I'm building my first PC and would appreciate some advice before I assemble everything. I've chosen the parts over the past few weeks, but I've received conflicting opinions and most components are still new enough to return if I made a poor choice.
My budget is up to €3,500, although I don't want to spend more than necessary. I'm in Italy, and the system will mainly be used for 1440p high-refresh-rate gaming, with some 4K gaming as well. The budget is only for the PC because I already have peripherals.
Current parts:
- Ryzen 7 9850X3D
- MSI RTX 5070 Ti Gaming Trio
- MSI MAG X870E Tomahawk WiFi
- Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 with EXPO
- Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 420 A-RGB
- Lian Li SX 1000W Platinum, ATX 3.1 / PCIe 5.1
- Lian Li O11D EVO RGB
I still need a 2TB SSD and would appreciate recommendations.
I'm mainly unsure whether the system is balanced. Some people have said the 9850X3D is excessive for an RTX 5070 Ti, while others think it's reasonable for future GPU upgrades. I've also been told to return the X870E motherboard and choose a cheaper B850 or similar board instead.
The 1000W power supply was €129, while suitable 850W models were only around €120–130, so I felt the higher-capacity Platinum unit was worthwhile. The 420mm Arctic cooler was €88, and the case should have enough room for it, although I haven't confirmed the best mounting position yet.
Would you change anything before I start building? I'm more interested in making sensible choices than defending the parts I already bought. I'd also appreciate first-build advice, such as whether a BIOS update is needed, how to enable EXPO, recommended fan placement, and any important cable or assembly tips.
4 Answers
The expensive motherboard is only worthwhile if you specifically need its extra connectivity, storage expansion, or other features. Otherwise, a good midrange board should perform the same in games. Before assembling, check the case and cooler compatibility carefully, especially whether the 420mm radiator fits in the intended position without interfering with the motherboard or graphics card. Update the BIOS if necessary, install the memory in the recommended two slots, enable EXPO after the first successful boot, and use separate power cables where required for the graphics card.
If your priority is value, the easiest savings are the processor and motherboard. A 7800X3D-class CPU paired with an affordable B650 or B850 board would still be excellent for 1440p gaming, and the money saved could go toward a faster GPU. For gaming performance, moving from a 5070 Ti to a 5080 is likely to make a much bigger difference than moving from a lower X3D chip to the 9850X3D.
Everything is compatible, and the 9850X3D is perfectly usable with the RTX 5070 Ti. It may be more CPU than you need at the moment, especially at 4K, but it gives you plenty of headroom for a future graphics-card upgrade. Since the power supply was only €129, keeping the 1000W model also makes sense; there’s no need to replace it just to save a small amount.
The memory choice is sensible: 32GB of DDR5-6000 CL30 with EXPO is a good starting point for a gaming system. For the SSD, look for a reliable 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive from a reputable manufacturer; gaming load times usually won’t justify paying a large premium for a PCIe 5.0 model. A good 2TB PCIe 4.0 drive with DRAM or strong controller-based caching would be a practical match for this build.
That was my thinking with the processor: I’d rather avoid replacing half the system later if I upgrade the graphics card. I mainly wanted to check that I wasn’t making an obviously poor choice.