Ghz clock speed but the 7900X3D is where I'm going to hang my hat I think.