My anti budget PC

[Monso]

Hello

I made a crude preview of the PC I want to build.

Let's not discuss the cost because I already know the performance / price ratio is way below mid tier builds.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 4.2 GHz 16-Core
Video Card: MSI SUPRIM LIQUID X GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX X670E-F GAMING WIFI
Memory: Corsair Dominator Titanium 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME SSD
Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power 13 1000 W 80+ Titanium
CPU Cooler: Corsair iCUE LINK H150i LCD
Case: Lian Li O11 Dynamic EVO XL
Case Fans: Corsair iCUE LINK QX RGB

Fans :
3 x 160mm bottom intakes
3 x 120mm top exhaust from the CPU AIO
2 x 120mm side exhaust from the GPU AIO + 1 x 120mm
1 x 120mm back exhaust

I'm going to replace the SUPRIM stock fans to match the others. Since the CPU AIO comes with QX fans it would be logical to get QX fans for the rest. Still debating whether to choose RX instead for their better performance, but I like the look of the QX. Also debating whether to make the back exhaust fan a 120mm or 160mm, because a 160mm would fit and make less noise.

The storage is small compared to the rest but it will be expanded on later.

Please tell me if you have any remarks or concerns about this build. Thank you

 

[TheLostSwede]

I wouldn't waste money on Corsair RAM, there are better options out there for less money, unless you specifically like the looks of their modules.

 

[Deleted member 223428]

Skip the 7950X3D unless you have a specific need outside of gaming for 16 cores. It's a PITA for gaming but can be worked around if you need the cores for something else.

7800X3D is the better option for a gaming build.

Also, it's pretty late in the cycle to be paying above launch price for a 4090.

 

[64K]

Is there some use for this rig beyond gaming? The reason I ask is unless you are running the rig at heavy load 24/7 then a Titanium rated PSU isn't worthwhile. Titanium isn't a quality rating it's an efficiency rating. I would go with a 1300 watt quality Gold rated. Some of those 4090s can spike at 660 watts.

 

[KrazyT]

I wouldn't waste money on Corsair RAM, there are better options out there for less money, unless you specifically like the looks of their modules.

Me too, but it seem OP wants a full Corsair set, maybe it will be easier to operate the full RGB thing with all Corsair ?

 

[evernessince]

I wouldn't waste money on Corsair RAM, there are better options out there for less money, unless you specifically like the looks of their modules.

I concur. The last time I swapped out a kit of G.Skill for Corsair with lower Cas Latency the corsair kit ended up giving worse performance due to terrible sub-timings. The G.Skill kit was cheaper and better binned, was able to get a much better OC on it.

Corsair iCUE LINK H150i LCD

There are several better liquid coolers than this one, often at half or 1/3rd the cost:

It's not in the list above because TPU hasn't tested it but the 360 and 420mm versions of the Liquid Freezer III top the cards as well at a very good price and with a long warranty.

If you absolutely want an LCD the Galahad II LCD is a better option than the Corsair.

Corsair iCUE LINK QX RGB

At $50 per fan, you are talking about spending $500 just on fans. They aren't really good performing either, they don't move a lot of air and the only plus side is they also don't make a lot of noise. It's actually cheaper to get Lian Li's Uni LCD fans where each fan comes with an LCD built in. They also happen to be better performers. You could get a set of 10 Phanteks T30s for $200 cheaper and those are the best fans on the market bar none.

Mind you I feel it's important to note that 10 fans is just wasting money. The AIO is already dumping hot air outside the case, you shouldn't need 10 fans to push the GPU's hair out as well (especially considering most 4090's utilize a hybrid fan setup wherein half the hot air is already pushed out through the back vent). I have a 4090 and a 7800X with only 3 case fans and an AIO (which has 3 fans) and my 4090 doesn't exceed 72c even after hours of running stable diffusion or gaming. I'm also running an encode on the CPU 24/7 as well and all my fans are tuned to be near silent.

