It is quite rare that a new CPU generation hits around the same time as a new GPU generation. We’re of course talking about AMD’s Ryzen 5000 and Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series which both push the boundaries of gaming performance to never before seen levels. The leaps in both processor and graphics performance warrant a great time to build a PC for the next 3 years+ depending on the specs you’ll be getting. Today we will be recommending a high end build around the $2000 price point which packs the highest levels of gaming performance at the end of 2020.

You heard it right, this build can achieve an average of 30 to 35% better FPS than the previous best $2000 gaming build which featured a Ryzen 7 3700X and an RTX 2080Ti; that’s a huge leap at the same price point and consumers like you and me can now enjoy it. The new Ryzen 7 5800X series is an enthusiast’s dream with gaming performance levels exceeding even the Core i9 10900K. These gains on the Ryzen 5000 series come from the huge 19% uplift in IPC, single core performance and core to core latency improvements. In short terms, the 5800X is a beast that sets a new standard in gaming performance.

On the graphics side, we got the RTX 3080 which is the newest effort from Nvidia to push the boundaries of high resolution and high refresh rate gaming performance. With an overall FPS uplift of around 30% above the outgoing RTX 2080Ti model which was the previous top performing single GPU on the market, the RTX 3080 establishes itself as one of the most thought after GPUs at its $700 launch price.

The Ryzen 7 5800X and the RTX 3080 are the highlights of this build but we’re going to follow up with the surrounding components in order to offer you a strong build in all other areas such as storage, cooling and memory capacity. Here’s the specs needed for the system:

Ryzen 7 5800X Gaming Build – The Parts List

CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X

AMD used their October 8th presentation to give us a rather detailed look at their Ryzen 5000 portfolio with the Ryzen 7 5800X launched as the single 8 core / 16 thread model and available on November 5th on shelves worldwide. Their performance improvements surprised everyone and thanks to the architecture overhaul, gaming FPS is a great advantage on the Ryzen CPUs which now are marketed as the best gaming CPUs out there with a 5% or higher margin when compared to competing Intel CPUs. This is a great achievement because gaming performance was still lagging behind the Intel CPUs for the past three Ryzen generations.

Not anymore though. Its safe to say consumers are warmly welcoming this gaming performance uplift with the new Ryzen 5000 series. The Ryzen 7 5800X for example welcomes a 25% average advantage over the outgoing Ryzen 3000 XT models which happened due to the 19% IPC performance uplift and latency optimizations; such a leap in one generation just for gaming performance is impressive and we foresee a very high demand for the new CPUs.

In this build, we still could’ve used a last generation CPU such as the Ryzen 7 3700X and the price would’ve been around $150 cheaper but if we’re going to build a highly capable build that can demolish any resolution at high refresh rates, then there’s no better pairing than that of the Ryzen 7 5800X and RTX 3080 thanks to their stunning performance and good performance per dollar. We’re not going to say this build is affordable for everyone but instead, we’re going to say that bleeding-edge performance has gotten much cheaper with these two new generations of high-performance processors and graphics cards.

CPU Cooler: Dark Rock Pro 4

The Ryzen 7 5800X keeps the 105W TDP of his predecessor, the Ryzen 7 3800X and thus, is as easy to cool. All the CPU coolers that did a great job cooling the latter will up to the task with the 5800X. For a $2000 build that’s aimed at the enthusiast gamer we’d like to recommend one of the best air coolers on the market. The Dark Rock Pro 4 is a dual tower air cooler built using beQuiet!’s solid mantra of “no compromise silence and performance”. You can expect silent utilization during any load and ample rooms for overclocking if you are tweak-happy with the processor.

The heat sink consists of a huge dual tower design with seven 6 mm heat pipes while using 2 x SilentWing fans, one 135 mm and one 120mm, that are virtually inaudible during both idle and load environments. The great combination of performance, quality, value and design makes the Dark Rock Pro 4 an exception offering at its $90 retail price. Mounting this huge cooler is made easy by the simple instructions and the ample room you have in the Lian Li LANCOOL II-X case that we’re featuring in this build.

Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WiFI)

The gamer inside you will not need the extensive extra features of a very high-end X570 motherboard and this is why the ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus Wi-Fi is such a great fit for this gaming build. Its VRM design is shared with the much more expensive Maximum XI Hero motherboard and at this price point, its one of the most capable motherboards that can run any Ryzen 5000 chip even with heavy overclocking thanks to its strong hardware features.

With a stellar BIOS layout and frequent updates, you’ll feel like the X570 will leave nothing to be desired. Features include the PCIe 4.0 standard which will aid our RTX 3080 and storage device to stretch their wings, 14 Phase VRM, 128GB 4400MHz support through the 4 RAM slots, 2x M.2 slots one of which is passively cooled and a great Realtek ALC S1200A Audio CODEC. The TUF is also pretty generous with its I/O; the 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 x Type-C) + 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and 8x SATA 6Gb/s ports are most likely enough for any gaming enthusiast or streamer out there. For new AMD builders getting ready for their first gaming machine, the TUF Gaming X570-Plus WiFi is a great option that doesn’t break the bank and offers all the key features and configurability of AMD’s AM4 platform.

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16

With DDR4 slowly approaching the end of its life and thanks to the high level of competition in the memory market, we can afford to splurge towards the 32 GB of RAM. Many would argue that 16 GB is enough for a gaming build and that is very true with mainstream and high end builds; you are not going to exceed 10-12 GB of memory usage in any of the latest titles but you are going to cut it close with the 16 GB. If you’re one of those PC users that like to keep open tons of applications or browser tabs or even someone who would like to use their PC as a rendering and editing machine then 16 GB would induce a bottleneck into this great gaming build and we would like to avoid it at all costs. It’s very cheap to do so with the extra 16 GB of high-performance system memory.

This build is also crafted to last you for many years and 32 GB of RAM will surely take care of your needs for its full lifetime. The low 8.889 memory latency of this G.Skill DDR4-3600 CL16 RAM kit will also aid overall performance and snappiness of your system and will pair well with the Ryzen 7 5800X. If you like tweaking then you will be able to tune this memory kit’s clocks and CAS latency to even higher performance levels in order to bring even more improvements to the Infinity Fabric speed of the Ryzen CPU. The Dual Channel (2 sticks) nature of this RAM kit is also mandatory in order to benefit from the full bandwidth of the AM4 platform. We like this kit very much thanks to its performance and affordability but you can also check our articles on different RAM kits if you’d like more options to choose from at different price points.

Storage

Its mandatory that such a fast gaming system will need to run on a solid piece of storage in order for you to enjoy lag free application opening, installations and game loading. We will be going with a storage combination between a very fast PCIe 4.0 NVME device in the form of the Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500 GB and a 1 TB Crucial P1 M.2 in order to have the OS and most frequently used applications on the main Sabrent device while the more rarely used apps and general file storage can sit on the Crucial P1. This way, we are ensuring great speeds and enough capacity without breaking the bank. If these two devices don’t offer enough capacity for your needs then feel free to upgrade to bigger M.2 sizes.

Storage 1: Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME

The OS drive will be powered by the Sabrent Rocket 4.0, a rather new drive that uses the Phison E12s controller, a 96 layer TLC flash by Micron and the new PCIe 4.0 interface in order to ensure snappiness and a performance edge to your transfers and file access. The DRAM chip is there to offer a massive performance uplift for random writes; it brings a very fast temporary storage for the drive’s internal mapping tables so that it doesn’t slow down during sustained load. The device is also very hard to throttle because even though it heats up, the slow downs are well masked and avoided by the inclusion of a copper foil over the M.2 drive that acts as a heat spreader thus handling the extra heat. Sabrent is claiming this foil helps the drive run at max speed 4 times longer than without it.

Storage 2: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME

We will also be using a very popular M.2 drive that may be not as fast as the Sabrent but it offers a very good value for capacity. The Crucial P1 provides excellent value for people that need very fast and cheap storage. The only occasion where this drive slows down is when you’re doing transfers bigger than 50 GB at a time because of its limited QLC cache. That will happen almost never in everyday use and besides that, the drive is lightning fast; it features speeds of up to 2,000 MB/s read and 1,700MB/s write – much faster than your usual SATA SSD. If you are in need of even more capacity on your system then a 2 TB version of the Crucial is also available at a very competitive price.

Graphics Card: RTX 3080

The RTX 3080 delivers very impressive performance especially when it comes to higher resolutions like 4K. The generational improvement over the RTX 2080 Super and top-end RTX 2080 Ti is very welcome for people that want to experience more with more graphically intensive games and Ray Tracing. Real-time ray tracing is running smoothly on a single RTX 3080 and what’s more impressive is that the card is around 25% better in rasterization when compared to the RTX 2080Ti while being a lot cheaper, at $699 launching price. Third-party cards may retail for a slightly more expensive price though.

This card is an excellent performer in any of the new Triple-A, VR and eSports titles and does it at a respectable but slightly high TDP of 320W – this is why we’ll be including a great PSU to go with the build; we want to ensure your system and gaming experience won’t be affected by any spikes in power consumption. Nvidia has set the bar very high for AMD to catch up with their new RX 6000 series but until then, the RTX 3080 is the card to have for gamers if you can get one. With its 10 GB of GDDR6X memory, any current title should be able to run at max settings without the worry of going over the max memory.

Thanks to the Ryzen 7 5800X in the system, the RTX 3080 will be able to spread its wings and perform very well not only in 4K but also in 1440p or even 1080p high refresh rate games where previously, many CPUs would bottleneck such a high performing graphics card.

PC Case: Lian Li LANCOOL II-X

The Lancool II belongs to Lian Li’s mainstream lineup but there are lots of impressive features about it. The chassis is designed from scratch in order to ensure easy building, cable management and maintenance, the aesthetics are very nice with premium looks and the thermal characteristics are great with the additional included fans in our build. Lian Li has managed to pack a lot from their more expensive lineups in a design and feature set that doesn’t look like its compromising much. They have taken every popular priority that consumers are asking for in a high-end case and stripped everything else that is rarely needed. For the $90 retail price, the case is definitely fit to home a high end build such as the one we’re designing.

This ATX case also comes with a lot of extra features that are cost options. Hot swappable drive bays, USB Type C I/O and a vertical GPU mount are some of them with a ton of additional accessories and customization possible. The stock configuration is easy to build in thanks to its dual-hinge doors, many tie-down points and PSU shroud. The cooling for the case is not great when using just the three included fans and that is why we’re going to use a third party pack of Cooler Master SickleFlow 62 CFM 120 mm fans. You can do a setup with intake fans at the bottom and front and exhaust fans at the back and top in order to ensure equal pressure and sufficient airflow for your components. The additional three fans are not mandatory but you’ll obtain a much cooler and silent system if you decide the $49 on the additional fans.

Ultimately, we are big fans of how Lian Li has built the Lancool II-X as a fantastic blend between aesthetics, price and performance and that is why we’re sure it will go very well with the rest of the components in this build.

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G1+ 750 W 80+

The total max power draw of this Ryzen 7 5800X gaming PC build sits around 450 to 550W during a 100% CPU and GPU utilization under render loads. That is a very rare occurrence but we’ve prepared the build for that with the EVGA SuperNOVA G1+ which is a very high tier PSU from a world class trusted brand. The PSU can easily handle any power swings during the diverse loads you’re going to put the system through and will do it silently and stress-free.

Being a fully modular power supply, the G1+ will allow you to just use the cables that you really need for this build. Building this way you’re going to leave the case uncluttered and ensure a more easy way to do maintenance or upgrades on your full build; storage, RAM swaps or regular cleaning has never been easier with such good cables and case layout. Their cables also have a premium bend feel to them and thanks to their dark sleeving, you can arrange them inside the Lian Li case in order to obtain a very clean look. The RTX 3080 graphics card comes with a bundled 12 pin power connector that you can use for the PCIe cables but EVGA also takes care of this with their own version of the 12 pin connector. If your G1+ has been manufactured before the RTX 3000 series then EVGA will send you the added 12 pin connector for free; this is proof that EVGA cares about the latest needs for their customers.

The G1+ ranks S tier (the highest tier) in popular PSU ranking lists for its excellent protections against surges and excellent build quality; at the $120 price point, we’re finding the G1+ perfect for this enthusiast gaming build and any upgrades that you may be inclined to add in the future.

Bottom Line

Let’s focus a little on the price you’ll be paying for this build and the performance you are extracting from it. Less than 1 month ago, $2000 would have got you a Ryzen 7 3700X & RTX 2080Ti PC which indeed offered a great amount of performance but now, with the Ryzen 7 5800X & RTX 3080 overall performance at this price point is an estimated 30 to 35% better; this is a huge leap in value for money in just one CPU & GPU generation and its why we’re so excited for this build. The most amount of money in this build is going towards the CPU & GPU which amounts to ~$1150; before this, the 3700X + RTX 2080Ti would amount to a whopping ~$1500. The $300 saved from past generation’s components to the 5800X + RTX 3080 was used to spec the build with more high-end additional components such as the X570 motherboard, beQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 air cooler and greater storage performance.

The build offers class-leading gaming performance at any resolution and refresh rate. If you are looking for a monitor to pair this build with, our colleagues have drafted a list of the best monitors for such a Ryzen 7 5800X + RTX 3080 build. We are thrilled to recommend this build as the best $2000 gaming PC that you’ll be able to build at the end of 2020 and if you have any additional questions, we’re happy to answer in the comment section below; the FAQ can also help you with more general questions. Happy building!

The post $2100 Ryzen 7 5800X Gaming PC Build for 2021 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

With AMD launching the new Ryzen 5000 series last week, we came to the realization that AMD is not going to include stock coolers with most of their new CPUs. This is a shame since almost all of the Ryzen 3000 CPUs came with a suitable included cooler that could be used daily at specification clocks and could be kept as a backup in case you upgraded to a much better CPU cooler. The included cooler was a guarantee that you could get your system up and running at once without the need to factor in the price of a third party cooler.

The whole Ryzen 5000 series with the exception of the 6 core Ryzen 5 5600X which still has an included cooler, now needs an aftermarket cooling option. Today we will be focusing on the 8 core Ryzen 7 5800X CPU with a TDP of 105W; our cooler choices also won’t be limited to just the 5800X because of the similar TDPs of Ryzen 5900X and 5950X. So if you find a CPU cooler that is in your budget and that you really like then chances are big that you’ll be able to get it for other CPUs such as the Ryzen 9 5900X or 5950X thanks to the similar TDP of these processors.

How do we choose a suitable CPU cooler?

We first start by looking at the necessary TDP rating in order to cool that chip and follow it up with socket, motherboard and RAM clearance compatibility. We will be recommending the best-priced CPU coolers in a few price ranges in order for you to safely run and even overclock the 5800X to the desired performance levels. Warranty length and silent utilization are top concerns for us but we’ll also keep a sharp eye on quality and value. How do we choose a suitable CPU cooler for the Zen 3, Ryzen 7 5800X processor?

Best Coolers for Ryzen 7 5800X (& 9 5900X / 5950X) – Our Recommendations

Best Overall Air Coolers for Ryzen 7 5800X

1. Noctua NH-U12A

This air cooler, the NH-U12A, is one of Noctua’s latest products and it’s a single tower configuration that looks almost identical to their popular NH-U12S model but with few. Noctua’s reputation is based on amazing performance, exceptional quality and very silent utilization, as they stand out as one of the premium PC cooling manufacturers. They are great at revising and evolving every one of their cooling solutions and in this case, the U12A is an evolution of the U12S that brings a pair of the newly designed NF-A12x25 fans that support a fan speed range of 450 – 2000 RPM and a max airflow of 60 CFM.

The advantage of the NH-U12A over the flagship NH-D15 is the size difference. While the NH-D15 is a much larger tower cooler which should provide a decent performance gap between the two with its 2 x 140mm, the Noctua NH-U12A is equal in performance and noise levels in a broad range of performance testing, including overclocking. Their newest NF-A12x25 fans are most likely responsible for this great result.

