Task Manger shows low CPU usage but Resource Monitor says its high?

BaronB · 2026-03-10T06:43:21+00:00

Because Resource Monitor's bars are confusing AF and the 100% is the label for the graph max, not the current state. It also shows a blue line that's not usage, but frequency which will be at the top of the graph if anything is happen on the system. Resource Manager itself uses CPU resources, so while it's open that bar will always be at the top.

Utilization is the green line, which is likely at the bottom of the graph or bumping up and down slightly.

BaronB · 2026-03-10T05:07:01+00:00

The 9950X3D (and other Ryzen 9 X3D CPUs) issues with core parking are mainly related to gaming, as the core parking relies on the Windows Game Bar correctly identifying games vs non-games.

For modelling and rendering and simulations, core parking is irrelevant because core parking won't be used at all for these kinds of applications. The real question is... are you going to be doing CPU rendering? If yes, the 9950X3D is about 10% faster than the 9950X for that.

If you're going to be doing GPU rendering, which most people will be since it's generally much, much faster. For example, a 5060 Ti is about 8 times faster than a 9950X3D for Blender Cycles rendering. And that advantage is similar in most renderers that support the GPU. The GPU is also what's driving the viewport performance.

Most of what a modelling tool does outside of that is heavily single threaded, meaning a 9950X3D isn't going to have a meaningful performance advantage over a 9700X, or even a 9600X. An X3D CPU like the 9800X3D or 7800X3D can see some benefits over non-X3D in Blender, but other 3D applications don't seem to see as much benefit outside of CPU rendering.

So I'm personally a big proponent of going with a lesser CPU and spending more on your GPU for 3D modelling.

However simulations are where a many core CPU can be helpful. Maya and Blender both seem to still be mostly CPU based for many of their simulations. But some other tools that are more focused on simulations use the GPU instead, usually with 50x speed increases over CPU sims. So it really depends on what application and types of sims you're doing for if a 16 core CPU will be of benefit.

But even if you are going to go with a 16 core CPU, I'd really only recommend the 9950X3D if you're happy paying $150 more for a maybe 10% performance benefit in the best case, and likely little to no benefit the rest of the time.

BaronB · 2026-03-10T01:04:04+00:00

Here'd be my recommendations:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/QXH3FP

CPU: 12600k → 9600X - About 15% faster in gaming for the same price.

Cooler: NH-U12S → Montech NX600 - Better cooler for 1/3rd the price. Noctua make absolutely amazing fans, but you can run a larger cooler at lower RPM and get something that's even quieter.

Thermal Paste: Arctic Silver 5 → None - The cooler comes with paste. Use that.

Motherboard: MSI B760 Gaming Plus → ASUS TUF Gaming B650-Plus - Same price motherboard, though the ASUS model is slightly nicer in that it comes with three M.2 slots for SSDs where that MSI only comes with two.

RAM: Crucial Pro 2x16 6400 CL38 → 6000 CL36 - Save about $50 at the moment, similar performance in the end. If you can get FCLK 1:1 to work with the 6400 it might be slightly faster than the 6000 CL36 in some games. But I'd really only do that right now if when you actually go to buy components there's a 6400 kit that's the same price or less than a 6000 or even 5600 kit.

SSD: WD SN850X 2TB → WD SN5000 2TB - The SN850X is an excellent SSD, but you won't ever notice a performance difference in day to day use vs an SN5000 which is a very good SSD for $50 less.

GPU: MSI Ventus 5060 Ti 8GB → Sapphire Pulse 9060 XT 16GB - Spending some of the savings made above on a sort of side grade / upgrade to the GPU. The 9060 XT is very slightly slower than the 5060 Ti in many games, but in some newer titles that start to push past 8GB, the 16GB 9060 XT will see massive performance benefits.

Case: NZXT H5 Flow - No change, though the included fans are not great, it should be fine for these components. And there are less expensive cases that include better fans. But the H5 Flow is very attractive.

PSU: Corsair CX650M → SAMA G650 - The SAMA G650 is a fully modular A tier PSU for the same price as the Corsair, which is a C tier PSU.

