In mid-2022, I won a PC building competition organized by Nvidia and WD, and I got the opportunity to take home the very PC I built. Except for the RTX 3080 and the WD Black SN770, I had free rein to pick whatever components I wished for, provided I stayed within the $1,800 budget. While I couldn't choose a Ryzen 7000 CPU due to a hard deadline (the Zen 4 launch was still 2 months away), I was extremely happy with the Ryzen 7 5700X.

The Zen 3 chip was one of the best value CPUs of its generation, and I was ecstatic to finally sport an 8-core CPU on my gaming PC. As time passed, however, I realized I should have dropped to a 6-core chip in favor of picking a better component in at least one of four other areas of the build. Doing so would have provided me with more tangible value than two extra cores on my CPU.

4 I could have bought a 360mm AIO cooler

Better esthetics and future-proofing

Picking the Ryzen 7 5700X instead of the Ryzen 5 5600X (or the Ryzen 7 5700) meant I had to make some cuts elsewhere. One of the first things I "downgraded" was the CPU cooler — settling for a 240mm AIO cooler wasn't the end of the world, especially for a 65W TDP processor, but I should have thought far ahead. When I eventually upgrade my CPU to one of the Zen 6 chips, I'll probably need the extra cooling performance of a 360mm AIO cooler.

While an avoidable cooler upgrade is a sticking point here, a bigger regret is the awkward positioning of the 240mm cooler at the top of the case. A 360mm cooler would have fit better in terms of esthetics, populating the entire radiator slot instead of leaving empty areas that feel out of place, at least visually. The money I could have saved by skipping an 8-core CPU could have been used to grab a 360mm cooler, among other components that I talk about below.

3 I could have picked an ATX 3.0 PSU with more wattage

Investing where it counts

The RTX 3080 on my gaming PC didn't need more than an 850W Gold-rated power supply, so that's exactly what I picked — an EVGA Supernova 850 GT. It was enough for a future GPU upgrade to something like the RTX 4080 Super or even the RTX 5080. Well, you can probably guess what happened to my RTX 3080 to RTX 5080 upgrade dream. Anyway, what I regret is not going with an ATX 3.0 power supply with the 12VHPWR connector and some extra wattage.

Not only would it have provided a seamless connection with one of Nvidia's new GPUs (whenever I upgraded), but also looked cleaner visually. The existing 12-pin to dual 8-pin adapter on my RTX 3080 Founders Edition looks hideous, to be honest. Overspending on the power supply, just to chase bigger wattage numbers is dumb, but I could have at least picked a 1000W unit to give myself plenty of room for a high-end GPU upgrade. Pairing the Ryzen 5 5600X with an RTX 40 or RTX 50 series would have been just fine.

2 I could have added another SSD

Extra storage never hurt anyone

The WD Black SN770 was already part of the PC I won, but I should have used the remaining budget to add another SSD to the PC, increasing the total storage by another terabyte. A single 1TB SSD isn't enough by today's standards, especially on a modern gaming PC with multiple large games, and one that also stores several hundred GBs of photos, videos, and movies.

Instead of an 8-core CPU that satisfied only my lust for power, an extra SSD would have saved me the money I eventually spent out of pocket to expand my storage. Alternatively, I could have made a case for a Gen5 drive at the time, hoping to utilize the faster speeds when DirectStorage eventually makes its way to more titles. Of course, I could have used those faster speeds only with an AM5 CPU and motherboard (or an Intel combo) down the line, but it would have saved me the cost of a Gen5 SSD.

1 I could have chosen a white motherboard

The all-white PC dream would have been complete

Today, the best white motherboards usually cost around the same as their black counterparts, but when I was picking the parts for my build, they commanded a significant premium. A white motherboard was the only missing component I needed to ensure a uniform white theme, since I already had a white case and cooler (I couldn't change the RTX 3080 FE). Going with the Ryzen 7 5700X meant I had to settle for the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite AX.

My PC doesn't look bad in its current style; in fact, I like the dual-tone look that I had to settle for. However, an all-white PC hits different, exuding a premium and sophisticated vibe, subtly communicating that the builder paid great attention to detail. Even the RTX 3080 FE would have blended in nicely with the all-white esthetic, resulting in a build that looked as good as it performed. All-white builds might be done to death now, but at the time, I would have loved to have one of my own.

Hindsight is 20/20

It's easy to look back at one's choices and pick them apart, but we always have reasons behind our actions. Choosing the Ryzen 7 5700X seemed like a prudent move, considering that I would never have done that on a PC I was building with my own money, and because I hoped it would last longer than a 6-core processor. That said, the alternative components that I could have picked would have benefitted me more than the 8-core CPU.