Choosing a new high performance desktop computer

A change in desktop computer has been prompted in our household by the end of support for Windows 10 (Microsoft to end Windows 10 unpaid support on 14 October 2025). In fact I've been running Windows 11 for some time but this was a chance to swap machines around, my old Win 11 machine replaces an older Win 10 machine and then I get a new Win 11 machine. At the same time I'm also taking the opportunity to get one of the new 50 series graphic cards launched by Nvidia in the spring of 2025. I've previously outlined my selection process for a new laptop and will document here a similar thought process for arriving at the spec of a new desktop machine.

Side view, not powered


I was looking for a high performance machine that would be good for photo editing, along with a little video editing and also for gaming. I already have a 4k screen, an LG UltraGear which I will continue to use. As off the shelf desktop PC configurations can be short on memory and short on storage space I was therefore looking for a custom build. As a company I've used before, PC Specialist was my starting point.

Case

Rear and side view, not powered

Strangely my first decision was what colour case and components to go for. Rather than the usual black I decided to go with white, both for the case and also the internal components. The white/black options are mostly a question of personal aesthetics, there doesn't seem to be much impact on price, though there may be a wider choice of components in the traditional black. Therefore I was looking at PC Specialist's Luna Series for an all white build. My choice of case was the CORSAIR FRAME 4000D RS ARGB MODULAR - WHITE, big enough to take full size graphics cards and take a larger cooler unit. It has the front USB ports located at the bottom of the case which works better for me with the PC sitting on a desktop. The case comes with a triple RGB fan unit front mounted and then I also chose an additional 120mm PCS White Case Fan (non RGB) for the rear.

Processor

Next key decision would be the type of processor as this would dictate the motherboard options. This is essentially a two horse race, Intel or AMD, and they both have a range of processors covering different price points and with different performance capabilities. I opted for AMDs Ryzen 7 9800X3D, a modern 8 core processor running up to 5.6GHz and with an on-chip 3 tier cache which is aimed at boosting performance, especially while gaming. A Ryzen 9 could have provided a greater core and thread count but it would have pushed the machine price up, along with the greater power use and heat generated, for what might be small gains.

Motherboard

This processor needs a motherboard (mobo) with an AM5 socket. My choice was the Gigabyte X870E AORUS PRO ICE WHITE (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7). This has a PCIe5 slot for the GPU along with several M2 slots for SSDs. There are plenty of USB ports and they even include a couple of USB4 slots, handy if I want to add faster backup drives later.

Cooler

AMD recommend a liquid cooler for the processor, an AIO (All In One) is an easy option here and they typically come in 240mm (2 fan) and 360mm (3 fan) radiator configurations. As the case has lots of space I went for the larger (and therefore potentially quieter) 360mm option. I also opted for a unit with an LCD display which can display temperatures and other hardware parameters, not strictly needed, just a nice to have. My choice of cooler was the CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 360 RX LCD RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER - WHITE. 

Graphics Unit (GPU)

My choice of GPU is the Nvidia RTX 5080 with 16Gb of VRAM and supporting the latest DLSS (a suite of neural rendering technologies powered by Tensor Cores that boosts frame rates). The choice was based on the simple criteria that a RTX 5090 would be too expensive and that 5070/5070Ti options may struggle to deliver good frame rates at my target 4k resolution. There were several specific cards that I could have selected, as the price goes up they tend to run at faster clock rates, have more overclock (OC) options, better cooling and generally improved looks. My choice was the 16GB Gigabyte GEFORCE RTX 5080 AERO OC, which has one HDMI port and three DP (DisplayPort) ports.

The 9800X3D processor has AMD Radeon™ Graphics integrated on-chip. While the main GPU normally handles all the graphics this does mean that for raw photo editing tools like Affinity Photo 2 the machine can effectively run as a multi-gpu configuration for even better performance.

