The Turbo Build

This one was a difficult one to write, that's for sure. So here's the thing: I've gone into detail in both our budget and midrange articles already that, well, basically, the name of the game has changed in regard to overall total costs on these systems. 

The pricing that we once used at Maximum PC just doesn't make sense in the modern age. Hardware costs continue to shoot up and have done so consistently, generation-on-generation, over the last decade. Sadly, that doesn't look likely to be changing any time soon either. Combine that with the added effect of inflation over the same time frame, and what you're left with are system prices that need to be way, way higher than they were before to hold relative performance parity with their decade-old counterparts in the mag. It's a pain, to be frank; inflation has been aggressive across the board, and average household income has not matched it, thus the frustration, certainly on my part.

So yes, that does mean we're talking about a Turbo build here that starts at around $4,500 / £3,800 or so, and that's a price I desperately want to pull down, without dramatically affecting overall performance if I can. Certainly over the next few months. 

Having such high costs on hardware like this not only prices out people who are just getting started in the hobby, but it denies access to modern kits for so many institutions, educational facilities, and families as well. In a digital age like ours, that's a massive disadvantage to have. Don't get me wrong, the processing power we have available today is far, far greater than when I was but a whippersnapper, but then, so too are system requirements.

What that means is that, really, this is encroaching on the level of Dream Machine money, the best of the best hardware that I can recommend, for both AMD and Intel, with some caveats on the GPU front. I've cut corners where I can and shifted some things about here and there, and I'll endeavor to include a few recommendations in the future where you can save some cash, but yeah, just a full disclaimer before I dive into this.

With that! Let's talk the AMD rig, and to get us started, we've got to include that AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D. I've always been a bit of a stickler for these chips, mostly because they kind of feel like a bit of a stopgap to me. The X series is remarkably good at production workloads but, thanks to poor single-core and multi-chiplet design drawbacks, has often struggled (I'm using that phrase very mildly here) in gaming. 

The 3D V-Cache corrects that by reducing latency and improving performance in certain titles that can take advantage of it, but, as the extra cache is stacked on top of one of the core complexes, it means that the clock speed on that complex is slightly lower as a result. So you effectively sacrifice some multi-core performance for the sake of better gaming performance, and again, minor swings here. Still, the 9950X3D is impressive; personally, I'd recommend doing a little research to see what games/programs you use most often, then pick either the X3D or the X depending on that.

To be blunt, this should just be one design at this point, given 3D V-Cache first debuted with the Ryzen 5000 series. Still, the 9950X3D is just a juggernaut at both those tasks now, and as Intel continues to struggle with its architectural revamp, there's technically less competition when it comes to modern gaming CPUs anyway (fortunately for AMD).

I've then gone ahead and paired that with NZXT's N9 X870E motherboard. This is a particular favorite of mine, built by ASRock and licensed out to NZXT, complete with that classic Californian styling, lightbars, flat surfaces, and subtle branding galore. It comes with some fantastic connectivity, solid performance, and a no-nonsense BIOS that really ticks all the boxes for me. It's got that no-BS kind of vibe. For all of NZXT's recent faults, this ain't one of them.

As for memory, that's handled by a 64GB kit of Dominator Titanium @ 6600 C32 (pairing nicely with that Infinity Fabric), and that's all there really is to report on this one, before we get into the shared parts anyway.

For the Intel rig, of course, we've got little choice but to go for the Core Ultra 9 285K. It's a beast of a chip at the top end, with eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores. There's no more hyperthreading here; that's been relegated to Intel's history books at this point, but the efficiency per thread is through the roof. Particularly in computational tasks. Gaming, though, is a bit of a miss on this series, certainly compared to the 14th-gen Core line (the Core i5-14600K regularly beats out, well, this entire product stack). 

I've gone ahead and paired that with the incredible ROG Maximus Z890 Apex motherboard. That's kind of peak board, to be honest, and you could save some cash going for something a little less flamboyant, but it'll fit our bill nicely.

As for shared components, first up is the case. That's the H9 Flow, newly released from NZXT. It's a monstrous form of the H6 that we saw last year, with recessed fan mounting, and supports an arsenal of cooling throughout, including 420mm AIOs, which we're taking full advantage of here. The Kraken Elite 420 is providing cooling for both systems, as it's the best 420mm AIO out there, and on the AMD rig I've paired it with some of NZXT's incredibly beautiful F140 Duo fans, and for the Intel machine, I've gone with Corsair's far simpler to set up iCUE RX140 fans as well. No reversed blades here unfortunately, and the AMD rig does require two fan controllers minimum, which will require a USB 2.0 splitter as well, annoyingly.

On the GPU front, the RTX 5080 is the name of the game for both rigs. I just can't recommend the RTX 5090 at its current $2.5K-plus pricing; it's nonsensical, and the RTX 5080 is dominant enough in pretty much every 4K title you can throw at it regardless and requires less power too.

AMD BUILD

Total: $4,679 / £3,871
Power Draw: 742 W

INTEL BUILD

Total: $4,680 / £4,153
Power Draw: 787 W

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