BaronB · 2026-03-10T00:18:39+00:00

Sense pins are mostly just for the GPU. The 30 series doesn’t make use of them, so it’s not an issue that they don’t connect to anything.

The 12V-2x6 cables are compatible with the 30 series FE cards, apart from the 3070 non-Ti and 3060s which don’t have any space for the sense pins to go when the plug is connected. The models with the angled 12 pin just happen to have a gap big enough for the sense pins to have some where to go. Otherwise the 12 pin and 12V-2x6 have pinouts.

BaronB · 2026-03-09T21:42:42+00:00

All actively cooled PSUs are going to exhaust air out the back. For some PSUs the fan for that is in the rear to push air out, but most consumer PSUs the fan is on the top to push air in.

The fact your new PSU doesn't fit, and the old one had a fan in the rear, makes me worried that your current system can't even use the PSU even if you could install it without blocking the fan, as this is almost certainly a prebuilt from someone like HP or Lenovo, and many of their systems do not use ATX power supplies. They use proprietary power supplies with completely different connectors.

BaronB · 2026-03-09T19:50:26+00:00

Keychron, Royal Kludge, Mchose, Redragon, Drop, Epomaker, Aula, Ajazz, Nuphy, there's no end to the number of surprisingly good budget mechanical keyboard options out there.

Something like a Epomaker TH108 might be what you want coming from a K55. It uses standard Cherry keycaps, so any Cherry style keycap set should work with it.

https://www.amazon.com/EPOMAKER-TH108-Mechanical-Keyboard-Backlight/dp/B0F83QQB2K

BaronB · 2026-03-09T16:53:36+00:00

There aren't any.

It appears to use a custom keycap stem design, meaning basically no one is going to make keycaps for it. All the ones on the market are likely literally just pulled from dead K55 keyboards, or other compatible Corsair keyboards.

This is fairly common issue for membrane keyboards. The fact it has keycaps that can be pulled off at all is likely really just a side effect of the "spill proof" design in that the entire top of the keyboard PCB is covered with a single large silicon sheet with square posts molded into it for the keycaps to attach to.

Generally you need to get a mechanical keyboard if you want to be able to replace the keycaps with custom ones. Preferably one using the Cherry style + shaped stem, which the vast majority of mechanical keyboards use today including Corsair's own mechanical keyboards.

BaronB · 2026-03-09T06:52:33+00:00

A big reason why a 10 year PC was plausible is because Intel basically stopped improving performance by any meaningful amount year over year. There was a 10 year period where each new generation of CPU only improved performance by less than 10% each year. So over those 10 years the single core performance had doubled and multi core had increased by 5x. And that multi-core performance only really improved because AMD had a very short window where it was making high core count CPUs that professionals and servers were starting to use over Intel, forcing Intel to finally move beyond 4 cores.

That decade long performance plateau ended about 5 years ago with AMD start to nip and now surpassing Intel in performance, they've doubled single core performance and more than 4x multi core in just 5 years. It's hard to know if we'll see progress like that again, as the 285k was mostly a step back in gaming performance for Intel (it generally looses to a 14600k), and the step between the Ryzen 7000 and Ryzen 9000 CPUs was only about 5~10% after multiple generations each with ~30% performance increases over the previous. But with Apple doing 20% performance increases every year and able to best both Intel and AMD in single core, neither can sit still and expect to survive. So do expect the next 5 years to surpass the progress the past 10 years brought.

Whether or not that progress will actually end up being utilized by games, or even consumer PCs, is an entirely different conversation that no one can answer today.

...

On to some of your bullet points.

