Hello all,
 
Think of my mind as a sponge ready to absorb all of your knowledge....
 
I am in the process of purchasing my components for my FIRST build. Yes, I'm excited. Today, I took advantage of EVGA's sale and purchased the Z590 motherboard. What Intel CPU do you all recommend and why? I love learning so I am open to all of your thoughts. 
 
I plan on getting the i7 or i9, but I cannot decide between the 10th generation and the 11th. I had a brand new computer that had a i7/11th generation that ran really hot. I read somewhere this is typical. Unfortunately, that computer died before it was even 90-days old. Hence, my attempt at building my own. I love learning knew things and its a good project.  
 
If it helps, I plan on using a Liquid Cooler with additional fans installed. 
 
Thank you in advance for any knowledge you wish to pass along. It is greatly appreciated. 
 
All the best! 

Thanks for the great input, WebsterRKL! I appreciate all your advice. 
 
I'm leaning hard toward the i7-11700K. I've always liked plenty of computer power when I need it. It has the Rocket Lake as you mentioned. It's what I had in my last computer. Even though it ran hot, my prebuilt computer literally only had one fan installed in it, an exhaust, amazing, huh? Plus, it was in too small of a case for the system. I'm not surprised it died in less than 90 days. I think with the liquid AIO and the additional SickleFlow fans I plan on installing on my custom build, I should be fine--hopefully! *fingers crossed* 
 
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I will shamefully admit that I still get confused by all the overclocking info. I need my daughter and her significant other to come over and get me up to speed on that aspect. He just got his computer science degree and is now working on completing his engineering degree. At this point, though, I'm afraid I'm going to pester the poor guy with all my questions--eek. In all seriousness, he's been super sweet and so patient helping me through this process. But, I still feel guilty pestering him too much as he has so much on his plate right now. Hence, my journey into the forum. 
 
Last time they were here, we did get into the bios of my other computer and he showed me how to snoop around on it. 
 
-----
 
I am in line in the notification system for my graphics card. I'm signed up for the Ultra RTX-3070 and Ultra RTX-3070 Ti. In the meantime, I am actively pursuing BB, the shuffle, etc. 
 
Since you brought of memory, I already purchased 32GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro. For my solid state, I bought the MSI Spatium M.2 - 2 TB. That should give me plenty of room. My PSU is the EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G6, so I think I will be fine on power. Just for fun, I bought the Lian Li Strimer Plus. To house this little powerhouse, I picked up the Razer Tomahawk ATX. I'll admit-- I'm a Razer girl right down to her Kitty Kraken headset. LOL
 
As far as my build goes, I won't say money isn't an object... but... as my honey likes to remind me, a happy wife is a happy life. When I expressed my concerns about the money I've dropped lately he reminded me we haven't taken a vacation in 2 years because of the pandemic and to splurge and not worry about it. So, I'm not going to worry about it! 
 
Again, thanks for your help. If you have any further suggestions, please do not hesitate to let me know. I'm eager to learn as I make my way through this new process! 
 
All the best! 

WebsterRKL
There's always 3 or 4 really great options with any hardware component and everyone gets to choose the bestest one they feel most comfortable with from past experience, where they are now, their current budget, and that future point they want in front of them. That's the beauty of making it your own. 

11700K will work out beautifully for your first gaming build.

Wishing you peace and love. 

Thanks so much! I appreciate your kindness.

May I ask, what makes the Rocket Lake so fun? I meant to ask that earlier. I just got excited sharing my build components that I have purchased that I forgot to ask.

Oh, and for my parts, I’ve been using PCPartPicker to make sure everything is compatible.

FWIW, my daughter’s boyfriend recommended the i5 as well. I guess it’s just a matter of having a hard time breaking old habits. For work, I’ve always purchased the newest CPUs for productivity. In my mind, the i7 is a compromise between the i5 and i9. Lol. Maybe it doesn’t work that way in the gaming world, though. Idk. I’m trying my best to read and absorb. There is SO much for me to learn. There is a big difference between trying to build one yourself and picking a computer off the shelf. But, I must admit, I’m really excited about the prospect of building my own.

Again, I appreciate all of your kind advice and your time.

Have an amazing weekend.

WebsterRKL
What make Rocket Lake so much fun?
 
Rocket Lake 11600K 11700K 11900K processors add:

1) Improved single thread performance over Comet Lake, great for gaming.
2) Improved IMC's - memory controllers capable of 3866Mhz CL14 amazing low latency for gaming or 5600Mhz CL20 or 5866Mhz CL21 for brilliant work applications and overall system responsiveness.
3) Improved PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD speeds at 7000MB/s write and your Corsair I believe is at 7200MB/s. Wow!

If you install a Coffee Lake 10600K or 10700K or 10900K processor - you will not achieve the much faster PCI 4.0 capable SSD NVMe speeds. 

Well, I most definitely need to make sure I get the Rocket Lake! 😉

Thanks for the informative lesson!

