Re: Another new PC for me!

On 2/25/25 9:32 PM, chrisv wrote:

Some of you may recall that I built a new Alder Lake machine in the
Summer of 2023, to replace my Ivy Bridge (Intel 3rd gen) quad-core i5.
I've now replaced my other PC, a Skylake (Intel 6th gen) quad-core
Xeon.  Below I compare the new components to the 2023 build, and the
reasons for my choices.
 CPU:  Intel Raptor Lake i5-14600k (Alder Lake i5-12400)  In 2023 a
Raptor Lake i5 was a $300 chip, which I felt was too much for my
needs.  Now it's a $200 chip, so I decided to step up, even though I
remain skeptical of the need for so many (6P + 8E) CPU cores.  The
larger L2 cache of Raptor Lake, combined with higher clock speeds,
gives the 14600k around 25% better performance than the 12400, and
that's in benchmarks that do _not_ benefit from having a zillion
cores.  It costs twice as much the 12400, but increases the total
system cost by only 10%.  And, who knows, maybe some day I will do
something that will utilize all the cores.
 Motherboard:  Asus TUF Gaming B760M-Plus WiFi II (MSI B760M Mag Mortar
WiFi)  Both are good-quality B760-based microATX boards.  The MSI
board has been working fine, but I thought I'd the Asus a try.  I
perceive it as being a bit of an upgrade over the MSI.  I have no need
for the extras that a Z790 board offers.
 RAM:  G Skill 48GB DDR5-6400 (G Skill 32GB DDR5-5600) I think that 32G
is way plenty, and will be for a long time.  But in the spirit of this
PC being a performance upgrade and more future-proof, I decided to
endow it with more RAM.  I thought about 64G, but that just seemed
ridiculous, for what I do.  The 48G compromise seemed kind of fun and
different.  The speed boost to 6400 MHz was done in the same spirit of
custom-built fun, and because Raptor Lake does officially support
faster RAM.
 SSD:  Kingston KC3000 2TB PCIe 4 M.2 (same)  Plenty good.  I see no
need for PCIe 5, here.
 PSU:  Seasonic Vertex 750W 80+ gold (Seasonic Focus 650W 80+ Gold)
Small steps up in quality and performance, for the new PC.
 CPU cooler:  Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO (Deepcool AK620)
Both are large dual-tower, dual fan coolers.  I might have bought the
Deepcool again, but they got into some kind of legal trouble and are
no longer available.  The reviews that I read of the Thermalright said
that it was one of the best air coolers available, and it's reasonably
priced.
 Case:  Asus Prime AP201 microATX mini-tower (same)  Has the jacks that
I want, where I want them, and no silly glass panel.
 GPU:  Nvidia GTX 1080Ti (GTX 1070)  Both are far from state of the
art, but suffice for the occasional screwing-around with older games,
that I do.

   The ASUS TUF boards are always a good way to
   start - very good. ALWAYS built with those
   before I retired - even my new home tower.
   DO suggest Samsung SSDs/M2s over all others.
   Kingston mem ... perfectly good. There are
   competitors but they're not REALLY any
   better.
   Start with a great motherboard and everything
   else falls into place.
   Ummmmm ... why did you include a 'guns' group
   in the headers ??? Planning an armed take-over
   of Kingston ???   :-)