Question I'm building my first PC

[sab8]

Hello, I'm building my first PC and i need some advice.

I work in architectural visualization, creating renders almost every day using the 3ds Max software, with Corona or V-Ray. I'm also learning Blender and Unreal, so I want this new PC to support these programs well and to be able to produce higher quality renders in less time. My budget is 1200 euros. These are the components that seem most suitable for my work, but I'm looking for opinions from people who can tell me if these components are good or can recommend better options in terms of quality and price. Thank you for your help. 😎

Components I would like to use to build the PC:

• CPU: Intel Core i7 13700KF 16 cores 5.40GHz (I like this one because it has many cores, and I've researched that it's good for rendering.)
• CPU Cooler: DeepCool AK500 Zero Dark 120mm CPU Fan (I chose a fan because liquid cooling systems are more delicate and require a lot of maintenance. However, among CPU fans, I'm not sure if this is the best option)
• Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790 CARBON WIFI
• Ram: Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 5600MHz 32GB (2x16GB) CL36
• Memory: Kingston NV2 1TB SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe Gen 4x4 and a Seagate BarraCuda 3.5" 2TB SATA 3 (I chose the 1TB SSD to install the programs, and the HDD 2tb for storing all the 3D files and renders.)
• Power: Corsair CX750 750 W 80 Plus Bronze
• Graphic Card: MSI GeForce RTX 3050 VENTUS 2X XS OC 8GB GDDR6 (The graphics card is a bit less powerful compared to the other components of the PC, but given the low budget, I thought this one might be a good starting point and I could upgrade it later on)
• Box: UNYkach Mir 100 ATX Gaming Case with Tempered Glass Side Panel and 4 ARGB Fans, Black (It was the cheapest one I could find that came with included fans and had good ventilation design)

I welcome all kinds of suggestions, whether they are about compatibility or if you think I might encounter issues or bugs when combining these components. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time and help 😁

 

[In2Photos]

Welcome to the forums!

I'm not sure I would build a new PC based around Intel's 13/14 gen CPUs still. Here is a link to a thread documenting the issues Intel has with this generation of CPUs. While the thread focuses on the gaming aspect, other types of computing are still having issues as well. http://www.portvapes.co.uk/?id=Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps&exid=thread...unreal-engine-games-and-others.2617728/unread

If you look into AMD options I'd start with the Ryzen 7 7700X or Ryzen 9 7900X.

That CPU cooler is probably fine, you might also look into Thermalright's Peerless Assassin or Phantom Spirit as they perform well on a budget.

For storage I would just opt for a 2TB NVME instead of the 2 separate drives. The NVME is so much faster than the HDD.

 

[Tech Junky]

cheapest one I could find that came with included fans and had good ventilation design

Not the best way to cut costs, Get a decent case vs skimping due to costs. The case will out live the PC guts. If you want to save on fans then look at the Arctic PWM PST 5-packs for ~$40 which brings the cost/fan down to ~$8/ea and you can use them anywhere inside the case including swapping the cooler fans for the CPU to make it near silent.

As @In2Photos mentions the PA cooler ~$30 is what I'm using on my 7900X and it keeps the temps in line just fine w/o the inflated costs of other coolers.

AMD is definitely the better option for the $$$. I wouldn't bother with the 9000 series though or the new MOBO's coming soon unless you need 40gbps USB ports. Grabbing the current 7000/AM5 options will save $$$.

RTX 3050

When it comes to GPUs anything xx60 or higher is the better value when keeping the cost down. The other option would be looking at the Intel ARC cards where the top option is under $300 w/ 16GB of RAM.

 

[sab8]

Welcome to the forums!

I'm not sure I would build a new PC based around Intel's 13/14 gen CPUs still. Here is a link to a thread documenting the issues Intel has with this generation of CPUs. While the thread focuses on the gaming aspect, other types of computing are still having issues as well. http://www.portvapes.co.uk/?id=Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps&exid=thread...unreal-engine-games-and-others.2617728/unread

If you look into AMD options I'd start with the Ryzen 7 7700X or Ryzen 9 7900X.