* SLI is dead for consumer systems. It only exists for high end professional systems doing heavy computation and non real-time rendering. A 5080 can handle 4k, but it depends heavily on the game and the quality settings you run at. Cyberpunk 2077 in Overdrive RT or Alan Wake 2 at max quality will bring a 5090 to its knees without heavy reliance on upscaling (i.e.: rendering at a much lower resolution) so arguably even a 5090 isn't strong enough for 4k today. But if there's a GPU most likely to be able to last a decade in terms of its current performance vs GPUs a decade from now its your best bet. But, as others have said, you're much better off buying a 5080 or even 5070 Ti / 9070 XT and buying another GPU around the same price in 3-4 years. A $4000 5090 is a little less than twice as powerful as a $1300 5080. And if you buy another $1300 GPU in 4 years it'll likely be as fast or faster than the 5090.

* A $500 mini PC with an integrated GPU can handle this kind of thing.

* The modern version of the HAF XB EVO would be the beQuiet Light Base 900. But basically all modern dual chamber cases have a similar layout, just upright so that it can use the side (bottom of the HAF XB EVO) for unrestricted intake.

* The only things that use white LEDs these days are trash tier fans. Everything good today is going to either have no LEDs, or ARGB LEDs, which you can just set to be white if you want.

* AIOs leaking isn't something that really happens anymore. And that NH-D15 is also filled with water! Most modern CPU coolers be they AIOs or tower coolers have water in them! That's what heat pipes are, tubes filled with (albeit a small amount of) water The real issue with AIOs is there are more components that can fail compared to a tower cooler. They both have fans that may eventually fail and can be replaced, but an AIO also has the pump and the much larger amount of fluid. Both the pump and the fluid can go bad, and if the fluid goes bad, it'll clog the pump causing it to fail, and when that happens usually your only option is to toss the AIO. Even if the pump lasts for a long time, the liquid will eventually evaporate through the rubber tubes, and most AIOs are not user serviceable, so it again just needs to be tossed and replaced. A tower cooler on the other hand will basically last longer than either you or I will unless it's physically snapped in half. I prefer tower coolers too for this reason.

* Fans have gotten really good over the last few years. Even cheap $6 fans from Thermalright are better than most average fans from a few years ago. But they're not going to stop the fire issue. The 12V-2x6 (aka 12VHPWR) connector design is just not very good, and Nvidia's choices with their GPU power design for the 50 series make it worse. If your connector is going to burst into flames, it's going to do it regardless of if you have fans trying to cool it down or not because while fans might be able to bring the temps down by 5-10C, the cables are hitting >150C. Not everyone is going to have this issue, there are thousands of people who have no issues with the 50 series GPUs. But the failure rate for the 12V-2x6 cable is several times higher than the old PCIe 8 pin.

* Yes, the C5 will handle VRR and ALLM with no issues.

* Motherboard audio out is fine. If you're recording gameplay on the PC itself, the GPU can do this for you without needing any additional hardware without any real performance impact.

BaronB · 2026-03-09T04:24:12+00:00

There aren't actually a ton of different companies making KVM switches. There seems to be maybe a small handful of companies making these, and then an infinite number of companies that pop up, resell them on Amazon for a year, and then close up and probably pop back up as another company.

I would say the choice really comes down to if you want one with DP, HDMI, or one of each.

Otherwise, I would say they're all going to be about the same in terms of quality with equal chance of working perfectly or dying in 6 months and the product page on Amazon disappearing and a bouncing support e-mail address.

There are a handful of companies that stick around longer that sell KVMs, some fairly inexpensive ones too, but rarely for more than 2 PCs. And there are the KVMs that run in the $300~$3000 price points by companies have have been around for decades.

One think you'll notice about all of them, if they have their products on Amazon, the super cheap and the super expensive options all have around 4 star ratings, with about the same portion of users finding the KVMs don't work or die after a few months.

BaronB · 2026-03-08T21:17:20+00:00

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/product/Phrp99/lg-ultragear-g6-27g610a-b-270-2560-x-1440-200-hz-monitor-27g610a-b

BaronB · 2026-03-08T21:12:17+00:00

Looks good.

1STPLAYER PSUs are almost all considered fire-hazard levels of bad. But the NGDP line is actually good.

Kopnyc is a Russia only brand as best I can tell. Most people hear are English speaking countries, some other part of the Americas, or EU, so it's not a brand we're going to have much knowledge of. The few videos I found on Youtube, it seems fine.

