The FPS Review has released their enthusiast AMD gaming build! It is pretty perfect except for....

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You seem abnormally enthusiastic about that ho-hum build guide. I think it looks silly to only have 16 gigs of system memory in a new build like that in 2020. And how in the world can anybody recommend just a 1 tb drive in a so-called higher-end enthusiast build in 2020? Hell my Steam folder alone is well over 2 tb which is not even 1/3 of the games I have on Steam plus I have tons of games on Uplay, Origin, Epic and Bethesda.
 
I've got some thoughts:

I like that almost every option had alternative recommendations. I don't see this enough in build guides.

CPU, mobo, cooler all seem fine. Though, I would probably have recommended the 3900X as the main choice over the 3950X. For a pure gaming build the higher end CPU doesn't really provide that much of a difference and recommending a $750 CPU for a "mid-high end" rig seems like a bit overkill to me.

Nothing much to say about the GPU options, though given the $2650 price point of the primary recommendation, there is definitely more than enough budget to to get something better than a FE 2080 Super.

RAM seems fine. You can find pretty good deals on 32GB kits these days (Oloy stuff often has good prices) but 16 is fine.

As for storage. I agree with Ricky T, 1TB seems a bit low. It feels like there should be a 2TB spinning hard drive added to this, at least. Either way, not a bit gripe.

Now, onto that ridiculous power supply. Umm...Why? For $10 less than that ASUS thing you can get 1000w Platinum rated power supplies from EVGA and Corsair. Most of the build has been fairly understated as far as "gamer flash" goes and that gets thrown right out the window with this PSU. I feel the Silverstone unit should have been the primary suggestion here with, maybe, a Gold rated 850w unit as the alternative, or just have the Silverstone as the only one.

Taste is subjunctive so I'm not going to shit too hard on the choice of case, but I do have serious concerns about airflow inside of it. There are two big fans between the front panel and the dust filter, leaving very little room for the fans to draw in air. It looks like a case that could starve itself for air, leading to higher than expected temps. I could be wrong though, so whatever. It's not a case I would, personally, pick but my preferences lean more towards simple and clean lines vs flash. I will point out one thing though: The article recommends a blinged out PSU with a stupid OLED screen to go with a case that has a power supply shroud. So, you won't even see all the "features" it offers (which is probably an improvement).

That monstrosity of power supply aside, it's a pretty good build guide. I've got mostly minor nit-picks, but they come down more to where I would personally prioritize budget vs what the author did. Along with aesthetic taste differences.

PS: In case anyone thinks otherwise, most of my negative comments directed at the Asus Bling850 are pure snark. I don't actually think it's a bad power supply just massively overpriced while providing no real value over similarly priced units.
 
Yeah, my main gripe is spending more on the CPU than the GPU in that "gaming" build. That 3950 or even the 3900 performance difference would be pretty negligible in games over a 3700X/3800X even considering how multithreaded games will be for the next decade. Esp. if you're gaming at 1440p and above, your GPU is going to be the bottle neck in almost all cases and thus that extra CPU money would be better spent going towards the 2080 Super or even the Ti for the price difference between a 3700X and 3950X, or even more/faster RAM would probably be more beneficial for that price difference as well.
 
The chassis?

Meh, I mean, it's got plenty of room and will do the job very well.

The only detractor I can think of is the tempered glass paneling...but only for those that aren't into that particular niche.

Overall, TFPSR did an amazing job with this article, IMO.

Me, personally? There's a few tweaks I'd make such as dropping to a 3700X, picking a cheaper MoBo, and then doubling the RAM, but that's merely for my usage scenario and preference. 16GB to start with is adequate for 99% of gamers, and it still leaves an upgrade path to 32-128GB down the road.

For those that need more than 1TB total storage: a cheap and easy fix is a 7200 RPM 2-8TB HDD in conjunction with the SSD.

Don't forget to budget in your OS and any productivity software, in case you choose any that have price tags associated with them (like Win10 and MSOPP).
 
Only 1TB of storage is terrible for a $2000-$2500 build, especially when a 2TB XPG SX8200 Pro is $270. You're not going to notice the difference between it and the 970 Evo Plus and it has twice the space for $70 more. There shouldn't be any spinning disk in a gaming build anymore unless it's going to be doing double duty as your NAS/Plex box.
 