If you’re interested in getting one of the most powerful air coolers on the market that provide silent utilization, astonishing quality and 100% compatibility with the rest of the build components, there’s almost no competitor to the NH-U12A if you can afford the $100 price tag. It’s common for people who once buy a Noctua cooler to never switch to a different brand.

Here’s a list of specs if you’re interested in buying the NH-U12A for your next CPU cooling solution for the Ryzen 7 5800X.

• Dimensions: 128 x 125 x 112
• 120 mm fans | 450 – 2000 RPM (PWM)
• 60 CFM max airflow
• 22.6 dbA operating noise
• Premium NT-H1 thermal paste included
• 6 years warranty
• Launch Price: $99.90

2. beQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4

The Dark Rock Pro 4 is one of many products from beQuiet! that is engineered and built using their solid “no compromise silence and performance” mantra. They are widely considered on par with Noctua, the other German giant, in regards to quality, attention to detail and performance evolution. The Dark Rock Pro 4 is one of their flagship cooling devices, and it’s not that hard to realize how impressive the cooling experience is going to be.

Here’s a list of specs if you’re interested in buying the beQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 for your next CPU cooling solution.

The DRP 4 sports a huge dual fan, dual-tower design with seven 6 mm (diameter) heat pipes and a combination of 2 SilentWings fans; one 135mm and one 120mm. The DRP4 is an exceptional offering thanks to the good combination of quality, performance, value and attention to detail they bring to the market. In testing, the DRP4 has situated itself among the top-performing air coolers in both noise and thermal challenging situations. The only slight downside that we can see with this dual tower design is the space needed inside your case. You should check your case dimensions and RAM clearance before getting the Dark Rock Pro 4.

Here’s a list of specs if you’re interested in buying the beQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 for your next CPU cooling solution with the Ryzen 7 5800X.

• Dimensions: 162.8 x 136 x 145.7
• 120 mm fans & 135 mm fans | 600 – 1500 RPM (PWM)
• 22.1 – 24.3 dbA operating noise
• Included thermal compound (paste)
• Black aesthethic coating
• 250W TDP rating
• 3 years warranty
• Launch Price: $89.90

Best AIO Cooler for Ryzen 7 5800X

ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280

With one of the best values on the market, this AIO (all in one) cooler is outperforming or matching other liquid coolers that are up to double its price. While other AIOs are focusing on flashier features and software, the Arctic LF II 280 has more of an industrial feel to it; it’s well-engineered and delivers silent cooling performance without a lot of the bells and whistles you will be forced to pay into with other products. This cooler is certainly aimed at people who value performance and acceptable noise levels higher than they value RGB, flashy screens or other aesthetics. The thicker housing dimensions at 317 x 138 x 38 allow it to use lower RPM in order to maintain the same CFM at lower fan speeds and thus, improved noise levels. Its fully sleeved tubes contain all the cables and wiring thus giving you a cleaner and less cluttered look.

The Liquid Freezer II 280 may be the only CPU cooler that you need for a long time. It outperforms coolers such as the Corsair H115i Platinum and the NZXT Kraken X62 in load and overclocked load environments while staying silent as a premium air cooler at around 27 dB; that is virtually inaudible. With a simple installation thanks to the wiring being hidden inside the tube sleeve, a slight drawback is that you can’t monitor the exact RPM of the fans because the pump and VRM fan are linked together. That is really not a deal-breaker when considering how many things this AIO does right and that is why it earns a high recommendation from us.

Lets take a look at some of the most important specs:

• Pump dimensions: 98 x 78 x 53
• Radiator dimensions: 317 x 138 x 38
• 2 x 140 mm fans | 200 – 1700 RPM (PWM)
• 450 mm tubing length
• 72.8 CFM max airflow
• Included thermal compound
• 2 years warranty
• Launch price: $89.99

Best Budget Cooler for Ryzen 7 5800X

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition

With the slight price hike of the new Ryzen 5000 series and the lack of stock cooler inclusion, some consumers will just want a trusty air cooler that can handle the Ryzen 7 5800X at stock and also allow for some overclocking headroom; basically a stock cooler replacement without breaking the bank. It would be very hard to argue with the great value the Hyper 212 BE keeps bringing at its $29.99 price point. Thanks to it being an old model that has been refined over and over again, it is the undisputed king of budget cooling. Don’t be fooled by the ‘budget’ label that we put on it because this cooler is more than able to cool the Ryzen 7 5800X with very acceptable temps and still allows for overclocking. In fact, the Hyper 212 BE has been proven better time and time again than any stock cooler AMD used to include with their CPUs, including the Wraith Prism.

Performance is not something to wonder about but the Hyper 212 will have the ability to tame the Ryzen 7 5800X with no problems, even during 100% load. The Black Edition’s philosophy is to get the most quality cooling possible in a small and simple package; its what it does best, sometimes managing to outperform even some higher-priced liquid coolers during overclocked load. The dark coating is a welcome change from the original 212 since it makes it look more premium and cleaner. The price point of this air cooler is reasonable enough to just get and forget about it and this is why it earns its place in our recommended budget cooler category.

Here are some of the important specifications the you need to know:

• Dimensions: 158.8 x 125.5 x 50.8 (79.5 w/fan)
• 120 mm fan | 650 – 2000 RPM (PWM)
• 42 CFM max airflow
• Dark coating
• Included thermal paste
• 2 years warranty
• Launch/Retail price: $29.90

Best Low Profile Coolers for Ryzen 7 5800X SFF Builds

Noctua NH-L9a-AM4

The last cooler for the 5800X that we’re going to showcase is a great fit for the consumers that are looking for a smaller footprint build. Being size limited by the compactness of the case, CPU coolers need to do the most with the smallest area possible and this is where the Noctua NH-L9a excels. Its targeted towards people that want to build a HTPC or a Mini ITX portable build to take it everywhere with them; a small footprint is key for these builds. It packs 64 aluminum fins forming a dense heat sink with two 6mm copper heat pipes in nickel coating. Like you’ve probably known already, Noctua has become synonymous with impeccable quality, excellent customer service and class leading quiet cooling performance, traits that are most important in a small form factor build.

Don’t even think for a second that a cooler with such a small footprint would not be adequate for the cooling requirements as this cooler performs very well from noise to performance perspective. The recommended TDP for this cooler is 95W but it can easily be extended to the 105W TDP of the Ryzen 7 5800X if your small case has adequate cooling. If you’re someone that’s excited to build in such a small factor we can assure you that cooling solutions exist for you, starting with this Noctua CPU cooler that is incredibly potent for how small and silent it is. It earns our recommendation for use in cases such as the popular In Win Chopin.

Here are the specs of this little SFF CPU cooler:

• Dimensions: 114 x 92 x 23 (37 w/fan)
• 92 mm fan | 600 – 2500 RPM (PWM)
• 33.84 CFM max airflow
• 23.6 dbA operating noise
• Included premium NT-H1 thermal compound
• Retail price: $39.90

Closing thoughts

The Ryzen 5000 series has recently hit the market and will hit shelves on November 5th. The list of cooling devices that have been previously working well with the Ryzen series hasn’t changed a lot thanks to the impressive efficiency and performance of these chips. Performance numbers and thermals haven’t yet been disclosed by AMD but with the same TDP as many of the Ryzen 3000 series processors, we could formulate the recommendations for CPU coolers of different types, sizes and price points.

The AMD Wraith stock cooler can only be found on the Ryzen 5 5600X CPU while the Ryzen 7 5800X will need a third party heat sink in order for you to get it up and running. Regardless of which level of cooling performance you may need, there CPU coolers above are great options to choose from and will be compatible out of the box as we have pointed out. The Hyper 212 BE is the perfect stock cooler replacement, while the more expensive Noctua and beQuiet! devices will be able to unleash the full power of this new high performance chip. If you’re willing to try water cooling, there’s probably no better first AIO than the ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280 with its industrial feel and high efficiency in both performance and noise levels.

The post 5 Best CPU Coolers for Ryzen 7 5800X Builds appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The short and clear answer to this question, yes. AMD launched their entire Ryzen 5000 product stack on October 8th and used the live stream event to show consumers what we should be expecting with each Ryzen tier. Among the four CPUs launched, the Ryzen 7 5800X is the new 8 core part boasting some remarkable generational improvements in single-core, multi-core and interconnect latency. Numbers suggest it may well be the best 8-core processor the market has ever seen in both gaming and workstation environments.

One of AMD’s big focuses with the Zen 3 Vermeer CPUs was a complete overhaul of the architecture in order to greatly improve core to core communication, branch prediction and cache access in order to be much faster in latency-sensitive applications. They have been already providing the best multi-core performance at each and every price point so they improved their architecture by optimizing many on-die components; together with the manufacturing process enhancements, they are claiming a whopping 19% IPC performance uplift as an average in all tested applications. This metric is the most important variable in single-core speed calculation since it is not coming with additional power draw like increasing the clock speed does; its much harder but always better to optimize the IPC of a CPU instead of just boosting its clock speed and hope for the best.

Why you would ask? Because manufacturing processes become exponentially more power-hungry and inefficient if they are run well above their efficient range. Think of how Intel is trying to push their clock speed further and further with each new generation without actually providing any meaningful IPC improvements; their CPUs are becoming more and more inefficient and power-hungry with minimal performance uplift.

The core to core latency has also been essentially halved (by AMD’s presentation numbers) by switching from a 4 core CCX (Core Complex) to an 8 core CCX design. As you probably already knew, the first three Ryzen generations, 1000 series, 2000 series and 3000 series have all been manufactured using one or multiple 4 core CCXs. That means a 16 core CPU would use 4 x 4 CCX, a 12 core would use 4 x 4 CCXs with a few defect cores disabled on each CCX and so on. This approach has been a great advantage for AMD thanks to improved yields, ease of manufacturing and cheaper prices for consumers. The Ryzen 5000 series has switched from a 4 core CCX to an 8 core CCX thus severely decreasing core to core latency. There’s no CCX to CCX communication for the Ryzen 7 5800X since it only has one CCX with the fully enabled 8 cores. The 5800X is the new best gaming octa-core CPU out there and for the slightly steeper price of $449 it may well be one of the best overall gaming CPUs, decimating the entire Intel lineup in the process.

Ryzen 5 5800X vs Ryzen 7 3700X: Specification Comparison

The following table shows a head to head comparison between the outgoing Ryzen 7 3700X model and the newly released Ryzen 7 5800X processor.

We can see that the two are still very similar on the surface with hardware differences that wouldn’t suggest a lot of improvement but that couldn’t be more far from the truth. The new Ryzen 7 5800X is architecturally redesigned and it takes a completely new route on how cache and inter core communication is made. If we were to look at specs, we can see a 5% improvement in base clock speed and a 6% improvement in boost clock speed. For people judging processor performance by its clock speeds, this is definitely not the full picture because the Ryzen 7 5800X has very strong cores that can do many more instructions per one cycle that before; 19% more over Ryzen 3000 to be exact.

This puts AMD into a position where their cores are 20 to 25% faster than cores from their competition, Intel. Because of this, we need to judge the performance of the 5800X through real world benchmarks and not through just clock speed; for example, a 4.2 GHz 5800X will be approximately be just as fast as a 5.1 GHz Intel Core 10900K because of the big IPC difference. We don’t know the full picture yet and we are waiting for the review embargo to lift but these are the performance metrics that we can extract from the details we got at launch.

Should you buy the new Ryzen 7 5800X?

Market and community information make us believe that a lot of people have waited a lot of time for a worthy upgrade. With Intel showing very little growth in performance and architecture optimizations over the past years and AMD still being slightly slower in gaming environments, some people just couldn’t justify the need to switch to a new CPU. With the release of the Ryzen 5000 series we can finally see gaming performance moving forward by a significant margin. This additional gaming performance comes with all the Ryzen benefits as before; low power consumption, efficient use, great chipsets/motherboard ecosystem are all still true with the 5000 series.

If you’ve been following AMD as the budget alternative over Intel then you’ll be surprised to realize that the 5000 series has been priced a little higher than the previous Ryzen 3000 generation, in line with Intel’s Comet Lake S pricing. We are going to go forward and say that there’s little to no reason to choose Intel Core chips instead of Ryzen. Also, the 5800X seems like it will be one of the best gaming performers in their lineup thanks to its single CCX design for the full 8 cores. A few months ago, one could make an argument about the gaming performance crown still being held by Intel but that’s no longer the case. AMD may have raised prices by $50 across their lineup and the performance is there to justify it across the board, in any workload.

So if you’re someone who already belongs to the Ryzen ecosystem, your upgrade path will be easy and familiar with the Ryzen 7 5800X. Older boards will still get the BIOS updates needed to run the new processors, except the 300 series boards which may or may not work based on how likely your motherboard’s vendor is to provide a BIOS update. The previous Ryzen 7 3700X 8 core is now seeing big discounts and is arguably better value to buy than the new 5800X; that always happens when a new generation hits the market but if you want to be an early adopter of the new 8 core then you’ll be greeted with a big performance leap.

The Ryzen 5000 lineup stormed the market with incredible generational performance leaps and a price to match. Time will tell if these new chips will be received well but we think they definitely should. Stay tuned for more upcoming coverage and builds with the Ryzen 5000 series!

The post Ryzen 7 5800X vs 3700X: What Are The Key Differences? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD has officially unveiled its Ryzen 5000 processors in an online event that really went hard in highlighting the gaming capabilities of these new processors, with CEO Lisa Su stating that “gaming begins with AMD”.

AMD has officially launched the new Ryzen 5000 CPU (Zen 3) series, code-named Vermeer. Already providing undisputable multi-threaded performance for every price point, their focus for this generation has been improving the architecture for gaming and low latency tasks. They’ve gone all-in by optimizing on-die components and the manufacturing process in order to claim a whopping 19% IPC performance over the previous Zen 2 (Matisse) processors. The Instructions per Clock (IPC) are very important to a CPU thanks to how relative single-core performance is calculated by multiplying IPC x Clock Speed. IPC doesn’t come with additional power consumption or thermal requirements and its arguably always better to improve IPC instead of just raising Clock Speed.

AMD took a great route with their new lineup by both improving Clock Speeds and significantly improving IPC, resulting in an overall gaming performance improvement of around 26% over their previous best gaming CPU, the Ryzen 9 3900XT. This is huge news in the tech horizon since this is the first time in many generations when AMD is performing better than its Intel counterpart in gaming performance; they’re also doing it at 2.8x better efficiency than Intel.

The direct successor to the Ryzen 5 3600X is the new Ryzen 5 5600X (that’s right, they skipped the 4000 series for desktop) and today we will be comparing these two to see if the new part is a significant enough improvement over the last one. We will be looking at performance uplift, specs, efficiency, and pricing.

Ryzen 5 5600X vs Ryzen 5 3600X: Specification Comparison

The Ryzen 5 5600X is very similar in specs to the outgoing 3600X model and thus, its targeted to the same mainstream market but the performance obtained from architectural improvements puts the 5600X well ahead of the 3600X. We can also observe a 30 W deduction in TDP suggesting a big uplift in efficiency even if clock speeds are almost 10% higher. The fastest approved memory speed is 3,200 MHz although you can tweak it to much faster speeds due to the improved IMC (integrated memory controller). We have no official data yet but the previous Ryzen 5 3600X has been seen running with 4400MHz+ memory speeds and we have no reason not to believe the new one is even better for memory tweaking.

PCIe Gen 4.0 is available with the new Ryzen 5 5600X and compatible X570 and B550 motherboards, allowing you to get significant storage and secondary device performance uplift from this improved interface. The only downside with the 5600X is the absence of the integrated graphics device but the majority of people who buy such a powerful processor will also pair it with a dedicated graphics card. The included CPU cooler is good enough to keep the processor running stock and will probably allow for a bit of overclocking, exactly like the previous generations’ included stock coolers. For pushing the clock speeds to the limits, consumers will likely need to purchase a better aftermarket cooler. The Ryzen 5 5600X is the only released Vermeer CPU to include a stock cooler but this may be subject to change if AMD will be launching additional products at different price tiers.

