Never built a PC before, but thought it was a good time to get started on it!
I already got the tower, CPU and motherboard. Someone was getting rid of that specific tower and they wanted it gone - it was basically free! (aka a glorified curbalert)
I chose that CPU cause I don’t want to spend money on a GPU, yet. Not looking yet into AAA gaming, at most I’ll start with my Steam indie backlog 😁
Thanks!
AIOs are just too convenient these days. You can “move” the heat right to the wall of your case and use slower fans for the radiator. They open up a ton of space for more efficient total airflow. After AIOs got refined after the first few generations, I am never going back to air cooling my CPU again. (I don’t “power overclock” anymore, but I’ll still kick my clocks up a little if it’s 100% stable.)
I debated a quality water loop for my last build but I couldn’t justify the maintenance time. (Cost is not a huge factor, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still want one…)