I get that people want the PCIE 4.0 lanes but they don't actually mean that much on the grand scale of raw gaming performance. The 11900K lost to the 10900K in just about every game/benchmark there is. Unless direct storage actually turns out to be good (which pcie 3.0 will still be plenty fast) I agree with gamers nexus that the 11th gen intel was a waste of sand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxiuvQPL_qs
 
The new intel platform actually looks exciting with the big/little core. I can't wait to see what it brings to the table.

One note on GN's 11900k video: they locked it at 125W because that's what Intel markets the CPU at (even though Intel even did their testing and marketed performance at 250W PL2 limit). If you're going to lock it at 125W, you should not waste your money on it. If you are going to unlock it and put sufficient cooling on it, it is currently (for a couple(?) more months at least) the best gaming CPU on the market. It's considerably worse at some multi-threaded tasks than a 5900X or 5950X if you're doing those sorts of things. Also, by saying "best" it is only marginally better, and your mileage may vary depending on the game and resolution (lol!). The big gains are in the GPU. Another caveat that weighed into GN's opinion is that it is marginally better at gaming at substantially more power usage, which is why it needs considerable cooling.
 
As for the marginal ranking differences in games, here are some examples (notice how at "stock" clocks or 125W, the CPU is much lower in the table, but unlocked, with ABT on, or manually overclocked, it jumps to the top of the table):





 
You'll also notice that results vary by test setup (because each person/site that does the testing has a slightly different setup). The 11th gen did really well on minimum/lows, which is why I included that chart from Tom's Hardware review as well. They did a really nice job showing different settings, how they impact performance, for a variety of CPUs, so I really liked their review. You'll also notice that at 1440p, one CPU might be ahead of the others, but only by 1-3 FPS sometimes. So you have to ask yourself if that's noticeable to you? Is it worth the price difference? The heat? The power draw? etc.
 
All that said, I think the 11700k with a manual overclock is a fine choice, if you have really good cooling ready. The way Intel pre-binned CPUs, the 11900k's are really just 11700k's that ran at much higher clocks at a given voltage, which means they overclock better with less power draw (and less heat). So it isn't as simple as "just buy the cheaper one and overclock it". It might be, you could be lucky, but it might not be. If you're going with either of those and want to get the most out of it, I'd suggest, at minimum, that you consider the 360mm or 420mm Arctic Liquid Freezer ii AIO. I haven't seen reviews for anything that beats those and their balance of performance and noise. They use thicker radiators than most and considering how big they are and fitment into your case should be a factor, but they're fantastic AIOs.
 
Further, you'll want to do some research on proper air-flow in your case. Some cases look really nice, but have terrible air-flow. There's a misconception about "good airflow just means get more fans and crank them up!", which isn't true. If you have really good airflow, you won't need to turn the fans up as high. Sometimes you can actually benefit from more fans (or bigger fans) running at slower speeds, it all depends on the case and the setup. You can put a really good AIO on a CPU, but if you have bad airflow to the AIO or block off the exhaust, you'll have a poorly cooled CPU still. I found out the hard way that bad airflow can completely ruin your overclocks or settings by just cooking your CPU. If you click the link in my signature for my Dark Water build, you can see some of it that I cataloged in there. The big issue was that I drastically underestimated how much heat would be coming off the radiator on my hybrid 3080ti. My only option to mount that radiator in my case is the front. I had initially set it up as an intake, because it was my only option for intake locations, but that caused my CPU to hit 100C in Battlefield V (loading the next map between rounds), which obviously wasn't good. So I had to get a little creative and re-route that front radiator as an exhaust, then add two high-pressure/ fans to the case in odd places to actually bring in some cool air to the case. Now all my temps are manageable again, but it has been a learning process as I've never had a GPU (or CPU for that matter) that requires this much power and thus generates this much heat.
 
Sorry this was so long, but you asked for information . I hope it was helpful. Let me know if you want me to clarify any of this or give further info. I tried not to go too deep on each thing lol.
 
 
 

11th gen tends to have better frametime consistency and higher minimum frame rates at higher resolutions too so if you are wanting to game at 4k it is worthwhile to go 11th gen imo.  There's been a ton of discussion about this over on overclock.net and this is basically the conclusion from it.

B0baganoosh
So the z73 is a good AIO. I think I've seen that one and the Arctic 360 perform very similar in reviews, but the Arctic is less than 2/5 the price of the NZXT if you don't go with all the pretty lights lol (about 1/2 price if you pick the Arctic with RGB fans) so I always end up recommending the Arctic. If they both perform the same, then it really comes down to price and aesthetic choices for you (or if the audible noise is different/worse with one or the other, I'm not sure on that one).
 
