I built this PC with a creative person in mind. I wanted it to be able to game on high settings at least at 1440p (and boy can it) as well as do non-gaming things such as streaming, video editing, photo manipulation etc. This required several things: a powerful CPU, powerful GPU, more than 16GB of RAM, lots of fast storage and mass storage, and much, much more.

I also wanted to keep the cost below $2500, which I was able to do even though I bought most of these parts during the great GPU apocalypse. I spent around $2225 and now with prices having calmed down this can be bought and built for around $1950. This is nearly a $275 savings, which you could allocate to an even stronger GPU.

The build was not without its issues though. I had originally planned on using an ASRock B550 PG Velocita board, but I couldn't get picture. Over the course of troubleshooting things, I decided to just swap boards out for the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro AC, which I've used before and I like it. The two boards have comparable features, so I didn't think it a bad thing to have to switch. I was also able to find an amazing deal on the Aorus Pro. Because many people were forced to buy bundles in the last couple of years along with the GPU, there were loads of excess, unused motherboards on eBay for cheap.

Ultimately I got the build to work and it looks and performs great. One definite change I'd make is to not go with the upHere fans. They're inexpensive, and have good lighting, but the control is not ideal. I'd rather have good software controlled fans to change the lighting and that can also change speed. These are a constant 1200 RPM, which while not super loud, also cannot be changed. I'm still not a fan of Gigabyte's RGB Fusion 2.0 software either. It's too limited. Other than the fans, I also added some cable extensions by AsiaHorse. They're inexpensive, were easy to use, and look good too. I couldn't add them to the parts list for some reason, but they were only $29.99 and came with a 24-pin, 2x 4+4 CPU, and 3x 6+2 GPU.

One last thing before I let you go, the Scythe Fuma 2 is an amazing CPU Cooler! It was super easy to install, not very expensive, and keeps the 5900X chilled. At idle it was around 37 C, during gaming it never got above 72 C, and in a Cinebench R23 10 min run it peaked at 81 C. This was in a room with an ambient temp of 75F or 23.9 C.

I have done a couple of videos for the parts for this build as well as the build itself, so feel free to check those out for more information. The build video has all the benchmark results for the games I tested which ranged from not so demanding games to super demanding.

• ASRock B550 PG Velocita Review: https://youtu.be/3nx4GbCL_FY
  
  
• Phanteks P400A Review: https://youtu.be/q64yLDms_N0
  
  
• Video for this PC build: https://youtu.be/pQFk1cJN6TY