Ryzen 5 3600X vs Intel Core i5-10600K

When compared to its mainstream competitor, the Ryzen 5 5600X looks to be demolishing its $299 counterpart, the Intel Core i5 10600K; and AMD has the benchmarks to prove it. They are touting a 19% single core advantage and 20% multi core advantage over the 10600K resulting in a 13% 1080p gaming performance advantage. To explain, 1080p gaming performance is a good metric to measure overall gaming performance because it puts the most strain on the CPU; this makes AMD very confident in their product and rightfully so. Another big selling point of the new Ryzen micro architecture is the improved efficiency which AMD says is on average 2.8 times more power efficient, especially at the top end; this means quieter and cooler utilization with less money spent on cooling solutions or power bills.

So should you buy the new Ryzen 5 5600X?

Thanks to how the new generation is compatible with previous motherboard chipsets, if you are on an older Ryzen build, you can easily upgrade to this CPU with just a BIOS update provided by your motherboard vendor. The performance uplift between generations is very tempting, especially in gaming where the cheapest Ryzen CPU, the 5600X, outperforms even their most expensive mainstream market CPU from the previous generation, the 16 Core Ryzen 9 3950X. Is it a good buy? We think so. The launch price is also not completely indicative of retail price and you may soon find great deals and offers for this part. We will also be using it in lots of our upcoming gaming builds!

The jury is still out on just how AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series chips will perform in the real world because we just know the numbers AMD showed us during the launch presentation. We can formulate an even more informed opinion on this Ryzen 5600X CPU once the reviewers are getting their hands on samples. AMD is also not known to mislead or lie in their presentations but expect November 5 to come with decisive information on the performance matters.

The performance does look promising and even with the $50 price premium over the previous Ryzen 5 model, AMD has made plenty of alterations that should boost performance significantly and warrant the slight price increase.

The post Ryzen 5 5600X vs 3600X: Which Are The Key Differences? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Here at PremiumBuilds, we’re all about pushing the envelope of what performance your money can buy in the PC world. We’re living some exciting times in the components market thanks to the high levels of competition on every component a PC build needs. This $600 part list that we’re presenting here is an indirect follow up to a $700 one we’ve did at the start of this year; we’re talking about a Ryzen 5 2600 CPU paired with 16 GB of fast Dual Channel RAM and a graphics card that laughs at anything 1080p while putting really good numbers even in higher resolutions. With this $600 build and 8 to 9 months later, we’re trying to slightly exceed those performance levels of the previous $700 build with a new build planned around the $600 price mark.

A new exciting CPU has been launched a few months ago which, on paper, isn’t something really exciting or some kind of performance king. The unlocked 4 core / 8 threads Ryzen 3 3300X is an entry-level CPU that puts out a heavy fight in the gaming department thanks to its single CCX design. Launched together with it, the Ryzen 3 3100 has the disadvantage of having 4 cores enabled on two different Core Complexes (CCXs) and this slightly affects gaming performance due to the introduced latency of cores communicating with one another. The Ryzen 3 3300X is the first AMD Ryzen 3000 CPU that has all its cores on the same CCX and it makes a sizable difference; gaming performance is up to 10% faster than its very similar brother, the Ryzen 3 3100. This aspect gives us a lot of prospects and insight into the performance of upcoming Ryzen CPUs with cores on the same CCX and its also why this 3300X CPU makes this list in favor of the 6 core / 8 thread Ryzen 5 2600 featured on our $700 list. We’re building a gaming machine here and when compared with the Ryzen 5 2600, the 20% higher single-core performance and comparable multi-core performance of the Ryzen 3300X feels one or more steps ahead, at least in the gaming department.

We promised we would beat the performance of the previous $700 high-value build and we will do so because even if this $600 build has a slightly slower GTX 1660 SUPER (2-3% slower than GTX 1660 Ti), the difference is more than made up for it with the added CPU performance of the new Ryzen 3 3300X. eSports games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, CoD Warzone, Valorant, or Fortnite will heavily benefit from the much better single-core performance and heavily GPU bound titles will perform about the same in average FPS but with better minimum frame rates which leads to a smoother experience. This $600 price point is also very important for the PC market because it fits right around the launch price of the upcoming Play Station and Xbox generations.

Enough with the talk, lets get on with the list!

Best $600 Gaming PC – The Parts List

CPU: Ryzen 3 3300X

We’ve rambled about what this little powerhouse of a CPU can do and rightly so; many people will remember that 3 years ago the 4 core / 8 thread CPU was the top consumer processor, in the form of the Intel Core i7 7700K. Today, we consider a 4 core / 8 thread CPU tiny thanks to how the market has evolved and how the mainstream market now offers AMD’s 16 cores / 32 threads 3950X and Intel’s 10 cores / 20 threads in a mainstream consumer platform. Those CPUs are also very workstation focused and cost themselves around the price of this full build.
We won’t need them in our $600 list thanks to how the Ryzen 3 3300X is capable of offering stellar 1080p performance at the low price of ~$130. And that’s our focus, right? High and stable frame rates when paired with a midrange GPU like the GTX 1660 SUPER.

Motherboard: ASRock B550M-HDV

This build features the latest iteration of AM4’s chipsets, the midrange B550. Nothing special here but a motherboard that will easily handle the Ryzen 3 3300X and any upgrade you have planned for the future thanks to its compatibility across the whole Ryzen stack.

The board features the mandatory 24-pin ATX power connector, 4 x SATA ports for your storage, and a USB 3.0 header. The audio, CMOS, TPM, and COM headers are all present on the bottom of the board and the I/O is good for this price; on the rear panel, we get 2 x USB 2.0 ports, a shared PS/2 port, HDMI, DVI-D, and D-sub video output, 4 x USB 3.2 ports, audio jacks, and a gigabit fast ethernet port.

Memory: ADATA XPG Z1 16 GB (2 x 8GB)

Thanks to the high competition in the RAM market, we can get good memory kits for a fraction of previous years’ DDR4 prices. This RAM kit is an example of that and it offers very good capacity at 16GB and great bandwidth thanks to Dual Channel (two RAM sticks). One well known recommendation is to buy two memory sticks over a single one in order to get the full bandwidth which, for our interests, translates to smoother performance in gaming situations.

If you can’t find this exact same 3000 MHz CL 16 kit, you can swap it with a different 2 x 8GB one but be sure to aim for similar speeds and latencies. Such a memory kit or even a 3200 MHz one shouldn’t exceed $60-65 as it perfectly fits this price range.

SSD: ADATA SU635 240 GB

This may be the most unexciting component in this build because its simply just a basic solid state drive with average rated speeds. Its enough for most gaming builds though if you want more storage for your files or game library, consider looking for more capacity or getting an additional SSD from an older build. We highly recommend having an SSD for the boot drive because it takes the whole PC experience and snappiness to a new level.

Older HDDs can be easily added in order to store rarely accessed files like documents or movies so feel free to use those as well if you desire; 4 SATA ports is usually enough for anyone!

Graphics Card: GTX 1660 Super

Even if its now almost an year old, this 6GB card sits right under the RTX 2060 GPU, neck and neck with the GTX 1660 Ti in raw performance. You can’t expect a lot of ray-tracing capability at this price point from the likes of the RTX 2060 so that shouldn’t be your focus; what it should interest you though, especially in a $600 build is how capable the 1660 SUPER is for $229. The closest in performance you can get is a Radeon RX 590 which is around 15% slower, more power hungry and priced around the same. That makes the GTX 1660 SUPER a great opportunity and the best value in the Turing line-up.

Around 30% better than one of the most popular 1080p cards, the GTX 1060, the 1660 Super will crush 1080p gaming in both ultra graphics AAA titles and high refresh rate eSports games. Paired with the Ryzen 3 3300X, you’ll be able to play any eSport game from the likes of CS:GO, Valorant, Fortnite, CoD Warzone, Rainbow Six Siege and others always above the refresh rate of a 144Hz monitor and that’s a great level of performance to have from such a mid range build.

Its also important to note that even if the ASUS variant we’re recommending here is a great implementation of the GTX 1660 Super (silent operation, good form factor and cool temps), if you can’t find this in stock where you live, other similar priced options will do the job just as well. It would be best if you’d check our list of all GTX 1660 SUPER custom graphics card implementations.

By using the SUPER variant of the GTX 1660 we are able to fit in the $600 budget and remain very close in raw graphics performance to the GTX 1660Ti.

PC Case: Deepcool Matrexx 30 Mini ATX case

The Matrexx 30 case has a rather spacious feel to it and designed around an open style layout. An ODD bay is present with minimal intrusion in the top of the case. A power supply shroud is not present so you’ll have to do the majority of the cable management around the back of your motherboard but if you feel like you need a PSU shroud then you’ll have to take a look at other cases with a higher price point. Deepcool however has designed the steel side panel to allow for extra cable management space; the Tempered Glass front side panel is also a rarity at this price point.

Temperatures are kept under control by a 120mm pre-installed rear exhaust fan; the case also has an additional slot for a 120mm case fan on the front panel. The honeycomb style mesh vent together with the very efficient components in this build means you’ll experience a silent build that will not get hot even in the most intensive gaming sessions.

Power Supply: EVGA BR 450 W 80+ Bronze

The power requirements of this PC are taken care of an EVGA unit that can output 450W with 80+ efficiency. Don’t be fooled by the lower price point of this power supply because EVGA still takes seriously every safety aspect of this product.

With its sleeved cables, silent operation, and simple but sleek looks, this power supply fits this build very well in both budget and power requirements. The build won’t even come close to the 450W this PSU can output thanks to the efficient Ryzen 3 3300X & GTX 1660 SUPER.

Conclusion

If you’re not a big fan of console gaming and would like to find something with high performance which at the same time, doesn’t break the bank, then this $600 build might just be for you! We’ve focused on balanced CPU & GPU performance in order to get the best possible performance in both eSports and Triple A games. If you plan to game on Ultra 1080p, high refresh rate 1080p or entry level 1440p this build will definitely not disappoint. On the contrary, you’ll probably be amazed how this little beast handles everything with ease.

Last year we’ve put up a $700 build that crushed 1080p gaming but this year, you can get even better performance out of a $600 build; that’s progress for us consumers and we’re very happy to be able to give you more and more builds similar to this one.

There are some areas where you could spend a little more money in order to upgrade a few components. One of them is the SSD; you can get a larger one, with more capacity for your files, OS and game library or a faster one like an NVMe drive (the motherboard supports it). The other area would be the PSU if you plan on upgrading to a more powerful graphics card or processor in the future.

The great thing about getting a Ryzen 3 3300X together with a B550 (or even a B450 board) is that you’ll be able to upgrade your CPU on the same motherboard with no additional stress; just BIOS update, swap the CPUs and you’re ready to go!

We hope that the sections in this article have been informative enough for you to go ahead and make your dream PC come true, regardless of your price range. Any further questions can be easily addressed in the comment section below. We will also be doing complete building video guides in the future so stay tuned for that!

The post Best Gaming PC Build under $600 – 2021 Edition appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

So you’ve decided that you want to start streaming. You want to work from the comfort of your room, doing what you love most and interacting with people all over the world. To become successful and make it your primary income source should be excellent motivation to put in a concerted effort. Which is something you’re going to need to do considering more people than ever are trying to get into live streaming. However, many might be getting discouraged by the complexity of a full streaming setup as they realize it takes a lot more than just a beefy PC.

The point we’re trying to make is that you don’t need a huge budget to get into streaming, but you will need to invest some time and money to customize your live streaming experience and show yourself more professionally to your viewers. You do not require a super high-end PC, a top of the line microphone or a DSLR camera to start broadcasting. If anything, it’s a smart move to skip such expensive things if you don’t have them already and focus on getting into streaming as quickly as possible!

There’s a limit to what reading about streaming on the internet can do for you. Experience is critical here. If you don’t start streaming as soon as possible with the minimum requirements you can afford, you’re losing valuable time and enthusiasm. Now is the time to decide whether this is a medium you want to try, instead of concentrating on getting the best kit. Run a few test streams and determine whether you like all that streaming involves, from controlling all the devices, joining in the discussion, experiencing all the tension of going online, and becoming a personality. If you’re unlucky and things don’t work out, at least you’re not sitting on gear worth thousands of dollars that would otherwise accumulate dust.

We’re here to portray to readers our idea of what comprises a full streaming setup. We’re also very aware that things like this quickly become time and wallet consuming. Thus, in true PremiumBuilds fashion, we’ll mainly focus on value and performance by only recommending what we think is of utmost importance; you’re always welcome to customize further and splurge! If you’re serious about streaming, here’s our guide to the key items you’re going to need right now to create the streaming rig of your dreams.

The Ultimate Streaming Setup: What you’ll need.

1. A sufficiently strong internet service

Believe it or not, before any other hardware to talk, you’ll need to make sure that your internet speed allows enough bitrate for your favorite streaming service to hit the most popular broadcasting resolution and frame rate. All other variables aside, people will be compelled to stick with your stream if the visual and sound quality is pleasing to them, so a good internet connection needs to be the first step on your checklist.

A 100 MB/s download and upload internet connection should be an excellent starting point. You’ll be able to stream even to YouTube’s 40K 60 FPS broadcasts comfortably, and if you’re looking for a steady 1080p 60 FPS Twitch experience, then you’ll also have a lot of bandwidth left for other activities during the stream. Bear in mind that it’s great to have a buffer in your promised internet speeds since you can still eat through your upload space for the other computers on your network. A 100 MB/s connection should be very accessible price-wise everywhere globally, which is why we recommend it if a 1 GB/s connection is still expensive in your country.

Suppose you’re a little north of 100MB/s, fantastic! If not, to have your bitrate lower than your upload speed, you’re going to have to make compromises to your consistency settings, which will involve downloading or lowering the bitrate to as little as 1MB/s at 480p. While far from optimal, it may be appropriate to test the waters to start. Consider changing your broadband package with an emphasis on increased upload speed until you have a grip on downloading and intend to go forward. That said, we understand that choices might be restrictive in your region. Know at least what kind of upload rates you get and configure your stream to that!

2. Broadcasting software

For the world to see your beautiful face, you’ll need broadcasting tools to prepare your footage to go live. Since it’s (FOSS) free and open-source software, we prescribe OBS at all times since it has strong backing from companies such as Twitch and Nvidia. We won’t be getting too much into the actual stream settings considering how dependant they are on your specific network capabilities and setup. Still, there are many excellent resources and videos on YouTube, like the “Stream Doctor,” Harris over at Alpha Gaming. They have tons of content on specific broadcast software settings, A/V, and networking specifically for new streamers looking to become the next big thing.

Now even though we highly suggest OBS, other options include Streamlabs OBS, a mainline OBS fork with built-in alerts and overlays from Streamlabs, or XSplit with some additional features, but it charges a subscription. You can also try utilizing Twitch Studio, built predominantly with fresh streamers in mind, and completely free. There’s no immediate reason to waste cash at this point on streaming apps; there are other far more important places to spend parts of your budget to get you up and running!

3. Microphone and AMP

• 16bit / 48khz recording sampling rates
• Stereo, Omnidirectional, Cardioid and Bidirectional polar patterns
• 20Hz–20kHz frequency response

In your streaming toolkit, besides your sparkling personality (or persona ), the microphone is your single most essential piece of equipment. Your voice and the words you say go a long way to turning your stream from a gameplay feed to something you and your viewers can relate bond over. You’re going to have to get comfortable using a mic and continuously speaking into it; the sooner you get comfortable finding your voice, tone, and communication style, the better for your popularity and your viewers. Microphones could potentially cost thousands of dollars at the top end with some insanely high build quality and cutting edge noise cancellation technologies. If you are on a strict budget, start with what you have on hand unless your microphone causes a lot of distortion or constant ringing. Rest assured, microphones included with most gaming headsets are good enough for a streamer that’s just starting. Whether your mic’s mounted to your head, your desktop, or in your webcam; it’s necessary to get comfortable being on the air if you want to be a booming voice.