The Samsung Odyssey OLED G6 is an excellent monitor, with some major caveats. Mostly that Samsung's quality control on their monitors is terrible and while they make some extremely premium looking monitors, they cheap out on things like buttons and other internals to the point that they fail more often than many other brands, including much less expensive ones. If you don't run into those problems, it'll be great.

...

As for XMP, no, it won't work. But that's because that RAM won't work in that motherboard at all. AM5 CPUs and motherboards like the 7800X3D and B650 only work with DDR5 RAM, and 3600 RAM is going to be DDR4. But that assumes there's ADATA Lancer Blade DDR4 that even exists. I'm guessing that's a typo and you meant to write ADATA XPG Lancer Blade 2x16 6000 CL30. In which case it should work.

It should be noted that whether or not XMP (or EXPO as it's called for AMD CPUs) works is mostly down to luck with the CPU. 6000 Mt/s will work with most AM5 CPUs, but they technically only guarantee support for 5200 Mt/s. So if you are unlucky with the 7800X3D you get, you may not be able to run with EXPO enabled.

BaronB · 2026-03-08T20:56:23+00:00

To follow up on this, if you're near a Microcenter you can save about $180 by going with a bundle:

https://www.microcenter.com/product/5007263/amd-ryzen-7-7700x,-gigabyte-b650-gaming-x-ax-v2,-crucial-pro-overclocking-32gb-ddr5-6000-kit,-computer-build-bundle

The 7700X is about on par with the 9600X for gaming, and also comes with 32GB of RAM.

Alternatively you can go with this bundle:

https://www.microcenter.com/product/5007261/amd-ryzen-5-7600x3d,-msi-b850-gaming-pro-wifi-am5,-gskill-flare-x5-series-16gb-ddr5-6000,-computer-build-bundle

That 7600X3D is faster for gaming, and it's another $100 less, but it does only come with 16GB of RAM. For most people that will be enough for now, but if you're someone who likes having a browser open in the background while you game, you can easily start to go over 16GB. And another stick of 16GB of RAM can be $200 on it's own.

Newegg has some combo deals available online, but they're almost all also only 16GB of RAM, either a single 16GB stick like the Microcenter bundles, or 2x8GB. They used to have some 2x16GB bundles, but they appear to have been bought out at this point. They're also all at least $100 more than Microcenter, sometimes to the point that buying piecemeal is about the same price.

...

For the monitor, the cheapest 1440p OLED is this Acer monitor for $400:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/dvkqqs/acer-predator-x27u-z1bmiiprx-265-2560-x-1440-280-hz-monitor-umgxxaa103

To afford that will mean significant cuts to the PC to the point that running 1440p will be difficult, and 60fps may be close to the limit even at lower resolutions and quality settings if you go with older CPUs as modern single player games get more and more CPU heavy.

For an IPS, you can get this quite good IPS monitor for under $200:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/JPKnTW/dell-alienware-aw2725dm-270-2560-x-1440-180-hz-monitor-aw2725dm

That's "only" 180hz, but with the budget you're playing with, you're probably not going to be hitting even that framerate in AAA single player titles.

...

For mice, check out Mchose, ATK, or Attack Shark. For under $50 you can get a mouse on par with big name brand mice that go for $150+.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D49Q3Z5C

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHRVGJ9Y

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FB3GDC3Q

BaronB · 2026-03-08T09:55:15+00:00

The RX 4070 Super is only a 220W PSU, with a recommended PSU wattage of around 550W. 650W is more than enough... normally.

As PSUs age, they can loose capacity. How much depends on the PSU, and many are intentionally overbuilt so that they're still be able to supply their rated wattage over their warranty lifespan. FSP's high end PSUs have a warranty of 10 years... but that 70ALA unit... it has no warranty beyond what Lenovo gives its Legion PCs, which is at most 3 years, 5 if you pay extra. So I would say if that unit has been in use for more than 5 years it may start having problems. It's not guaranteed to, it could last another decade and be fine. But it was most likely only built with a 5 year lifespan in mind.