You spend $500 on fans but you stick with a mere 2TB SN850X? You could take your fan money and buy a P5800X 400GB for only $80 more. That will absolutely smoke every other SSD on the market including the SN850X. As this is an anti-budget build the least I'd expect is a Crucial T700 PCIe 5.0 drive. It's not likely to make a difference 99% of the time but it sure as heck will make a bigger difference than 10 RGB fans.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 4.2 GHz 16-Core

As other's have pointed out, a waste unless you are using all those cores. The 7800X is faster in games by a small margin as well. AMD next gen CPUs are right around the corner as well.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Hello

I made a crude preview of the PC I want to build.

Let's not discuss the cost because I already know the performance / price ratio is way below mid tier builds.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 4.2 GHz 16-Core
Video Card: MSI SUPRIM LIQUID X GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX X670E-F GAMING WIFI
Memory: Corsair Dominator Titanium 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME SSD
Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power 13 1000 W 80+ Titanium
CPU Cooler: Corsair iCUE LINK H150i LCD
Case: Lian Li O11 Dynamic EVO XL
Case Fans: Corsair iCUE LINK QX RGB

View attachment 348002
Fans :
3 x 160mm bottom intakes
3 x 120mm top exhaust from the CPU AIO
2 x 120mm side exhaust from the GPU AIO + 1 x 120mm
1 x 120mm back exhaust

I'm going to replace the SUPRIM stock fans to match the others. Since the CPU AIO comes with QX fans it would be logical to get QX fans for the rest. Still debating whether to choose RX instead for their better performance, but I like the look of the QX. Also debating whether to make the back exhaust fan a 120mm or 160mm, because a 160mm would fit and make less noise.

The storage is small compared to the rest but it will be expanded on later.

Please tell me if you have any remarks or concerns about this build. Thank you

I would flip the 1 x 120 as intake. On my original 011D this area as intake makes a difference on the top rad.

It looks like you have enough space for push/pull. Those fans aren't the best for rads so might as well double up for push/pull if you have the room.

The case selection would do much better with a custom loop.

Also why not Corsair power supply? Like RMx Shift?

 

[Monso]

I wouldn't waste money on Corsair RAM, there are better options out there for less money, unless you specifically like the looks of their modules.

Skip the 7950X3D unless you have a specific need outside of gaming for 16 cores. It's a PITA for gaming but can be worked around if you need the cores for something else.

7800X3D is the better option for a gaming build.

I concur. The last time I swapped out a kit of G.Skill for Corsair with lower Cas Latency the corsair kit ended up giving worse performance due to terrible sub-timings. The G.Skill kit was cheaper and better binned, was able to get a much better OC on it.

I've discussed RAM and CPU in this post if anyone wants to see my reasons.

There aren't so many options when you search for 2x32 DDR5 6000T30C (which is the sweet spot for AM5 according to several tests), and EXPO compatibility (which I know isn't required but easier for me). It's either Corsair or G.Skill.

Braegnok suggested G.Skill Z5 Neo as an alternative. I have nothing against it, if it's really better than the Corsair Dominator. Z5 is a bit cheaper but not by much. At the moment I don't intend to go crazy with overclocking. I've seen several sources state that the Dominator is a fine product if you forget about the price. It's highly rated on TPU. It's said to not suffer the same defects as the cheaper Corsair RAMs. Is this true or do I risk running into defects?

Also, it's pretty late in the cycle to be paying above launch price for a 4090.

That's true. I've wanted the SUPRIM LIQUID since it came out and it took some time to gather the money for a whole rig that matches it. But when you buy on release, you also risk running into issues. I've read some issues from both the SUPRIM LIQUID and the Ryzen 9 at their beginning, and let's not talk about ASUS... I'm fine with buying a bit later. It's compensated by going top of the line that hopefully will hold on for a while.

Is there some use for this rig beyond gaming? The reason I ask is unless you are running the rig at heavy load 24/7 then a Titanium rated PSU isn't worthwhile. Titanium isn't a quality rating it's an efficiency rating. I would go with a 1300 watt quality Gold rated. Some of those 4090s can spike at 660 watts.

Interesting. I'll look into it, thank you

I would flip the 1 x 120 as intake. On my original 011D this area as intake makes a difference on the top rad.

It looks like you have enough space for push/pull. Those fans aren't the best for rads so might as well double up for push/pull if you have the room.