Our microphone recommendation for Streaming, the HyperX Quadcast

The HyperX Quadcast is a very intriguing option and one that punches well above its price point. Its snazzy style and the amount of functionality it packs into its compact, modern frame makes it a great option, especially for those who prefer a real gamer aesthetic. It might just be the only microphone you need for your streaming journey.

Thanks to the various interface options you will usually have to pay extra for, the HyperX Quadcast is instantly appealing. It comes with a shock mount integrated into its shell, a pop shield installed within its core, and a lovely robust stand to support it on your desk. You can even install it with a wall or monitor mount arm to better control its position and orientation.

This mic has four polar patterns, rendering it handy for streaming, voice-overs, podcasting, or any other way you may want to integrate Audio streams into your broadcast. The recording efficiency is outstanding, and coupled with the built-in pop protector and the anti-vibration shock mount, this device holds the unwanted noise at bay.

Every part of this microphone is cleverly designed for simple access; quiet features, gain controls, and touch to mute surfaces make it easy to adjust your sound without thumps, clicks and knocks altering your recording or live stream.

The Quadcast is full of kit and available at a reasonable price. If it suits your taste, then this bright beacon microphone that is rendered desirable by its aesthetics and impressive sound accuracy might just be the best choice for your upcoming streaming setup!

Our AMP recommendation for Streaming, the Go XLR Mini

The Go XLR Mini is a hybrid piece of gear that makes mixing on the fly a breeze with its four faders for audio modulation, mute buttons, and censorship buttons to keep your broadcast easily accessible and customizable. This device guarantees excellent audio quality on the fly thanks to its dedicated optical input and MIDAS preamp XLR input. Four 3.5 mm ports for line-in and line-out, mic in and headphone out are also notable features of the Go XLR Mini. One factor that makes this a must-buy for live streamers is that what you hear is the exact stream outputted to OBS or your favorite streaming site, letting you precisely listen to what your viewers are hearing. No playing around with the stream to figure out what is wrong or what is right or why is there no audio at all on it!

4. Camera: Viewers will want to see your reactions and get to know you better

Are you camera shy? We get it, not everyone is prepared to become a streaming superstar, but your portrait, actions, gestures, and reactions are so important to your audience. Since the inception of live streaming, cameras became a mandatory feature on streaming setups as people always want to see the person behind the screen. You can be gaming, vlogging, cooking, or just mowing your backyard. Regardless of the content, people want to see your reactions to hype times, the authenticity in your expression when you tell a serious story, and all the exciting decorations in your streaming space. Sometimes, even your undeniably good looks. Without a video of yourself somewhere on the screen, success would be even more challenging and would require you to compensate by being impeccable on your voice acting heavily.
If you are just entering the streaming world, there may be no need to splurge a huge amount of money on a DSLR or mirrorless camera. In the short term, while you figure it out and get comfortable with streaming, you can use what you have now; your notebook’s camera or any old webcam you got around will do for the first few days or weeks. Construct your virtual streaming environment and build onto that!

Using your smartphone as a streaming camera is another potential option. This choice would be more CPU intensive, but it will allow you to use a great camera that you already have for free. If you are going this route, then there are a few excellent software pieces that will allow you to capture video streams from your smartphone and use them in combination with your other broadcast sources. We recommend the Elgato Screen Link, but there are various ways for this to work.
We are assuming your streaming setup will be indoors, and for that, we have two great recommendations at different price points.

Best Budget Webcam for Streaming: The $70 Logitech C920

The Logitech C920 is undoubtedly one of the most popular webcams on the market today; you might also want to check out their updated version of it, the C920S. It’s easy to set up through a USB connection, and you can start compositing your face onto the stream for just $70. We like it very much thanks to how simple it is, and its performance didn’t let us down. If you plan on going the famous route of having your face overlaying the stream on the side, then the Logitech c920 is the best entry-level webcam out there.

Characteristics:

• Native 1080p (Full HD) capabilities
• Good autofocus and light correction in harsh conditions
• Stereo audio with dual mics (even though you’ll use a microphone for your voice input)
• Compatible with tripods
• 78° Diagonal Field of View
• Its glass lens allows for crisper and video quality when compared to other plastic lenses.

Best Overall Webcam for Streaming: The $200 Logitech BRIO Webcam

The Logitech BRIO offers the most polished look that you will receive from a webcam device. You get a camera with a high dynamic range for a fair value price of $200, ensuring the colors and lights are accurate, even in darkness and harsh lighting situations. It has good stabilization and changes exposure and contrast dynamically to compensate for light and backlighting. If paired with a good lighting source, the difference between this device and a professional DSLR is hardly noticeable. You’re only able to record in 4k (think YouTube videos or announcements based on your Twitch channel), but its 1080p streaming performance is still excellent.

Characteristics:

• 1080p60 native streaming resolution
• Great integration with broadcasting software
• 90° Field of View
• 5x Digital Zoom
• Comes with an included Clip and Tripod Mount
• Clear, crisp, and vibrant image
• Great autofocus

5. Lighting (Optional but pretty necessary)

If you are going to use a camera, lighting is incredibly important if you want that professional look. Without sunlight, even incredible cameras will look grainy and have a hard time focusing; in other words, the image will seem inconsistent, and the money you spent on a good camera will seem not a good investment. To begin with, you don’t need a costly lamp either. Simply opening up a window and streaming will function wonderfully throughout the day. You can get away with some artificial lighting through the night, but it will never match a carefully set up lighting area.

Look for what kind of lamps you have lying around if your budget doesn’t allow for lighting expenses. Heck, you could even do a DIY! Basically, for those just beginning out, any light is significantly better than zero lights. Your picture will be more consistent and, when correctly lit, suffer from fewer frame drops and grain. If you are determined to have excellent lighting from the get-go and are ready for the investment, then certain products on the market will help with professional lighting your setup.

The Elgato Key Light Air lighting panels

If your lighting is all over the place, there’s no sense in wasting your budget on a great camera that will perform poorly. Adequate lighting means that the stream has a precise webcam feed that looks professional and lets viewers see what’s going on at all times. Moreover, the best quality image can help you heaps when going for a green screen style feed as the software behind it will have a much easier time separating the background from the back wall.

A perfect option is Elgato’s Key Light Air LED panels. These are precisely engineered compact light sources that can max out at 1400 lumens and accommodate a full cool to hot color spectrum from 2,900 to 7000 Kelvin. Better still, you can control their behavior from your PC, from the app on your phone or an Elgato Stream Deck (which we’ll talk about it in a moment). With a tiltable head and height adjustable pole, it lets you quickly bring them into the correct position, no matter what you’re doing. They’re quick to set up, easy to handle, adjustable, and don’t blind you thanks to the several layers of diffusers; these ensure that when you stream, you have a pleasant and gentle light on your face that does not tire you. It will be like you’re working in natural daylight!

After all, if your face is bathed in colors from your phone and a dim light elsewhere in the room, things will get dirty during the darker scenes. Make sure to adjust your cameras manually to fit better with your lighting setup; a few minutes of trial and error will go a long way!

6. Capture card: The Elgato HD60 S

A high-quality capture card is one of the significant investments you’ll need to make if you don’t have one already. The capture card lets you transfer your HDMI signal through USB to your PC. The new game capture unit from Elgato, the HD60 S ($179.99), uses the unencrypted HDMI video signal up to 1080p at 60 frames per second, enabling you to record it to your computer or stream it to the internet. It is intended for gamers who want to broadcast their games on platforms such as Twitch or post videos to YouTube sites. Its USB 3.0 connectivity and video processing are quick enough to enable you to play through your capture program instead of depending on a video signal to move through. It is exceptionally functional and accurate, and we’re recommending it to everyone who wants to mess around with their broadcast, not just stream their screen.

The Elgato Game Capture HD60 S is a lightweight, capable game capture system for streaming and recording your easy to set up and use games. 1080p60 content can be managed with ease and be used for both content pass through to your TV or live video on your PC. A lack of traditional or analog video choices is the only real drawback, but it has become a ubiquitous feature of HDMI capture devices. Suppose you’re trying to capture or broadcast your games with much more freedom and capacity than your PC’s streaming capabilities alone. In that case, you can pay some careful attention to the HD60 S. It is a valuable and reliable gaming streaming and recording platform.

7. Green Screen: The Elgato collapsible green screen

If you already made up your mind on a decent camera and ample illumination, then a green screen is the reasonable next move – with our recommended Green Screen being the Elgato Green Screen. This is something you do to cover the mess in your space or to improve the harsh background conditions for the sake of your camera image and focusing quality.

You can use a Chroma Key Filter with a green screen to make everything green transparent and, therefore, clearly show you the chair and everything else you choose to bring between you and the green wall behind you. It can help many specific effects and actions that you may want to improvise during streaming. The Elgato collapsible green screen can be easily stored or moved, and it essentially creates a small streaming room without much effort; the viewer doesn’t need to know or focus on other items in your room.

Green screens may typically be a bit of a faff since you need to have the illumination correct and make sure that the green screen panel is crease-free for the best results. The collapsible green screen from Elgato is a perfect option. It’s massive, but it can be folded back into a heavy base that can be held while it is not in service, out of the way. This green screen style ensures that you do not have to think about pinning up a content screen or doing anything dramatic, like painting a wall.

It’s tall enough to stand in front of and wide enough sufficient to fill the view of your frame while still robust and robust. Convenience is our favorite aspect of this piece of equipment because it’s so easy to set it up or take it away when you’re done streaming and need the extra space in your room.

8. A gaming headset

A headset for gaming is almost necessary. You don’t want to be gaming on speakers and allowing up all the sound from your mic to be pushed into your broadcast. A good headset will often make you look even better and keep things interesting with your chat and listeners. If you don’t have a separate microphone already, a good pair of headphones can be a pleasant and cheaper solution for your broadcast’s voice aspect. Many current headsets include a decent microphone, so if you don’t want a dedicated

microphone system yet, it’s an excellent choice.

Best Gaming Headset for Streaming: The Steelseries Arctis 1 Wireless Headset

If you’re the kind of gamer who loves playing on a multitude of different computers, then you could find the wireless Steelseries Arctis 1 extremely attractive. Its a portable headset for gaming that not only fits on a PC but is also compatible with your computer, console, or Nintendo Switch. You get all this flexibility with a single pair of headphones, plus the Arctis’ sound range is rich for such a fantastic price.

This wireless headset has lots of connectivity possibilities. You can either plug it in via Micro-USB (which also doubles as the charging cable) for PC gaming or use the wireless USB-C ultra-low latency dongle. The same dongle fits into tablets, Android smartphones, the Nintendo Switch, and even the upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series X (via an accompanying connector cable). There’s even a 3.5 mm socket for other gadgets that you may use for your entertainment means.

A detachable microphone, mute mic button, and volume controls on the left ear cup are also included in this headset’s feature set. The power button also serves as a key for media access, a single click for audio play/pause, double press for skipping, triple press for rewind. It is very smartly engineered for ease of use. This headset also sounds fantastic in the game and on calls thanks to its crisp audio. We’ve tested a variety of different games, and it’s surprisingly powerful. Its integrated microphone does background noise mitigation, but a slight amount of ambient pollution appears to be picked up. Hence, we still advise you to use the microphones we’ve recommended earlier for truly professional results.

It’s a relatively inexpensive headset that’s well worth considering, easy to use, and feature-packed. Steelseries is a massive name in this industry and if you want a headset that can attach to many different devices, has a decent battery life, and powerful audio, then this is pretty much it!

9. Comfy Chair: You will likely be sitting for many hours at a time so that a comfy chair will go a long mile

If you are serious about streaming and it all goes well, you’ll want an excellent chair to entertain your viewers for many hours comfortably. To ensure you can keep going without getting back pain or fatigue, it is indeed pretty necessary to have some decent seating. If you are using a green screen, gaming chairs will also be captured in the frame, so you want yours to be snazzy enough to make a good impression on stream. If you are sitting on a wooden chair or a stool, then your body might hate the extended hours on stream. If this makes sense for you and is willing to invest in ample seating, then we have a good recommendation for you!

Recommended Gaming Chair for Streamers: The Secretlab 2020 Titan ($399)

Since they are built to appeal to various body sizes, Secretlab’s chairs come in three distinct versions. The Omega, Titan, and Titan XL variants cater to anybody size from the lightest to larger people; for us, the middle ground Secretlab Titan is a great sweet spot. For various factors, the Titan is a great pick thanks to its incredible building quality, smooth NAPA leather, and SoftWeave cloth. Multiple color options and combinations mean that you can customize it to match a theme or, better, to your heart’s desire. We were impressed by this chair’s exquisite stitching, quality fabrics, and superb lumbar support.

Its 4D armrests offer plenty of adjustment and can easily tilt and rotate to any angle suitable for any streaming conditions. The head pillow used is also insanely soft. It’s a very soft comfort memory cushion cleverly filled with soothing gel to hold your head secure and relaxed in your seat as it encourages good eating habits. Little additional details make this chair perfect for us as its design language screams premium. The 5-year warranty is also icing on the cake, and you can be sure this chair won’t get unstable or begin screeching just in a few months of use.

Its 4D armrests offer plenty of adjustment and can easily tilt and rotate to any angle suitable for any streaming conditions. The head pillow used is also insanely soft. It’s a very soft comfort memory cushion cleverly filled with soothing gel to hold your head secure and relaxed in your seat as it encourages good eating habits. Little additional details make this chair perfect for us as its design language screams premium. The 5-year warranty is also icing on the cake, and you can be sure this chair won’t get unstable or begin screeching just in a few months of use.

10. Adequate and easily accessible streaming controls

Once you have mastered the fundamentals of streaming, you will quickly want to spice things up by including alerts, sequences, changes, emotes, and all kinds of other items to keep the viewers amused. You may also be delighted to know that you can make all this work far more easily than you may think, without Alt-Tabbing out of the game or having to mess with the broadcasting software or app commands manually. It can be tough to realize how easily a stream deck can improve your streaming experience before actually using one.

Best Stream Deck: The Elgato Stream Deck

The Elgato Stream Deck is a tiny control box that connects with your PC and helps you allocate various shortcuts to the adjustable LCD buttons that fill the deck’s front. With a little bit of tinkering and adjusting for your needs, you will shortly start using these buttons to control functions such as stream starts, pauses, highlights, or even elements on your broadcast.

Flipping between scenes, playing videos, controlling chat, or even interacting with your other gear such as the camera, lights, or microphone has never been easier. Thanks to its multi-action buttons, all the settings and bling you may want to adjust on the fly are made easy with the 15 available buttons. For example, you can bind a switch to turn on the lights, camera, OBS, and Discord. This way, you’ll never have to do this ever again manually.

With many other variants starting from light and thin six-button Stream Deck Mini to a vast 32 button Stream Deck XL, there’s a Stream Deck for everyone!

11. Finally, you will need a high-performance PC; the heart of your streaming setup

What’s an elaborate lighting setup or an excellent streaming deck without someplace to plug them in? Here at PremiumBuilds, we specialize in giving our users the absolute best performance for their money. Those flashy pre-built computers you may have seen in advertisements or low effort lists from sponsored sources? You may as well forget about those because they almost always disappoint in crucial areas and cost well over the actual price of the components. Our system recommendations are drafted by people with great expertise who have built their PCs and have gone through the process countless times. The systems you are getting from us are lists that we would use for our rigs.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced builder or someone willing to build their computer from scratch for the first time; we’ll take the absolute most accessible route to provide you with very well researched and compatible components that will take your streaming experience to the next level. A gaming and streaming PC will need both CPU and GPU horsepower to function correctly in the most intense situations. We need to care about bottlenecks and carefully balance the processing power with the graphical rendering power. Particular emphasis needs to be put on the CPU performance since we will be building a streaming PC where every frame will pass through the processor; it needs to handle all the stress you’re going to put on it for every little effect, overlay, or transition. The GPU is also vital for actually providing excellent gaming performance and accelerate the stream encoding process.

Without further ado, let’s get into the parts list and component descriptions!

