Advice (no longer) Sought - thanks to those who responded.

[Simon]

I'm thinking of replacing my ten year old self-build (sorry PCS) desktop (thanks to MS I don't think I can remain on W10 forever) and this is what I've come up with so far, having concluded that PCS is offering the type of components I had in mind and I can probably do without the enjoyment of putting it together myself this time.
The intended use is general desktop processing plus website building, video editing, video calling, media streaming and occasional gaming. I tend to over-specify (quality and performance) and I'm happy with that. Over a ten year period the costs look slightly less outlandish.
Reliability and longevity are important to me and I expect my computers to be sufficiently fast as to perform whatever task I give them as soon as I've thought of it.
As to monitors, I am using a Dell U3818DW supplemented by a pair of Dell U2913WM screens.
I will be transferring my pair of Seagate Barracuda ST10000DM0004-1ZC101 disks, configured as RAID-0 to allow efficient space utilisation and achieve a marginal performance boost. I have a robust backup strategy in place, so redundancy is not a requirement.
I have a Logitech Z-5500 sound system to attach via S/PDIF.

I see that Intel is no longer flavour of the month, but I have always been an Intel sort of guy and have never been let down (so far).

I have some initial questions and am interested in general feedback as well as answers to these specifics. To pre-empt some of the general feedback, herewith the rationale for some of my choices.

Processor. I selected the K rather than the KF as the iGPU should provide resilience should there ever be a failure of the discrete GPU. The cost saving was pretty small.
Motherboard. I would have gone for the Z790-P but it has insufficient USB 3.0 ports to accommodate the number of hubs that I have. I don't need wi-fi but it doesn't do much harm that it is there. I'm not sure the Z790-P has an S/PDIF output, the lack of which would be a significant deficit.
SSD. I might have gone for 3x2TB drives, but the configurator would not allow me to combine those in RAID-0 (I wonder why not).
PSU. This is over-specified, and that's how I like a PSU to be.
Firewire Card. Required for legacy DV camcorders.
OS. I might actually wait for W12 before placing this order. I tend to do a bare metal install rather than upgrade as I reckon that the registry and OS become less pristine as time goes on. But with a wealth of software, configured within an inch of its life, I wouldn't want to do this any more often than I need to.
Anti-Virus. I have a decent firewall on my router and find Windows more than capable of looking after itself these days. I regard other anti-virus software as an over-priced resource-hog.
Home Installation. See questions …

Q1: I'm not in the first flush of youth and with a heart condition. I wonder whether Home Installation is a possible solution to the otherwise difficult to surmount problem of getting this beast up the stairs. I don't really need much technical help.
Q2: I need to look through forum posts, but wonder how the fans and lighting will be setup by PCS and whether that will be the best way of doing it. The case, and several other key components, are from Corsair so I think using the Commander Pro and iCue might be the way to go rather than relying on the MB. ASUS software enjoys a poor reputation in this house.
Q3: I'm assuming that all of the cables for the PSU will be supplied so as to enable me to run power to the Barracudas, for example.
Q4: My preference is to do the RAID configuration in the BIOS. I know this isn't as good as having a RAID controller card, but I have had bad experiences of those and the MB RAID has served me well. I would definitely not want RAID configured in Windows. I wonder how PCS does it?
Q5: To save (a lot of) money, I could probably re-purpose my RTX 3080 Super and order the new PC without a discrete GPU. Anybody see any problems with that approach?

More questions could be added as I think it through further and consider any responses received.

Thanks in advance!

