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PB PM
Sneaky Punk
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Vancouver, BC
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2019-09-08, 23:52

That's a good build philosophy to have, it's way to easy getting caught up in the upgrade cycles. Planning the build is half the fun/torture of doing it, so it's worth taking the time.

A 3800X is a good way to go. The 9900k might be getting a price drop, since apparently Intel is going to launch a 9900Ks this fall, but keep the 9900k around at a lower price point. I am currenty using a 8700k, and find it good for the games I play, but the modern stock is very powerful for a long term system, considering that having more cores and threads will likely be important over the next 5-10 years, since we seem to have hit a limit on meaningful clock speed bumps.

If you want to play modern titles at 4k, you are going to have to suck up and get one of the higher end GPU's (2080 Super), even pushing 60FPS with them at 4k is hit and miss. I'm personally very happy with a GTX 1080, but I like 1440p, since I find 4k on small screens (under 32") hard on my eyes and I tend to go for 27" monitors with high refresh rates, since I'm into racing/driving sims.

As for a compact build, that's though. You could go mATA and not give up too much, but if all you need is a single PCI-E slot, I'd say go for mini-ITX. Of course with the compact systems the motherboards really jump up in price and can have less ports. Do you plan to build it right into a desk, as in sans a case? That would be a cool project, if you are (would love to see it when done if you do!). Motherboards are always a tough choice, I think I spend more time thinking about that per build than any other, because a good, or bad, board can make a huge difference. With a ASUS the TUF and Prime lines are in some cases literally the same board with a different paint job, so go for whatever has the better price when the time comes if you go that direction. I know B550 boards with PCI-E 4.0 are coming, maybe late this year, so for a long term build that might be worth considering, should you ever want to upgrade the GPU down the line.

SSD, I've been really happy with the WD Black NVMe drive in my system, almost as good as Samsung, and a lot less expensive. Just something to consider.
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