The case selection would do much better with a custom loop.

Also why not Corsair power supply? Like RMx Shift?

Interesting. I've seen bad reports about the Corsair RM1000x, that's why I've upgraded the PSU.

There are several better liquid coolers than this one, often at half or 1/3rd the cost:

It's not in the list above because TPU hasn't tested it but the 360 and 420mm versions of the Liquid Freezer III top the cards as well at a very good price and with a long warranty.

If you absolutely want an LCD the Galahad II LCD is a better option than the Corsair.

At $50 per fan, you are talking about spending $500 just on fans. They aren't really good performing either, they don't move a lot of air and the only plus side is they also don't make a lot of noise. It's actually cheaper to get Lian Li's Uni LCD fans where each fan comes with an LCD built in. They also happen to be better performers. You could get a set of 10 Phanteks T30s for $200 cheaper and those are the best fans on the market bar none.

Mind you I feel it's important to note that 10 fans is just wasting money. The AIO is already dumping hot air outside the case, you shouldn't need 10 fans to push the GPU's hair out as well (especially considering most 4090's utilize a hybrid fan setup wherein half the hot air is already pushed out through the back vent). I have a 4090 and a 7800X with only 3 case fans and an AIO (which has 3 fans) and my 4090 doesn't exceed 72c even after hours of running stable diffusion or gaming. I'm also running an encode on the CPU 24/7 as well and all my fans are tuned to be near silent.

Fair criticism. Let me state I've spent days comparing products, tests and reviews. When I say anti budget PC it doesn't mean my budget is unlimited, just that I'm aware my picks aren't cost effective.

I know the LINK line isn't the best for performance. I wish it performed better. But even the people who criticize it usually admit that the RGB and the LINK system are fine. iCUE is more on the fence but it does make things easier if you have everything with it.

At the end of the day, you can achieve cooling with mediocre fans. Like slapping 10 of them with double AIOs is probably going to be fine on that front. I've chosen the case and the LINK system for their modularity. So it's kind of cry once and forget about it. The cooling needs to be ok from the start, while other parts can always be upgraded. If I ever have more money to put in a new part, hopefully more important than the fans, then the case and LINK system will make it easier. And I want the RGB. So as long as it doesn't fail, I should be happy with it.

You spend $500 on fans but you stick with a mere 2TB SN850X? You could take your fan money and buy a P5800X 400GB for only $80 more. That will absolutely smoke every other SSD on the market including the SN850X. As this is an anti-budget build the least I'd expect is a Crucial T700 PCIe 5.0 drive. It's not likely to make a difference 99% of the time but it sure as heck will make a bigger difference than 10 RGB fans.

Yes, the storage is small, that's probably the weakest point of the build but I'll add more later on. I already have HDDs and SSDs that I use for gaming.

I don't follow. The prices I find for the P5800X 400GB are insane, not $80 more. The T700 is interesting but it's more expensive for the same capacity. And the speed of the WD is enough. I've seen benchmarks where it didn't make any difference in game. You could argue that if I ever do tasks that require the 16 cores of the 7950X3D, then I will find the speed useful. All of this to say I could be interested in getting one later on, just not now.

As other's have pointed out, a waste unless you are using all those cores. The 7800X is faster in games by a small margin as well. AMD next gen CPUs are right around the corner as well.

That's not true. This benchmark shows that the 7950X3D is the faster one on most games by a small margin. Although the 7800X3D is faster on a few games.

 

[P4-630]

I'd wait for next gen hardware from Intel/AMD/Nvidia...

 

[Marcus L]

Another..

"I have already made my mind up this is what I'm going to buy but want people to agree with me before me telling them they're wrong if they don't" Thread.

You do you mate, have fun, enjoy your build.

 

[Monso]

Another..

"I have already made my mind up this is what I'm going to buy but want people to agree with me before me telling them they're wrong if they don't" Thread.

You do you mate, have fun, enjoy your build.