Recommended Streaming PC Build – The Parts List

CPU: The Ryzen 9 3900X

We’ve been previously talking about how important a suitable CPU is for a streaming setup. When just gaming, you’ll likely be using your processor resources for that game alone, and nothing else will disturb that. Because of this, six-core CPUs are still the most popular choice for people who just want to game—introducing the 12 core 24 threads Ryzen 9 3900X, an excellent processor selection for streamers and content creators alike. It has enough horsepower to handle a gaming session while streaming without breaking a sweat; it’s tough to max out this CPU. We bet you’ll never be able to do it without some heavy rendering added on top of gaming streaming. And because it’s built on a cutting edge 7nm fabrication process, it stays cool and silent even during heavy utilization.

We’re fortunate to be living in a time where we can get such a capable processor for a little over $400. Not so long ago, we would be forced to splurge upwards of $1500 on such a CPU or have to resort to two PC setups, one for gaming and one for streaming. The 3900X takes it to the next level, and it might just be the only CPU you’ll need for your streaming journey, and that’s for many years to come.

You can do everything with the 3900X from efficiently powering through even the most intensive game scenes thanks to its stellar single-core performance coming from its high 4.4GHz clock speed and class-leading IPC (instructions per clock), to streaming in parallel with high quality presets and using the footage generated by your broadcast to edit and render high-quality videos for your YouTube channel. On a side note, you can get away with the eight-core Ryzen 7 3700X, but you might just cut it too close if you plan on offering your viewers the best stream presets and quality. The ~$430 Ryzen nine 3900X easily deserves its money, and its value for a content creator is undeniable.
It may not hold the crown for the fastest FPS numbers in pure gaming (it’s within 5% of the best), but when it comes to gaming and streaming at the same time, few CPUs handle that heavy load like the 3900X. If we were to go with a similarly priced Intel Core i7 10700K or an Intel Core i9 9900K, those CPUs would rapidly lose their gaming performance lead due to the impact game streaming has on them; the 3900X isn’t affected that much thanks to its additional four cores and eight threads. In our experience, it never dropped frames on the highest bitrates making it a truly smooth experience for your viewers.

We got the CPU part sorted out and explained; let’s go ahead and discuss what CPU cooler and motherboard we’ll be pairing this processor with!

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4

The Noctua NH-U12S is an excellent air cooler and a great pairing with the Ryzen 9 3900X. In terms of pure cooling efficiency, it may not be the greatest, but it’s high up there, and its silent operation is a great selling point. The cooler is brilliant for its performance on both stock and overclocked clock speeds, performing exceptionally well against far more costly rivals. When you look at the noise, it makes, or the lack thereof, the fact that it works as well as it does is astonishing. This cooler is quiet for the most part. The NH-U12S is the right option if you care about microphone sound quality during streaming as the NH-U12S will never be louder than your case fans. Keeping noise levels down is imperative for a streaming setup since you’d never want to annoy people with ambient sounds besides those you intend for them to hear.

As another fan improves the cooling power of the NH-U12S much further, the option to install a second fan to boost cooling efficiency is also an excellent option to have. Best of all, with a dual-fan, noise levels barely rise, rising by only 1-2 dBA at most. Noctua is famous for its sturdy and straightforward way of mounting hardware; it makes it quick to build, and the excellent design also adds additional value to this component. The only way to fully appreciate the difference between a Noctua NH-U12S and its competition is to keep the cooler in your hands and see it for yourself. It may sound as we’re sponsored, but we can pretty much guarantee you’ll be using a Noctua cooler for the rest of your builds.

Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI)

Although the ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WiFi) might not be a flagship giant of a motherboard, functionality and features are not missing. Extra features have been introduced by ASUS to give this a gamer vibe, without including anything that you don’t need and thus bumping up the price. You may be inclined to go out and buy a much more expensive X570 motherboard for the Ryzen 9 3900X in hopes of better performance or far better features. Still, the truth is, the TUF Gaming X570 WiFi has an excellent value and everything that you would need for successfully putting together your streaming setup. Its PCIe 4.0 technology granted by AMD’s X570 chipset future proofs the motherboard, and its I/O is sufficient for additional devices you may want to connect to your PC. Plus, the VRM and cooling systems are capable enough to allow for extended hard usage or overclocking. Memory support has given us no issues.

This motherboard scores similarly to other more expensive motherboards in synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark. Its also a motherboard that has been repeatedly praised for its consistent performance in games, proving that you don’t need north of $300 motherboard for a high-end desktop system to extract the most performance from your other components.

ASUS didn’t pack everything they can with this motherboard, but there’s no single feature that we feel is missing for the price. Plus, the motherboard has surprisingly good audio thanks to the excellent Japanese capacitors and S1200A chipset; bonus points for your streaming experience. You can go ahead and choose other more expensive motherboards if you need more superior features but consider the TUF Gaming as its an overall excellent package.

Graphics Card: RTX 3070

Nvidia’s latest launch included the RTX 3070, a competitor in the gaming graphics sector’s mid-high end sector. It will be available during October and is advertised as a graphics card that will match the performance of RTX 2080 Ti, which is the top-end GPU from one generation ago. We have no benchmarks of the RTX 3070 yet, but if we were to believe Nvidia’s claims, this would be a significant performance leap, a $499 card that can give you the performance of an $1199 GPU is nothing to slouch at. The 3070 will likely be okay in 4K and excellent in 1440p. It’s based on the GA104 die; it’s built on Samsung’s latest 8nm process, features hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and variable rate shading. In other words, it will be able to easily handle any popular Twitch game that you might want to get into, and it’s capable of accelerating the streaming performance by taking over some of the encoding overhead from the CPU.

The power connector for this GPU has been redesigned for this generation. The majority of PSU manufacturers will include the adapter needed for the RTX 3070; Nvidia also will, in the RTX 3070 package, so PSU compatibility will not be an issue. It draws power from a 1 x 12 pin connector with power draw ratings of up to 220 W. Display outputs include 1 x HDMI, 3 x DisplayPort, and 1 x USB-C on some models.

This card supports and prefers PCI Express 4.0 interfaces on motherboards like the B550 and X570 chipsets. AMD offers support for PCIe on their AM4 socket, and you will be able to fully take advantage of that with our CPU and motherboard of choice. It is unknown yet if the difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 will affect performance, but early benchmarks will surely test this. What’s important to know is that if it affects performance in any way, you will be covered anyways. Available October 15th, 2020, the RTX 3070 is truly a step forward in price/performance, equaling the RTX 2080Ti for a fraction of the price. It will come in both Founder’s Edition and AIB models, but availability won’t be excellent, especially at launch.

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16

If you could get away with a 16GB memory kit on gaming-focused systems, a streaming PC needs many more resources to function correctly and with no freezes caused by a lack of RAM capacity. Similarly to a workstation build, your streaming PC will need to handle the applications that are necessary for the looks and feel of your broadcast; those consume system resources, especially in an encoding environment, and thus, 32GB of RAM is almost mandatory for a high end oriented and professional streaming build.

Besides the actual streaming process, a large memory capacity like 32GB will allow you to quickly process the clips you need for your other social media channels or video platforms. People with 16GB often run into issues when editing, previewing, and rendering not because of CPU or GPU speeds but because the editing software doesn’t have enough memory capacity to perform smoothly. The total we’re recommending here is a sweet spot for such a build as it can easily handle a rendering or content creation machine. Still, more specialized applications may go well over that.

This kit also has a low 8.889 memory latency thanks to its DDR4-3600 CL16 specifications. The general application and gaming performance, primarily gaming 1% lows, improves a lot for a CPU like the Ryzen 9 3900X, which loves great quality memory. If you feel like these memory kits’ stock performance is not enough, you can further tweak them by increasing voltage but know that the overclocking headroom may vary with such RAM.

We can’t stress this enough, but Dual Channel memory is also mandatory at this budget and performance level. Shy away from single DIMMs because you’ll be losing half the bandwidth of a Dual Channel memory kit, and applications will not be happy about it. If you want even more RAM for your streaming setup, 64GB or even 128GB kits are supported on the X570 motherboard chipset, and its best to achieve those capacities with 2 x 32GB or 4 x 32GB.

Storage

We will be using a very fast M.2-2280 NVME for the OS drive to give your system the speed it needs to open and multitask through any main applications in no time. The secondary SSD is a SATA drive used for other secondary applications or rapid file storage while editing or rendering any footage. In some cases, if you need a lot of extra storage for all your videos and footage, you can buy some big capacity HDDs and use them in combination with these two fast SSDs.

The Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500 GB

To leverage the availability of PCIe Gen 4 on the motherboard, we chose the Sabrent Rocket 4.0 that is compatible with Gen4 motherboards like the ones with the X570 chipset. With speeds above 4GB/s read and write, this SSD often scores higher than many other more expensive drives like Samsung’s 970 lineups. It brings a performance edge and a sense of snappiness to your system as you’ll never be forced to wait for anything to happen when you launch an application or make big transfers. Even at low queue depths, the massive performance uplift for random writes is due to a DRAM chip available as speedy temporary storage for the drive’s internal mapping tables. This drive works well, even in the most hardcore usage scenarios. The throttling aspect over long periods of utilization time is handled by a copper foil-based heat spreader with thermal dissipation; it helps the drive run at max speed four times longer than without any heat sink.

The Crucial MX500 1Tb

A prevalent device from Crucial, the MX500 1Tb assures you have enough storage over the primary NVME drive capacity. It’s still high-speed, double the capacity, and never slows down due to its DRAM cache implementation. You will be able to reliably access resources at a constant pace while rendering or accessing big files or applications. If you feel like you’ll need more storage than this, we recommend splurging towards the 2Tb version of this drive or getting some separate HDDs like we already mentioned. We can’t know your full storage needs, so we’re just recommending what most users will use for a high-end streaming setup.

PC Case: Fractal Design Meshify C

We have previously mentioned and argued about the importance of a silent build in your streaming room. You don’t want unwanted ambient noise in your room that will interfere with your microphone clarity, so we’ve chosen a case with outstanding airflow ratings to ensure your components are cooled very well. We are especially interested in creating a balanced pressure inside the case to aid the CPU cooler and GPU to have lower fan speeds; the lower the rates, the lower the decibel levels emitted by your case. The Meshify C is one of the best airflow solutions on the market thanks to its cleverly placed vents and meshes front side. The Meshify C will tidily fit the Noctua NH-U12S, the upcoming RTX 3070, and any type of cable management you plan to do. It also looks good, and its well thought for any maintenance and upgrades.

Together with the set of case fans included in our building list, you will achieve shallow levels of sound coming from your case even in the most intense gaming, streaming, or rendering situations.

PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA G1+ 650W

We have estimated the total max power that this build can pull at 450W during 100% CPU rendering and full GPU utilization, so it’s safe to say that a 650W PSU will easily handle this streaming setup with the additional headroom. And it, not any other 650W PSU; its a top tier power supply coming from EVGA, a very trustworthy company with a long history of great products and excellent customer support. The G1+ 650W is a modular power supply that allows you to use the cables that you need for the build to manage the wires better away from the front of the case. Its premium sleeved cables scream quality, and you will have an easy time setting it up and powering your components. The G1+ ranks S tier (the highest tier) in PSU ranking lists for its excellent protection against surges and excellent build quality.

Conclusion

This has been a long journey, and we thank you for still being with us. We’ve gone over the main components you need for a professional streaming setup and how they will impact your streaming experience. You can be sure about the compatibility of all the products we’ve listed here, and it’s also not mandatory that you order everything at once. We’ve also described why and how you can benefit from all the products in this full streaming build, and if you, for example, already have some of the components, you can just get the ones you don’t already have.

Starting streaming is not as hard as some people make it seem, but there’s a steep curve to becoming a professional in this business. You can refer back to this list anytime you want additional information, or anytime you have a budget on hand and upgrade the experience you are creating for your viewers. From our perspective, every product in this list is an investment since successful streamers start making a very respectable income early on, which can entirely cover the initial investment.

As a short recap, the perfect streaming setup includes a quiet room with access to stable internet and great lighting sources. A comfortable seating product like the gaming chair we’ve recommended will go a long way in assuring you won’t hate the time you spend in front of your audience. The high-end camera and microphone combination will make sure your viewers will see you and hear you without any latency or distortion issues. The powerful system in this article will be totally in charge of using the resources you’ve invested in creating and delivering the best content that you’ll be able to make creatively. In other words, the only pressure will be on you and your ideas, not the gear you have because that will get totally up to any task and load. That is a great thing to have since you won’t have bad times being bottlenecked by your gear.

With the mindset that this product list can also be our streaming rig, PremiumBuilds has created this article and buying list suited for aspiring content creators aiming for excellent performance and working conditions. We love to answer in the comments box below to address any questions or suggestions you may have!

The post Building the Ultimate Streaming Setup: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The following article will focus on an enthusiast-grade workstation build which is up to date with late 2020 standards. Such a PC will fit very well in a developer/artist/producer/content creator or streamer’s arsenal as its both CPU and GPU strong in any application you may want to throw at it. Fast, plenty and upgradeable amounts of RAM and storage are some of the other highlights here which make this build or other PCs based on these same parts the most powerful build the mainstream workstation market has

Among the most important performers of this build, we have the Ryzen 9 3950X which is AMD’s 16 core 32 threads consumer CPU based on their Matisse microarchitecture. This is simply the most powerful desktop CPU that can fit on a consumer socket, namely AM4, and is also priced accordingly to its level of performance. Bringing the ultimate performance to the mainstream market has been a long pursued endeavor of AMD’s and they managed to break all expectations with this industry-leading chip while also introducing new exclusive feature sets like bandwidth doubling PCIe 4.0. Built on a very efficient and dense 7nm process, the 3950X not only offers never seen before levels of single and multi core performance but also upsets Intel’s position in high-end desktops and disrupts their extreme HEDT in the process.

The other hero in this build is Nvidia’s newly launched RTX 3090 Graphics Card based on the Ampere architecture. Apparently, this will be the Titan of this generation and rightly so at the steep price of $1,499. Availability of this GPU will begin on the 24th of September and stocks are going to be low at first. Though, don’t let that discourage you because the RTX 3090 is a serious piece of engineering as its aimed to the workstation PC market more than the gaming market (though find our RTX 3090 gaming PC build here).

Ryzen 9 3950X+ RTX 3090 Workstation PC Build – The Parts List

CPU

The 16 Core Ryzen 9 3950X Processor

In the past, people had to decide between building a mainstream PC or a high-end workstation PC because historically, its been very clear cut; if constrained by a budget and interested in gaming then a consumer would opt for a mainstream CPU. if a user is otherwise looking to get into high compute work and have the budget for it, they would definitely look into high-end desktop, namely HEDT. AMD has been blurring this line over the course of recent years by bringing more cores and multi-threaded performance to the mainstream market. With the Ryzen 9 3950X, that line has disappeared almost completely. This is what we are building here today, a high-performance desktop PC with a CPU capable of HEDT performance; coincidentally, this processor also belongs to the mainstream market and that’s great news!

Not everyone needs 32 processing threads but some definitely do. People will put their dollars in what gives them the best gaming performance if that’s their focus. On the other hand, users that want to edit, create or use ML/training are going to look at content creation focused hardware. There’s also added incentive in the business world thanks to the ability to gain a return of investment in the time used to compute certain tasks. Take for example a video editor who would very much love to spend 30-40% more on a CPU that is able to halve his render times, thus paying off in long term.

The Ryzen 9 3950X is an exceptional CPU and one of the stars of this highly focused workstation build. Don’t be fooled by our workstation talk though as this processor can also put out some of the best gaming frame rates on the market, especially when paired with the other star in this build, the RTX 3090.

CPU AIO Liquid cooler

ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280

This AIO cooler presents one of the best value and performance levels on the market. Outperforming much more expensive and flashy liquid coolers like the NZXT Kraken X62, this product is aimed at people who want a very capable CPU cooler in their system with very acceptable noise levels and good warranty; and oh boy does it deliver! The Liquid Freezer II has integrated cable management within fully sleeved tubes for a clean look in your PC’s case. Its also thicker than other solutions thanks to its 317 x 138 x 38 housing dimensions.

