I bought my current PC in 2014 to replace my aging iMac so I could play modern games at high frame rates with the highest settings. My initial build included an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 that could hit 30 – 40 fps at ultra settings and 1440p resolution. After adding a second GTX 970 and connecting it through SLI, I was ripping through most games at 60 fps. By 2018 ultra settings turned into high settings and 60 fps turned into 40 fps, so I replaced my dual 970s with an RTX 2070. Upscaling technologies like DLSS have mostly kept me humming for the past five years, but performance and quality have started to dip in games as of late.
Outside of GPU upgrades, the changes I’ve made to my PC have been minimal. I added an SSD, some additional fans, and an m.2 SATA stick but I’ve left everything else alone. Same motherboard, same CPU, same memory, same I/O, same case. I haven’t changed much because I haven’t needed to. All of my games have been GPU-limited, so buying a new CPU hasn’t been necessary. While the CPUs of today are 8, 10, 16, 20 core monsters, my fourth generation i7’s four cores had kept up just fine.
I started looking at new systems a few years ago, back when Intel was on its 11th generation chips. Nvidia’s RTX 3070 was providing a sizable improvement over my 2070, but prices were way above MSRP due to the crypto boom. It was a really bad time to buy a new system. I looked again the next year as Intel’s hybrid-core 12th generation systems came out but GPUs were still overly expensive and Nvidia’s 40 series was on the horizon. I looked again last year at Intel’s 13th gen chips and brand new Nvidia RTX 4070 but things were still expensive since it was all brand new.
After four years of waiting, I finally bit the bullet and ordered a new system.
Interestingly, my system is based around Intel’s 14th generation, which was released only a month ago, but is already price-competitive with the 13th generation it replaces. By waiting a few years, there has been time for the market to settle a bit. DDR5 RAM, which was outrageously expensive a couple years ago, is now very reasonable. The RTX 40 series, despite launching $100+ higher than the models it replaced, are now $50 off (and you get a free game too). SSDs have dropped in price as well, costing less than ⅓ of what I paid five years ago for the same capacity. This, combined with some “Black Friday” specials, finally made the value equation click.
Over the past few years I’ve gone back and forth about whether to build my own PC or pay someone to build it for me like I did in 2014. I frequently compared iBuyPower configurations with the same parts on PC Part Picker and generally saw about a $250 premium for the privilege of not building it by hand. While I could certainly build my own system, it’s more of a hassle. If there is an issue with a part I have to send it back and wait, worse if it’s multiple parts. There’s also no warranty if I happen to majorly screw something up. The extra premium is worth it for someone else to do the work, verify it, and fix it if something goes wrong. I’ve had a great experience with my 2014 iBuyPower system, so I decided to buy from them again.
Here’s what I’ve purchased:
- Intel Core i7 14700KF
- 8 performance and 12 efficiency cores (4 more e-cores than the 13th gen) and best upgrade in the 14th generation series. This is also the last of the CPUs based on the Alder Lake architecture introduced in 2021. I’m aware that there will be no upgrade path from here without a new motherboard, but these 20 cores should get me at least as far as my four core 4th generation CPU has. The KF model is overclockable, which has helped lengthen my prior CPU’s effective lifespan.
- Asus Prime Z790-V motherboard
- Somewhat basic as far as motherboards go, but it uses Intel’s high-end chipset, supports fast DDR5 memory, includes WIFI and Bluetooth, has three M.2 slots for SSDs, and includes support for addressable RGB accessories like fans. I have an Asus motherboard in my current system and really like the overclocking tools and automatic functions. It’s been reliable and I didn’t want to change brands.
- 32 GB DDR5-6000 memory
- 32 GB is the new 16 GB and this is a pretty big boost over the DDR3 memory I currently have. It, like everything, is also RGB.
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition 12 GB
- This is NVIDIA’s branded version of the 4070. It doesn’t have any fancy RGB elements, but it’s a bit faster than some of the lowest end cards and it was on sale. That’s about it. I contemplated getting the 4070 Ti but that is universally considered not worth the money. I also considered waiting for the soon-to-be-released 4070 Super, but it doesn’t appear that it will be much faster and I don’t want to wait.
- 2 + 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs
- Say that 10 times fast! My current system is a Frankenstein with a 2 TB SSD, a 2 TB HDD, and a 512 GB SATA SSD I’ve added over the year. The cost of SSDs has dropped so much that I only paid about $75 for each of the ones in my new system. I also purchased a 2 TB Samsung EVO 980 Pro last year on sale and will be adding that. My new system will have 6 TB of super-fast SSD storage in it for less than I paid for the one in my current system!
- An 850 Watt power supply
- My current system has a 750 Watt and I need a bit more head room for all those cores in my CPU
- A case
- I’m surprisingly not picky about cases. I just want a box with good ventilation. I chose one of iBuyPower’s models with a mesh front and a window on the side. It has three RGB fans in the front and one on the back. It’s black and it’s fine
- No CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, Blu Rays, or Floppy drives
- Computers don’t have them nowadays. In fact, none of the cases I could choose even have bays for those devices anymore. They’re all flat on the front with all of the internal drives mounted on the bottom from front to back. It’s quite striking and not a loss since I never used those peripherals on my PC anyway.
- Windows 11
- I have nothing against Windows 11 but I’m also in no rush to get Windows 11. The good news is that it works well with Intel’s Thread Director to effectively use all of those mixed cores. The bad news is that it’s different I guess? It’s kind of more Mac-like, so I guess that’s good.
The entire system cost about $1,900 shipped. That includes a $100 discount for Black Friday, a $75 shipping credit (making it free), a free upgrade from 16 to 32 GB RAM, $50 off the CPU, and $65 off the GPU. It’s sometimes debatable whether sales are actually sales, but I’ve looked at similar systems on iBuyPower’s site in the past few months and they definitely were in the $2,200 range. It’s certainly more expensive than my $1,400 system from 2014 but the graphics card is more expensive, I chose more storage, and well, inflation.
I’m excited to see how my games perform on this new system. I’m expecting to play Dead Space Remake at a solid 60 fps with no hiccups or stutters. I get a free copy of Alan Wake 2, which has already received rave reviews. The Steam Winter Sale is coming up as well, so I’m hoping to snag The Last of Us and Jedi Survivor, which aren’t the best ports and need a little more oomph anyway.
Oh, and Happy Birthday to me 🙂
Relatively Ambitious 