Tell Me if I'm Dumb - I May Be

I've been working from home, will be doing so for the foreseeable future, and have some personal projects that will require me spending a lot more time in front of my computer - I'm thinking I may want to make some upgrades to the machine, and maybe try a little gaming.

Current setup:
Dell XPS 9380 Laptop with dock driving 3x 1440p 27" monitors @ 60hz (monitors go to 75hz, but haven't found a reason to keep them there for web browsing, productivity and work related tasks).
Has an Intel i5 1.6ghz CPU and 8 GB Ram, Internal and external SSD
Cloud 9 Mechanical Ergo Keyboard
Logitech MX Master Mouse

Also have good hard wire internet (350 down, 10 up).

I like the ultrabook and would keep it for when I travel, and would be looking to invest up to $1200 in a new machine. I've been watching a lot of youtube and reading threads on building a PC, and would like some feedback on what I've come up with.

Primary tasks the machine would take on:
Trading software
Remote working tasks (going fine on ultrabook, but since this would be at my desk, would transition)
MS Office Suite
Programming (one of my summer goals is to complete a SQL and Python course)
Light gaming, even if just on one of the monitors.

Current build list - haven't purchased anything:

MSI Tomahawk 450B Max MoBo
Ryzen 5 3600 with factory cooler
RTX 2060 Super GPU
RipJaws V Series RAM
Samsung EVO M.2 SSD - also have an external SSD from a previous machine I'd move over - perhaps a spinning drive for storage at some point
Power supply and case TBD

Is this overkill for my needs? Is there something I could do better? This will be my first PC build from the ground up, but I've upgraded several machines and have worked with electronics for years, so I'm comfortable with the assembly. Thanks for your input!

Well just keep in kind you want to be able to upgrade in the future as much as possable. A good motherboard with expandabilty is a must. A decent modular powersupply (750 and up would be my recommendation). Personally I'm a fan of full size ATX cases for air movement, I also like water cooled CPU's instead of a cpu fan. Ram i would say 16gb is min and make sure you can up that to 64 eventually (a few years down the road when software / games become more spec intensive. Hard drives are the name of the game when it comes to newer games, most are 10gb and above, example is fornite I think is around 80gb nowadays and just growing. SSD is good but M2 is faster and you can usually score Inland TB m2's for around $100 at microcenter.

Heres my build from 2018
Ryzen 2700x
16gb (corsair) ram
Coarsair cpu cooling unit
2 inland 1tb m2's
2 ssd 1tb's hd
1 5200 rpm 1tb hd
Ahorus Mobo with wifi
4gb msi videocard
Evga 850 watt modular power supply
Full sized atx case (had already)

Total: $1,300.00

Only thing I would say is also think about your home network (for the trading and gameing side) for internet speed. We have gig so I just upgraded to a gig switch with cat8 cabling and im about about 870mbps down and 40mbps up for about $100 in hardware. For montior I use a 32" samsung smart tv but I will eventally go curved montior.

I'll just throw in that when you refer to "M.2 SSD", there are options that are less than equal. M.2 is a hardware architecture standard for standardized expansion cards. There are a number of different M.2 devices. The computer bus interfaces provided to M.2 connections are PCIe 3.0, SATA 3.0, and USB 3.0.

There are M.2 SSDs that use SATA, and others that use PCIe. Those that use SATA are very much like what you would expect to find in a standard 2.5" SATA interfaced SSD drive, without the packaging. They still use a disk controller for access to and from the drive. Those that use PCIe, and are described as NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express), are not processed through a disk controller. They are accessed directly through the PCIe BUS. The PCIe NVMe SSDs have significantly lower latency and higher throughput relative to SATA SSDs. It's hard to go wrong with Samsung PCIe NVMe SSDs.

Once you go PCIe NVMe SSD, it's really hard to go back.

If you're doing a new build, I'd just jump right to the 32GB for RAM (matched pairs for Dual Channel Mode). I thought I would go smaller on the Alienware notebook that I'm on right now and bought it with 16GB. I was running into memory contstraints within a year and ended up upgrading it to 32GB.

You can go with a bigger spinning disk just for storage, or do yourself a favor and setup a NAS if your home has multiple PCs that all can share the capacity and features, like scheduled backups, remote VPN access, etc.

