If I were building right now I'm probably go for something similar (though I'd just get a 5700 XT instead of playing the waiting the game), but likely a B450 board over a X570. I just don't feel like X570 is worth it over B450 right now unless you really need PCI-E 4 and the other features exclusive to X570. Or I'd just wait for B550 to actually show up and build then.
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The FPS Review has released their enthusiast AMD gaming build! It is pretty perfect except for....
- Thread starter Smoked Brisket
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If I were building right now I'm probably go for something similar (though I'd just get a 5700 XT instead of playing the waiting the game), but likely a B450 board over a X570. I just don't feel like X570 is worth it over B450 right now unless you really need PCI-E 4 and the other features exclusive to X570. Or I'd just wait for B550 to actually show up and build then.
kirbyrj
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No worries.
Only reason I might go 570 would be for the possibility that the 4000s may require 570/550 min.
Having said that I did go 450 this last summer when I built. Got a 450 board at a good deal with features I actually use like bluetooth wifi dual NVMe. Especially at launch the price for a well featured 570 board was a little nutty. I bought a 5700 xt not long ago... the deals on them are great. Can't complain it plays everything right now silky smooth. I have no doubt I'll get a few years out of it before it feels dated. Unless some miracle takes place, and the next gen cards make ray tracing really work, and more then a couple games actually use it for anything interesting.
Anyway this last system I built... felt like the old Celeron days. Where you could hunt the best bang for the buck parts and build a almost as good as the best for dirt cheap again. Its been a few years since that was even a little true.
I'm not sold on the case either. It looks stylish, if a bit gaudy, but what little research I have done about this one is that it has pisspoor airflow. If you insist on having closed front case then I would have picked something like NZXT H700/H710, which is closed front but it actually breathes well because of plentiful perforation on the sides. 
jbltecnicspro
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For me the only problem is that I don't have it and I'm still using an Ivy Bridge machine. 
HAL_404
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"With today’s build, we are looking to hit a price point of between $2000 and $2500. Certainly, not a budget to sneeze at, yet also not one that is ridiculously out of the reach of many PC gamers. "
I couldn't disagree with that statement any more than I already do
I couldn't disagree with that statement any more than I already do
"With today’s build, we are looking to hit a price point of between $2000 and $2500. Certainly, not a budget to sneeze at, yet also not one that is ridiculously out of the reach of many PC gamers. "
I couldn't disagree with that statement any more than I already do
Why do you disagree with it? Many gamers can and do spend that kind of money on their gaming rigs. Many spend far more as well.
Starfalcon
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I had 16 GB in my 3770K rig from 2013, upgraded to 32 GB a year later. Last year built the rig in my sig and went with 64 GB, should be good for a while, and have a lot of storage for my games.
cybereality
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16GB of RAM is fine. I mean, if I were building a rig today, I'd definitely go with 32GB (I mean my laptop has 32GB) but I rarely see the need if you are talking about gaming or basic desktop use.
Darunion
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I think the ram thing is that 16 is good enough. Far from [H]ard, and less future proofed than the rest of the pc. It seems almost like an outlier or a ran out of money so lets cut a stick of ram out to upgrade later. That said, it is a lot less painfull to upgrade ram as needed.
Yep. I had the same thought. Then again I'm not sure I'd be able to hit the budget of $2500 when using a 3950X, 32GB of RAM and an RTX 2080 Ti. By the time you add in an AIO for the CPU your at $2,000 and no where near a complete system.
Yeah, i'd probably drop the 3950X down to a 3700X and pick up the 2080 TI. I dont really think you would really miss all those extra threads for a gaming rig.
It's not the threads you miss, it's the higher boost clocks. Having said that, those CPU's don't spend enough time at those clocks to justify the increase in price if all you do is play games.
sirmonkey1985
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even then unless you're going for 240hz i can't even recommend intel for gaming specifically these days.. the the difference below 240 is so close you're likely to be gpu limited long before being cpu limited and the extra cost doesn't make that difference worth it.
only reason i'd even argue for the 32GB over 16GB is that it really felt like the person went out of their way to spend more money on things they didn't need to just for the sake of spending it(ignoring the case since that's completely builder choice in my opinion).. 4266 memory is pointless, spend the same amount and get 32GB of DDR4 3800 and call it a day. even the argument that "but the memory will allow lower timings at 3800", it makes so little difference with zen 2 that it's not even worth it. then you have the over priced motherboard, psu, cpu choices(for gaming???). the money that could of been saved actually picking more cost effective parts that do the same job as the expensive stuff for a gaming build could of easily fit a EVGA 2080ti black edition into the build and probably still spent less. just my opinion though.
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Now that you put it that way, I actually agree.
Azrak
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I had a 1 GB hard drive in 1993.
Indeed. Going beyond 3800MHz for RAM is pointless according to AMD themselves.
This. No significant gaming difference between 3950X and 3700X. Significant gaming difference between 2080S and 2080Ti. Money better spent on the GPU.