That CPU cooler is probably fine, you might also look into Thermalright's Peerless Assassin or Phantom Spirit as they perform well on a budget.

For storage I would just opt for a 2TB NVME instead of the 2 separate drives. The NVME is so much faster than the HDD.

From what I've read, Intel CPUs are better for rendering and 3D modeling, while Ryzen CPUs perform better for gaming. It seems that Intel's 13th gen CPUs tend to throttle or shut down a lot because they overheat, and the motherboard might struggle with this. But wouldn't having a better motherboard and good ventilation solve this issue, or is there another problem?

Thank you for the cooler recommendations; I really like them. Regarding memory, my 3D files take up a lot of space, so I need quite a bit of storage. I understand that an SSD would be faster, but when looking for a larger SSD, the price increases significantly. I’ll look into it to see if I can find better prices or discounts for a 2TB SSD, and perhaps get an HDD for storing files that I'm not using constantly.

 

[Tech Junky]

Intel CPUs are better for rendering and 3D modeling, while Ryzen CPUs perform better for gaming

This is where the Arc GPU comes into play for me. I use it for converting media files using the QSV that Intel came up with that's also built into their CPUs. It works really well for media tasks but, I'm not sure what the underlying codec would be used for "rendering" but I suspect it might be related.

memory, my 3D files take up a lot of space

It's not memory but storage. Memory = RAM

HDD for storing files that I'm not using constantly.

This would be the cheaper option as you can get 10X the storage for the same price. The sacrifice is speed when you want to move files around. Not a huge deal though when talking about long term storage. If you wan to speed things up then you can use a pair of drives in Raid 0 and double the speed. The other option would be SATA SSD which still can hit ~500MB/s but, cheaper than pure NVME drives. If you need capacity though and speed the alternative would be U.2/U.3 drives which are 2.5" drives with NVME speeds. I grabbed a 16TB one for my setup and it hits 6.5GB/s just like any M2 would but is double the size of a top M2 at 8TB and a fraction of the cost of dealing with multiple drives to hit the same capacity. Not to mention not dealing with raid issues by using a single drive.

 

[sab8]

Not the best way to cut costs, Get a decent case vs skimping due to costs. The case will out live the PC guts. If you want to save on fans then look at the Arctic PWM PST 5-packs for ~$40 which brings the cost/fan down to ~$8/ea and you can use them anywhere inside the case including swapping the cooler fans for the CPU to make it near silent.

As @In2Photos mentions the PA cooler ~$30 is what I'm using on my 7900X and it keeps the temps in line just fine w/o the inflated costs of other coolers.

AMD is definitely the better option for the $$$. I wouldn't bother with the 9000 series though or the new MOBO's coming soon unless you need 40gbps USB ports. Grabbing the current 7000/AM5 options will save $$$.


When it comes to GPUs anything xx60 or higher is the better value when keeping the cost down. The other option would be looking at the Intel ARC cards where the top option is under $300 w/ 16GB of RAM.

What would be some good cases for building the PC? I see so many options that seem similar to each other with such a wide range of prices that I'm not sure if I'm choosing the right one.
I had also seen the MSI MAG Forge M100A Black USB 3.2 | Micro ATX ARGB Case. do you think is a better option?

Regarding choosing Ryzen over Intel based on price versus performance, the Intel i7 13700KF was coming out cheaper compared to the performance of Ryzen CPUs at similar prices.This seemed strange to me because I have always seen Ryzen as the better option in terms of price-to-performance ratio. I have other laptops with Ryzen that offered much better value for the price compared to Intel, but in this case, it's not the same.

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[sab8]

This is where the Arc GPU comes into play for me. I use it for converting media files using the QSV that Intel came up with that's also built into their CPUs. It works really well for media tasks but, I'm not sure what the underlying codec would be used for "rendering" but I suspect it might be related.

But doesn’t the GPU depend on the program you're using? At least I think that 3ds Max demands more from the CPU than from the GPU.

