Expensive i9/4090 PC, looking for opinions.

[GabPal]

I'm considering buying a new PC and I have a generous budget. This is what I came out below. I'm not much of an hardware expert so I'm looking for opinions especially on case/power/cpu/gpu/ram/cooling compatibility and speed to make sure everything is balanced and would work well together.
I would primarily use it for gaming and also some Unity 3D development.

Case
CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 16-Core Processor i9-12900K (3.2GHz) 30MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS Z690 HERO WIFI (LGA1700, USB 3.2, PCIe 5.0) - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 5200MHz (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP (Pre-Order Only) (how long should I expect to wait? I'm not in a rush but sooner is better than later)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W) -> OS and software
1st Storage Drive
6TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE -> data
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W HX SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® PLATINUM, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H100i ELITE LCD Display RGB CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003] (Professional probably?)
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
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Subject to stock availability on pre-order products

 

[TonyCarter]

Generally we'd recommend a splitting of the OS drive and the game install drive, so that you have a very clean & fast boot drive (say a 500GB 980 - early 990 Pro SSDs seems to be failing quickly), and a 2TB Solidigm for game installs. This would mean any reset/reinstall only wipes Windows and your apps, and not your assets/game files.

I'd also suggest you go to the 13th Gen CPU as to won't cost extra, along with a 115/150i cooler as the 12/13th gen i7/i9 get very hot. You won't need the Arctic Extreme paste with a Corsair cooler as it comes with premium paste pre-applied.

No need for Windows 11 Professional unless you need to connect to enterprise domains (and some other enterprise stuff).

It would be helpful if you could add your configuration link to your post, so that the helpers here can tweak your build without having to recreate everything.

How to Post Your Specification to the Forum - Check this Spec

Just a first note, if you've been provided this link, don't amend your first post as it won't update the queue, please add an additional comment to the thread, that way it will go back to the front of the queue. Otherwise we don't know it's been updated. When creating a forum post looking to...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[Robbie]

Also let us know what monitor you're pairing it with? You're going very top end, just hope you have a monitor that actually requires it.

 

[GabPal]

Also let us know what monitor you're pairing it with? You're going very top end, just hope you have a monitor that actually requires it.

I currently have two "regular" monitors, I will need to upgrade my main one to a 4k. I'll probably update the monitor separately as I haven't decided yet if I want to go ultra wide or not but I assume the set up should be good enough either way. Which monitor would you recommend? I also own an Oculus Pro so I may do some VR gaming too, but probably not much of that.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Which monitor would you recommend?

Depends on budget? For a decent ultrawide, you're looking minimum of around £600, for superwide, about £1000, for 4k 144Hz about £500 up

 

[GabPal]

I'll probably land on a typical gaming monitor 16:9 4k and use my current main monitor on the side. I'm looking into and I'm curious about ultrawide but I'm more used to a twin setup.

Which ones would you suggest, at different budget levels (medium, medium high, top of gamma)? I know latency is important for gaming but I never owned a 4k.

Also, one question I had was about the 4090 availability: does anyone has any idea how long I should expect to wait for those to be restocked? They are currently listed on pre-order.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I'll probably land on a typical gaming monitor 16:9 4k and use my current main monitor on the side. I'm looking into and I'm curious about ultrawide but I'm more used to a twin setup.

Which ones would you suggest, at different budget levels (medium, medium high, top of gamma)? I know latency is important for gaming but I never owned a 4k.

Also, one question I had was about the 4090 availability: does anyone has any idea how long I should expect to wait for those to be restocked? They are currently listed on pre-order.

Again, what's your budget?

 

[GabPal]

Again, what's your budget?

Flexible. I don't start with a number, I look at the market and I usually lean toward medium or medium-high in the range of prices.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Flexible. I don't start with a number, I look at the market and I usually lean toward medium or medium-high in the range of prices.

We'll need a budget to work to, otherwise it ends up as a back and forth of us recommending and you saying but what about knocking off a few hundred.

We just need your fixed ceiling please, it's not a test or anything, just a number you're not willing to go above.

 

[GabPal]

We'll need a budget to work to, otherwise it ends up as a back and forth of us recommending and you saying but what about knocking off a few hundred.

We just need your fixed ceiling please, it's not a test or anything, just a number you're not willing to go above.

I asked for a few options at different price points exactly to avoid the back and forth. If you gave me a couple of different options two messages ago we would have avoided the back and forth already.

