I built the best bang-for-your-buck RTX 4080 gaming build

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Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4080 is one of my favorite graphics cards, largely down to its performance and better value. It’s positioned between the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4090, though performance is more drawn toward the former due to the RTX 4090 being an entirely different class of GPU. When shopping around for parts or considering a PC build plan, just what other components work well with the RTX 4080? This is what my $2,700 PC build guide will walk you through.







Gaming PC build with an RTX 4080













Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 Gaming OC

GPU

With RGB lighting and a relatively affordable price tag, this is a solid version of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080.





4K gaming is more accessible with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080. The RTX 4090 offers the very best performance of any GPU, but it’s priced out of reach for just about every gamer. This is where the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 comes into play. It’s a very powerful GPU with a vastly more affordable price tag. It’s still not great value, but it’s about as good as we’ll get this generation. We’ll pair this puppy with some capable hardware for a killer gaming system.
















NZXT H9 Flow

Case

The NZXT H9 Flow is a premium mid-tower chassis from a reputable brand that offers a unique take on the traditional PC case design. It has ample support for water cooling, excellent thermal performance, and a gorgeous aesthetic.





The mighty NZXT H9 Flow is one of my favorite PC cases thanks to its expansive interior space, support for water cooling and the largest GPUs, excellent cable management, and gorgeous design. Pick the case up in white and you’ll be able to create a truly unique system with RGB lighting and other additions. NZXT includes four 120mm fans with the H9 Flow, making it a great pick for our CPU air cooler.
















Intel Core i5-13600K

CPU

Intel’s Core i5-13600K is the company’s latest mid-range CPU and is an absolute winner, with much-improved performance over its predecessor, which makes this now one of the best CPUs to put in a gaming PC.





You could go with an Intel Core i7 or Core i9 processor, but I feel as though the Intel Core i5-13600K offers the best value. It’s good enough for playing most modern PC games at 4K, aside from titles that are heavier on the processor (looking at you X4: Foundations). It’s a great balance between performance and affordability, offering a 14-core CPU for just north of $300. That’s right, this “mid-range” CPU from Intel has 14 cores. It’s one of the best CPUs for your money.






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Noctua NH-D15

CPU cooler

$110 $120 Save $10

The Noctua NH-D15 is one of the most powerful air coolers on the market. It can handle high-performance CPUs, and while it’s large, it gets the job done. Oh, and it comes in a stunning brown color.





An all-in-one liquid cooler is overkill for the Intel Core i5-13600K and I wouldn’t buy one unless you prefer AIOs over air coolers. The Noctua NH-D15 is one of the best air coolers out there and it’s more than capable of keeping the Intel chip temperatures low. If you were to push the processor a little harder, I would opt for a 240mm radiator-touting AIO solution to provide additional thermal capacity for the extra heat produced, but the NH-D15 is great for gaming and general use!
















MSI Pro Z790-A

Motherboard

The MSI Pro Z790-A is all about keeping things affordable. It’s a Z790 chipset motherboard with plenty of high-end features, but nothing too out of reach for those who simply want a decent board for a PC.





The motherboard is an important consideration as it’s the glue that holds everything together. The MSI Pro Z790-A won’t win awards for design, overclocking potential, or features, but it will save you considerable money without sacrificing performance. There’s full DDR5 RAM support and even PCIe 5.0 for the main GPU slot, which makes this quite the offering for around $200. You could even push the Intel Core i5-13600K a little further through some overclocking.
















Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM

RAM

Just as with its DDR4, the Corsair Vengeance DDR5 kit is some of the best low-profile memory around, combining price with performance and near-universal compatibility with coolers.





Corsair’s Vengeance series of DDR5 RAM is very much like its outgoing DDR4 range, offering excellent performance at a more reasonable price. DDR5 may be the next big thing to hit the PC industry, but you can already grab a whopping 64GB of the stuff with two 32GB modules for $180. Corsair also sells a 32GB kit with two 16GB modules for $100.
















Samsung 980 Pro 2TB

Storage

One of the fastest SSDs money can buy and a perfect addition to any PC, or even the PS5 as some serious library storage.





You cannot go wrong with Samsung SSDs. The Samsung 980 Pro may not be the latest and greatest SSD from the brand and it’s not PCIe 5.0, but our budget-friendly motherboard only has PCIe 4.0 support with its M.2 slots and we don’t need PCIe 5.0 storage. 2TB is plenty of storage space for the operating system (Linux or Windows will do for gaming) and storing your ever-growing library of yet-to-play Steam games.
















be quiet! Dark Power 13 1000W

PSU

be quiet!’s Dark Power 13 offers ATX 3.0 and PCIe 5.0 support, an 80 Plus Titanium rating for efficiency, and a sleek design. This is a very powerful PSU for a capable PC build.





The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 demands plenty of stable power and that’s precisely what the be quiet! Dark Power 13 offers. With 1000W of capacity to work with, there’s even scope to upgrade the system down the line with a faster processor, should you require additional performance for video editing and other resource-intensive applications. be quiet! makes some of the best hardware in the business when it comes to cooling and power delivery and the Dark Power 13 series of PSUs are a great choice here.





What you need to know about this PC build

All of these parts are compatible with one another, so feel free to pick and choose from the list and customize it to your liking. 32GB of DDR5 RAM with an Intel Core i5-13600K and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 would make for a powerful gaming PC, capable of handling 4K gaming with great results. You’ll be able to smash through the likes of Cyberpunk 2077, GTA V, Hogwarts Legacy, and Stellaris without problems.



It wouldn’t be unwise to upgrade the processor to an Intel Core i7 or Core i9 (or AMD equivalents with a compatible motherboard), although this would further increase the price, and we’re already spending a lot of money.
















Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 Gaming OC

GPU

With RGB lighting and a relatively affordable price tag, this is a solid version of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080.







** (Disclaimer: This video content is intended for educational and informational purposes only) **




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