Another Config question..

First off, thanks for taking the time to read this, and possibly reply even though there are a million of these. But I have some specific questions. Some I can find online, others I haven't (maybe I need to google better)

Budget:
N/A

Expectations:
Playing Star Citizen 4k 120fps (when they have better optimization..)

Usage:
See above and web browsing (joke)


Saved Ticket #:
Multiple different configs while I decide

Specifications:

I will be going with the Aventum X

CPU: Undecided..
There is my first question. Should I go i9-9900k overclocked to 5.1ghz? Or should I go with something with more cores? Games are slowly utilizing more cores and it seems Star Citizen is one of them. Should I sacrifice a little Core speed for more? OR is 8 cores plenty? I suspect so.. but I only Build or buy a computer every 5/6 years. I normally go all out and go more cores but 8 seems like enough?



Noise reduction: I've never thought about this in previous builds, but if I'm going all out, might as well look into it. Does this reduce any performance/reliability at all? Such as; increase heat on the components? I'm going with the water cooled option on the cpu and 2x gpu. Maybe it isn't an issue either way? Is the computer quiet regardless? I have open headphones.


Raid Card: What's the benefit? I plan on getting multiple HDD and raid 0 them. I am ADD and will install and uninstall games all the time.. because of this, I have had multiple SSDs fail on me (S.M.A.R.T errors) and I won't go back to SSDs for gaming. Will a raid card give me any benefit other than reducing the chance of my raid drive failing? Which isn't a huge issue as the raid drives only have games on them.


Does DS have sales/promo codes/discounts every once and a while? Should I wait or are the prices pretty much set other than free upgrades to X part or Z thing?


I saw they give you the ability to upgrade parts in the future, do I need to buy their extended warranty thingy to do that? or is that just "free" with a purchase of the parts through them?


Any help is much appreciated!

Hi Placebo! :)

I am not an expert - however I can tell you from using my husband's new system that the i9-9900k chip with the new RTX 2080 (8gb) graphics card is running the games he plays on ultra high settings with no issues at all. He doesn't play many first person shooters, however the games he does play (mainly ARK: survival evolved atm) are running very smooth, so I think that the 8 cores from that chip should be all you would need.

Hope this helps!

Awesome response guys, really helps me. I've always been on team blue, but seems like switching to AMD is looking better and better these days! Thanks for the advise there.

I'm going to wait until ryzen 3 hits then!



I also want to state, what a great community here.   

Appreciate the kudos to the community! it's certainly what brought me back to participate after a very long absence. Our advice can't be seen other than one or more user's honest attempt to bring more light on a subject for the benefit of another... and perhaps many.