New PC - It all starts with the Motherboard yes?

rancid-a

Hi all.
I'm currently using a 8-9 year old gaming PC which was quite hi tech back then ( i7-6700K. NvidiaGTX980, 32gb ram, Windows 10 etc) and am looking to replace with something  similar but with todays hardware.

My knowledge of motherboards is very limited and I don't want to muck up my choice. Can you give me a few pointers on choosing? I realise this might depend on what I want to put on the motherboard and at the moment, I just know I will need 3 x SSD (one for editing 4k footage shot at 100fps). A soundcard and a GTX card

Do you think that the upcoming new GTX5xxx cards will push the price of the previous model down? I'm a little bit aware of something called 'scalping' too.

Main use of new PC  - Gaming on a 4k monitor. Editing 4k video using Davinci Resolve and photoshop work.

Thank you!

Vitor

Photoshop doesn't split work over multiple cores very well so a Threadripper would  be wasted, you're best to look for a CPU/mobo that'll overclock to close to 6GHz to get most performance from the main cores. Any video work needs plenty of RAM and fast disk so go for 32GB of DDR5 and a mobo with several M.2 NvME slots. Something like a MSI Z790 Tomahawk with Intel Core i9-13900K for overclocking up to 5.6GHz with PCIe 4.0 x16 for your GPU and Samsung 980 Pro SSD.

For 4K gaming, you'll be looking at something like a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. Don't forget a 850W PSU.

That setup will cost around £2K but will also last for years.

facade

I have a Z790 Tomahawk, with an I7-14700K, 32GB DD5 & a poverty RTX4060 (MSI RTX 4060 Ventus 2X Black OC).

It seems well made, the Z790 Tomahawk supports 3 nvme SSDs (there is a 4th slot, but populating it disables several SATA ports).

The audio sounds good out of the analogue jacks, and there is a TOSLINK digital output.

It only supports Gen 5 on the GPU slot, nvme is limited to Gen 4 x4. (My "fastest" drive is a cachless 16 GT/s drive that is much slower at transferring files than the cached 8 GT/s drives anyway, so there is more to it than the speed of the interface......)

Annoying for me, you cannot pull out the WiFi card if you don't need it without dismantling the big heatsink around the IO ports.

There aren't enough USB headers on the motherboard either...

jshm2

Nah, it all starts with price. I've built some killer rigs using mostly second hand parts, to keep within budget.

Also, graphics card can be about half the price of the gaming rig. Plus, not sure why you think 3 SSDs is going to give you much, when you can get a bigger and more reliable NAS with RAID setup instead? 

You also need to factor in monitor cost, as if you've not got a 4K monitor, then buying a newer card isn't worth the money. 

It can sometimes be better to cannibalise your existing setup for the new. But it's all part of the art of the self-build. 

But if you want off the shelf, then PC Specialist and Wire2Fire are two companies I've worked with in the past and are decent. 

forgotmyname

Starting with the motherboard makes me think of buying a car with the first priority being blue stitching on the seats.

Everythings a balance.

PRAISETHESUN

Motherboards are usually tied into a specific processor family, so you need to decide what processor you want (Intel or AMD) and which generation (12-14th gen Intel uses LGA1700 socket, Intel 15th gen uses LGA1851, and AMD use AM4 for last gen stuff and AM5 for current gen stuff). Ram compatibility is also a potential issue as you be limited to DDR4 or DDR5 depending on the board.

From there, you need to decide what features you want - lots of drive slots, on-board wifi, etc, which will contribute to the price.

I'd also look into the advancements of SSDs. By all means you can continue to use your old (presumably SATA-based drives) but M.2 NVME storage is super fast and super cheap these days so would be worth considering the upgrade.

For graphics cards, there's a fair bit of choice as NVIDIA, AMD and Intel create cards these days. Depending on the performance you are after, there will be an option for you depending on how much you are willing to pay. Expect roughly 50% of the cost of your build to be just the GPU. The 5000 services NVIDIA cards are expected to be announced at the start of Jan, but they have cut the supply for their old products so the prices aren't really expected to go down anytime soon. Definately look out for scalpers on release if you are going for the new cards and basically try not to pay more than the announced MSRP where possible.

rancid-a

Hi all
I've spent a couple of days just taking some info in and doing a bit of research.
I'm going to wait until the new Nvidia cards come out but I may not get the top tier card, I'm aware those have been really expensive for the last couple of generations. I will spend money elsewhere.

I'm still not completely decided on the spec, but I won't be building it myself and will probably go to one of the better known PC online stores

I was actually going through a configurator at the website of PC Specialist, really like how their site is laid out, tons of options to choose from! I need to do some more reading. Here's what I've come up with so far though.

Intel i9 4900
Azus Rog Strix z790f (DDR5, WiFi7, PCIe5, lots USB connections)
96GB Corsair RAM - will come in handy for editing 4k video files.
Nvidia 5070 - probably, if that's what they are calling it, I'm not splashing out on the 5080,5090.
2-3 Samsung SSDs (M.2). Not sure of sizes yet but I've not been able to play many games on my old PC of late as there's just no room. I guess working with 4k video files will require a lot of space too.

PRAISETHESUN

Sounds like a good plan. Personally I'd recommend building your own purely for the flexibility to customise your build to exactly what you want, but I agree that buying a pre-built system is simpler.

I'd also recommend doing some reading on the Intel microcode and via oxidation issues affecting 13/14th gen processors. 13900/14900 in particular are the worst affected and seem to suffering a higher premature failures rate. In any case make sure you upgrade to the latest bios provided by your motherboard manufacturer as soon as you can to mitigate the issues.

For storage, I personally find 2-4 TB per drive to be the sweet spot for value. I bought a 2x 2 TB drives just before Christmas for less than £100 each. It's overkill for purely game storage (easy enough to just download a few games as/when you want to play them) but would probably be a good idea if you also want to store and manipulate a decent amount of 4k video footage.

rancid-a

Thank you! I wasn't aware of the issues with the 13900/14900 and will be read up on this. I'm also concered about problems with the GTX4xxx series - I can't find topic I was reading but forum/reddit users were saying they hoped the 5xxx series of cards would have better 'connectors'(?), I need to find that thread about them melting.

Yeah, I was mainly making sure I would have enough room for all the 4k footage I need to work with, but a couple of games too - not that I need to play more that one or two until I've finished with them.

Cisco001

No. It start with a budget...

What is your budget?
And are you self built or buy pre-built?

PRAISETHESUN

rancid-a said:

Thank you! I wasn't aware of the issues with the 13900/14900 and will be read up on this. I'm also concered about problems with the GTX4xxx series - I can't find topic I was reading but forum/reddit users were saying they hoped the 5xxx series of cards would have better 'connectors'(?), I need to find that thread about them melting.

Yeah, I was mainly making sure I would have enough room for all the 4k footage I need to work with, but a couple of games too - not that I need to play more that one or two until I've finished with them.

The GPU problems are to do with the 12VHPWR connectors (12V high power). Make sure you buy a reputable brand PSU, or if you use custom cables that you get them from a reputable supplier. And it might sound silly, but a lot of the problems were caused by people just not fully plugging in the cables to the GPU itself, so make sure you check that too.