Specification follows …

Case
CORSAIR iCUE LINK 9000D RGB AIRFLOW SUPER TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 24-Core Processor i9-14900K (Up to 6.0GHz) 36MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS Z790 DARK HERO (LGA1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7)
Memory (RAM)
96GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 5600MHz CL40 (4 x 24GB)
Graphics Card
32GB PALIT GEFORCE RTX 5090 GAMEROCK - HDMI, 3 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)
RAID
RAID 0 (STRIPED VOLUME - 2 x same size & model HDD / SSD)
External DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
6x Slim USB 2.0 External Blu-Ray Writer
Memory Card Reader
USB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W HXi SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® PLATINUM V2
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 360 RX LCD RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND APPLICATION
LED Lighting
2 x 35cm Corsair LS350 Aurora RGB Light Strips
Extra Case Fans
10 x Corsair ICUE LINK RX120 RGB PWM Fan + Controller Kit
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Firewire
2 Port IEEE 1394a Firewire PCI-E Card (2 x 6 pin)
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Home Installation
Technician Assisted Installation & Set-Up
Delivery
48 HOUR INSURED PALLET DELIVERY TO UK (MON-FRI, INC. HIGHLANDS & ISLANDS)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days
Price: £0.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z790-ddr5-pc/KVGkyyWn07/

 

[Ekans2011]

I see that Intel is no longer flavour of the month, but I have always been an Intel sort of guy and have never been let down (so far).

Well, INTEL is DOA and no one would recommend it. What's your max budget?

Intel 13th and 14th Gen confirmed defective

So there's been a lot of upset gathering steam on the inter webs with intermittent games crashes on Intel 13th and 14th gen. Workarounds range from underclocking to disabling ecores. BUT, there are a lot of people finding that simply disabling hyperthreading is a proper solution. The findings...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[Simon]

Thanks to Ekans2011 for the quick and helpful response. My budget was £5k and the current specification is about £110% of that. Am I right in thinking that the instability is limited to OC. Perhaps the i9-14900 (no suffix) would be OK. The ability to OC is not that important to me. I do apply the default XMP OC (7%) on my current system (Z170) but that is less necessary especially as the RAM specified in the new rig is much faster. As you can tell, I’m really loathe to move to AMD and to contemplate the associated change of MB. However, instability would be completely unacceptable to me.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thanks for the quick and helpful response. My budget was £5k and the current specification is about £110% of that. Am I right in thinking that the instability is limited to OC. Perhaps the i9-14900 (no suffix) would be OK. The ability to OC is not that important to me. I do apply the default XMP OC (7%) on my current system (Z170) but that is less necessary especially as the RAM specified in the new rig is much faster. As you can tell, I’m really loathe to move to AMD and to contemplate the associated change of MB. However, instability would be completely unacceptable to me.

If you read the thread, it's all 13th and 14th gen over the i5 14400, overclocked or not. They degrade at a silicon level, it's just a matter of how long that may take.

Intels new generation, the 200 series are just the same, same architecture, just with lowered power levels and frequencies, hence they perform worse than previous generations but they're also fundamentally unstable. They also need over the top cooling to maintain functional operating temps.

AMD not only work, but perform far better using about half the power to do so, and as a result run about 10c cooler.

 

[Simon]

If you read the thread, it's all 13th and 14th gen over the i5 14400, overclocked or not. They degrade at a silicon level, it's just a matter of how long that may take.

Intels new generation, the 200 series are just the same, same architecture, just with lowered power levels and frequencies, hence they perform worse than previous generations but they're also fundamentally unstable. They also need over the top cooling to maintain functional operating temps.

AMD not only work, but perform far better using about half the power to do so, and as a result run about 10c cooler.

Thank you, SpyderTracks. I have done a bit more reading. This does look like a showstopper for me. I considered living with an i5-14400 until the problem is fixed, but as the problem appears to be a fundamental design issue I can see that no fix is going to truly address the problem, the microcode patches will merely prolong its impact and cripple performance. If and when that architecture is re-designed it won't be running on a 1770 socket. This being the case, I guess I'll continue with my current system and hope that Intel gets its act together before the world ends. I'll set about seeing how to close this thread; as this project has stalled on Day One, no further responses are sought.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thank you, SpyderTracks. I have done a bit more reading. This does look like a showstopper for me. I considered living with an i5-14400 until the problem is fixed, but as the problem appears to be a fundamental design issue I can see that no fix is going to truly address the problem, the microcode patches will merely prolong its impact and cripple performance. If and when that architecture is re-designed it won't be running on a 1770 socket. This being the case, I guess I'll continue with my current system and hope that Intel gets its act together before the world ends. I'll set about seeing how to close this thread; as this project has stalled on Day One, no further responses are sought.