Not at all. I'm happy to confront ideas and I can change my mind when presented with new info. So I'm asking here because I'd love for people more knowledgeable than me to prove me wrong and help me avoid some mistakes. You're right that it's awkward to explain my reasons, since I know less and people don't care about my opinion. Still in the last post about this build I didn't explain myself and someone pressed me for it. Sorry if my answer comes off as aggressive. I assure you I do reconsider my opinion with every reply. I'm still thinking about this build and I don't mind delaying it to get it right.

 

[Marcus L]

to prove me wrong

You are suggesting you are right and more knowledgeable with those 4 words, but look, everything you have picked out should work together without much issue as you already know, seems like you are just looking for self affirmation and a pat on the back lol, enjoy your build and have fun gaming, that's all that matters!

Sod it, edit:

As many others have said, the fans you have chosen are 2x more expensive than other better ones, same with the AIO, if you are just gaming then it is very much overkill in those areas and that of the CPU, motherboard, GPU etc, you have gone for the biggest and most expensive in a lot of ways suggesting this will give you 4 more inches of e-peen, hey, if I had the money to do an unlimited budget build maybe I would do the same, but just call it what it is and that's a vanity project for you, nothing wrong in that, but asking for opinions when your mind is made up, again just self affirming and show boating IMHO and you can find any YT video to back up what you believe whether it is fact or not lol, I would trust TPU way much more

 

[tabascosauz]

Not at all. I'm happy to confront ideas and I can change my mind when presented with new info. So I'm asking here because I'd love for people more knowledgeable than me to prove me wrong and help me avoid some mistakes. You're right that it's awkward to explain my reasons, since I know less and people don't care about my opinion. Still in the last post about this build I didn't explain myself and someone pressed me for it. Sorry if my answer comes off as aggressive. I assure you I do reconsider my opinion with every reply. I'm still thinking about this build and I don't mind delaying it to get it right.

Buy whatever you want. Bottom line is, 7900X3D and 7950X3D are forever dependent on the state of firmware (AGESA) as a lifeline, more so than any other 2CCD part. The Reddit recommendation you linked is by all means an option - either you manually force every game into CCD0 with Process Lasso, or you install X3D drivers and Game Bar and hope for the best.

But it's a bit of a stretch to call it "no real drawback", having to either pray that AGESA doesn't break, or requiring a third party software to be manually configured and to run in the background for every application, 24/7.

On the firmware note you don't have to look far, look up the stealth performance hit Zen 3 2CCD parts took on Win 11 when it was discovered that the scheduler wasn't handling 2CCD topology correctly.

 

[evernessince]

There aren't so many options when you search for 2x32 DDR5 6000T30C (which is the sweet spot for AM5 according to several tests), and EXPO compatibility (which I know isn't required but easier for me). It's either Corsair or G.Skill.

6000 cl30 is the sweet spot for 32GB kits and below. When you jump up to 64GB you put more strain on the memory controller and as a result some CPUs may struggle to run that frequency / timing pairing.

Braegnok suggested G.Skill Z5 Neo as an alternative. I have nothing against it, if it's really better than the Corsair Dominator. Z5 is a bit cheaper but not by much. At the moment I don't intend to go crazy with overclocking. I've seen several sources state that the Dominator is a fine product if you forget about the price. It's highly rated on TPU. It's said to not suffer the same defects as the cheaper Corsair RAMs. Is this true or do I risk running into defects?

The G.Skill Z5 Neo is faster in the vast majority of game and CPU benchmarks: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/corsair-dominator-titanium-ddr5-6000-2x-32-gb/7.html

Is there something keeping you on the Corsair? If you prefer the way it looks just say so, ultimatley the difference between RAM kits of the same frequency and CL isn't going to be that huge. I just nitpick because I want people to get the best parts for their rig possible.

That's true. I've wanted the SUPRIM LIQUID since it came out and it took some time to gather the money for a whole rig that matches it. But when you buy on release, you also risk running into issues. I've read some issues from both the SUPRIM LIQUID and the Ryzen 9 at their beginning, and let's not talk about ASUS... I'm fine with buying a bit later. It's compensated by going top of the line that hopefully will hold on for a while.