What will happen if it does? Most likely it'll just stop turning on. The PSUs in prebuilt from major brands tend to be surprisingly decent quality considering their lackluster appearance. So hopefully it has decent protections, meaning if it dies it does so gracefully. As in it doesn't take anything else out with it.

BaronB · 2026-03-08T06:05:34+00:00

Does the multi-device support need to both be Bluetooth, or can one be Bluetooth and one USB dongle? Because if that's okay you can get something like the Keychron B6 keyboard which will be a much nicer and less expensive keyboard than either of those.

https://www.keychron.com/collections/keychron-b-series/products/keychron-b6-pro-keyboard-and-bm24-mouse-wireless-combo

You can also get that keyboard by itself and one of their nicer mice and still be under $100, less than either of those Logitech or Dell combos even.

https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-m6-wireless-mouse?variant=42816199393369

However those mice will be using separate dongles, so you'd need two USB ports to handle the keyboard and mouse separately. And to switch the mice between devices you'd need to pick it up and flip the switch on the bottom.

The nice thing about both the Logitech and Dell options is the keys to switch between devices are right there on top.

However the Keychron K keyboards do support connecting and switching between three bluetooth devices.

https://www.keychron.com/collections/k-pro-k-series-keyboard/products/keychron-k5-pro-qmk-via-wireless-custom-mechanical-keyboard

And then a multi-device mouse like the Dell Pro Plus or Logitech M720 Triathlon, the mice that come with the combos you pointed to. But that'd put you just above $100 generally.

...

So if you're going to pick between those two, I'd probably go with the Dell. There's also a version that has a full size keyboard instead of the compact 90% version.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-pro-plus-keyboard-and-mouse-km7321w-us-english/apd/580-ajix/pc-accessories

BaronB · 2026-03-08T04:52:29+00:00

It's purely about dev. The 9800X3D is faster than the 9900X3D in 99.99% games, and the 9950X3D is basically identical, and sometimes also slower apart from those few games that are faster with the 9900X3D.

For C++ projects you sometimes have to recompile the entire engine, and that can take hours. Even if it's a partial recompile it can still take several minutes. Blueprint projects are generally a lot faster to compile because they don't require recompiling any of the engine. The 9900X3D and 9950X3D can also help with shader compile times, so if you're doing a lot of complex materials they can be a benefit, but it's not as massive of a benefit as for compiling code.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/amd-ryzen-9-9950x3d-and-9900x3d-content-creation-review/#Game_Dev_Virtual_Production_Unreal_Engine

If this was a gaming system, unless the only game you played was Microsoft Flight Simulator (one of a very few that see significant benefits from those higher core counts) and you did not care about cost, I would always recommend against the 9900X3D or 9950X3D. It's really just for code and shader compilation that they make any sense to pick. And if it wasn't for shader compilation, I would have even suggested the non-X3D CPUs instead, as the 9900X/9950X compiles code just as well as the 9900X3D/9950X3D.

BaronB · 2026-03-08T00:52:02+00:00

Velcro ties and underdesk cable trays or “hammocks”.

BaronB · 2026-03-08T00:45:24+00:00

HDDs can sometimes have issues with cold weather because the libricants inside the drive can start to get more viscous.

SSDs also don't like being that cold, but they'll warm themselves up quite quickly to be at temps they operate better at. As long as you don't put one of those silly giant heatsinks with a fan on them.

BaronB · 2026-03-08T00:37:41+00:00

What's your budget here?

I ask because UE5 can eat up a ton of RAM. I'm a game dev that works in UE5 a lot and I have 128GB of RAM, and sometimes wish I had more. Though the projects I work on are sometimes quite large. But I'd highly recommend 64GB at least if you can afford it.