If you have specific games you like to play, check out the details for those games to see if they're primarily leveraging the GPU, because some can still be CPU intensive. If that were the case, you'd probably want to bump up to an i7/Ryzen 7.

I actually disagree with spending the money on a motherboard that you can upgrade indefinitely. Start with an over-kill mount of RAM and GPU. By the time you need to upgrade your ram/CPU/Processor/VidCard the CPU pin layout will have changed and you'll need a new MB anyway. I quit buying the most upgradeable motherboards a few builds ago.

Otherwise I agree with the other posters advice. I prefer a SSD for the OS and at least one expensive and reliable spinner for storage. Large spinners may be an outdated idea if you want to use cloud storage for most, or all, files.

I always recommend starting by deciding what CPU you want. Then decide on the GPU. Pick a MB that supports both, plus the RAM you want.

As for ram, 16 gig is minimum when considering a dev or gaming machine. My crappy Windows 10 work laptop (that I'm on now) isn't currently running Visual Studio or Eclipse and is showing over 7 gig of ram usage.

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Originally Posted by Little Dutch

I actually disagree with spending the money on a motherboard that you can upgrade indefinitely. Start with an over-kill mount of RAM and GPU. By the time you need to upgrade your ram/CPU/Processor/VidCard the CPU pin layout will have changed and you'll need a new MB anyway. I quit buying the most upgradeable motherboards a few builds ago.

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I agree with you. Whenever it came time to upgrade, usually the new memory speeds that become available kind of put the kibosh on re-using the mobo anyway. Didn't make sense to be upgrading CPU/memory and not being able to leverage that performance with an old mobo.

So, I have a question... What language are you guys speaking?

(No need to tell me I'm dumb...I already know)

[Coffee]

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Originally Posted by Bailey Guns

So, I have a question... What language are you guys speaking?

(No need to tell me I'm dumb...I already know)

[Coffee]

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It's OK, you don't really need to know these days. ;-) I haven't home built my systems for a while now. I was replacing pretty much everything but the case and power supply with every upgrade/rebuild. The cost for enthusiast components is higher than the big PC builders, so unless you want to pay for the privilege of nerding out, it's often easier and cheaper to just buy something off the shelf with the stuff you want in it.

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Originally Posted by Gman

It's OK, you don't really need to know these days. ;-) I haven't home built my systems for a while now. I was replacing pretty much everything but the case and power supply with every upgrade/rebuild. The cost for enthusiast components is higher than the big PC builders, so unless you want to pay for the privilege of nerding out, it's often easier and cheaper to just buy something off the shelf with the stuff you want in it.

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I'm curious about this, what builders are coming in less expensive? Most I've seen are less performance for same price as build your own - maybe I'm looking in the wrong place tho.

Two things: https://pcpartpicker.com/ and I've heard of availability issues with components due to China manufacturing and shipping.

That site does have a lot of info and some helpful people, once you get past the kids who are fantasizing with unlimited budget and too many colored lights.

Don't even get me started with the LED lighting....

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Originally Posted by Batteriesnare

I'm curious about this, what builders are coming in less expensive? Most I've seen are less performance for same price as build your own - maybe I'm looking in the wrong place tho.

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My last 2 desktops are HP Envy Phoenix systems. Have liquid cooling, i7 K series unlocked CPUs, multiple M.2 slots for expandability and upgrades, etc. I did a GPU upgrade a couple of years in and added a spare 1.5TB spindle drive just because I had one laying around. When I priced the components to build my own, it was significantly more expensive.

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Originally Posted by Batteriesnare

I'm curious about this, what builders are coming in less expensive? Most I've seen are less performance for same price as build your own - maybe I'm looking in the wrong place tho.

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Do you have the component pricing that you have gathered?

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Originally Posted by Gman

Do you have the component pricing that you have gathered?

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I'm right at 1k before case and power supply by my cart, including 4 ram sticks.

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Originally Posted by XJ

Two things: https://pcpartpicker.com/ and I've heard of availability issues with components due to China manufacturing and shipping.

That site does have a lot of info and some helpful people, once you get past the kids who are fantasizing with unlimited budget and too many colored lights.