Your liquid cooled 4090 is going to last as long as a launch 4090, the only difference is your card is going to drop $800 in value in 6-8 months whereas the person who purchased at launch got 2 years of optimal use out of their card before it's value drops. Liquid cooling is essentially irrelevant for the 4090 unless you plan to extreme OC. The air coolers on these cards keep them extremely cool. My 4090 does not pass 72c in a 82f room even after hours of stable diffusion and running a CPU encode 24/7 and having a bunch of 16w enterprise SSDs. These aircoolers on these cards are completely overengineered and it's great IMO.

It's ok to want a liquid cooled 4090 to get temps as low as possible or if you perfer a certain asthetic but you shouldn't not expect that to do anything to extend the life of the card. It's a mere 3.5% faster than the "cheap" 4090 models, that's a margin of error difference.

I know the LINK line isn't the best for performance. I wish it performed better. But even the people who criticize it usually admit that the RGB and the LINK system are fine. iCUE is more on the fence but it does make things easier if you have everything with it.

I'd agree and the reviews for the fans seem to concur with that assessment.

I don't follow. The prices I find for the P5800X 400GB are insane, not $80 more. The T700 is interesting but it's more expensive for the same capacity. And the speed of the WD is enough. I've seen benchmarks where it didn't make any difference in game.

P5800X 400GB goes for $560 - $580 on eBay brand new. Comes with warranty too. Price is 725 on server supply. Everywhere else charging $900+ are ripping people off.

None of the PCIe 5.0 drives make a difference in games and even the PCIe 4.0 drives only make an extremely marginal difference. Optane is the only true upgrade until NAND random performance and latency improves drastically. Optane also has an insane level of endurance as well, which is good because at this rate it could be a long time before anything comes to the consumer space that's better for consumer workloads.

You could argue that if I ever do tasks that require the 16 cores of the 7950X3D, then I will find the speed useful. All of this to say I could be interested in getting one later on, just not now.

If you did ever happen to find yourself wanting more cores, the AM5 platform does make it extremely easy to upgrade. All the more incentive to just buy for your current needs and not try to predict if you will ever use the extra cores. Even if it does comes to pass that you want more cores there will be faster, newer AM5 parts out that will outperform the 7950X3D when or if you ever feel the need.

That's not true. This benchmark shows that the 7950X3D is the faster one on most games by a small margin. Although the 7800X3D is faster on a few games.

A comparison can't be wrong if one of the products doesn't exist, twas a typo that was supposed to be 7800X3D.

The 7800X3D isn't just faster in a few games, it's noticable faster on average:

 

[Monso]

Buy whatever you want. Bottom line is, 7900X3D and 7950X3D are forever dependent on the state of firmware (AGESA) as a lifeline, more so than any other 2CCD part. The Reddit recommendation you linked is by all means an option - either you manually force every game into CCD0 with Process Lasso, or you install X3D drivers and Game Bar and hope for the best.

But it's a bit of a stretch to call it "no real drawback", having to either pray that AGESA doesn't break, or requiring a third party software to be manually configured and to run in the background for every application, 24/7.

On the firmware note you don't have to look far, look up the stealth performance hit Zen 3 2CCD parts took on Win 11 when it was discovered that the scheduler wasn't handling 2CCD topology correctly.

Thanks for taking the time to read the other post. I'm reconsidering the 7800X3D after many replies tell me to, and also to wait for the next gen.

At first I just went for highest current performance and I read that the initial issues with the 7950X3D were solved, but you make it sound much more like an ongoing trend.

I just read some more and found this take on Reddit:

I believe getting 7800x3d and replacing it with 8800x3d will provide better experience than buying 7950x3d and skipping next generation and that would cost about the same, considering you'd sell that 7800x3d after that.

That does make a lot of sense. However I can't find a date for the 8800X3D, if it becomes the next big thing. Some say end of 2024 or 2025.

Brain is still braining over this. What about the suggested 1300W for this build, do you think 1000W is too low to handle spikes?

 

[tabascosauz]

Thanks for taking the time to read the other post. I'm reconsidering the 7800X3D after many replies tell me to, and also to wait for the next gen.

At first I just went for highest current performance and I read that the initial issues with the 7950X3D were solved, but you make it sound much more like an ongoing trend.