 

[Tech Junky]

For cases I've used several fractal design options and currently using their torrent case. It has dual 180mm fans on the front that move a ton of air but remain quiet. The bottom and back are mesh so that means the exhaust is ample as well.

laptops with Ryzen

Laptops are not a direct comparison here with a desktop. If you were to do a laptop I would have different options as you are stuck with not being able to upgrade the CPU/GPU on them. I have one supplier that sells bare bones options pretty cheap with 8845 CPUs and options for 4050/60/70 GPU. They sell for under $1500 and you just add your RAM and drives yourself.

As to the app performance. I can't say much because I don't use those particular apps but, in general it's always going to be a combo of both CPU/GPU if it has something to do with graphics. Each GPU brand though has different software perks in terms of performance. Intel offers some value though when it comes to the raw specs vs the other two. For my use of converting media though the lowest tier performs the same as the top end when it comes to using QSV so, I went with the $100 version instead of the gaming top tier @ $300.

If your app is using CPU only you should get more performance from AMD since it doesn't use hybrid cores like Intel does. Having 12 cores with a 7900X will beat a 20-24 core Intel as only 8 cores are full dual thread cores aka 16 threads vs 24 threads with AMD. This will mess with some apps as they don't know what to do with the E cores. Also, the E cores are single thread and a lower clock than the full P cores.

In the end though it's up to you as to what will meet your goals and budget. $1200 E is going to be a bit different than domestic USD purchases though since you have to deal with VAT and slightly higher base prices but, you should be able to hit that goal if you shop around and look at returns on Amazon being resold. I picked up my MOBO for $160 doing that and the retail for it is ~$250+. The only issue with it was the UEFI needed an update to stabilize the performance and work properly. I ended up doing a full rebuild with AMD for $900 and just moved over the OS drive to complete it. So, it can be done on a budget that's lower and still unlock the performance you're looking for. You'll just need to get a bit creative in sourcing the parts to do it.

 

[manly]

DeepCool seems pretty good, but they were recently banned in the U.S.! Not sure about in the EU?

Are you buying the GeForce RTX 3050 used? Does your specific software prefer Nvidia?

Quibbles:
Get a better PSU
RAM could be a little faster

Finally, I haven't bought any yet but Thermalright 120mm fans are very cheap on Amazon.

 

[athrowaway2242]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor (€296.89 @ LIFE Informatica)
CPU Cooler: *Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler (€45.99 @ Amazon Espana)
Motherboard: ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard (€167.69 @ Coolmod)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory (€103.95 @ Amazon Espana)
Storage: Crucial P3 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (€121.80 @ Neobyte)
Video Card: Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB Video Card (€299.00 @ LIFE Informatica)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case (€60.95 @ Amazon Espana)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS GX 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (€112.99 @ PC Componentes)
Total: €1209.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-08-31 16:04 CEST+0200


I dont know what country youre in - and i didnt completely look into every detail of these parts to see if theyre all ultra compatible - but just wanted to show you that an AMD build with a 4 series xx60 card, decent GPU, storage, RAM, etc is doable. right around your price point.

IF you can be more specific about what country youre in, and what the budget has to include, and if its flexible at all, that would help. Can it go up 50 euro? DOes it need to include all the specific european taxes? does it need to include a monitor, accessories, keyboard, mouse, operating system>

also as someone who just did a build (granted i had very particular colors and things) dont forget the random things youll end up buying and swapping out (fans, controllers, special mounting brackets, wire sleeves, adapters, cables, etc) a lot of that stuff is cheap but a few cheap things can be another 100 euro


I dont know enough about 3060 vs 4060 to know if the 12GB vs 8GB VRAM matters for your use case vs the 3xxx vs 4xxx card, and i dont know enough about the AMD GPUs to weigh in on that, but some of those might be good deals too.

the case comes with 2 fans installed, i dont know all the case choices out there but im sure there are other good cases that are cheap, and a pack of decent fans isnt that expensive either

as for storage - if you are just 'storing' these large files and never need to read/write them - then sure a regular old hard drive is cheap and can be plugged into the SATA port and you can add that later any time you want, and rack em up. if youre going to be writing/reading to them with some regularity and time matters - just start with the 2TB NVME and in a month or so grab an SSD via SATA and expand. you never have to 'start' with max capacity you think youll need, you can continuously add - and with high speed USB you can even get them as external drive and plug and play as neededd