And here are the benchmarks from Affinity Photo

Benchmarks in Affinity Photo


Power

With a GPU such as this the suggested power supply is 850W or greater. For a very small amount more I decided to specify a 1000W unit, giving some future heardroom. My choice of power supply was the CORSAIR 1000W RMe SERIES™ ATX 3.1, MODULAR, CYBENETICS GOLD - WHITE.

Memory

I decided to go for 64GB RAM to future proof to some extent (even though 32GB would probably cover most current situations). Getting the RAM as a pair of 32Gb units allows dual memory channel access. Memory from Corsair comes in Vengance and Dominator forms (Dominator has better cooling and more OC capability), both with optional RGB lighting. The highest speed memory the processor can use is DDR5 at 5600MTs and so this led me to choose DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 5600MHz.

Storage

My previous storage was a couple of SSD M2 drives, one PCIe4 but the other only PCIe3 (at 1Tb each), along with a 4Tb Seagate Ironwolf hard disk for all my photographs. The latest PCIe5 drives are very fast but come at a high price, so to give me enough performance I decided to have two PCIe4 SSDs, each at 4Tb, and not have the slower (but cheaper) hard disk. My choice was the 4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W).

iCUE

One of the advantages of using several Corsair products together is that their iCUE software can then be used to control the various colours and displays in one place. This means the front RGB fans, the cooler fans, AIO surround, AIO display and Dominator RGB, along with my keyboard, a K70 mk2, can all be set from one place (the Gigabyte GPU needs Gigabyte Control Centre to set colours if required).

iCUE Home screen


Specifications

So the final specification of the machine was:

  • Case: CORSAIR FRAME 4000D RS ARGB MODULAR - WHITE
  • Processor (CPU): AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core CPU (Up to 5.2GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
  • Motherboard: GIGABYTE X870E AORUS PRO ICE WHITE (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7)
  • Memory (RAM): 64GB Corsair DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB DDR5 5600MHz CL40 (2 x 32GB) KIT - WHITE
  • Graphics Card: 16GB GIGABYTE GEFORCE RTX 5080 AERO OC - HDMI, 3 x DP
  • 1st M.2 SSD Drive: 4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)
  • 2nd M.2 SSD Drive: 4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)
  • Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMe SERIES™ ATX 3.1, MODULAR, CYBENETICS GOLD - WHITE
  • Processor Cooling: CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 360 RX LCD RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER - WHITE


Benchmarks

Running Geekbench benchmarking tool for both CPU and GPU gave the following scores:

Previous machine - Intel i7 12700K, 32Gb DDR4, RTX 3080Ti

  • Single core - 1190
  • Multi core - 8078
  • GPU -  181899


New machine - AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3d, 64Gb DDR5, RTX 5080

  • Single core - 3295
  • Multi core - 18104
  • GPU -  266621



Choosing a custom build

Pros

  • You get the spec you want rather than someone else's choice off the shelf
  • Online order tracking
  • Windows 11 activated, no problems
  • Option for no antivirus, saves uninstalling trial versions
  • All hardware components working and very high performance
  • Support is good


Cons

  • Takes several days to build and test before shipping.
  • I could not initially configure the AIO display, I found a loose cable which fixed the problem.
  • The motherboard shows a status code of 08, an undocumented code, rather then the more normal A0 code.
  • The GPU support bracket was loose but I was able to adjust this myself.



Conclusions

The main benefit for me in using PC Specialist for a custom build is getting the exact specification I want, with lots of choices available. The website works well and the online order tracking is good. From previous experience (with an upgrade) I know the PCS support team are helpful if I need them. Windows 11 was easy to setup, though very slow to apply updates.

New PC, powered up and lights on


The new desktop PC has worked well so far, it boots rapidly and the performance is excellent, a distinct step up from my previous machine. I use a mix of photo editing packages including Capture One Pro (which I might replace with DXO PhotoLab), DXO NIK Collection and Affinity Photo, all these appear to run well so far. For video editing I will be using Kdenlive (KDE Non-Linear Video Editor) but have yet to put it through its paces.

Overall I'm very happy with this computer (my third from PC Specialist).
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/desktop-pcs/luna-series/

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