- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D |
$699$581.53 - GPU: Sapphire RX 7900 XTX | $889.99
- Motherboard: MSI MPG X670E Carbon WiFi |
$479.99$389.99 - Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB |
$119.99$109.99 - SSD: Lexar NM790 2TB |
$124.99$109.99 - Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e |
$179.99$154.99 - Cooler: EK-Nucleus CR360 Lux-D |
$204.99$149.99 - Case: Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB |
$399.99$299.99 - Total: $2,686.46
I've been scouring around looking for PC deals worth cobbling together into an entire gaming PC build. Unlike Wes' Black Friday gaming PC build, which aims to offer an entirely capable gaming PC under $1,200, I've decided to focus on just the best components. We're talking a high-end machine made up from discount parts—it can be done!
You'd be surprised what you can get for under $2,700. Though, be warned, it's not an RTX 4090.
No, that's one thing I've noticed through Black Friday and into Cyber Monday, as I'm sure anyone in the market for a high-end PC is also aware: the price for an RTX 4090 right now is actually absurd. If I'm being generous and looking at backordered items on cheaper models, you're looking at spending just a touch under $2,000 for the cheapest I could find. Though some third-party sellers are looking for upwards of $2,200, nay often $2,400 for a single graphics card. It's mind-melting, and admittedly stinks of third parties taking advantage of low stock levels and demand.
A gaming PC with an RTX 4090 in it might be a better option, but you're still looking at paying upwards of $3,000. Like these Alienware RTX 4090 machines, which are still over $3,000 even with a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale on.
That just won't do. While I am looking at a high-end build with the best components, I'm still being sensible. Instead of Nvidia's best, I've opted for AMD's best: the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
The RX 7900 XTX is more akin to an RTX 4080 in performance, though it does come with a huge amount of memory at 24GB of the stuff. So it's a good fit for any creatives or professionals out there with demands for high levels of GPU acceleration. You could still swap this out for a much more reasonably priced RTX 4080, though that card isn't naturally as good an offer as AMD's best, and it's not quite as stuffed full of VRAM, either.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's the full build, in all its AMD-powered glory.
| Category | Part | Sale price | Old price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motherboard | MSI MPG X670E Carbon WiFi | $389.99 | $479.99 |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D | $581.53 | $699 |
| Graphics card | Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XTX | $889.99 | NA |
| Cooler | EK-Nucleus CR360 Lux-D | $149.99 | $204.99 |
| Memory | G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 32GB | $109.99 | $119.99 |
| Power supply | Corsair RM1000e | $154.99 | $179.99 |
| SSD | Lexar NM790 | $109.99 | $124.99 |
| Case | Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB | $299.99 | $399.99 |
| Total | Row 8 - Cell 1 | $2,686.46 | Row 8 - Cell 3 |
Let me walk you through the build, and why I've settled on each part. A lot of the picks I've made come from the fact I've tested the product, rate the brand highly, or actually own it and use the product myself in some cases.
First off, a solid platform suitable for the CPU we're putting into this PC, and I've opted for the MSI MPG X670E Carbon WiFi. I've used these Carbon motherboards in the past for my test bench, and I know they can survive a lot of GPU swaps, SSD swaps, and CPU swaps. I also use an MSI MEG X570 Godlike in my personal PC right now, and I've never run into any issues and I find the BIOS easy enough to navigate. While I think you could find quite a few high-end boards discounted today that would be a good fit, I do like the Carbon for how much it offers without going too overboard.
Admittedly I'm locked into using this one chip by way of focusing on a PC using AMD's best parts, but it really is an absolutely stunning chip. Using 3D V-Cache, a technology that allows AMD to plop loads of extra cache on top of one of the CPU dies, AMD is able to offer a massively multi-core chip that still absolutely slaps for gaming. Games love the extra cache, and everything else will love this chip's 16 cores and 32 threads.
Read our AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D review.
This is about as cheap as I can find an XTX today. For a card that's supposed to cost pretty much $1,000, I'm pretty happy we're already seeing this card drop down to $890. It's an RTX 4080 competitor at heart, and it accomplishes that job well in purely rasterised games. In ray-traced games, or in a game that's super Nvidia-optimised, like Alan Wake 2, you will struggle to match the RTX 4080's performance. Though there's still plenty of performance in this card at 4K, no matter what game.
Importantly, the RX 7900 XTX is significantly cheaper than an RTX 4080 today, which makes it less of a comparison worth making.
If you were after an Nvidia alternative, I'd suggest the Gigabyte RTX 4080 Eagle over at Best Buy for $1,060. That's pretty much the cheapest we've seen an RTX 4080 going for this Black Friday and up to Cyber Monday.
Read our RX 7900 XTX review.
You could go for a whole many different 360mm coolers, but I've recently had the EK-Nucleus in for testing and I like the build and how simple it is to set up. It should fit nicely in the Corsair case I've selected, which offers a couple of options for 360mm rad fittings, and it will keep the AMD CPU at the heart of this PC cool. Though AMD's chips hardly demand copious amounts of power, and you could save some money on a smaller cooler if you had to.
I wanted to get an AMD EXPO RAM kit for this build, considering its red team credentials, and that's just what I've done. RAM prices have plummeted lately, even DDR5, and you can get this DDR5-6000 kit with two 16GB sticks for 32GB total for a little over $100. The other thing to note is that this kit has a pretty low CAS latency, which is good for a balance of performance versus some other kits.
Oh and these RAM sticks light up—obviously very important.
I never skimp on a power supply. That's the motto I live my life by, or something like that. I just don't want to take the risk and I wouldn't recommend you did either. This is a tried and trusted brand, one of the best, if not the best, and this 1000W PSU will leave you a little headroom for future upgrades should you so wish to make them. It's modular too, but that's sort of expected with this capacity PSU and price tag, and it comes with a 12VHPWR cable, though we don't actually need that for this AMD GPU.
If you want more in-depth figures, you can check out the testing done by our pals over at Cybenetics.
I tested this SSD a couple of months ago, and I think it's absolutely fantastic. It performs well, it doesn't get too hot, and it's great value. I don't have much else to say about it beyond it's probably my most effusive recommendation of the lot, and I still use the drive in the test bench right now because it's great to have that much extra space around.
I'm only recommending the 2TB model here, but you could bump it to 4TB for less than double the price and score a heatsink.
Read our Lexar NM790 review.
Why this case, I hear you ask? Well, this is my PC case. That's why. I did think about the Hyte or Lian Li cases we've looked at lately, and I've got a Be Quiet! case that's pending a review that is certainly a decent option, but the Corsair just offers a lot for an RGB lover (though admittedly I'd probably fall short of calling myself that).
Importantly, airflow is great in this case, it comes with three quiet fans already, and it has a couple spots for large all-in-one coolers to reside.
Read our Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB review.
