New Build – AI (LLMs), Video Editing & 1440p Gaming (~£3,000 Budget)

[Migpco]

Hi all,

I'm looking to build a new PC that will primarily be used for:

• Running demanding AI models locally (mainly image and video)
• Professional video editing (DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, etc.)
• 1440p gaming (not focused on 4K, but solid performance expected)

I currently have a Dell 32" 4K Monitor (S3225QS) and may add a second display soon to improve workflow.

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is my intended CPU, but since it's not out yet, I’ve added the 9900X3D as a placeholder.
• Budget is around £3,000 (happy to go slightly over for a performance jump that ensures future-proofing).
• I’m not very experienced with PC builds, so I’d greatly appreciate a review of the components and any suggestions for improvement.
• I live on the Isle of Man, so I’d like the Platinum warranty option for peace of mind in case anything goes wrong.

Could you please review the full build and recommend any changes?

Thanks in advance for your help, I really appreciate it!


Case
FRACTAL NORTH TG XL GAMING CASE (BLACK)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D 12 Core CPU (4.4GHz-5.5GHz/128MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 (AM5, DDR5, M.2 PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7)
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz CL30 (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
16GB ZOTAC GEFORCE RTX 5070 Ti SOLID SFF - HDMI, 3 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB CRUCIAL T705 GEN 5 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 14,500MB/sR, 12,700MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB CRUCIAL T705 GEN 5 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 14,500MB/sR, 12,700MB/sW)
1st Storage Drive
8TB SEAGATE IRONWOLF PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 256MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ ATX 3.1, MODULAR, CYBENETICS GOLD
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 280 RX RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)
Delivery
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Price: £3,172.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/rRWKMxRjAa/

 

[sck451]

This looks really good to me. My only question would be about storage. I doubt you need even one Gen 5 drive, let alone two. You could go down to Gen 4 and get a 1TB boot and a 4TB secondary for £3 more. (Or a 2TB secondary for significantly less.) In most scenarios, there is absolutely no difference. EXCEPT that I don't know if your LLM workloads will be heavily dependent on storage speeds. I doubt they will be, but you will probably know better than me on that front.

Also, an 8TB hard drive is bloody massive. What's it for? I hope you have proper backup/redundancy in place and aren't just trusting to a big hard drive...

 

[Migpco]

This looks really good to me. My only question would be about storage. I doubt you need even one Gen 5 drive, let alone two. You could go down to Gen 4 and get a 1TB boot and a 4TB secondary for £3 more. (Or a 2TB secondary for significantly less.) In most scenarios, there is absolutely no difference. EXCEPT that I don't know if your LLM workloads will be heavily dependent on storage speeds. I doubt they will be, but you will probably know better than me on that front.

Also, an 8TB hard drive is bloody massive. What's it for? I hope you have proper backup/redundancy in place and aren't just trusting to a big hard drive...

Hi, thanks so much for your help.

I don’t know much about SSD speeds, so I just picked the fastest ones I saw. I went with Crucial because from what I read here on the forum, it's generally rated above Samsung. I’m happy to go down to a Gen4 drive, but I only see a 1TB Gen4 listed in the options. Could you please recommend a good 2 or 4TB SSD for apps and games?

Also, you’re absolutely right about the 8TB hard drive. I already have several external drives for storage, so this is probably not needed.

 

[BlessedSquirrel]

Hi, thanks so much for your help.

I don’t know much about SSD speeds, so I just picked the fastest ones I saw. I went with Crucial because from what I read here on the forum, it's generally rated above Samsung. I’m happy to go down to a Gen4 drive, but I only see a 1TB Gen4 listed in the options. Could you please recommend a good 2 or 4TB SSD for apps and games?

Also, you’re absolutely right about the 8TB hard drive. I already have several external drives for storage, so this is probably not needed.

Didn’t you just buy a high end build last year?

 

[Migpco]

Didn’t you just buy a high end build last year?

Yes, I did, and it worked great, but I ended up giving it to one of my kids for gaming and college.

Since my needs have changed to include LLMs and video editing, and hardware has come a long way since then, I figured I would go with a 50 series Nvidia card and the new 9950X3D to be set for a long time.

 

[sck451]

Hi, thanks so much for your help.

I don’t know much about SSD speeds, so I just picked the fastest ones I saw. I went with Crucial because from what I read here on the forum, it's generally rated above Samsung. I’m happy to go down to a Gen4 drive, but I only see a 1TB Gen4 listed in the options. Could you please recommend a good 2 or 4TB SSD for apps and games?

Also, you’re absolutely right about the 8TB hard drive. I already have several external drives for storage, so this is probably not needed.

Crucial are great and those drives are amazing. But they're not really useful for consumer use. I'd suggest the Corsair ones as the best value, though the Samsung ones are also fine. You can tell the generation by the speed, by the way: below 3500MB/s is Gen 3, above 7000MB/s is Gen 5, everything in between is Gen 4.

I'd look at something like this (though note the 9900X3D is now also out of stock, so this is with the 9900X, which is quite a bit cheaper.)

Case
FRACTAL NORTH TG XL GAMING CASE (BLACK)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 12 Core CPU (4.4GHz-5.6GHz/76MB CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 (AM5, DDR5, M.2 PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7)
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz CL30 (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
16GB ZOTAC GEFORCE RTX 5070 Ti SOLID SFF - HDMI, 3 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB CORSAIR ELITE MP600 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6200 MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP600 PRO NH NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6500 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ ATX 3.1, MODULAR, CYBENETICS GOLD
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 280 RX RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)
Delivery
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Price: £2,761.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/yefDSPFpYv/

 

[Migpco]

Crucial are great and those drives are amazing. But they're not really useful for consumer use. I'd suggest the Corsair ones as the best value, though the Samsung ones are also fine. You can tell the generation by the speed, by the way: below 3500MB/s is Gen 3, above 7000MB/s is Gen 5, everything in between is Gen 4.

I'd look at something like this (though note the 9900X3D is now also out of stock, so this is with the 9900X, which is quite a bit cheaper.)

Case
FRACTAL NORTH TG XL GAMING CASE (BLACK)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 12 Core CPU (4.4GHz-5.6GHz/76MB CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 (AM5, DDR5, M.2 PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7)
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz CL30 (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
16GB ZOTAC GEFORCE RTX 5070 Ti SOLID SFF - HDMI, 3 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB CORSAIR ELITE MP600 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6200 MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP600 PRO NH NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6500 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ ATX 3.1, MODULAR, CYBENETICS GOLD
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 280 RX RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)
Delivery
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Price: £2,761.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/yefDSPFpYv/

Thanks so much, I really appreciate the help choosing the components and saving some money. I'll place the order as soon as the 9950X3D is in stock!