It’s been nine years since I built my main PC, and it’s about time I built a new one from the ground up. Currently do not have the mental energy to do a full analysis/thoughts so for now please enjoy this quick post
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Quick Thoughts;
I had a couple of PCPP lists going in Late 2020 and I showed them to my GF. Notably the big difference was “Do I want an air cooled Fractal Torrent, or a Watercooled Meshify 2?”. She chose for me buy surprising me with some of the parts on Christmas. As you can see, she chose the air cooler and the case with big fans (yay 
) along with a few of the other small $$$ items like the SSD, so I picked up the CPU, motherboard and GPU.
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GPU - I found it “used” on r/hardwareswap from a guy who had bought it for his PC but didnt verify that it fit first. His wife had already thrown away the original box, but it was otherwise unused and came with a warranty (thank you EVGA for popularizing warranty by serial number). Admittedly I was looking at 4080’s more around $900 because that was more reasonable, but this generation of cards most look cheap, awful or didnt fit the aesthetic I was going for. The Asus Pro Art was another contender but impossible to find, so the STRIX was more a dream card than anything.
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RAM - Admittedly I used a filter on corsair Vengeance ram, and could have manually selected the 6000mhz kit instead of the 5200. But by the time I realized it my GF had already bought it. Doesn’t matter though, at this point I wont notice enough of a difference to warrant having to sell the old sticks and buying new ones.
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Motherboard - Honestly? Most motherboard options SUCK. But I managed to find this one that fit all my needs and wasn’t outrageously priced. (the non-lite was $400 for the same board but with “armor” and a bit more RGB on it) Could not be happier about the amount of USB’s on it, M.2 slots, a USB4 slot and the Debug code reader on it.
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Cables - These’ are Pro Mesh cables from CableMod, custom length for the unique cable length requirements of a top mounted case in 2023+. 850mm is the key for anyone wanting to wrap their GPU cable under the card and have enough comfort room to not be tight but not too much to have sloppy leftovers.
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Case - BIG FANS. MUCH AIRFLOW. SUCH QUALITY. VERY HAPPY.
Also I was gifted the LTT screw driver around the same time. $70 is too much for one screw driver but man, this thing is nice.
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Can confirm, big fans, much airflow. Was way overkill for my build, but I like quiet.
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