With a simple installation thanks to the wiring being hidden inside the tube sleeve, cable management is a breeze and the only cable you can see is the 4-pin fan connector thus leaving your case uncluttered. For this very affordable solution that provides stellar cooling results and silent operation you get a nice, sleek-looking, liquid cooler without RGB functionality. A not so big drawback is that you can’t monitor the exact RPM of the fans because the pump and VRM fan are linked together.

Here at PremiumBuilds we’re all about performance and you can know for a fact that we’re not going to recommend something that has more form than function; this is why this chart-topping LCS makes our recommended list for this build. In testing, it blew our mind and impressed us in every aspect and even if this Liquid Cooler’s MSRP sits around $80, it does still make a lot of sense to buy even if you can’t find it for that price.

Motherboard

The MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon

As its name probably suggests, the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon includes a black carbon design with a chipset heatsink, standard to the X570 motherboards; two more heatsinks are fitting the two M.2 slots. There are four RAM slots in the top right-hand corner of the PCB with support for up to 128 GB DDR4-4400 memory. 6 SATA ports, 4 of which are right-angled and 2 straight angled complete the ample storage capabilities. PCIe 4.0 capable slots are also a great selling point for AMD’s X570 boards since they operate at double the throughput of PCIe 3.0, allowing for insanely fast storage or GPU devices to be present.

The RTX 3090 graphics card that we’re using in this build recommends the use of a PCIe 4.0 capable motherboard and this is why this combo is such a great fit for a workstation. This board is WiFi-6 ready and MSI included Intel’s new AX200 802.11ax Wi-Fi adapter with speeds capable of up to 2.4 Gbps; antenna ports are included on the rear panel.

The ample I/O consists of 3 x USB 3.1 G2 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, 2 x USB 3.1 G1 Type-A and 2 x USB 2.0 ports. Besides those, MSI includes a BIOS Flashback buttons, mainly useful for users who like to have peace of mind when tweaking their system to its limits; this feature allows the BIOS to be reverted to a safe backup if something goes wrong while tweaking.

RAM

32GBs of high performance 3600MHz CL16 DDR4 memory

Especially because its workstation focus, this build clearly needs the capacity and speed of a high RAM kit in order to provide the necessary performance in any high load situation, be it rendering, developing, machine learning or powering several Virtual Machines. The amount of memory needed for such a build will definitely vary from user to user but we’ve found a nice sweet spot with the Trident Z Neo Dual Channel RAM kit. 32GBs of capacity should be enough for the largest percentage of workstation enthusiasts while the 3600MHz CL16 stock values will aid the CPU with the low latency of 8.889ns. This kit can be further tuned to achieve even better latencies but that counts as overclocking; it’s definitely nice to also have great out of the box performance.

Content creation, rendering, gaming while streaming and other various multi-core applications will eat memory like crazy and this RAM kit will definitely make sure there’s always some free capacity in order for the system not to slow down. For very focused builders that know the memory needs of specific applications that they will be using, we recommend getting an even bigger RAM kit if 32GBs is running it too close for comfort. 64GB or even 128GB kits are supported on the X570 motherboard chipset, should you need the extra horsepower.

Storage

The base storage needs for such a high end system

The Sabrent Rocket M.2 1TB is targeted at more demanding users who want higher performance across all use scenarios. It uses the highly popular Phison E12s controller paired with a 96-layer TLC flash made by Micron. A DRAM chip is available which is used as very fast temporary storage for the drive’s internal mapping tables. This allows for a massive performance difference for random writes and it impresses in tests that write a lot of data, even at low queue depths which are typical for today’s consumer workloads, making it a great performer as both an OS drive and main applications drive. Sabrent also includes a copper foil on its M2 that acts as a heat spreader; this helps throttling by quadrupling the time this drive can operate at max speed before lowering its performance by a bit.

Secondary Storage

For the secondary storage device, we will be using another popular SSD, in the form of the Crucial MX500 1Tb; we like this device a lot for its inexpensive fast storage that never slows down thanks to its DRAM cache. Again, like the case with the memory capacity, certain people will need more storage in their systems for various niches or applications. Depending on that, you should adjust your storage needs based on what you want from your system but these two devices will work very well together for a workstation build and the majority of builders will find their speeds and capacity suiting for them. We can’t know for sure what your storage needs are so we’re just recommending what most users will use for an enthusiast PC.

Graphics Card

The RTX 3090 Graphics Card

This newly launched graphics card is based on the new Ampere architecture and promises to deliver the highest levels of performance in the consumer sector. The large GA102 graphics processor has a die area of 628 mm² and 28,000 million transistors, features 10496 shading units, 328 texture mapping units and 112 ROPs. Its a behemoth of a card with a suitable price tag of $1,499 MSRP. Its 328 improved tensor cores and 82 ray tracing units can be used to heavily accelerate various applications through the CUDA platform. NVIDIA has paired 24 GB of cutting edge GDDR6X memory connected through a 384 bit memory interface which may come in very helpful in many VRAM hungry software suites.

A beefy cooling solution has been attached to this card in order to combat its rather high power draw of 350W, supplied through the 12 pin power connector. This is why this build will include a high wattage and high tier PSU that will be able to handle this beast at any load levels.

Available September 24 2020, the RTX 3090 is truly a powerhouse for a workstation build and will come in both Founder’s Edition and AIB models. Availability won’t be great and some hunting is recommended if you want to get your hands on this GPU, especially at launch.

PC Case

One of the best airflow cases on the market right now: The Lian Li Lancool II Mesh RGB

Combining the Lian Li Lancool II Mesh case’s front mesh panel, the 3 included PWM front fans and the 2 additional case fans in this build, you’ll have one of the best cases for airflow on the market. Silent operation and building ease are some of the great focuses of this build and it truly delivers to its word. It doesn’t feature any fancy design elements aside from the Lian Li logo at the bottom of the mesh panel but the slick looks and great lines are enough to make it stand out.

The tempered glass panels swivel outwards and are hold closed firmly with magnets making opening your system dead simple; it also screams quality. The Lancool II Mesh also has a very thoughtful internal layout, making it easy to accommodate all sorts of hardware combinations. The main motherboard compartment doesn’t bring any surprises, and there is room to install two 2.5-inch drives behind the motherboard tray along with three 3.5-inch drives in the HDD caddy under the PSU shroud.

Overall, this premium case ticks all boxes needed for such a capable workstation build; it has great airflow, its ready for our recommended hardware combination and its also beautifully designed!

Dimensions: 478 x 229 x 494 mm (D x W x H)
Compatibility : CPU Cooler Max height 176 mm | GPU Max length 384 mm | PSU Max length 210 mm
Included Fans: Included 3 x 120 mm Front RGB PWM.

Power Supply

The Corsair RMx 850W: A proper high tier PSU for this build’s powering needs

Its no easy task to make something as high quality as this PSU is and keep perfecting it with every revision but Corsair managed to do it with the RMx 850W. It competes with the likes of EVGA’s Supernova G3 which is also a very high tier PSU. The final result is fully satisfactory, achieving higher performance in the cooling and safety department while also being smaller by the previous revision. It is very quiet and its full modularity means you’ll be able to just use the cables you strictly need for this build; that is a great plus for cable management.

Among other PROs of this unit are the well sleeved cables, the compact and good build quality and the ultra high 10 year warranty, making it a very reliable Power Supply for multiple builds during its lifetime.

Dimensions: 152 x 87 x 162mm (W x H x D)
Weight: 1.66 kg
Form Factor: ATX12V v2.4, EPS 2.92
Cooling: 135mm Rifle Bearing Fan

Conclusion

This section concludes our enthusiast workstation build which hosts a mighty Ryzen 9 3950X & RTX 3090 combo. Absolutely no corners have been cut in the making of this build though the ~$3300 price can be discouraging for some. If you have the means to use all the power of this build, you’ll be very happy with how this build will literally make your work a breeze; technology is advancing generation by generation and together with it, the ability to leverage more and more of our work to a system thus making our creation process easier and faster; also, multi-core performance and CUDA capability are at the highest levels.

The RTX 3090 build is more than an all-rounder. We are living in great technology times thanks to the ample competition in the market and this system’s components push every boundary forward. It would be easy to go overboard on price with an enthusiast build while reaching much steeper prices but we feel that this list ticks every box with its carefully chosen components. Its truly accessible for the people that can use it and it would be a real challenge to find a better performing PC at this price point; that’s right, anywhere else in the market.

If you have any questions about the components and choices in this build, we love to answer questions in the comments section below. The RTX 3090 may be hard to get, especially at launch but all the other components are already established on the market; sales for them are already present within many markets, including the 3950X which is now down in price in anticipation of the new Ryzen 4000 series.

Featured Ampere Builds

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AMD was expected to launch new CPUs in response to the 10th generation Intel ‘Comet Lake‘ lineup in order to keep the performance crown and that’s exactly what they did. Introducing the Matisse Zen 2 refresh processors, the Ryzen 5 3600XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT and Ryzen 9 3900XT are 6, 8 and 12 core alternatives to the outgoing Zen 2 Ryzen 5 3600X, Ryzen 7 3800X and Ryzen 9 3900X CPUs respectively. For this article, we will be focusing on the mighty 12 core / 24 threads Ryzen 9 3900XT but you can see spec reviews on the other two as well; go ahead and check our guides for those, too!

We have formulated a spec comparison sheet in order to be easier to understand what you’ll be getting with this Ryzen refresh. Even if the hardware is similar, in fact, its almost identical, AMD has made a few tweaks to these processors in order to extract even more performance out of them. The improvements are much due to TSMC’s optimizations of the manufacturing process; as it matures, the 7nm dies that all Ryzen processors are using become better and better performance-wise and yield wise. A refresh is what this really is; AMD claims a 4% increase in single-core performance on average over the existing Zen 2 CPUs coming from the increased boost clock and other architectural tweaks. IPC (instructions per clock) remains the same with this refresh generation but AMD claims 40% better efficiency when compared to the 10th Generation Intel parts which is rather significant and will matter for a lot of people.

Ryzen 9 3900X vs 3900XT: Specification Comparison

Processor	AMD Ryzen 9 3900X	AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT
Design
Cores / Threads	12 / 24	12 / 24
Base Clock	3.8 GHz	3.9 GHz
Max Boost Clock	4.6 GHz	4.7 GHz
L3 Cache	32 MB	32 MB
TDP	105 W	105 W
Architecture	Zen 2	Zen 2
Process	7 nm	7 nm
Socket	AM4	AM4
FP32 Performance	2,649.6 GFLOPS	2,707.2 GFLOPS
Die Size	74 mm²	74 mm²
Transistors	3,800 million
Launch Date	July 7th 2019	July 7th 2020
Launch Price	499	499
Availability	Amazon	Amazon

As the Ryzen 4000 processors are getting closer and closer, being expected to launch before the end of the year, AMD also felt the need to launch this XT generation of the optimized Zen 2 architecture in order to combat Intel until Zen 3. Good yields and manufacturing costs are allowing AMD to easily select high performance dies in order to provide CPUs that clock higher at the same power consumption with the Ryzen XT refresh.

The hardware on the new Ryzen 9 3900XT is identical to last year’s Ryzen 9 3900X but the base clock is up to 3.9 GHz from 3.8 GHz and boost clock up to 4.7 GHz from 4.6 GHz. Overall, nothing exciting but AMD promises these new XT CPUs will be able to maintain their boost clocks more consistently than the outgoing Zen 2 generation. This mid-life refresh is also bringing improvements to the Infinity Fabric mesh which AMD is using for communication between cores. This is both an advantage and a nuisance for the Ryzen CPUs; it allows AMD to have a very scalable architecture and build processors with as many cores as they want without having the cost ramp up exponentially due to bad yields but it also introduces some core to core latency that mildly affects performance. The XT refresh will feature the Infinity Fabric speed at an out of the box value of 2,000 MHz which is a 10% increase over the previous max 1,800 MHz. This will definitely help in latency bound applications and we can hardly wait to test how this improvement will translate to gaming performance.

The rest is the same as the Ryzen 9 3900XT still sports 12 cores and 24 threads, the same amount of 64 MB L3 cache, same die size and same TDP / power consumption. TSMC’s 7nm process is maturing better and better and this is why AMD pushed this refresh, because they can release these new CPUs as a decent step up in performance at the same price point as the previous Matisse Zen 2 CPUs. The 3900X was already the highest clocked Ryzen 3000 CPU and the 3900XT brings a 100 MHz leap in clock speed over it, pegging it at 4.7 GHz. Intel needs to find performance improvements elsewhere because with this refresh generation, a 4.7 GHz Ryzen beats the single core performance of a 5.2 GHz Intel Core CPU and Intel is starting to remain without any notable advantages.

We don’t believe Intel will lose the gaming performance crown at the high end because that is likely going to happen with the Ryzen 4000 series but this Ryzen 9 3900XT processor together with the Ryzen 7 3800XT with the updated max boost speeds and Infinity Fabric improvements might take the ball so close in Intel’s court that the difference will be too subtle to notice. AMD is innovating with bleeding edge technology and manufacturing process and this is why they can do high core counts at a reasonable price; they have a highly scalable architecture that responds very well to our current market.

The closest Intel competitor price-wise would be the mighty Intel Core i9 10900K and we see the Ryzen 9 3900XT having better single-core and multi-core performance at the same price point; not a good place to be in for Intel. These CPUs are really here to improve on the previous year’s performance per dollar mark. This refresh really is a scary sight for AMD’s competitor, Intel; it shows how Intel’s 10th gen generation can be closely matched with a minimal effort from AMD’s part and at lower prices.

The upcoming Zen 3 architecture hasn’t been leaked yet but it seems that its enough of a performance jump in order to look good even when compared to this intermediate generation, the Zen 2 refresh. Don’t get us wrong though, the Ryzen 9 3900XT together with the other two are great options today both value and performance wise and if you can’t find a good offer on the outgoing models, getting one of these will still provide you with amazing performance for years to come.

Ryzen 9 3900XT vs 3900X: Benchmarks Comparison

Can this new CPU use its clock speed advantage in order to beat the previous Ryzen CPUs with considerable margins?

We’ve compiled gaming results at 1080p with an RTX 2080 Ti GPU in order to stress the CPU as much as we could. The games that are tested include CoD: Modern Warfare, Jedi: Fallen Order, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, DOOM: Eternal and Red Dead Redemption 2. All CPUs are tested with the same GPU and with the same graphics settings across the board. We’ve specifically looked at both Average FPS and 1% Low FPS numbers in order to better understand how smooth the gaming experience would feel on these processors.

Lets get to it!

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Red Dead Redemption 2

Jedi: Fallen Order

DOOM: Eternal

The 3900XT scores very well on gaming when compared to other top gaming CPUs from the likes of both Intel and AMD. Its actually close to the top, trailing only the 10900K in our batch of CPUs tested. The 10900K is 5% faster in average FPS while being 6% faster in 1% Low FPS. Needless to say that its almost impossible to feel this small difference in FPS, especially at 1080p with a RTX 2080Ti graphics card where FPS numbers were above 100 almost all the time.

We can also see that the 3900XT is just 1% better in average FPS than the previous generation Ryzen 9 3900X and 2% better in Low FPS. So not a lot of difference, especially when considering that the 3900X is now retailing at around $420 and comes with an included stock cooler when compared to the $499 Ryzen 9 3900XT.

Average FPS & 1% Low FPS results (higher is better)

We’ve also compared the ‘Cost per frame’ of the 3900XT to the other CPUs tested and there’s no surprise that it scores pretty low here. The 3900XT is not a good value for your system if you only plan to game with your PC but it’s an amazing offer if you’re using your system as both a workstation and gaming machine. If you’re looking for the best overall gaming CPU on the market right now, then your best choices are the Ryzen 5 3600X or the Ryzen 5 3600 which are around 7-8% slower than the $500 10900K but cost almost a third of its price.

