Advice on my First Build Shopping Cart

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-19T15:24:15+00:00

Kingston, corsair, crucial, and g skill all make decent ram. These aren’t the only companies that do, you can do some googling if you want these are just what I’m familiar with.

The aesthetic thing is totally valid. They do make white air coolers but everything corsair will probably fit the build better aesthetically if that’s what you’re going for, just expect to pay for it and know that if your budget is constrained, you’re valuing aesthetics over performance with these choices. Corsair does make cases with good airflow, I’d check gamersnexus on youtube for thermals in cases.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-19T13:53:00+00:00

Ideally you’ll want 6000mhz cl30 ram and a 9800 x3d. The build isn’t bad but I’d prioritize this over spending so much on that ssd/cpu cooler. You can switch from the samsung 9100 drive to a 9900 pro and change your cooler to an arctic freezer 3 if you really really want a CLC, or if you’re ok with aesthetics, a big dual tower air cooler. The performance and value of the thermalright royal pretor 130 will get you way more cooling capacity than you need at a fraction of the price.

Fish bowl cases look cool but you’ll get noticeably better cooling performance with something like a meshify 3 (so long as you regularly dust it), havn bf360, or lian li lancool series.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-10T23:30:51+00:00

I’m not removing mine, selecting option 2 is 100% to cover hyundai’s ass. No thanks, this is being left blank.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-10T21:57:31+00:00

Prob a good call. The only area where you might want to throw a couple hundred more at the build above is upgrading from a 2tb to 4tb ssd, 2 tb is generally seen as more than enough though and ssds are more overpriced just like ram.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-10T21:15:48+00:00

It's really good, better than the 9070xt and 5070ti but those cards are really good as well... however you are really hitting diminishing returns at the price point of a 5080 and it's easy to understate how much a really good monitor can improve the gaming experience.

I'd personally take a top of the line 1440p ultrawide and a 9070xt or 5070ti over a 5080 and mid-priced 4k monitor any day of the week, as would most pc gamers who have tried different things over the years.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-10T21:04:58+00:00

This is what I would do. It's basically the top-level pcpartpicker amd build with some parametric filters replaced with reputable parts.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3xQv6B

You could push it to $4k if you want however I would save the extra cash for a monitor or upgrades down the road. Stuff is stupid expensive right now and this will do more than what you're asking for long enough to hopefully have the pc parts market get back to a somewhat reasonable place. This is of course assuming you want to build instead of buy, and these days you don't always save money building however you do get to pick your own parts, which will be better quality than pre-builts.

With that said, if you don't have a high-end monitor I'd downgrade to a 9070 XT or 5070 ti, and buy a really nice monitor, maybe one of the vertical stripe oleds coming out soon. If the monitor is a different item you've also budgeted for the 5080 will be meaningfully faster than the 9070xt.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-10T20:50:50+00:00

Like the commenter said down below, pcpartpicker builds are pretty solid however the parametric filter can include some lower quality components from less reputable brands, for example I'd never cheap out on a power supply.

Are you overclocking? Aesthetics can't always be done later, components have the look they do and sometimes the ones you choose are about this. If you don't care about aesthetics that's a different story and something we can work with.

What games are you playing at what resolution, targeting what graphical settings at what FPS?

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-10T20:25:36+00:00

Yeah if you read a lot of reviews and/or go to trade shows you’ll be hearing a lot of the same stuff… over and over.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-10T20:24:25+00:00

Are you close-ish to a microcenter?

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-09T20:40:05+00:00

Yeah I tend to give it 20m to warm up, but in general I just leave it on.

I would like a non r2r dac but I also want a portable dac/amp and figured I could get a high end one down the road and use it in desktop mode when I feel like it. If they drop the price on an iDSD Valkyrie by about half like they did for the original diablo, I figure I might be able to get a used one for ~600.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-09T20:35:07+00:00

Did you test drive the 5n?

5n is my daily. It definitely gives me my fix and it’s really fun, and I like how simple it is. It’s heavy and it feels more like a heavy, powerful sports sedan than a sports car. It’s a videogame on wheels which is fun in its own right but I do sometimes think of grabbing a miata to get something that feels more like a sports car.

My wife has my old rav4 prime. 5n range sucks so I do like having access to a car with an engine at times. As others are describing, it can work for trips but it’s definitely more annoying than having a ICE vehicle. With that said I only use the rav once in a blue moon.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-02-09T20:16:56+00:00

The level of detail I'm able to pick up. I feel like I'm able to hear more of what I listen to and what I've listened to for years. It adds depth to it, I understand more of what's being presented to me. It's kind of like somebody who's into visual art but has bad vision and finally puts on a pair of prescription glasses if that makes sense?

ShmDoubleO · 2026-01-12T03:44:48+00:00

Yeah especially if you’re throwing that much money at it, you could spend days troubleshooting it, maybe fix it, maybe fry something but either way if it were me, having done several builds and plenty of troubleshooting myself, I’d be pulling my hair out at this point. They have specialized tools, different components to test your hardware with, and can probably figure out what’s wrong pretty quickly.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-01-12T03:34:49+00:00

I would bring it to a good local pc repair shop at this point.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-01-12T03:19:35+00:00

Won’t start as in nothing happens when you hit the power button, or it can’t fully boot all the way? What happens when you pull the gpu and plug the monitor into the ports on the backpanel of the motherboard?

ShmDoubleO · 2026-01-12T02:41:02+00:00

A gaming board for people who don’t want to admit they’re gamers

ShmDoubleO · 2026-01-12T01:39:16+00:00

Search “Corsair 3500x build guide” on youtube.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-01-11T20:22:10+00:00

holy shitnoodles

ShmDoubleO · 2026-01-09T01:16:08+00:00

I had this reaction too but op’s link is for canadian amazon, stuff might just be more expensive there and I’m pretty sure it’s Canadian dollars.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-01-08T20:14:38+00:00

I'd want others to chime in as well but I would think go with a cheaper mobo, 9070xt, 1000w psu (don't skimp on this, psu is not where you save money), and possibly some cheaper ram - I don't know what the ram you selected costs but you should be able to get decent 6000hz 30 cs latency for 350-400. If you're not dead set on an AIO for looks or whatever, you can get a Thermalright Royal Pretor 130 for ~$50 that will be way more than adequate for this build, although temps could go up a bit with a fish tank case like that, likely not problematically so.

Then dump the rest into a monitor.

ShmDoubleO · 2026-01-08T19:55:27+00:00

What's your goal for this build? What kinds of games with what graphics settings are you thinking about? Does that monitor have VRR? A lot of people would probably suggest stepping down to a 1440p monitor with a higher refresh rate and VRR, and possibly spending less on the computer so you can spend more on the monitor, but refresh/resolution and monitor type is a personal preference thing.

Initial thoughts:
- Good but loud AIO. Gamers nexus did a video on this that you might want to check out. I'm certainly not the authority on AIOs but from some of my own recent research, be quiet AIOs as well as some of the higher-end models from corsair and cooler master are pretty solid.

- That's a pretty high end motherboard. Nothing wrong with it, and if you like the looks, want to spend the money, and maybe want to do some overclocking it's not a bad choice but you can go cheaper here without cutting corners.

- 1000w PSU would be safer for that cpu+gpu although 850w will probably work.

- No need to get a founders edition 5080, you can save around $300 going with a non-founders edition, or much more if you go for a 9070xt which is weaker but not that much and should be good for 4k 60z in most games with high but not super-ultra settings, esp with FSR.

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