It will take Intel years to catch up, they really are miles behind, and financially they’re in a very poor place also. They don’t have the resources to be able to turn this around for many years

AMD are now far better than Intel ever were though, there's really no reason to be put off by them.

 

[Simon]

Given your system is 10 years old, I dare say that it will give up before Intel sort themselves out.

I get that you have always been Intel (this is why they are in such a mess as they have banked on people who have always been Intel continuing to buy so they haven't put much effort into sorting themselves out...plus AMD used to have issues so they bank on people remembering that and sticking with Intel) but is there a reason you won't even consider AMD?

My system is running extremely well and it is quite possible it would do another 5 years at least. That's why I buy good quality and high specification. The real villain in the piece here is Microsoft. It is unforgiveable what it has done to stimulate revenue by introducing a spurious piece of 'security' technology and then making it mandatory thereby forcing everyone to choose between remaining on an unsupported OS or junking perfectly viable hardware. If I could afford to migrate to Apple for my PC requirements (I am already invested in their iOS products) then I would. But I would prefer not to have to get to grips with all of the new vendors, products and architectures that a move to AMD might necessitate. I am reluctant to join the AMD community who can sometimes seem to be a little too evangelistic for my taste and tend to rubbish Intel more than us Intel lovers tend to rubbish AMD. And, as for performance, I am suspicious of the benchmarks and despite what they appear to suggest I tend to rely on the basic specifications (such as clock speed) albeit I'm sure I'd quickly lose a well-informed technical argument on that one. But I'd rather not join the Intel-AMD conflict - it doesn't really get anyone anywhere. I confess to being prejudiced in favour of Intel but am quite prepared to admit that is a prejudice and I respect those who don't share it - indeed, they could even be correct! You did ask.

 

[SpyderTracks]

The real villain in the piece here is Microsoft. It is unforgiveable what it has done to stimulate revenue by introducing a spurious piece of 'security' technology and then making it mandatory thereby forcing everyone to choose between remaining on an unsupported OS or junking perfectly viable hardware.

Just to give a different point of view, Microsoft don't make any money from this, users can legally transfer the windows license from the old system to the new.

And the TPM is not implemented by Microsoft, all manufacturers have implemented them across all OS's, mobile and desktop (apart from Linux), it's simply all other manufacturers are on closed ecosystems. It was around 2016 that manufacturers and Microsoft started implementing TPM security into devices, it's just that windows machines can often hold on a lot longer than that. The reason is to move to cryptographic security keys which require a hardware security chip, the web will be deprecating passwords starting with the big 3, if you don't have TPM security, you'll literally be locked out of the web.

And frequency is meaningless without taking into account IPC (instructions per clock, how many instructions it achieves per frequency cycle) Intel and AMD are roughly equal on frequency, but AMD have a significantly higher IPC

 

[Simon]

Just to give a different point of view, Microsoft don't make any money from this, users can legally transfer the windows license from the old system to the new.

And the TPM is not implemented by Microsoft, all manufacturers have implemented them across all OS's, mobile and desktop (apart from Linux), it's simply all other manufacturers are on closed ecosystems. It was around 2016 that manufacturers and Microsoft started implementing TPM security into devices, it's just that windows machines can often hold on a lot longer than that. The reason is to move to cryptographic security keys which require a hardware security chip, the web will be deprecating passwords starting with the big 3, if you don't have TPM security, you'll literally be locked out of the web.

This would be a sterile argument, were I to engage with it. I would certainly gain nothing from it and I can't see that you would, either. So, I'll re-iterate my thanks to you for highlighting the issues with the current Intel CPUs and bow out from the discussion at this stage.