So, I FINALLY got a GPU. Could someone help me build THE REST of my PC?

[Claymore]

I've been eager to build a PC for a long time now, but I decided to pull the trigger because my laptop has been giving me major problems lately, and I'm trying to get into streaming and video-editing.

So, I wound up purchasing an NVIDIA ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 V2 10GB OC LHR

https://rog.asus.com/graphics-cards/...-gaming-model/

Now, I haven't actually built my own PC before, but I'm honestly pretty excited about it. But here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

- I'm in the camp I would LIKE to go for a very small case. However, if you think that's not really going to be feasible (I have no idea how big this GPU is going to be), then I'm fine saying "eff it" and just disregarding aesthetics entirely. I know GamersNexus reviewed the Fractal Torrent case very highly.

- I am ONLY willing to do air-cooling. I am NOT fucking around with liquid cooling; I had a bad experience with it in the past, and I'm just not taking the chance.

- Gaming and Streaming are my primary functions, but as I said, I plan to do some video-editing, and just use my PC for a lot of stuff in general. I remember a year or so ago, the Ryzen 5 CPU being reviewed quite highly, but I don't know if that's still true, or even if that was when I was looking at a lower-end PC.

- In terms of Hard-drives, I'm somewhat flexible. I remember at one point, I'd though about putting the OS on its own, smaller SSD, having a 1TB or 2TB SSD for all my gaming and video stuff, and then an HDD for just miscellaneous files. I feel like that might be overkill, but I guess it'd be nice knowing what you think my options are, if it doesn't bloat the price too terribly much?

- I'm curious the price WITH and WITHOUT an OS. Truth be told, I'm probably just going to use Windows, and since I currently use Windows 10, I'll probably just find out how to use my current registration key or whatever.

- Also, I am STRONGLY CONSIDERING buying my own Wireless Router. Does that make an impact on which parts I choose for my PC? What is a Router you'd personally recommend?

Finally, while my chosen GPU is indeed obnoxiously expensive, I'm not necessarily saying "money is no object, I need da powah". I'm very much looking for "most bang for my buck", while still taking advantage of having what looks to be a very, very nice GPU. I want to take advantage of that, but not concerned with "squeezing every last drop out of it", if that makes sense.

Also... I would consider this a secondary thing, but at some point I'm definitely going to need to get some new monitors. I want at least two, I feel like three might be ideal (I kind of dig the idea of monitor I can turn sideways for chat purposes, but I am NOWHERE NEAR needing that just yet). If you guys happen to recommend any particular monitors, especially if there are any good deals or anything going on, I would certainly REALLY appreciate it.

- - - Updated - - -

EDIT:

Well shit, a friend just sent me this card is in stock. Is this better than the one I linked? It looks like it had more memory on the card, which I HEARD is better for streaming. Think i should try and cancel the GPU I ordered and get this one instead?

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/gigabyt...?skuId=6495953

Yes, very expensive. About the same price as the one I ordered. Which is better?

[kenn9530]

snip

Asus strix is generally one of the best versions of the card so i would probably stick with that, the main thing will be what costs more and by how much if money could be any issues, either card should be great at doing whatever you want though.

[Kagthul]

Hokay, gonna address some things before i post a build.

- I'm in the camp I would LIKE to go for a very small case. However, if you think that's not really going to be feasible (I have no idea how big this GPU is going to be), then I'm fine saying "eff it" and just disregarding aesthetics entirely. I know GamersNexus reviewed the Fractal Torrent case very highly.

Define what yoou think of as a very small case. Ill suggest an ITX build below, but the Fractal Torrent is not a small case (unless you mean the ITX version, and thats not a *tiny* ITX case) but neither is it a large full tower.

- I am ONLY willing to do air-cooling. I am NOT fucking around with liquid cooling; I had a bad experience with it in the past, and I'm just not taking the chance.

You're gonna have to rethink this if you want a small build. You cant hang a giant Noctua or BeQuiet! cooler off a CPU in an ITX build. Now, im not advising a custom loop or anything, but you're going to have to use an AIO cooler if you want to get decent cooling on a higher end CPU in an ITX build.

- I'm curious the price WITH and WITHOUT an OS. Truth be told, I'm probably just going to use Windows, and since I currently use Windows 10, I'll probably just find out how to use my current registration key or whatever.

Windows is 12$ or so. No reason to not just get a new key.

- Also, I am STRONGLY CONSIDERING buying my own Wireless Router. Does that make an impact on which parts I choose for my PC? What is a Router you'd personally recommend?

As opposed to? A router provided by your ISP? Or is this an apartment you share, or ? Because if there's already a wireless network you cant really just slam down a new router on the same network and have it work.

