New Build - Need Recommendations. Please.

Edited by Bishop - 18 Nov 2021 at 10:40am

Originally posted by Bishop I am also not sure if there will be next generation stuff coming out and should delay my purchase.

Y-e-s... Supposedly next year.

AMD's AM5 platform will support DDR5 and PCIe 5 at launch in 2022 | PC Gamer

AMD Next-Gen RDNA 3 & RDNA 4 GPU Rumors: Over 50% Performance Increase, Increased Radeon RX 7000 Pricing & Launch In 2H 2022 | WCCF Tech

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4000 Series Release Date, Price, Specs | GPU Mag

However, with so much out of whack, it's difficult to nail anything down. For example, there have been hints Nvidia will be resurrecting a previous gen. model to tide gamers over.

Gigabyte inadvertently confirms 12GB Nvidia RTX 2060 Super rumors | Digital Trends

Originally posted by Bishop I am not sure what is the best Intel vs AMD?

There are always benefits and drawbacks to each. Nevertheless, Intel has finally once again made notable strides, but with some missteps/stumbles:

Everyone should watch this video!

Originally posted by Bishop Or, which graphic cards.

Originally posted by Bishop I mostly play strategy, simulation and flight sims (New IL2, DCS, would like to get the new Microsoft Flight Sim). I also want something that is VR ready.

Flight sims do require a little more oomph.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (RTX 3070, Ryzen 7 5800X, Ultra Settings) | Jansn Benchmarks (YouTube)

With that, I'll toss out these two configs to consider:

Config #: 4176317
(The Velox is a reverse/inverted ATX case, which means the motherboard and graphics card are mounted upside down on the left side. The layout does provide better cooling for the graphics card, but some people feel upside down labels/logos an inexcusable compromise and have setups that do not favor the window being on the right side of the case.)

Config #: 4176316
(The Lumos, with its tempered glass front panel and sides, is more of a show piece and conventional design -- which is why I added the RGB chassis fan option.)

Originally posted by Bishop I do want to have two storage options since I games seem to require more space.

Some games nowadays are definitely very large installations (e.g., MS Flight Simulator 2020 is 100 to 150GB). Although, not all. You can typically find such info by doing a Web search with "game name install size" (no quotes).

Anyway...

As a base suggestion, I chose a 500GB super fast (i.e., NVMe/PCIe 4.0) SSD as the main drive and a 1TB SSD as the secondary. You can still fit one or two games on the main drive (I'd recommend the flight sims) whereas the second drive would be additional storage. If desired, you could switch Storage Set 1 to the 1TB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS) (NVM Express) and still be within budget without sacrificing any substantial performance.

Don't get confused by M.2, it's not an indicator of speed rather specifies the drive's physical design (similar to 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch HDDs). Digital Storm's Performance Series drives connect via SATA, but are still ~5x faster than a HDD.

Of course, you can tweak things as needed/desired, and the DS PC gaming veterans will provide their own helpful insights.

Edited by MrCheetah - 19 Nov 2021 at 6:34am

Reasonable recommendations.

A 3060 Ti is indeed fairly doable:

Flight Simulator 2020 RTX 3060 Ti - 1080p , 1440p Fps Test | Benchmark Lab (YouTube)

As such, here are a couple of other possible configurations:

Velox
Config #: 4177164

Lumos
Config #: 4177166

Again, of course, you can tweak them, if desired, to save a little, etc (e.g., 500GB 980 + 1TB 970 vs. 1TB 980 + 1TB 970)

Go back up to MrCheetah's first reply and look for the link to "Everyone should watch this video!" This a serious issue that could lock you out of games you have paid for. If there would ever be a way to reclaim the game would be anyone's guess. This is a situation that the powers that be cannot allow to prevail, and they are working feverously to resolve it, I'm sure. How long that may take is anyone's guess, but if it's doable at all, it will be sooner rather than later.

As a result, I will not recommend an Intel build. It seems MrCheetah agrees, as all his samples are AMD. The 5800X is very nearly the equal of the 5900X and the 5950X. There is virtually no benefit for gaming from the extra cores.

Should you choose to wait out the resolution to the monumental problem Intel has, the 12700K is the CPU choice for gaming. Again, there is virtually no gain from the more expensive chip.

There IS a synergy between AMD CPUs and AMD 6000 series video cards. However, the tech remains slightly behind Nvidia. Since there is no price advantage, for the moment, Nvidia is the better choice.

These are questions you SHOULD ask.