I recently started my first full-time job and decided to build a new gaming PC after using the same prebuilt for about seven years. My original budget was around $3,000, but the current parts list has grown to roughly $4,300. I mainly play games such as Deadlock, Total War: Warhammer III, RimWorld, Elden Ring, League of Legends, Overwatch, and Valorant. About half of my gaming is competitive.
My current monitor is a 34-inch Alienware curved QD-OLED ultrawide running at 165 Hz and 1440p. The system will be used strictly for gaming. I chose many of these parts because I liked the overall aesthetic, but I am not very experienced with PC building and would appreciate advice on what is unnecessary or poor value.
The current list includes a Ryzen 7 9850X3D, a 360 mm LCD liquid cooler, an ASRock B850 motherboard, 32 GB of DDR5-6000 memory, a 4 TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD, an RTX 5080, a compact Lian Li case, a 1000 W power supply, and six RGB case fans. I would especially like recommendations for reducing the cost without giving up too much gaming performance. I would prefer to keep 4 TB of storage because my existing external drives are full and I keep a large backlog of games installed. I am also interested in understanding whether the CPU, graphics card, cooler, motherboard, and PCIe 5.0 SSD are excessive for my monitor and games.
4 Answers
The biggest issue is value, not compatibility. A 4 TB PCIe 5.0 SSD at nearly $760 is extremely expensive, and you will rarely notice the speed difference in games. A good 4 TB PCIe 4.0 drive should cost dramatically less and load games almost identically.
The RTX 5080 is also a luxury choice for 1440p ultrawide. An RX 9070 XT can provide excellent performance for much less, while an RTX 5070 Ti may be a better compromise if you specifically want Nvidia features, encoding, or CUDA support. The 9850X3D is powerful, but a lower-tier X3D chip would still be excellent for gaming, including CPU-heavy games such as RimWorld and Project Zomboid.
You do not need a $180 liquid cooler for this build. A quality tower cooler around $40–$60 should handle an X3D gaming CPU well, and it avoids pump noise and extra failure points. The fans are also a large aesthetic expense; you can get very good airflow with fewer, cheaper fans.
A 1000 W power supply makes sense with a high-end RTX card, but if you move to a 5070 Ti or RX 9070 XT, a good 750–850 W unit should be sufficient. The motherboard does not need to be dramatically more expensive either. Spend more on one only for useful features such as better rear I/O, networking, storage slots, power delivery, or a layout you prefer—not because it increases game performance.
I was unsure why people recommend spending more on a motherboard, since I understand the benefits of upgrading the CPU or GPU more easily. I will focus on features and connectivity rather than assuming a more expensive board makes the system faster.
A 7800X3D or 9800X3D-class processor would already be more than capable for gaming, and a discounted bundle can lower the total cost. The extra CPU performance of the top model is most useful when you are chasing very high frame rates at lower resolutions; at 1440p, the GPU is usually the limiting component.
For games with heavy simulation or mostly single-threaded workloads, an X3D chip is still a good choice, but you do not need the most expensive model to avoid the problems you are having with your current computer. Put the savings toward a reliable GPU, a good monitor setup, and a quality power supply rather than chasing the highest specification in every category.
For your 1440p 165 Hz display, the proposed system is overkill in several areas. A 7900 XT or 9070 XT-class GPU can already drive very high frame rates at that resolution, and many games either have frame-rate limits or will not show a meaningful difference once you are near 165 FPS. Elden Ring, for example, is capped at 60 FPS without modifications.
If you want Nvidia, consider the 5070 Ti rather than jumping straight to the 5080. If you want the best performance per dollar and do not need Nvidia-specific software, AMD is worth another look. Previous driver problems do not necessarily mean every AMD card will behave the same, but make sure the old system was tested with a clean driver installation and stable settings.
I definitely want to reduce the price, and the 9070 XT is appealing if it really costs about half as much. I still want 4 TB because my current two 1 TB external SSDs are full, but I am happy to switch from PCIe 5.0 to a cheaper PCIe 4.0 drive.