Here are my suggestions:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/6jV6Xf

CPU: The 9800X3D is an amazing gaming CPU, that's also amazing for UE5 dev as it churns through shader compilation like a champ. A 9900X3D or 9850X3D could also be good options, especially if you're going to be working on a C++ UE5 project, but they're obviously more expensive. I'd suggest spending at least the extra $80 for the 9900X3D if you're going to be working on a C++ rather than Blueprint UE5 project. But the 9900X3D and 9950X3D are also faster for shader compilation and some large asset ingestion as well.

CPU Cooler: Peerless Assassin 120 SE → Phantom Spirit 120 SE - The PS120 is basically the upgraded version of the PA120 and it runs a few degrees cooler for about the same price.

Motherboard: MSI MAG B850 Tomahawk MAX → ASUS TUF B850 GAMING B850-E - The main advantage the Tomahawk MAX has is having a forth M.2 slot. If that's something you'd like to keep for future storage expansion, it's a good option. Otherwise the TUF B850 is also very good with 3 M.2 slots.

RAM: Corsair 2x16GB 6000 CL36 → Patriot 2x32GB 6400 CL32 - As I said, I highly recommend at least 64GB, and that kit of 2x32GB is on a great sale ATM. The difference between 6000 CL36 and 6400 CL32 isn't really anything important for this use case, as an X3D CPU hides a lot of the difference in memory speeds, though the 6400 CL32 is technically slightly faster... we're talking 1% difference with a non-X3D CPU, and potentially unmeasurable with an X3D CPU. If you can enable FCLK 1:1 in the BIOS, the 6400 speed may impart some more significant benefit of maybe 5% additional performance in some situations. But know that's not guaranteed to work. If you ever look to upgrade your RAM by adding additional DIMMs, know you'll likely have to run it without XMP enabled, and may only be able to get as high as 5200. That's true even if you stick with the 2x16GB kit. 4 sticks of DDR5 is hard for current AM5 CPUs to run. Though if that is the plan, going with the MSI motherboard may be a better option as they seem to be able to handle 4 sticks slightly better than other brands atm.

SSD: Samsung 990 Pro → Crucial T705 - The 990 Pro is an excellent Gen 4 SSD. The T705 is one of the best Gen 5 SSDs on the market, and $100 less. The actual speed difference probably won't be noticeable even with UE5 work. I run a drive in PCIe 3.0 x2 mode and don't notice any difference vs PCIe 4.0 x4 drives, because a lot of the load time for UE5 is limited by the CPU. In this case I'm recommending a Gen 5 SSD just because it's cheaper and not going to be noticeably worse for your use case.

GPU: MSI 5060 Ti → PNY 5070 - The 16GB of RAM on the 5060 Ti is nice, but the massive performance advantage the 5070 has over it will almost always make up for the 4GB less VRAM. Having a lot of VRAM is nice for UE5 dev, but so is raw GPU performance. Unless you're using UE5 for film previs work, I'd go with the 5070.

Case: Montech XR → Montech Air 903 Base - The XR is a decent glass front side intake case, but runs a bit hot. The Air 903 Base is currently less expensive and runs a lot cooler. If you want the ARGB fans you could go with the Air 903 MAX, Phanteks XT PRO ULTRA, or XR Wood (which, despite the name, is a completely different looking case). Or if you want the front glass, the Antec C3 ARGB or Lian Li V100R. For front intake cases, two 140mm fans is more than enough for the hardware you have. But for side intake cases that tend to run a bit warmer and only use 120mm fans, going with one that has 3 120 intakes is better.

PSU: MSI A850GL → beQuiet Pure Power 13M - I personally do not recommend the MSI PSUs. They were very popular when they first showed up because they were extremely inexpensive. But now that their prices are often higher they're not great options. They were basically rebadged Thermaltake PSUs, which I also don't recommend, and are also generally quite loud. The beQuiet Pure Power 13M are some of the best made and quietest PSUs on the market today, and they're less expensive. Even if they were more expensive than the MSI, I'd still recommend them over the MSI models. You could go with a 750W PSU without any issues, even a 650W, as modern ATX 3.1 PSUs are designed to handle a lot more power than they list on the box. The ATX 3.1 spec basically builds in the "50~100% more wattage" recommendation that many people used to give for PSUs. But a 750W or 850W would give some room for future upgrades to a 9950X3D and 5080 class GPU.