I just read some more and found this take on Reddit:


That does make a lot of sense. However I can't find a date for the 8800X3D, if it becomes the next big thing. Some say end of 2024 or 2025.

Brain is still braining over this. What about the suggested 1300W for this build, do you think 1000W is too low to handle spikes?

I think a modern 1000W unit should be fine, but nothing wrong with going with a 1300W unit for an all out high end build.

At this point in time, I don't think 2x32GB 6000CL30/32 should be much of an issue for any Raphael CPU regardless of core count. Early RAM troubles have more or less been resolved in firmware.

 

[ir_cow]

I wanted to jump in and say I like the argument going on over "which is better" for RAM. If you were really on a budget, I would also suggest getting something cheaper for similar performance. But this is already a halo tier PC build, so price isn't a issue i'd say.

Corsair CMP64GX5M2B6000Z30 (30-36-36-76) vs G.SKILL F5-6000J3040G32GX2-TZ5NR (30-36-36-96) and you have exactly the same results.

If you want to save money, getting a 2x24GB might be a better option. The timings will be the same (if you find the right kit or OC yourself).

 

[Vario]

I'd do GSkill over Corsair. I don't buy Corsair ram any more, it has been unstable in my experience. I have a number of PCs running GSkill now.

I also disagree about your fan choice. Theres a lot of better options out there if you simply must have 10 fans. RGB and having matching pirate ship logos on all your parts, I don't care for it but I guess if that's a big thing for you...

 

[Monso]

I wanted to jump in and say I like the argument going on over "which is better" for RAM. If you were really on a budget, I would also suggest getting something cheaper for similar performance. But this is already a halo tier PC build, so price isn't a issue i'd say.

Corsair CMP64GX5M2B6000Z30 (30-36-36-76) vs G.SKILL F5-6000J3040G32GX2-TZ5NR (30-36-36-96) and you have exactly the same results.

If you want to save money, getting a 2x24GB might be a better option. The timings will be the same (if you find the right kit or OC yourself).

I like that the main concern is the brand of RAM because it tells me the rest of the build should be ok. The warnings against Corsair are always about their RAMs in general not the Dominator line in particular (yet to see a bad report about it). I may change for GSkill if the price difference is better invested somewhere else.

Another question. The mobo has 4 internal USB ports, the case has 5 front ports. And there's 1 internal port used for LINK.

The mobo has:
1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 connector (supports USB Type-C)
1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 header supports additional 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports
2 x USB 2.0 headers support additional 4 USB 2.0 ports

The case has:
1 x USB 3.1 Type-C
4 x USB 3.0 (pcpartpicker says USB 3.2 Gen 1 Header Plug)

What's the best way to connect this?

 

[A Computer Guy]

I'd do GSkill over Corsair. I don't buy Corsair ram any more, it has been unstable in my experience. I have a number of PCs running GSkill now.

I also disagree about your fan choice. Theres a lot of better options out there if you simply must have 10 fans. RGB and having matching pirate ship logos on all your parts, I don't care for it but I guess if that's a big thing for you...

I know Corsair had issues with DDR4 lines but I never really heard anything that bad about DDR3 or DDR5. Is DDR5 just as problematic with AM5?

 

[freeagent]

I know Corsair had issues with DDR4

DDR2 as well. Many hours of frustration for me. That in conjunction with past experiences on some of their other products has lead me to the point of never buying anything from them. To me Corsair = Thermaltake.

 

[evernessince]

I like that the main concern is the brand of RAM because it tells me the rest of the build should be ok.

No, the main concern certainly isn't the RAM. The RAM selection difference is insignificant. People have brought up the RAM because it's one of the few things you've actually shown interest in changing and one of the few points you keep replying on. For everything else you've shown reluctance to make other changes or straight up ignored recommendations or stopped relying.

The warnings against Corsair are always about their RAMs in general not the Dominator line in particular (yet to see a bad report about it).

The distinction is irrelevant given all of Corsair's DDR5 modules are produced the same way (same as every other company). The only difference is going to be the binning of the memory chips themselves. RMA rates are not lower on higher end RAM modules. Mind you, I did literally give you my report of problems I had with Dominator platinums above but one could easily google and see there are other reports as well. Don't be fooled by the higher price tag of Corsair sticks, you are paying more for a worse bin.