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Yes, thank you on PCPP, that has been super helpful.

I've been seeing the shortages, and may have to pivot as a result. Oh well, figures...

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Originally Posted by Batteriesnare

I'm right at 1k before case and power supply by my cart, including 4 ram sticks.

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4x what size?

4x8

I got nothing. Going to AMD Ryzen, there aren't many options. Most of the volume is Intel (I am master of the obvious).

I'd go with a 2x16GB memory config. I don't think you'll see much performance difference going with a 4x8 and it'll leave you the ability to go to 64 later without having to replace all of the DIMMs. The Ryzen 5 will likely be the limiting factor, not the RAM.

Hey Batteriesnare - Did you end up going forward with this build?

Curious because I built one at almost the exact same timeframe... Mine is:

B450 Tomahawk Max
R5 3600 (replaced stock cooler after just a few months)
EVGA 1660S (upgraded to a 3060 after about a year because one fell into my lap)
2x8GB DDR4 @ 3200 (added 2 more DIMM sticks after just 2 months)
Samsung Evo m.2 (500GB.... wish I did 1TB)

As you can see, I ended up upgrading a few things. Biggest thing I've noticed is that I didn't pay attention to where I would be bottlenecked. First, it was RAM. I am one of those idiots who likes to keep 30+ tabs open in Chrome all the time... while playing games and doing other stuff. That ate up a lot of RAM, so bumping up to 32GB fixed that.

While playing Warzone, which is very CPU intensive, My CPU was getting dangerously hot (I use the pre-set overclock to 4.2GHz). Bigger cooler fixed that.

Upgraded my card essentially for free because I sold my 1660S for more than the 3060 cost. This didn't provide much benefit at all... I have 2x 27" 1080p 75Hz monitors and while playing Star Wars Squadrons, Fallen Order, Warzone, Civ, Stellaris, etc I can easily maintain 75fps while only using about 30% of the gpu. If I upgraded my monitors to 4K or 144Hz, my CPU would be the thing holding me back, not the GPU.

And after about 6 months I got bored and did a thing I said I would absolutely never do.... I added some LEDs to give it a galactic empire sort of theme... black components with white and red lights. :D

Honestly it's been an awesome computer though. I hope it lasts 8+ years.

Attachment 87754

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Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

Hey Batteriesnare - Did you end up going forward with this build?

Curious because I built one at almost the exact same timeframe... Mine is:

B450 Tomahawk Max
R5 3600 (replaced stock cooler after just a few months)
EVGA 1660S (upgraded to a 3060 after about a year because one fell into my lap)
2x8GB DDR4 @ 3200 (added 2 more DIMM sticks after just 2 months)
Samsung Evo m.2 (500GB.... wish I did 1TB)

As you can see, I ended up upgrading a few things. Biggest thing I've noticed is that I didn't pay attention to where I would be bottlenecked. First, it was RAM. I am one of those idiots who likes to keep 30+ tabs open in Chrome all the time... while playing games and doing other stuff. That ate up a lot of RAM, so bumping up to 32GB fixed that.

While playing Warzone, which is very CPU intensive, My CPU was getting dangerously hot (I use the pre-set overclock to 4.2GHz). Bigger cooler fixed that.

Upgraded my card essentially for free because I sold my 1660S for more than the 3060 cost. This didn't provide much benefit at all... I have 2x 27" 1080p 75Hz monitors and while playing Star Wars Squadrons, Fallen Order, Warzone, Civ, Stellaris, etc I can easily maintain 75fps while only using about 30% of the gpu. If I upgraded my monitors to 4K or 144Hz, my CPU would be the thing holding me back, not the GPU.

And after about 6 months I got bored and did a thing I said I would absolutely never do.... I added some LEDs to give it a galactic empire sort of theme... black components with white and red lights. :D

Honestly it's been an awesome computer though. I hope it lasts 8+ years.

Attachment 87754

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Sweet rig!

I didn't move forward. Ended up just sticking with the current laptop and put the funds toward other projects/buying a house.

Thanks - it's been a lot of fun and I use it more than I thought I would. It'll be upgradeable for a while, but next time I build, I think I'll go for a much smaller case.

Putting computer money toward buying a house is probably a good idea if you don't need the computer to generate income :)