Case is fine BTW. Looks better than the lame RGB monstrosities that have taken over the market now.
rudy
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TBF for gaming I am not sure more than 16GB is going to make a difference in most games. That said I am sure for a budget of $2500 most people on this board could do way better than these guys did.
You realize who those guys are?
cybereality
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Honestly, I thought the build was good. It wasn't an "all out" best performance, but still high end and capable.
The case is generally what I think of as being in subjective territory. Air flow characteristics and build quality aside, this is a matter of personal preference. You have some people that don't care what it looks like and go for the cheapest thing possible. Others care only about function and pay whatever. You even have people that pay for looks above all else and everything in between. I don't usually criticize case choices unless they are ridiculously expensive or if they are cheap and badly designed. Few cases are to my taste, but I understand not everyone likes what I like.
I do agree with some of the comments here. On the gaming front, I'd definitely have gone with a 3700X and opted for an RTX 2080 Ti for gaming purposes if my budget was more limited. In fact, I built a system for a friend somewhat recently and that was exactly what my recommendation was. His budget was a bit higher, but he opted for custom water cooling as part of the build. So his budget was closer to the $3,000 range. But I saw no reason to opt for a 3900X (3950X wasn't available at the time.)
My $2600 (well over 3K if you count peripherals) PC only has 1TB of internal storage and 16GB of RAM. At most, they could throw in a 2TB HDD, but it's not that big of a deal. I just upgraded to 2x 500GB M.2 drives a couple months ago, before that my only internal storage was a 500GB Samsung 450 Evo that I bought in early 2014. For $2500, I'd rather have a better GPU than more internal storage or RAM. 16 vs 32 won't mean much for games and 1TB 2 vs of internal storage just means you can't download your entire Steam library at once. Neither will have the effect on performance a GPU would.
kirbyrj
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In fairness, it's chasing the last 10% that doubles the cost. In your case, the 9900 and the 2080Ti is the bulk of the cost of your build. If you used an 8700k/9700k and a 2080S instead, you'd save ~$800 and have a comparable to -15% experience in most things.
Indeed, but the price-to-performance ratio was the last thing on my mind when buying parts. I tend to be a "buy the best possible regardless of how much sense it makes" type of person.
Maybe you should actually try looking at the size how many games that have come out this year. This nonsense of acting like the only reason to have more than one terabyte is if you want to put your whole steam library on there is just laughable. I don't give a damn how powerful my computer is if I'm having to constantly delete and re-download games. A 1tb hard drive has only 900gb to work with even before you install the OS or anything else and I could wipe that shit out with 6 or 7 current games. And again it's not a good idea to have an SSD completely full as it will get slower. I guess I just can't wrap my head around the nonsense of using a 1 terabyte hard drive in a high end gaming PC but if it works for some of you people then whatever.
I used a 500GB SSD as my only internal drive for years prior to this. Only went up to 1TB because both drives were cheap and I wanted to get rid of more wires. I do have an external drive, but I only use it for long-term storage. I don't feel a compelling need to add more storage right now.
OFaceSIG
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3800x has the highest base clock of the bunch... I know I don't need more then 8cores/16threads for gaming. 3.9ghz. Good enough for this guy that barely games anymore. I was thinking 3700x, but that base clock on the 3800 sold me.
Sounds like the sweet spot is now 3800/3900 if value is one of your biggest decision factors. It is for this cheap bastard.
Sounds like the sweet spot is now 3800/3900 if value is one of your biggest decision factors. It is for this cheap bastard.
It's how many modules you use, not their size. That's the short version anyway.
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Lol, rough crowd. I don't miss writing for you whining bastards at all.
rudy
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No I dont, and if they are from this board its definitely a weird build. What enthusiasts thinks the wisest use of money is to blow $200 on 16GB of ram, something you could buy for $70 easy when that money would have been better applied to something else. Same with the PSU. These guys just have an odd idea of what is important in a computer for gaming? Hint the most important 2 components for gaming are CPU and GPU, I would think any hard forum member would know that. I would think smarter use of the money would have got them into a 2080ti. Theres just alot of fluff in parts that arent important for gaming performance.
Smoked Brisket
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Well we miss the fuck out of you, so when are you gonna start writing again?
Smoked Brisket
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There is great deal being made about the choice of processor. I dont get that. As has been pointed out this is the ultimate AMD gaming build. The 3950 is the ultimate "gaming" processor, so you have to start with that. Everything else in the build should be geared towards saving money while compromising as little performance as possible. 1tb is just fine for a gaming machine. If you ned 2 to 3tb for your games then you are not a normal user, please dont argue that. FPS review smartly opted for the 2080super, an overpriced card but not as wildly overpriced as the insanely overpriced 2080ti. A card that only gives moderate improvements in games at 4k that not only make it's price ludacris but make it kind of a dodo, if you were building today.The only criticisms I have for the build is the ridiculous case(it is so ugly and it has zero track record) and the fact that the second video card option could have been a 5700xt.
The staff from here sans Kyle
So what's the rational for buying 2 x 500GB drives if price-to-performance ration is the last thing on your mind?
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