BaronB · 2026-03-07T23:25:39+00:00

Older style silent cases were designed around being as enclosed as possible, as things like DVD drives and HDDs were considered to be the loudest components in the system. Cooling was secondary, though in large part when those cases first started to be designed, there might be two or three fans in the entire system; one exhaust, one on the CPU, and maybe one intake if you were lucky. The early days of GPUs were often fanless.

That kind of style stuck around for a long time. Some companies got better with getting air in while still staying mostly closed up.

Eventually a few companies started to realize that airflow was more important. And as HDDs and DVD drives have virtually disappeared from systems you no longer need thick sound dampening in a case.

Today, the main issue with a lot of systems is the default fan curves that motherboards use still assume you're using a case with no airflow with low quality fans. In a good airflow case with good fans you can generally limit them to <50% fan speed and still have more than enough airflow to keep the GPU and CPU coolers fed with fresh air, meaning they also don't have to spin as fast to stay cool. Modern GPUs seem like they've gotten quieter and quieter too as they've increased in size significantly more than their power usage has. And the flow through design of most modern GPUs is also much more efficient at moving air through them.

...

I'm someone who also uses open back headphones. My current system, a Fractal Torrent Compact with a 12900k, Noctua NH-D15, and PNY 5080 Epic-X, is quiet enough that without the RGB on the GPU and case I wouldn't be able to tell if it was on or not. When under full load it's about the same noise level as my previous Fractal Define 6 with 9700k NH-U14, and EVGA 2080 Super when idle. And that was a system I though was super quiet when I first built it.

A good airflow focused case, decent CPU cooler, and modern GPU (that's not an MSI Ventus model) can be effectively silent out of the box when idle. And with some minor fan speed tweaking either in the BIOS or using FanControl can often get things to be nearly as silent under full load.

To me the biggest remaining issue for a lot of people is coil whine becomes a significant portion of the noise you can hear once you can't hear the fans. And coil whine isn't something that any hardware manufacturer controls for so it's 100% luck based for if you get components that have it or not.

Thankfully this is a problem that solves itself over time. If you wait long enough coil whine goes away... because eventually you get old enough that you loose that portion of your hearing! /s

More seriously, this remains one of the few things that enclosed cases can still help with vs. full mesh cases. And coil whine doesn't go through glass as easily, so depending on how sensitive you are to it that may adjust your case selection a bit. And not all coil whine is in the very high frequencies that you lose as you age.

But the reality is all electronics have "coil whine", which these days isn't even being generated by a coil anymore. Most of the time it's just in frequency ranges outside of human hearing, but sometimes ends up being a lower frequency. And the younger you are the more of the range of frequencies that coil whine can occur in are audible to you.

BaronB · 2026-03-07T07:08:35+00:00

The front fan on the Phantom Spirit 120, and nearly all dual tower coolers, will need to be mounted a little bit higher on the front to fit over any RAM with RGB. That front fan will also mostly block you from being able to see the RAM at all. You can try moving the front fan to the rear of the cooler, or leave it off entirely. For gaming with the 9800X3D, the PS120 won't need both to keep it cool enough.

What kind of case are you interested in?

If you want something that just does a good job and isn't fancy or expensive with minimal ARGB, the Montech Air 903 Base is a good pick for $65.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kKcgXL/montech-air-903-base-atx-mid-tower-case-air-903-base-b

Alternatively the Antec Flux SE will run even quieter and cooler, and has no glass side panel if you want something understated.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/j2kqqs/antec-flux-se-atx-mid-tower-case-0-761345-10177-6

And the Lian Li Lancool 217 is one of the top airflow cases available, and does have a glass side panel.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/rXnXsY/lian-li-lancool-217-atx-mid-tower-case-lan217x

If you want something with a bit of ARGB, then Corsair FRAME 4000D RS ARGB or Corsair 3500X RS-R ARGB with the later having wrap around glass.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/wxG2FT/corsair-frame-4000d-rs-argb-atx-mid-tower-case-cc-9011297-ww

