PC Build and Initial Thoughts - RTX 5090 & Core Ultra 9 285k Series 2

 

     Retired is the venerable RTX 2080 and 10700k Combo that kept my gaming career alive the last 7 years, retired to the garage as a working and reliable substitute if ever we need it again. Much like a SR71 Blackbird- it will be reactivated when needed. 

PC Specs:

• Core Ultra 9 285k
• ASRock Z890-Pro Motherboard
• RTX 5090 FE 32gb DDR7 (HP Edition)
• 64gb Kingston Fury Beast DDR5 5600 XMP/RGB Heatsink Ram 4x16
• Samsung 980 Pro 2tb. Gen 4 NVME
• 360mm Liquid Cooler LCD Cap
• ASRock 1200w Platinum ATX Power Supply
• HP45L Omen Max case

Other Stuff:

• 2x Ultragear 31.5" Curved 32G6OWA Monitors
• Wacom One Tablet
• Logitech Extreme 30 Pro
• Razer Nostromo Chroma
• Razer Deathadder Elite Chroma
• Razer Cynosa Chroma
• Razer Kraken Pro 3.0 Chroma
• Yeti Blue Boom Mic
• Edifier W4 Pro Speakers
• Panasonic HC-770V camera
• Eureka Pro Aero Wing 72" desk

Why did I upgrade?

I had wanted to upgrade to 1440p and use our spare 4k monitor in the garage for gaming for some time, but the 2080 can barley cut the mustard when it comes to Ray Tracing and frame rate at those resolutions, so I was stuck with some good but old 1080p monitors. It was time to upgrade the monitors, but I had to get everything with the PC in line first. Unfortunately the PC was a little late, so the monitors were the first upgrade, as mentioned in a previous post.. for a steal. It's been over 6 years. It's fucking time. 

Why 5090?

I mean, why not. If you can get it for around MSRP, I think the answer is do it. You can spend over 2k for a 5080, but if you wait and do the research, you can get something you want for the same amount.. which was what I did for this particular PC. I know it's overkill, but the last time I had a cutting edge PC was over 6 years ago, I think its time to go flagship again and really play these new games how they were intended to be played.

• YOLO
• Same price as 5080 in my area
• Available at the time
• Want this to last me 6 more years
• Wanted to go big with dual 1440p or 4k monitors
• I heard 6 series wont be until 2027

Why Intel??

I know I'm going to get a bunch of shit for not getting one of the new AMD X3D processors that are beating the pants of anything for the same price. 2 year old processors from team green still can rate very highly in most gaming benchmarks. I get it.

• I like intel. IMO - No issues, compatible, reliable.
• My son has a 14700k and the thing is still a performance beast in anything you throw at it. The lifespan is pretty good. 
• Power draw and temps are lower
• Great for gaming and productivity both
• I think they will make more improvement down the road
• Known AMD issues with processors melting and getting sent back sounds scary to me
• Price was $100 lower than a Ryzen 9 9950x3d for very similar performance

Other Notes: On the surface, I really don't know what to say that I have not already. I'm doing everything I did before, but everything is just so much better. Fast, damn near totally silent. I never realized how loud my old PC was when things were ramping up. I feel like I could take on anything, any game, I never have to look at the graphic details.. just turn them all up to max. I miss this feeling. Do you want to play Cyberpunk 2077 on Overdrive? Yeah, me too, so here we are.

It's HP Parts dude.. and that review.

     How do you think I was able to afford this? All the discounts available, $1000 off the price of a new 5090.. the list goes on. You can buy this total build refurbished for $3699 right now, which is way less than the cost of the parts if you can get them. The parts I did have to complete this build were all bought on sale. I'm very aware of the review by Gamers Nexus, and made notes when watching it. Scam? I think that's a little harsh. I bought a new revision of essentially the same item, and have zero issues with anything out of the gate except for bloat, which took me 15 minutes to uninstall. Did I have to go into the BIOS and click the "Unlock" button to get all the features I paid for? Yes, and that was a 2 minute pain in the ass that I'm willing to deal with. Overall I thought his review was very exaggerated until the end, where he actually reviewed the PC with the performance unlocked, and everything worked fine. Criticizing the cooler was expected, and the case design, but was not very honest, because if you took ANY radiator out of the PC and aimed a fan at it, it would perform better outside the confines of a case. The temps on mine are always under 50c, and have never hit 55c in any testing. I saw the GPU get to 57c when playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle for about an hour. Overall, I'm impressed and whatever issues people see in that video, I'm not experiencing that with this case or build.

This is for you guys - Thanks for reading.