It’s very important that besides the price of the CPU, to always take into consideration the cost of the motherboard and CPU cooler. This way, you’ll better understand what best fits for you. For example, both the Ryzen 9 3900XT and the Ryzen 7 3800XT don’t come with a stock cooler and we need to factor in the price of them in order to have a working system and do the cost per frame analysis. Another example is how the 3700X is a more valuable gaming CPU than the gaming-focused i5-10600K because of motherboard + cooler pricing even though the i5-10600K is 2% better on average than the Ryzen 7 3700X.

Overall though, these CPUs can all do gaming very well and you can’t go wrong with either if you closely watch the pricing on each platform.

Cost per frame & value (lower is better)

Multicore workstation performance (higher is better)

There’s no secret that Ryzen does very well in multi-core performance and the numbers below show that. In well-threaded applications like rendering, 3D modeling and ML software, the Ryzen 9 3900XT CPU is the king thanks to its 12 core and 24 threads. With almost 2% better performance compared to the outgoing Ryzen 9 3900X and 17% better than the Intel’s top consumer CPU, the 10900K, the 3900XT is one of the best multi-core CPUs that you can buy. We’d also take a look at the Ryzen 9 3900X which may be one year old now but still provides leading multicore performance at a more accessible price points thanks to offers and retail price cuts.

Related:

• Best B550 Motherboards for Ryzen Matisse Builds
• Best X570 Motherboards for Ryzen Matisse Builds

Featured Builds

The post AMD Ryzen 9 3900X vs 3900XT: What are The Key Differences? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

So you’ve decided to get the newly released Intel Core i7 10700K CPU which is both cheaper and faster than the previous flagship, the Intel Core i9 9900K; they did a good job optimizing the 10700K’s thermals, power consumption and overclocking headroom even if it’s on an old 14nm process. Besides the usual CPU cooler debate and other parts for the build, we still need to have the talk of what GPU to pair it with and that’s more complicated than you think. If you have a limited budget and want to get the best GPU for you, we need to carefully consider what you’ll be using your system for.

Do you want to exclusively game on your PC? If yes, at what resolutions and refresh rates? Do you want a productivity build that will tear through 3D render applications or software programming? Or maybe you like VR and want to try it?

We are trying to address all these questions during this article in which we will analyze and recommend a GPU to pair with the i7 10700K in 10 different categories. We already have some 10700K builds up on our website, be sure to check them out!

This article will help you find the best GPU + CPU pairing based on your budget and build focus in categories such as VR, productivity and various gaming resolutions.

1. NVIDIA GTX 1660 Super

The workstation user who’s an occasional 1080p/1440p gamer or one that needs GPU acceleration in his work tasks. GPU of choice: GeForce GTX 1660 Super

This first category is more popular than you think. Do you use your home system to work extra on different hobbies or as a secondary workstation besides your job? Do you like to sometimes lean back and enjoy some quality time with your other gamer friends or have a kid that you want to entertain once you finish your work? Then this is the category for you!

The solution to this category is rather simple. You clearly don’t need an enthusiast grade GPU that will just take a lot of money out of your pocket and make your system needlessly power hungry. You need to pay only for the performance that you will use. At first, it would make sense to recommend a good value GPU out of the low/mid range market which would take our minds to something like an RX 580 8GB which has both the necessary power to deliver good FPS in games @ 1080p resolutions and comes in cheap at around $150-180.

The thing is though that the majority of people who want to use their system as a workstation, like graphic designers or just people who love entertainment such as movies will most likely use a 1440p or higher display. The RX 580 we talked about earlier is not a right fit for that resolution because it will feel rather slow in many games that you may be desiring to play. This is why we opted for a different graphics card, one that is a good performer even at 1440p and still comes with a very good value.

Introducing the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super which is a great buy at around the $230 price mark. This efficient Turing card comes with 6GB of GDDR6 memory and its performance levels are on par with the previous generation GTX 1070. A great 1080p performer at any refresh rate and capable of driving a 1440p monitor in the majority of games. This is a great choice for the occasional gamer who doesn’t want to pay for performance they’re not going to use.

On the other side, if you can use GPU acceleration in the applications you work with, the GTX 1660 Super is an inexpensive contender. Software like the Adobe Suite, 3DS Max, Maya and other similar productivity apps can make use of the GPU by leveraging the CUDA capabilities of the graphics card. This way, part of that load that would be previously handled by the CPU alone can be transferred to the CUDA cores and this way the CPU & GPU can work together and more responsive.

Regarding which specific card to buy, you can’t really go wrong with the majority of GTX 1660 Super implementations. This is mainly due to the fact that its not a power hungry card and doesn’t demand a beefy cooler in order to function properly. Normally, we would just recommend getting the cheapest GTX 1660 Super that you like the aesthetic of but at Premium Builds we’re not leaving anything uncovered; here are some of our recommendations for AIB GTX 15660 Super’s based on user experience:

• The Asus GTX 1660 Super TUF is one of the most inexpensive models and with a rather small footprint, it will fit in even the smallest of cases; it does the job right and comes at a good price.
• The MSI Ventus XS OC is $10 more expensive and comes with a better-looking fan shroud, better VRMs and slightly increased factory clock speeds.
• At another additional $10, you can also get the Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC which is a triple fan design; rather overkill for this class of GPU but it looks good and its dead silent during any overclocked load. It’s your decision from here on!

GPU Series	Recommended Aftermarket Card	Design	Price
GTX 1660 Super	ASUS TUF Gaming OC		$229
GTX 1660 Super	MSI Ventus XS OC		$239
GTX 1660 Super	Gigabyte Gaming OC		$249

2. AMD Radeon RX 5700XT

The workstation user who finds pleasure in gaming or the one who wants to try VR in his free time. GPU of choice: Radeon RX 5700XT

Like the previous category, this one is popular as well. There are many consumers out there who may work from home or have jobs that allow them to have daily time for gaming. I know that because I myself am one of them! For such a person, the GPU of choice really depends on the performance levels he’s expecting but we have a good recommendation for you if you’re expecting smooth performance in a large collection of current games. We don’t know what you’re playing but we sure know that you’re going to love this categories’ graphics card.

Both AMD Radeon RX 5700-series cards are based on the same Navi GPU and are manufactured on TSMC’s 7nm FinFET process and composed of 10.3 billion transistors, these chips occupy a scant 251 mm². The AMD Radeon 5700XT is the top model in AMD’s NAVI lineup. AMD confirmed that Radeon RX 5700 XT employs a fully enabled version of the Navi GPU; no part of the chip is turned off to improve yields or leave room for a more resource-rich model in the future. It exposes 40 RDNA (the NAVI architecture naming) Compute Units, each with 64 Stream processors, totalling 2560 ALUs across the processor. The CUs host four texture units, just as they did in AMD’s Graphics Core Next design, adding up to 160 in a complete Navi GPU that features 64 ROPs.

Enough with the tech talk, the 5700XT is designed to be a great 1440p performer; it’s around 30% faster than the previous GTX 1660 Super and sports 8GB of GDDR6 RAM which allows it to stretch its legs for an amazing performance at both 1080p & 1440p Triple-A or high refresh rate game titles.

Is VR an interest to you? Have you gotten excited about this rather new technology and can’t wait to try it out but you’re not really a gamer? It’s fine, VR will definitely open new realms for your entertainment. The RX 5700XT in this category is a great VR performer that can hold a steady 90+ FPS in the majority of new VR titles. We say 90 FPS because that’s the recommended frame rate by the majority of VR headsets in order for you to avoid getting dizzy or nauseous. Getting a lesser GPU than the RX 5700XT will limit the games you can play because of this 90 FPS sweet spot.

Some of the best implementations for this RX 5700XT graphics card are coming from MSI and Sapphire. Great value comes out of MSI’s Evoke OC and Sapphire’s Pulse lineup which are built with suitable coolers, decent factory OC, backplates and general quality materials; they are also very silent. A tier above them though is the more expensive Sapphire Nitro+ RX 5700XT which is the best RX 5700 XT aftermarket card you can get. Its factory boost clock is the best out of all other implementations, the GPU comes with a triple fan configuration that is very silent and great at cooling even in 100% load.

GPU Series	Recommended Aftermarket Card	Design	Price
AMD RX 5700 XT	MSI Evoke OC		$389
AMD RX 5700 XT	Sapphire Pulse		$399
AMD RX 5700 XT	Sapphire Nitro+		$433

3. RTX 2070 Super

The workstation user who games competitively. GPU of choice: GeForce RTX 2070 Super

Or the workstation user who may want to try Ray Tracing on the cheapest GPU which can do it decently. The RTX 2070 Super is not a big leap forward against the previously mentioned card, the Radeon RX 5700XT. It is just 5-10% faster but that counts a lot, especially if you have a 1440p monitor and try to squeeze those extra frames in order to stay over 144+ FPS.

The GeForce RTX 2070 Super comes with 40 SMs (streaming multiprocessors), and each SM contains 1 Ray Tracing core, 8 Tensor cores, 4 texture units, and 64 CUDA cores. Basically, the 2070 Super is like a trimmed down RTX 2080 at the cost of the RTX 2070. The RTX 2070 Super reference boost clock is 1770MHz, which is higher than even the overclocked 2070 Founders Edition boost clock of 1710MHz. That combined with the additional four SMs means performance is theoretically up to 22% faster than the RTX 2070. But theory and real-world results don’t always agree. Since the 2070 Super has the same memory bandwidth and configuration, in practice the performance improvement often ends up being closer to 10% but that’s still great!

The good news is that any added performance relative to the RTX 2070 comes without an increase in price. Of course, RTX 2070 cards have gone on sale for as little as $450 over the past nine months, but we’ll probably see the Super cards sell for less than the launch price at some point. And the arrival of the 2070 Super also heralds the phasing out of the regular 2070. While Nvidia’s RTX 2070 was similar in performance to AMD’s RX 5700XT but cost $100 more, the RTX 2070 Super is 10% better than the 5700XT at the same $499 price as the RTX 2070; it was a quick answer to the great value the 5700XT had over the RTX 2070 at launch.

You will be able to consistently game at 1080p & 1440p Ultra settings and be able to push very high frame rates at those resolutions if you need them in competitive eSport games. The i7 10700K we’re pairing these GPUs with is surely able to handle them.

Here are some of the best RTX 2070 Super implementations from third party manufacturers.

GPU Series	Recommended Aftermarket Card	Design	Price
RTX 2070 Super	Gigabyte Windforce OC		$499
RTX 2070 Super	MSI Gaming X		$549
RTX 2070 Super	Zotac Mini		$566

The Gigabyte Windforce OC is a great value aftermarket version of the RTX 2070 Super. It retails at MSRP and sports a triple fan design cooler that keeps the card cool during load. The RGB used on it is subtle but well laid out. The MSI RTX 2070 Super Gaming X aims at a more aggressive factory overclock and the cooler performance and noise levels are on par with the previously mentioned Windforce OC card even if it only has two fans. The card is also overall nicer looks-wise. Or maybe you’re looking for a smaller RTX 2070 Super that can fit in a crowded or tighter case. This is where the Zotac RTX 2070 Super MINI comes in. Its small form factor is great and it doesn’t sacrifice performance for it.

Overall, you generally can’t go wrong with any of the RTX 2070 Supers but we would recommend getting one of the above and staying away from the Founder’s Edition version.

4. RTX 2080 Super

Wanting to be able to work but also own a very capable gaming machine? You have to take a look at the high-end GeForce RTX 2080 Super

One of the great things about the RTX 2080 Super is that it slots in at the same price as the superseded RTX 2080. Essentially, if you’re not already an owner of an RTX 2080, the Super version is a good buy if you’re looking for that kind of performance. The GeForce RTX 2080 Super is an improved RTX 2080 with 128 more CUDA cores, a higher base clock / boost clock and better, 15.5 GB/s memory compared to the latter’s 14 GB/s. Its memory bandwidth is also up to 496 GB/s.

This card offers solid shader performance, and for a bit of fun and giggles, you get to play around with RTX/DLSS if you desire. It’s the second best graphics card that handles Ray Tracing in a decent way. While we can still argue DLSS and RTX are not yet polished enough for consumer use, you do need to realize that the industry is at a clipping point, hardware-based ray tracing is coming, whether that is from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. You are paying a price premium to be that early adopter with a handful of games to actually test it on. But you can’t blame NVIDIA for pioneering with technology. They refreshed the RTX 2080 to be faster and cheaper, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The RTX 2080 Super’s performance figures are great! Its the first card in this category list that we can comfortably call a 4K card. Its performance is somewhere around 15% better than that of the RTX 2070 Super and that’s enough to propel it into the great 4K performer that it is. Don’t get us wrong, you can use this card at any resolution and get comparable performance gains. You can, for example, play at 1440p and aim for 144 FPS with higher graphics details than you could use on the RTX 2070 Super. It’s overall, a very good card appealing to the high-end users that want exquisite gaming performance at a decent price proposition.

GPU Series	Recommended Aftermarket Card	Design	Price
RTX 2080 Super	Zotac Gaming		$709
RTX 2080 Super	MSI Gaming X Trio		$759
RTX 2080 Super	Gigabyte AORUS		$769

The RTX 2080 Super is a rather beefy card and thus needs adequate implementations in order to perform how it should. One good value card that retails very close to the $699 MSRP is the Zotac RTX 2080 Super GAMING video card; its nothing exciting but the triple cooler design does its job very well to keep the card and its very fast GDDR6 memory under 80 degrees even under heavy load. Its design is rather simple but there are some bells and whistles around in the form of RGB.

Following, we have one of the best performing RTX 2080 Super in the whole lineup, the MSI Gaming X TRIO which is a binned card with a high factory overclock and high overclocking capabilities. Its cooler is excellent and the card has a pleasant aesthetic, the RGB customisation being through the roof.

The third RTX 2080 Super card we can recommend is the Gigabyte RTX 2080 Super AORUS which comes in with a very unique triple fan design. Users that are willing to pay a small premium for good looks are going to love this card. Its also the most silent RTX 2080 Super version out there and performance levels are not far from the MSI Gaming X Trio, when overclocked.

Overall there is good implementation diversity for the RTX 2080 Super, allowing you to find the style and performer you like most.

5. RTX 2080 Ti

Enthusiast gamer that needs top performance or a workstation user that needs the most powerful GPU acceleration and enough fast memory. Or an aspiring VR enthusiast. GPU of choice: The GeForce RTX 2080Ti

Budget isn’t a problem and you don’t really care about value. You only care about having all the performance that you can muster into a 2020 PC build, be it for gaming, workstation acceleration use or VR. Then the RTX 2080Ti is the card that will make your dreams a reality.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the latest consumer flagship graphics card from NVIDIA and it has been fitted with the TU102 GPU. This GPU has a whopping 4352 active shader processors, which is substantial when compared with the previous generation GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. It sports 11GB GDDR6 graphics memory, and with that 11 GB, you will get a 352-bit wide memory bus. Ray tracing acceleration is performed by a new RT Core processing, the TU102 has 72 of them with 576 tensor cores and 96 ROP units. For clock frequencies, we’re looking at a 1350 MHz base frequency, with Turbo allowance towards 1635 MHz; keeping some margin in mind for the board partner clock frequencies. Even though that boost clock seems low when compared to other Turing GPUs, most AIB RTX 2080Tis with capable VRMs and coolers can be overclocked to around 2GHz.

The RTX 2080Ti is not a card for the masses. It’s not the card that Nvidia sells the most; quite the contrary. But its a gamer’s or workstation’s guru dream. It allows you to play the most demanding games at smooth frame rates, especially when paired with a capable CPU such as the Intel Core i7 10700K. It basically is the pinnacle of consumer GPU performance and will not care about any game that you throw at it, regardless of graphics settings and resolutions; and that is because game studios optimize their games to have peak performance on the best GPU of each generation and that is the GeForce RTX 2080Ti in this case.

Workstation users will be delighted to use the full capabilities of the 4352 CUDA cores together with boosting machine learning tasks with its whopping 576 Tensor cores. Many applications from the likes of Adobe, 3Ds Max or Autodesk are updating their software tree in order to benefit from this GPU’s acceleration features. Getting an RTX 2080Ti means getting the best performance with no compromises and it also means future-proofing your system.