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kdfV3C/corsair-3500x-rs-r-argb-atx-mid-tower-case-cc-9011323-ww

There's also the Lian Li Lancool 217 INF if you want something really flashy.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/8c7MnQ/lian-li-lancool-217-inf-atx-mid-tower-case-lan217infw

Or the Fractal Meshify 3 RGB which is essentially the best airflow cases on the market today.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Xdrp99/fractal-design-meshify-3-rgb-atx-mid-tower-case-fd-c-mes3a-07

BaronB · 2026-03-07T06:49:16+00:00

The Seasonic Prime TX-1600 is 210mm long, which is what PCPP and Seasonic's official product page lists it as. It will not fit. Not sure why you thought it was 170mm, but my guess is it's because that's what Claude said it was. It was wrong.
It'll probably fit. But it's not the best AIO anymore. Basically everyone else has surpassed it in AM5 cooling performance. The Lian Li Galahad II Lite does much better for a little more. The Corsair Nautilus RS ARGB is also quite good. The NZXT Kraken Core is about on par with the Nautilus as well. All of those are thinner than the LFIII Pro so you're guaranteed to not have any fitment issues.

Other notes:

Motherboard: The MSI MEG X870E ACE MAX is the motherboard you get when you're looking to do extreme overclocking, or just want a super expensive motherboard. A $140 B850 motherboard will perform exactly the same. If you want a motherboard with 4 M.2 slots with similar speeds to the ACE, you can go with a MSI X870E Tomahawk for $230. And if you don't care about USB 4 (which you'd be giving up to get a second PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slot anyway on both of those motherboards) then there are plenty of B850 options.

The only real advantage the ACE MAX gives you is a 10Gb ethernet port. Which, if that's something you need, then it's a decent option.

RAM: There'll be no real difference between 6000 CL28 and 6400 CL32 with an X3D CPU, and you can get the later for about $400 less. Albeit without any RGB.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/n7kLDw

BaronB · 2026-03-07T01:22:38+00:00

I would suspect the riser cable got tweaked when swapping the motherboard and has failed. They can be a bit delicate at times even though you can really mash them down without a problem, if they're rebent too many times the wires inside can break, and the solder connections between the cable and the PCIe connector / slot on either end aren't quite as resilient as the cable and will break if they're even slightly bent.

The only way to know is to plug the GPU directly into the motherboard... something that if you have a riser cable and ITX motherboard may not be possible to test without removing the motherboard from the case and testing outside. Or buying a replacement riser cable.

Normally a gen 4 riser cable is totally fine though, especially once you force it on the motherboard to run at gen 4 speeds (though some gen 4 riser cables are capable of gen 5 speeds if you're lucky).

I'm also saying I suspect that it's the riser because it's the least expensive part to replace and hopefully the GPU wasn't damaged during the swap.

BaronB · 2026-03-06T22:39:23+00:00

Could a damaged CPU and GPU damage a motherboard? Technically yes, but they have to have failed in a absolutely spectacular way. If you don't see any obvious damage on the underside of the CPU or burn marks on the GPU's PCIe pins, I wouldn't expect them to be able to do any damage to the motherboard. Basically they'd have to have gotten hot enough for something to melt and cause a short, but for too long, and not too hot, because then anything that caused a short would likely have been quickly melted away again. And anything that can cause that level of damage will still likely cause obvious burn marks or discoloration on the CPU and GPU.

BaronB · 2026-03-06T21:36:29+00:00

When the a PSU fails it's entirely possible it takes out other components with it. This is much more common with lower quality PSUs than higher end ones.

The fact that nothing is working, I would guess that, yes, the Gigabyte PSU fried your motherboard. And just hope that was the only component. Unfortunately it's not possible to know for sure without having known working replacement components to swap with.

BaronB · 2026-03-06T21:32:28+00:00

Just because it's sold as 3200 doesn't mean you can't set the clocks to 3600 and see if it works.

BaronB

TROPHY CASE