As for parts on the PC.. not really. You'd just need a motherboard with on-board WiFI and/or a slot to put in a PCIe or M.2 WiFi card. Most ITX boards have WiFi built in for exactly that reason (well, not built-in, per se, but they have the M.2 WiFi slot already occupied).

Finally, while my chosen GPU is indeed obnoxiously expensive, I'm not necessarily saying "money is no object, I need da powah". I'm very much looking for "most bang for my buck", while still taking advantage of having what looks to be a very, very nice GPU.

There's no reason to waste money needlessly, no.

[quote]
Also... I would consider this a secondary thing, but at some point I'm definitely going to need to get some new monitors. I want at least two, I feel like three might be ideal (I kind of dig the idea of monitor I can turn sideways for chat purposes, but I am NOWHERE NEAR needing that just yet). If you guys happen to recommend any particular monitors, especially if there are any good deals or anything going on, I would certainly REALLY appreciate it.
[quote]

I would actually recommend your second monitor in a two monitor setup being portrait (longer dimension in the vertical) anyway, even if you only have two. Websites are still to this day built in such a way (because the standards never changed) to look best on old 4:3 ratio monitors. Its actually easier to read most websites on a portrait-orientation monitor.

As for monitor recommendations, it really depends on your budget. You can get a decent 1440p, high refresh, G-sync Compatible monitor in the 27"-32" range for ~350-400$. But you could also spend three times that on a monitor with full array dimming HDR, 100% accurate color recreation, etc (or even more than 3x that).

That being said, ill post up some "basic" build ideas while i wait for you to get back to us.

This is Mini-ITX in the Fractal Torrent Nano.

Be aware, this isn't a "tiny" case. Its small - but it isn't tiny. mITX cases go WAY smaller, though there are generally tradeoffs.

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/9Q3278

CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor ($379.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Loop 240 Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z690M-ITX/ax Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard ($229.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($145.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($48.98 @ B&H)
Storage: Crucial P2 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($178.99 @ Adorama)
Case: Fractal Design Torrent Nano RGB Mini ITX Desktop Case ($142.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS SGX 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply ($149.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1376.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-03-19 00:47 EDT-0400

If you act fast, the CPU is 20% off at NewEgg right now (so itd be 329$ or thereabouts - its listed as 399 + 20% off, but that price wont show on PCPartpicker).

You can get Windows keys on the grey market for 10-15$. I wont post a link here, because sometimes the sites are also selling stolen software or keys bought with stolen cards - but the Windows keys are actually just purchased in a market where the price is quite low in USD (SE asian countries, etc) at an OEM bulk rate and then are being resold. Theyre perfectly valid and legal. Just... use PayPal or something, not your credit card. Just in case.

If you really cant dig one up, check out the YouTube tech guy Greg Salazar's channel. He promotes a site for windows keys on his videos and ive used them and never had a problem, and ive bought dozens and dozens of keys from them.

If you want to stick to Ryzen (in the current CPU market, i would only recommend this if you REALLY want the editing horsepower for video editing, which is what the CPU choice will reflect), here's a sample build:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GxFTC6

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor ($589.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Loop 240 Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard ($259.00 @ B&H)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($145.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Intel 660p Series 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($48.98 @ B&H)
Storage: Crucial P2 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($178.99 @ Adorama)
Case: Fractal Design Torrent Nano RGB Mini ITX Desktop Case ($142.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS SGX 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply ($149.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1615.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-03-19 00:54 EDT-0400

This will NOT perform as well in games. HOWEVER, that does not mean it will perform poorly. Both the 5950x and the 12700K will deliver very high framerates (probably above 144fps at 1440p in most games with your GPU for both systems), and while the 12700K is faster, you likely wouldn't notice. That MAY mean that in a few years time (4+) it may stay ahead of the 5950X in a noticeable way if games get quite a bit more demanding... but if you go with the 5950X you will not have a bad experience.

The only way the 5950X will outperform the 12700K is at editing/encoding. Strreaming itll be a wash because you will likely be using the NVENC encoder on your GPU, and even if you dont, you can use the QuickSync encoder on the iGPU in the Intel chip, making the extra cores that Ryzen 9 provides somewhat superflous (not that the 12 cores it has wouldnt be able to handle CPU-only streaming anyway). But in video editing, the 5950X will beat the 12700K by a fair margin, probably shaving several minutes off any long compiling job.

For my money, though, i'd stick with the 12700K, unless you play to be doing a LOT of editing. If your editing/compiling is going to be "edit the video, hit encode, go to bed", then definitely skip the 5950X.

I can tailor them a bit more if you answer some of the above questions and also:

Do you live near a Micro Center?