Let's put it this way, when I ask in a forum it's because I want help understanding the hows and whys not because I want to just lookup what can I buy at a certain price point, otherwise I would ask Google or Amazon. So I would expect an helpful person to tell me "here are a few option I would consider valid: this one is ok and cost X$, but this one for Y$ is better because of this one particular reason and if you also want this other important feature then I recommend this final one for Z$".

If I give you a budget and you just give me an article at that price point, that's not really useful to me. It doesn't help me understand if the money is well spent.

Either way, since I'm spending ~4k+ for the PC, I guess I can spend ~1k+ for the monitor, if it's worth it.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I asked for a few options at different price points exactly to avoid the back and forth. If you gave me a couple of different options two messages ago we would have avoided the back and forth already.

Let's put it this way, when I ask in a forum it's because I want help understanding the hows and whys not because I want to just lookup what can I buy at a certain price point, otherwise I would ask Google or Amazon. So I would expect an helpful person to tell me "here are a few option I would consider valid: this one is ok and cost X$, but this one for Y$ is better because of this one particular reason and if you also want this other important feature then I recommend this final one for Z$".

If I give you a budget and you just give me an article at that price point, that's not really useful to me. It doesn't help me understand if the money is well spent.

Either way, since I'm spending ~4k+ for the PC, I guess I can spend ~1k+ for the monitor, if it's worth it.

I'm posting this for other peoples benefit. The max budget is not for your benefit, it's for ours, over many many years of not asking for one and then months later still having to adjust things and scrap previous suggestions just because the user has changed their mind of what's agreeable or constantly wants to penny pinch we've learnt that agreeing that at the outset makes it far easier for us to give accurate suggestions, and to save our own time.

This may not be of importance to you, but all of us are doing this out of our own time, for your benefit. It's not for us to meet your whims, it's for you to make it as easy for us to help you as much as possible. And it's as much for us to prevent our valuable time from being wasted.

A max budget tells us a ceiling we can't go beyond. We'll suggest whatever best is available within that range.

So as you stated 1k+, we'll take that as 1k as you still haven't stated a max. A max is a single figure you're not willing to go beyond, it's not anything that can move, it's a concrete ceiling. So 1k+ doesn't mean anything. If it's over 1k then what is it? It's a singular value, not a range of any sort.

 

[sck451]

In all honesty, there's not much point going beyond £4k for a PC anyway, and there's not a great deal of point going beyond £1k for a display, so let's treat those as outside limits.

Here's a PC well inside that, which is overkill for all conceivable situations:

Case
CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12 Core CPU (4.7GHz-5.6GHz/76MB CACHE/AM5) But actually wait for the 7900X3D on 28/2
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING X670E-PLUS WIFI (DDR5, PCIe 5.0) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 530 GEN 4 PCIe NVMe (up to 7300MB/R, 6900MB/W) Games drive
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE Large storage drive
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W HX SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® PLATINUM, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
Corsair iCUE H115i ELITE CAPELLIX RGB Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003] If you don't know you need Professional, you don't need Professional
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)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Subject to stock availability on pre-order products
Price: £3,594.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/6r8TC8NHCy/

This would then blow the socks off the top end displays like the Alienware AW3423DWF or the Asus PG48UQ,, or more resonable displays like the Gigabyte M32U or the MSI MPG321UR-QD.

To be honest, I'm doing this for fun, and I don't feel like confiuguring another two or three specs at different price points, so I hope this one helps. It's not exactly value for money (nothing with a 4090 is) but it is as good as it gets for a gaming PC, and maybe that's what you want?

 

[Robbie]

I asked for a few options at different price points exactly to avoid the back and forth. If you gave me a couple of different options two messages ago we would have avoided the back and forth already.

Let's put it this way, when I ask in a forum it's because I want help understanding the hows and whys not because I want to just lookup what can I buy at a certain price point, otherwise I would ask Google or Amazon. So I would expect an helpful person to tell me "here are a few option I would consider valid: this one is ok and cost X$, but this one for Y$ is better because of this one particular reason and if you also want this other important feature then I recommend this final one for Z$".

If I give you a budget and you just give me an article at that price point, that's not really useful to me. It doesn't help me understand if the money is well spent.

Either way, since I'm spending ~4k+ for the PC, I guess I can spend ~1k+ for the monitor, if it's worth it.

Everyone here is just a volunteer trying to help others spec up PCS builds so they get the most of out their budgets. The best thing you can do is to give the information being asked, as it's being asked for a reason.

Also, keep in mind, you are asking for monitor options which isn't even part of PCS offerings. It's down to you to tell us what you have or plan to get so we can pair it to your PC build... you may find if you asked a bit nicer people may be more willing to help you.