Gaming build? You can’t beat a 9900KS (or KF)... or a 3700x if you’re an AMD biased person. Intel OC’d still craps all over AMD for high Hz.
 
Smoked Brisket said:
the case? As usual the FPS review is spot on in their recommendations. They have the hardware down to the f'n T. The case though? Help me out here. Just one mans opinion but here is the link:
https://www.thefpsreview.com/2020/03/12/amd-enthusiast-gaming-pc-build-guide-spring-2020-edition/
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meh, they went for usability and looks, can't fault them for that because the case does look good.. sure it bad thermals might be the trade off for going that route but meh, it's they're build they can do what they want.. at the end of the day it's the person building their own system's responsibility to do their own research and choose based on their needs.
 
not only is the nvme only 1tb, it isnt even pcie4.0

you go with a non rgb mb, but you get a psu with an oled display

12/16 core system with only 16gb ram

i dont know much about the cooler, but i think id be more likely to pick an corsair or nzxt
 
Yeah, I have thoughts that echo some of what you guys are saying. The only compelling reason to go with a 3950X is that it has higher boost clocks than the 3900X does. For gaming though, 16GB seems like plenty for right now. I'd still have advocated 32GB myself for future proofing and because RAM is relatively cheap right now.
 
With that subject line I was expecting a web article "paywall" or something...

(Made you click!)
 
Ricky T said:
You seem abnormally enthusiastic about that ho-hum build guide. I think it looks silly to only have 16 gigs of system memory in a new build like that in 2020. And how in the world can anybody recommend just a 1 tb drive in a so-called higher-end enthusiast build in 2020? Hell my Steam folder alone is well over 2 tb which is not even 1/3 of the games I have on Steam plus I have tons of games on Uplay, Origin, Epic and Bethesda.
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I only keep what I am actively playing installed along with games that have earned a spot in my "always installed" category. Typically a max of 5 games falls into the former category. I have over 800 games on Steam, around 40 on Origin, around 20 on Uplay, 4 on Battle.net. No need to keep them all installed at once.
 
Armenius said:
I only keep what I am actively playing installed along with games that have earned a spot in my "always installed" category. Typically a max of 5 games falls into the former category. I have over 800 games on Steam, around 40 on Origin, around 20 on Uplay, 4 on Battle.net. No need to keep them all installed at once.
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I prefer to, but even at 2TB or more I'd be unable to do that. In fact, I have 2TB worth of SSD's in my machine for gaming and I don't keep but 10 or so games installed at anyone time. Many modern games consume way too much space to just have everything loaded the way I once did.
 
Dan_D said:
I prefer to, but even at 2TB or more I'd be unable to do that. In fact, I have 2TB worth of SSD's in my machine for gaming and I don't keep but 10 or so games installed at anyone time. Many modern games consume way too much space to just have everything loaded the way I once did.
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Between the 2TB of SSD that I have I believe I have 20-30 games installed between them right now. 10 or so have been released in the past 2-3 years, and those add up to about 700GB. One of those is the new Modern Warfare, though, and that takes up 200GB by itself.
 
Dayaks said:
Gaming build? You can’t beat a 9900KS (or KF)... or a 3700x if you’re an AMD biased person. Intel OC’d still craps all over AMD for high Hz.
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Barely outside of margin of error at 100+hz, below 4K, does not qualify as "Crapping all over" AMD. Realistically speaking, most people would never notice a difference. The ONLY reason to go Intel for a gaming build right now is if you want the absolute best gaming CPU no matter how little the difference really is. Even then, it's getting harder and harder to recommend Intel CPUs as time goes on.
 
Armenius said:
Between the 2TB of SSD that I have I believe I have 20-30 games installed between them right now. 10 or so have been released in the past 2-3 years, and those add up to about 700GB. One of those is the new Modern Warfare, though, and that takes up 200GB by itself.
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Yep. I have that one too. 50GB seems to be about as small as games get now.
 
