I'm preparing to order a roughly €2,600 PC and would appreciate a final compatibility and value check before buying. The main use is 1440p gaming, with a possible move to 4K later. I'll also use Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis, Revit, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, and Fusion 360 for structural engineering work.
The current parts are a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120, Asus TUF Gaming B650E-E WiFi motherboard, 32GB of DDR5-6000 CL30 memory, a 4TB Lexar NM790 NVMe SSD, an Asus TUF Gaming OC RX 9070 XT, a Fractal Design Meshify 3 XL case, and a be quiet! Power Zone 2 750W Platinum PSU. Local pricing brings the total to about €2,616, including shipping and taxes.
The CPU, graphics card, and cooler combination seems fairly standard, so I'm not particularly interested in changing those. I'm less certain about the other choices. The DDR5-6000 CL30 kit is expensive, while a DDR5-5200 CL40 Corsair kit costs about €68 less. I'd like to know whether the performance difference is noticeable.
I also considered B850 and X870E motherboards, but the B650E board seems to offer strong VRMs and expansion options for the price. Is there any real reason to pay more for B850, or would similarly priced boards such as the Gigabyte Gaming WiFi, Gigabyte Eagle WiFi, ASRock Rock WiFi, or MSI Gaming Pro WiFi be better choices?
Ideally, I would use separate 1–2TB boot and 2TB media drives, but local SSD prices are awkward. The 2TB NM790 is unavailable, a 1TB model costs around €176, and the 4TB version is about €476, making the single 4TB drive seem like the best value. I'm also willing to compare prices from nearby countries if importing makes sense.
2 Answers
There’s room to save around €200 without meaningfully reducing performance. DDR5-6000 CL36 is usually only about 1–2% slower than CL30 in real-world use, so it may be worth choosing the cheaper kit if the price gap is large. A good 4TB drive such as the WD Black SN850X is also worth considering if you can find it at a competitive price. The graphics card appears somewhat expensive for the model, so check other RX 9070 XT versions and prices in nearby markets. A quality 850W Gold PSU should be sufficient; paying extra for Platinum efficiency usually isn’t worthwhile unless the electricity savings justify it.
The B650E board is not automatically a bad choice just because B850 is newer. In practice, a good B650E model can have better VRMs and expansion than a similarly priced B850 board, while already providing PCIe 5.0 support where it matters. I wouldn’t move to an expensive X870E board unless you specifically need its extra connectivity or storage features. An 850W PSU would be a sensible upgrade for additional headroom, though Platinum certification alone doesn’t guarantee better build quality than a well-made Gold unit. This system should also handle 4K gaming quite comfortably.
That was my thinking too—the selected board is B650E rather than standard B650, and it seems better equipped than the cheaper B850 alternatives I found. I’ll compare reliable 850W models rather than choosing purely based on the efficiency label.
The SN850X is much more expensive locally—about €400 for 2TB and €615 for 4TB—so I’ll check prices abroad before deciding. I’ll also compare other 9070 XT models and less expensive 850W PSUs.