The RTX 2080Ti is also the best graphics card that you can buy for a high-end VR setup. The GPU is able to hold high frame rates in any Virtual Reality game out there meaning that you can explore the worlds with no compromises or headaches. There’s no VR game out there yet that can tank the RTX 2080Ti under 90 FPS; the i7 10700K sure helps that process as well with its incredible performance. Moving on, the following implementations of the RTX 2080Ti have been carefully selected for you. There have been some inadequate examples of cooling solutions stuck to RTX 2080Tis but you’re not going to find them here. Here’s the list.

GPU Series	Recommended Aftermarket Card	Design	Price
RTX 2080 Ti	Gigabyte Gaming OC		$1299
RTX 2080 Ti	MSI Gaming X Trio		$1239
RTX 2080 Ti	Gigabyte AORUS XTREME		$1299

Starting this list we have the close to MSRP offering by Gigabyte, the RTX 2080Ti Gaming OC. It sports a similar cooler design with the one on the RTX 2080 Super but has a thicker heat sink to deal with the heat coming from the 300W and higher power consumption. Overall, nothing exciting but Gigabyte’s implementation has good value and it surely performs well. Next up, we have one of the best performing RTX 2080Tis out there, the MSI Gaming X TRIO. It’s a personal favorite of ours as we are frequently using it in many of our builds. For the price increase of just $10 over the previous card, you are getting a stellar cooler and heat stink combination, together with a sturdy triple fan RGB’ed design. The card comes highly overclocked from the factory but it doesn’t consume much more power than other RTX 2080Tis; this means it’s well binned and can overclock even further. The last choice of ours in this list is the Aorus Xtreme implementation by Gigabyte (again). This card is the top-end product from Gigabyte and gets a futuristic cooler design. Everything is well laid out, built extremely well and very customizable. It also sports a 4-year warranty, proof that they are not fooling around with this design.

Closing Thoughts

As you can see, you don’t necessarily have to pair a high-end CPU like the i7 10700K with the most expensive GPUs out there. There are choices that need to be made based on what you’re going to be using your PC for. As an analogy, think about how it would feel to get a car that sports high horsepower but you’re only able to drive it slow in the city traffic. It would sound good, of course. It will also look nice. But you’ve just paid a lot more for something that gets bad fuel consumption and you’re not going to use to its fullest potential.

This is why it’s important to try and fit yourself in one of the upper categories. What do you need from a GPU? Are you a power user? Which games are you playing? Which resolution would you like to try now or in the future? These are all questions that need answers before deciding what graphics card to buy. We hope that we helped you leap forward in deciding what to pair your high-end CPU with.

Our recommendations should be of help to you regardless of what you decide to use your system for since we tried to cover almost every use a consumer has from a high-end PC, be it gaming or productivity acceleration. Happy building!

The post 5 Best Graphics Cards for the i7-10700K appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Today we will be focusing on you people that happen to want a system that can run one of the hottest new eSports games out there; that’s right, we’re talking about Riot’s Valorant. Freshly out of Open Beta, this game took the world by storm with its good gun play (similar to CS:GO) and ability use. Many FPS players and streamers tried playing during beta and recommend it to everyone, especially because Riot put in all their efforts to polish and refine the game in such a short time. The game is so popular due to how great of an impact it had on the First Person Shooter community as it promises nothing too revolutionary but an evolution to the FPS genre.

This budget, high-FPS PC build doesn’t contain some kind of Valorant witchcraft and will certainly be a great system for other eSports games that focus a lot on CPU single-core performance. The Ryzen 3 3300X punches well above its price due to the fact that its a 4 core 8 thread unlocked CPU with incredible single core performance. As a matter of fact, this CPU will beat even a heavily overclocked 7700K in single core performance thanks to better IPC on the Ryzen CPU and because AMD opted for a single CCX setup. That’s right, the 3300X features only one CCX which is good for gaming, latency between the core complexes being non-existent. This will often permit the 3300X to game better than more expensive, higher core CPUs thanks to the low core to core latency, especially in games that don’t use more than 4 cores.

We are focusing on an emerging eSport game here which needs smooth and stable high FPS in order for you to have a competitive advantage; that means at least 144 FPS at all times in order to enjoy the benefits of a 144 Hz panel. The 3300X is not only stellar at its good $130 price, it is also the only sane pick if you want the best gaming performance at this price range. There’s no other CPU at this price, not even second hand, that will beat this chip in single thread and general gaming performance.

Lets go ahead and describe our build choices for the best performing eSport Valorant build on a budget:

Budget Valorant High FPS Gaming PC Build – The Parts List

While our primary focus at PremiumBuilds is build planning for your ease, we also heavily focus on how to pass on this information to our readers in order for them to understand the decisions we took in each and every one of our building lists. We’re not leaving you in the dust with some scattered information that you may or may not find informative; we’re here for the whole journey of helping you plan and accomplish your dream build so stick with us further!

CPU

As you could already figure during the introduction, we couldn’t wait to talk about this ‘little’ CPU here. It’s special because unlike the Ryzen 3 3100 which is the same 4 core and 8 threads, the Ryzen 3 3300X features all of its cores on a single CCX (core complex) while the 3100 and all other Ryzen consumer CPUs feature two core complexes. This is AMD’s fine way to prove what they can do in gaming without the latency that’s introduced by CCX to CCX communication.

With this CPU, AMD essentially gives to the low end market a better gaming processor than the 7700K which only three years ago was the best gaming processor on the market. If that doesn’t weigh a lot in favor of this little $130 beast, then we don’t know what will. The CPU can boost itself with an algorithm that will provide the best performance based on workload be it productivity tasks or pure gaming and while overclocking is indeed possible, AMD’s algorithm is so good, you won’t get much more out of the chip with manual old school tweaking; we mainly suggest to leave it at stock. Power consumption is also well handled by the bundled cooler which won’t get too loud.

Besides great gaming performance, this processor is still an 8 thread CPU that can handle productivity pretty well. Streaming in the highest of details is likely not possible but streaming with the GPU is always an option as Nvidia’s NVENC on the 1660 Super graphics card that we’re using is getting better and better with compression and image quality. Content creation like editing your gameplay videos is handled well with software like Premiere Pro or Blender.

Motherboard

This CPU can stretch its legs on any AM4 motherboard that supports overclocking and that includes any B350, B450, X370, X470 and X570; god bless AMD’s platform compatibility! You can find B450 motherboard with decent features for $30 less than this motherboard but we’re still recommending the MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX, thanks to its over engineered VRMs (voltage regulator modules), good I/O and additional flash memory for the BIOS. This additional flash memory allows MSI to provide you with solid updates in the future in order to be able to upgrade to a better CPU if you like. AMD says that the AM4 socket will be supported through 2020 while in 2021 we will get a new one, most likely AM5.

This opens up a world of possibilities. Buying a Ryzen 3 3300X now when you’re on a budget and upgrading next generation to the processor of your dreams is a solid option and also a big reason why we’re choosing this $30 more expensive motherboard in favor of cheaper ones with just decent VRM and a smaller BIOS storage chip.

The I/O offered on this board is also good. B450 Tomahawk’s rear panel offers a total of five USB ports: two USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, a Type-A and a Type-C. Other connections include a DVI-D port and a HDMI 1.4 port, a single PS/2 combination keyboard/mouse port, and a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit networking controller.

MSI has also included a great tool in the form of BIOS Flashback+. This means that whenever you want to update your motherboard, you can do it with peace of mind because even if it somehow bricks from something like a power outage, the BIOS Flashback+ feature will revert to the basic BIOS the motherboard came with, essentially freeing you from a trip to the local shop and money spend on a BIOS flash at the local tech store.

Graphics Card

This card, the GTX 1660 Super, stands as Nvidia’s fastest Turing GPU that doesn’t have the Ray Tracing cores. Based on the GTX 1660, Nvidia made a series of small tweaks to its already successful 1660 in order to be very competitive against AMD value and performance wise. Its the ultimate 1080p graphics card and rivals the performance of the previous generation GTX 1070.

In other words, it’s the exact same 12nm 284mm2 die comprised of 6.6 billion transistors as the GTX 1660. It also has the same 6GB VRAM buffer but it’s here where the changes begin to be seen. Nvidia has upgraded the 8 Gb/s GDDR5 memory of the standard 1660 to 14 Gb/s GDDR6 memory and this sees a massive 75% increase in memory bandwidth. In fact, this provides the 1660 Super with even more memory bandwidth than the 1660 Ti model.

For $230, this card, the ASUS 1660 Super TUF Gaming OC, has one of the best performance per dollar showings and can easily hold above 144 fps in every eSport game, which is exactly the focus of this Valorant build and why we’re so excited about it. Its closest performance competitor would be AMD’s RX 5600 XT which is indeed around 20% faster but its a $300 card which doesn’t scream budget anymore. If you can afford to get a faster GPU, and AMD RX 5600XT or RX 5700 would be our next recommendations, but we’re going to stick with the GTX 1660 Super for the Valorant build – thanks to its great performance for the accessible price tag.

Memory

G.Skill’s Aegis lineup is purposefully built for customer value as it comes at friendly price tags with great performance. For $60 you are getting 2 x 8GB Dual Channel memory binned to 3000MHz and a CAS Latency (CL) of 16. That’s insane value considering that for double the money, you’re likely looking at similar 3200MHz RAM sticks with maybe less latency. For this system, this RAM kit is perfectly suitable as it allows you to just plug into the motherboard, set BIOS XMP in order for the sticks to run at their rated speeds and just forget about them; they will deliver great performance over and over again.

If you are a tweaker and want to test your luck, some of these sticks can be tweaked to higher MHz and lower CLs by increasing the voltage; but we repeat, its down to luck. For example, out of the 5 G.Skills Aegis kits we had on hands, 3 of them managed to clock to 3466MHz CL 15 or 3133MHz CL 14 with tightened timings. That’s free performance and it might be worth taking a look into; don’t worry, we have an in depth article coming on that soon! Stay tuned!

The 16 GB capacity that the 2 x 8GB sticks offer is definitely enough for this kind of build and you’ll only need more if you’ll be doing heavy editing on your system; light editing will still be handled very well by this system’s 16GB of RAM. Also, the Ryzen 3300X CPU will definitely profit from these higher clocked modules as its Infinity Fabric clock speed benefit from memory speed; because of this, 3000MHz RAM modules like the ones in the list are the sweet spot for our build right here.

Storage

One of the best SSDs out there, the Crucial MX500, makes way into this build its main difference from a classic SSD drive being the presence of 512MB of Cache. This benefits both the reading and writing speeds of this device in heavy use situations like video editing previews, rendering or even game loadings. This SSD’s main advantage over the other traditional SATA ones is to never slow down, independent on load and capacity used.

We’re only going for 500GB of storage for budget constraints and that should be enough for your OS and a large library of games but if you need more storage we assume that you have an HDD around that you can use in this build. If you don’t, just pay some extra money and upgrade this MX500 to the 1Tb version because it still remains a solid value proposition for its performance.

PC Case

This mid-tower enclosure, the Phanteks Eclipse P300A Mesh, is a new case from Phanteks that drastically improves on airflow when compared to other similarly priced cases. Its also in the name; the A from P300A stands for Airflow! We are loving this case because it comes with many features that are found in products with a much higher price tag. Great airflow, solid metal build, an edge to edge tempered glass panel, space for additional fans and lots of space for cable management; what’s not to like?

Many cases at this price range went the route of crazy designs and RGB paired with plastics all over the place; like people usually say, lights improve frame rates, right? Well we don’t want to be those guys but RGB certainly doesn’t. This case is a great example of a simple product packed with quality features and a well-thought layout. Its front panel is not closed but it features a mesh material with dust filters that allow air to freely pass through the build, cooling it and maintaining the consistent performance of your other components.

Power Supply

For powering your build we’re going to use a very popular PSU in the form of the Corsair CXM 550W. It stands out as a quality and well-revised product from a reputable company with a good track record. It features all the cables you need in our recommended build in a semi-modular form factor that helps you keep the case tidy; the Corsair power supply allows you to put aside the cables that you’re not going to use except the 24 PIN that you’re obviously going to use in order to power the Tomahawk motherboard.

550W is more than enough for this type of build because you’ll almost never go above 200W of total system power consumption; that’s how efficient both the AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and Nvidia GTX 1660 Super are. We’re using a 550W PSU because its a great model and its value will increase in time if you will be upgrading your system after a few years; you will still be able to use the same power supply thanks to its universal compatibility and especially the presence of 2 x 6+2 PCIe cables which can hold much more power-hungry graphics cards.

How will this build handle Valorant and other eSports games?

Now that all the build aspects are sorted out, we guess you’d want to know what was all this fuss about. We guarantee you’ll be impressed with the capabilities of this “little” ~$700 build as much as you’d wonder, how is it possible for such a cheap build to run games so well. With every build that we plan and recommend, we prepare a set of helpful benchmarks in order for you to understand the performance of the build and to be able to compare it with other performance figures online.

We know that you’re most likely using other resources besides PremiumBuilds but we thrive to be as complete as we can! Here are some helpful benchmarks of the Ryzen 3 3300X + GTX 1660 Super combo:

As you can probably see, popular eSports games that need high FPS in order to have a competitive edge work very well on this build. That’s no surprise because we optimized the system for such a use; in order to fit the budget, a faster GPU than the GTX 1660 Super would mean a downgrade on the CPU which would’ve damaged the frame rate consistency of these high fps games. Similarly, a downgrade on the GPU would’ve probably meant some more FPS in a low graphics game like CS:GO but less FPS in more graphically focused games like Modern Warfare or Valorant. The Ryzen 3 3300X quad core / 8 thread unlocked CPU strikes a perfect balance with the GTX 1660 Super for a build at the $700 budget and it shows!

Have leftover build money and your monitor is sub-par?

The main purpose of this Valorant gaming PC build is to be able to run eSports games at high frame rates with as little stutter and frame inconsistency as possible. While the build itself will certainly succeed at this mission, a proper monitor would complete the experience. It’s useless to buy many nice clothes and not be able to show them off because you can’t wear them, right? That’s the thing with high refresh rate monitors; they allow you to see frames at a faster rate by displaying the image 120, 144 or 240 times a second, unlike the locked 60 some of you may be familiar with. It’s so easy to grow addicted with the smoothness of high refresh rate, just get into a tech store and ask to play around with such a monitor; just moving the mouse on the desktop will give you a strong idea of what you should expect.

There are many popular 144hz monitor options that will come at a great price thanks to the competitivity of the market. As a bonus of this build recommendation, we’d like to also show you a few monitors that would work great along with this build!

Both of these are great performers with great IPS or VA panels and a generous 144Hz refresh rate. MSI’s Optix line is of great value for the consumer and we would really recommend checking these two out because for approximately $200 they make for very compelling gaming monitors! Also, being IPS and VA panels with 1 ms response time, the color accuracy, viewing angles and overall image quality will be very good so you’re not sacrificing on those just for the speed. Stay tuned for our VA vs IPS vs TN monitor technologies comparison; it’s coming soon!

Closing Thoughts

Planning out a speedy eSports gaming build isn’t an easy task; we would even consider harder than a high end build where you have the budget for everything and can’t really go wrong with the pair between top processors and top GPUs. High FPS value builds like this one need to be perfectly weighted and tested for any bottlenecks; it’s not enough to just get the priciest components in your budget because that may not be the best option FPS wise. It would be hard or even impossible without some cheap second-hand parts to beat the brand new system we have here that we thoroughly tested in order just to get it right for you!

Appreciate that you stuck with us till the conclusions; that means we didn’t do this boringly and we thank you! It’s probably time to make up your mind because we are in a very competitive component market right now and the value some of the manufacturers bring to the table is just stellar. We also hope that this article’s sections have been in-depth enough to answer most of your questions and you weren’t left with too many questions; if you do have them, we love to answer in the comment section below! We will also be doing complete building video guides in the future so stay tuned for that.

The post Best Budget Valorant PC Build for 144+ FPS Gaming appeared first on PremiumBuilds.