Dan_D said:
Yep. I have that one too. 50GB seems to be about as small as games get now.
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Coincidentally, that is how big a standard dual-layered Blu-ray disc is. Some console games are starting to use quad-layered discs, now, which is why I'm guessing up to 100GB is becoming more common.
 
eh its an alright build. don't like that case though, front is really choked for airflow. 16GB is fine for most people. the 1TB drive is also fine, most people dont install their entire steam library. cpu is slight overkill for gaming rig, agree that the 3900x would have been enough.
 
pendragon1 said:
eh its an alright build. don't like that case though, front is really choked for airflow. 16GB is fine for most people. the 1TB drive is also fine, most people dont install their entire steam library. cpu is slight overkill for gaming rig, agree that the 3900x would have been enough.
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This is not a build for "most people", it's a high end enthusiast build so 16 gigs just does not make a whole lot of sense and 1 tb is a freaking joke for this level of a build. I'm playing Red Dead Redemption 2, Control, Destiny 2, Gears 5, Borderlands 3, Metro Exodus and a few others right now which of course would blow way past 1tb. Plus I keep a lot of the popular games on my drives because I go back and test them or maybe some DLC comes out. There's no way in hell I'm going to go back and spend several hours downloading the game again that I may have stopped playing for a few weeks for whatever reason. Plus it's not good to completely fill up a drive and when you have a 1 tb drive you really don't even have but 900 gb to start with. I would just say in a build like this that 2 tb should be the absolute minimum but I personally can't even make it with even 4 tb so I have 2 4tb SSDs. And games are only going to get bigger too.
 
Derangel said:
Barely outside of margin of error at 100+hz, below 4K, does not qualify as "Crapping all over" AMD. Realistically speaking, most people would never notice a difference. The ONLY reason to go Intel for a gaming build right now is if you want the absolute best gaming CPU no matter how little the difference really is. Even then, it's getting harder and harder to recommend Intel CPUs as time goes on.
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Go look at the Tom’s review. It’s 10-20% at >100Hz. That’s crapping all over AMD.

For a high end gaming build there’s no reason not to go 9900KS.
 
Dayaks said:
Go look at the Tom’s review. It’s 10-20% at >100Hz. That’s crapping all over AMD.

For a high end gaming build there’s no reason not to go 9900KS.
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Good job cherry picking the review that makes Intel look the best. However, looking at multiple reviews over all (aka the correct way to gauge performance) the average difference between the 9900KS and the 39xxX CPUs comes out to around 5-6% at high hz below 4K, or just outside of standard margin of error when looking at a bunch of different tests. There are some much higher and some lower, depending on exactly which game is being tested and on what settings. If you want to go for 4K performance then there is no notable difference between them at all.
 
Dayaks said:
Go look at the Tom’s review. It’s 10-20% at >100Hz. That’s crapping all over AMD.

For a high end gaming build there’s no reason not to go 9900KS.
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Of course, in a high end build there's no need to look at only 1080p benchmarks either like Toms Review did. You'd like to think that if you're spending $2500 on a computer you're not going to limit yourself to 1080p.

Additionally, there are so many things that the 3900x does better than the 9900k all while using less power. Sure, if you want every last FPS, buy the 9900k (or 9700k), but even Tom's conclusion was: "The Ryzen 9 3900X redefines our expectations for the mainstream desktop with a beastly 12-cores and 24-threads and represents a great value if you're seeking a well-rounded performer."
 
Derangel said:
Good job cherry picking the review that makes Intel look the best. However, looking at multiple reviews over all (aka the correct way to gauge performance) the average difference between the 9900KS and the 39xxX CPUs comes out to around 5-6% at high hz below 4K, or just outside of standard margin of error when looking at a bunch of different tests. There are some much higher and some lower, depending on exactly which game is being tested and on what settings. If you want to go for 4K performance then there is no notable difference between them at all.
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kirbyrj said:
Of course, in a high end build there's no need to look at only 1080p benchmarks either like Toms Review did. You'd like to think that if you're spending $2500 on a computer you're not going to limit yourself to 1080p.

Additionally, there are so many things that the 3900x does better than the 9900k all while using less power. Sure, if you want every last FPS, buy the 9900k (or 9700k), but even Tom's conclusion was: "The Ryzen 9 3900X redefines our expectations for the mainstream desktop with a beastly 12-cores and 24-threads and represents a great value if you're seeking a well-rounded performer."
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For the absolute best performance, the 9900KS is what you go for. The important part of Tom's is they do OC vs OC. Find another review that shows it's not 10-20% that is done right like that. Literally craps on AMD. We hard mod and OC for an extra 5%, so even if I go with you 5-6% it's significant in the context of this thread.