I may change for GSkill if the price difference is better invested somewhere else.

The reason to swap out the RAM would be because the G.SKill is superior performance wise. That they are cheaper is just a bonus but essentially irrelevant for this build. You are spending $500 on fans and $2,000 on your GPU. Stipulating that you must be able to put those savings to use elsewhere in your build is a completely arbitrary reason to not buy a better RAM kit. It doesn't make any sense either, why would you need to put those savings to use? You could just pocket it and enjoy the faster RAM. I have asked you in a past comment to just state if you prefer the austhetic or corsair brand but you seem relecutant to make such a statement and instead employ mental gynastics, wasting people's time.

 

[ir_cow]

Let's step back and look at the big picture and work our way back. This will help remove some biases.

Start with Brand A and Brand B. Doesn't matter what you put as a name for this exercise.

In this scenario, you are looking for a 6000 MT/s memory kit. Both have the different timings, but the price is adjusted accordingly. The next step to determine what is best would be checking benchmark data and seeing if A) the lower timings drastically changes the 1% & 5% lows (overall for you're gaming). If yes, you are now redoing this step to look for memory of the same timings that give that desired 1% / 5% lows boost.

Now that both are the "same" the different timings, this means if you did a blind A/B test, the results would be the same. The next step is to look at the perks that comes with Brand A or Brand B. IE; RGB lighting quality and the software required for color control. Warranty policy, heatspreader color choice and finally overclocking abilities. Pick what suites you!


So back to Corsair vs XPG/G.SKILL/Teamgroup/KLEVV, etc. Corsair is the most expensive one. I write in my reviews for Corsair every time that you are paying extra for the Corsair ecosystem. It isn't a bad thing, but if you do not plan on using other Corsair products, it doesn't benefit the consumer. If you have Corsair Fans, AIO, Headset, keyboard, etc. It totally makes sense. One software for all. Single customer support center and RMA process.

Now let also toss out the idea that Corsair in inferior to the other brands when it comes to RMA/Failure rate. While I do agree that I see way more complaints about Vengeance memory failing, I haven't found anything about Dominator. I also had memory fail from most brands over the last 20 years. I have a few G.SKILL 3600 Samsung B-Die DIMMs dead from normal use too. I don't hate G.SKILL because of it.

As for overclocking, Corsair isn't my top choice to go up in frequency over stock bin. I haven't been impressed, but it is always going to be crapshoot with any brand. Its called overclocking btw. If you are just adjusting the timings at the sold bin frequency, id say it doesn't matter much which brand in terms of lowest timing values you can go. Assuming they are the same ICs. The only exception to this would be if you care about PMIC thermal pad or how well the heatspreaders do without a fan pointing at them.

 

[Monso]

So back to Corsair vs XPG/G.SKILL/Teamgroup/KLEVV, etc. Corsair is the most expensive one. I write in my reviews for Corsair every time that you are paying extra for the Corsair ecosystem. It isn't a bad thing, but if you do not plan on using other Corsair products, it doesn't benefit the consumer. If you have Corsair Fans, AIO, Headset, keyboard, etc. It totally makes sense. One software for all. Single customer support center and RMA process.

Indeed, customer support looks like a good point for Corsair. I've been on their subreddit where people post their issues and someone from Corsair always answers. Like in the case of a catastrophic failure of the AIO, they're willing to investigate and maybe reimburse the damaged parts. I don't know if other brands do the same but it's pleasant to see. As you said, it makes more sense to get the whole Corsair kit rather than 1 isolated part, although it's not financially savvy (hence the title of this post).

Can you answer the USB connectivity?

For everything else you've shown reluctance to make other changes or straight up ignored recommendations or stopped relying.

I stop replying because some messages are getting a bit trolly.

 

[Vya Domus]

The warnings against Corsair are always about their RAMs in general not the Dominator line in particular

What does it matter ? Corsair kits have issues in general on AM4/AM5, from the PC not even booting up to being unable to run at rated speeds or instability. Others have warned you against going with Corsair and I will too, have had issues with this on AMD systems myself.