The only thing better is strangely Threadripper, but that wouldn't be in the budget they set.
 
Dayaks said:
For the absolute best performance, the 9900KS is what you go for. The important part of Tom's is they do OC vs OC. Find another review that shows it's not 10-20% that is done right like that. Literally craps on AMD. We hard mod and OC for an extra 5%, so even if I go with you 5-6% it's significant in the context of this thread.

The only thing better is strangely Threadripper, but that wouldn't be in the budget they set.
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As I said, the only reason to recommend Intel is for the absolute best gaming performance (at the required points to make it matter) no matter how small the difference is. That is a VERY tiny niche of people that would be well served by going Intel and most of those people would already know to buy the 9900K/F/S. For the 99.99999% of other people looking at these kinds of systems there is no point to recommending Intel because they'll never notice the difference. There's also the big question of how the 9900K is going to hold up once games are optimized for next generation consoles with 8c/16t Zen 2 based CPUs. I generally say "future proofing" is impossible in the PC space and to just buy based on today, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on going forward.
 
Also, the OP misquoted the actual article. FPS says that it is an AMD Enthusiast Gaming build while the OP claimed it was FPS's "Ultimate gaming build."

If all you do is game, then buy the 9900k. If you do just about ANYTHING else with your computer and game at any resolution over 1080p, the 3900x is a better choice. And based on early reviews, that isn't going to change with the 10900k either.
 
kirbyrj said:
Also, the OP misquoted the actual article. FPS says that it is an AMD Enthusiast Gaming build while the OP claimed it was FPS's "Ultimate gaming build."

If all you do is game, then buy the 9900k. If you do just about ANYTHING else with your computer and game at any resolution over 1080p, the 3900x is a better choice. And based on early reviews, that isn't going to change with the 10900k either.
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If going ultimate, you could be sure the price tag would be a lot higher.
 
kirbyrj said:
Also, the OP misquoted the actual article. FPS says that it is an AMD Enthusiast Gaming build while the OP claimed it was FPS's "Ultimate gaming build."

If all you do is game, then buy the 9900k. If you do just about ANYTHING else with your computer and game at any resolution over 1080p, the 3900x is a better choice. And based on early reviews, that isn't going to change with the 10900k either.
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We aimed for a $2k-2.5k budget on this one and the goal was for it to be an AMD build. We've got a few more of these in the pipeline as there's always interesting discussions being had.
 
Ricky T said:
This is not a build for "most people", it's a high end enthusiast build so 16 gigs just does not make a whole lot of sense and 1 tb is a freaking joke for this level of a build. I'm playing Red Dead Redemption 2, Control, Destiny 2, Gears 5, Borderlands 3, Metro Exodus and a few others right now which of course would blow way past 1tb. Plus I keep a lot of the popular games on my drives because I go back and test them or maybe some DLC comes out. There's no way in hell I'm going to go back and spend several hours downloading the game again that I may have stopped playing for a few weeks for whatever reason. Plus it's not good to completely fill up a drive and when you have a 1 tb drive you really don't even have but 900 gb to start with. I would just say in a build like this that 2 tb should be the absolute minimum but I personally can't even make it with even 4 tb so I have 2 4tb SSDs. And games are only going to get bigger too.
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blah blah blah, its a high end gaming rig and 16GB is fine. learn to manage your space/time/games better.
 
Schro said:
We aimed for a $2k-2.5k budget on this one and the goal was for it to be an AMD build. We've got a few more of these in the pipeline as there's always interesting discussions being had.
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So, I have a question. Why the ROG Thor over say a 1000w Platinum unit or having the primary recommendation being a cheaper 850w? Especially when that case you guys picked hides the unique features or the Thor?
 
pendragon1 said:
blah blah blah, its a high end gaming rig and 16GB is fine. learn to manage your space/time/games better.
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LOL what the fuck ever. I sure as hell wouldn't build a goddamn high-end Enthusiast machine with a $750 CPU but only a mainstream gaming amount of 16 gigs and a pathetic 1tb hard drive. For fucksake I had a 2tb hard drive back in 2012 and I've been rocking 32 gigs for 3 years. Again we are talking about a high-end Enthusiast PC not some damn budget gaming PC.
 
With so many negatives being "no RBG" I feel like the aim of this is to build an AMD fortnite pc.

Yea, why so little ram? At 16GB black ops 4 was yelling at me for getting close to the limit.

So basically a slideshow of what pc they made on pc parts picker? I noticed they didn't build it or bench it or do anything really? Would have liked to see it up and running and some benching to get an idea of if it is worth it or not.
 
Ricky T said:
LOL what the fuck ever. I sure as hell wouldn't build a goddamn high-end Enthusiast machine with a $750 CPU but only a mainstream gaming amount of 16 gigs and a pathetic 1tb hard drive. For fucksake I had a 2tb hard drive back in 2012 and I've been rocking 32 gigs for 3 years. Again we are talking about a high-end Enthusiast PC not some damn budget gaming PC.
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Jesus Christ man, chill. It's just a computer. You don't need to blow your top just because you disagree with the build.

Darunion said:
With so many negatives being "no RBG" I feel like the aim of this is to build an AMD fortnite pc.

Yea, why so little ram? At 16GB black ops 4 was yelling at me for getting close to the limit.

So basically a slideshow of what pc they made on pc parts picker? I noticed they didn't build it or bench it or do anything really? Would have liked to see it up and running and some benching to get an idea of if it is worth it or not.
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Isn't BLOPS4 rather poorly optimized on the PC though? I see no reason that game requires that much RAM to run properly.
 
Derangel said:
So, I have a question. Why the ROG Thor over say a 1000w Platinum unit or having the primary recommendation being a cheaper 850w? Especially when that case you guys picked hides the unique features or the Thor?
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There was a good bit of discussion about this internally. Paul was consulted on the power supply side of things. He's reviewed a lot of power supplies over the years and for him to have given the THOR a Gold award is fairly significant and the direction we went for the higher end pick. Then if we're to save a few dollars and go down in price, which would be better - a "Gold" worthy supply at the same wattage or a "Pass" worthy supply at a higher wattage? The wall draw of the system when fully overclocked isn't going to surpass 600w or so under full load. Given the use case, we'd rather have the 850W Seasonic "Gold" platform (though, we have not reviewed it over there, but Paul has previously) in the build than a 1000w "Passing" supply.
 
I think there's an inconsistency when your website is named "thefpsreview" and you recommend a pc build that doesn't maximize gaming FPS.
 
Seems like a reasonable article. The case actually looks nice.

Not sure if things changed, but for a while on Ryzen running 32GB RAM meant lower speeds. I built my machine with 16GB so I could get to 3200.

So that would actually probably be a bigger FPS boost than 32GB at a slower speed.

1000W is also not needed. I've had a 1200W PSU in the past, it was overkill, something like 850W is more reasonable and fine.
 
kirbyrj said:
Also, the OP misquoted the actual article. FPS says that it is an AMD Enthusiast Gaming build while the OP claimed it was FPS's "Ultimate gaming build."

If all you do is game, then buy the 9900k. If you do just about ANYTHING else with your computer and game at any resolution over 1080p, the 3900x is a better choice. And based on early reviews, that isn't going to change with the 10900k either.
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An unintentional misrepresentation, I will adjust the title.
 
That really is one ugly case. I'm sure its good quality and does the job very well... still.

Decent times to be into PC gaming right now... a $2600 system is basically top of the line.

And yet for probably 1/3 the price you can get 95% of the performance for gaming. You could go with a 3700, the same MB, a good but less expensive PSU, perhaps a 5700 XT (I can't agree with their 2070 less expensive recommendation... where I am the 5700 xt is still a lot cheaper, $150-200 Canadian dollars min).... one of the many Samsung alternates like a Corsair that will perform as well or better for much less.

If I was building from scratch right now... I would go 3700 with a good 570 board, and as inexpensive as I can get away with GPU. It sounds like AMDs next gen chips will slot into the same 570 boards, and GPUs according to rumors at least are due for a long over due kick in the performance ass late this year (or early next now). Can build 90-95% of the performance of the best of the best right now... and in a year you grab a 4000 Zen, a Ampere or Big Navi... and sell the old ones or build a second machine around them with a 550 board or something.
 
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