As for that case, you can only mount a 360mm radiator in the front, and a 240mm on top. I would not run a 240mm AIO with that CPU. It just won't keep up well. If you're not planning on overclocking, front mounting a CPU intake radiator shouldn't be an issue, but I really can't recommend that CPU if you're not going to give it an all-core bump up to like 4.9 or 5.0GHz lol. (it's free performance, I can't not overclock haha). Without running a 3080 or bigger/hotter GPU (I see your notifies are not those), I don't think front-mounting an intake radiator will be too bad.

I'm not going to try and talk you into anything, but if I was using that case, I would front mount the CPU AIO radiator as an intake and see if I could fit fans on both side of it for "push/pull" configuration. They might not fit, and that's probably ok too, but I would check. You'd have to get creative on how you hook up the fans. if you use the EVGA z590, each fan header is rated 2 amps, so you can like just get a 3-fan splitter cable and hook a set of 3 fans into each of the 2 "CPU FAN" headers on the board. Then I'd make sure there was a rear and at least one top mounted fan for exhaust to remove that hot air. That will also make sure plenty of the hot air coming off your GPU is removed from the case. Of course, to do that, you'd have to remove that little cover over the 2.5" drive bays (and remove all the bays), only using the rear 2.5" drive mounts or M.2 drives. Also, I don't know if they'll fit, but I'd also consider mounting fans (blowing upwards) on the power supply shroud as additional intake fans. That way if they can pull any air from underneath the case (around the PSU?) they'll put that cooler air straight onto the GPU. I wouldn't expect a massive improvement from those bottom-fans, but it'd be a "every little bit helps" situation. It's not a "perfect" air-flow case, but from reviews, it seems decent and you should be able to make it work. 
 
All decisions are up to you, so don't feel pressured by any of my advice. It is just what I would do in your situation. Not everybody would do what I would do lol 

I will unbox my case and take a look inside to get a better idea of the layout you suggested. I have 6 Master Cooler Sickleflow fans to play around with in addition to the AIO I intend to purchase. I also bought plenty of fan splitters. And yes, if the AIO are created equally, I’ll pay extra for the pretty screen. Lol, what can I say? I’m a girl. 🙄🤣

If I am not overclocking, what CPU is a better option? Although, I’m still leaving that door open for the future. As my knowledge grows, my courage to be more adventurous may too.

Sorry, I just realized I missed a really important factor about overclocking:
what resolution do you plan to game at? Also, do you do other tasks with the computer that are not gaming? For example, if you're using a 4k or even 1440p monitor, the difference is not going to be substantial for gaming. So folks like me that just have an itch for it can probably just be ignored lol. For example:

(sorry, the earlier charts from Tom's didn't have the 11700k because they split it into a separate review)
If you look at 11700k at stock, it's 4th from the bottom. Set it at 5.0 like I suggested and it goes to 4th from the top. However, and I guess I did allude to this earlier so I didn't do too awful bad, but I just wanted to point out that on average, they saw an 8fps increase, out of 158 (so 5%). When they did a multi-core stress test in that review, the temperatures were sitting just under 90°C for the most part on a 280mm AIO when they set it at 5.0GHz all-core (which is why I suggested going bigger than that lol). That's about 12.5°C hotter than stock for 5% gaming improvement at 1440p. My point is that it is easy to just look at the chart without the numbers and say "this one's better" but if you weigh the difference and the cost, it might lead you to a different conclusion.
 
Is that worth it? Well, that's up to you. If you run a 360mm AIO like you're planning, do a good job with airflow, maybe it isn't 12.5°C hotter. Maybe it's only 5-10°C hotter and even stock clocks runs cooler than what they showed, so maybe you're hitting 75-80°C peaks. That would be fine with me as most games don't actually run the CPU that hot anyway (save for Battlefield V...that game is intense lol).

The reason 11600k is often suggested is the huge increase in bang/buck. At stock, it's only 2fps average lower than the 11700k. Both at 5.0GHz, it's still only 2fps behind. In their multi-core stress test on that CPU at 5.0GHz on the same 280mm AIO, it mostly sat below 80°C. So it isn't much cooler, but a little bit, and in games it performs almost as well (close enough you probably won't notice). So it is a good option. It's also worth noting that maybe that last 5% is more important a few years down the line when you're trying to eek out every last drop of performance you can get before you do an upgrade. So you wait and do your overclocks then, especially if it makes the difference between bottlenecking the GPU or not in some future title/GPU. Right now that's not likely to be any kind of noticeable bottleneck, so it isn't as important.
 
So I think the big questions are:
1. what resolution are you gaming at?
2. Is gaming the primary focus? (if you do multi-core workloads from work related applications, you will want to go with an 8-core CPU over the 6-core)
3. Is the increase in temperature worth the small increase in performance?
4. What is my case and cooling solution capable of keeping up with?
 
We've talked a lot about number 4, and that's the big one I try to warn people about with the 11900k. It has Thermal Velocity Boost and Adaptive Boosting Technology, which you can google as there are tons of articles that explain how those work, which are only available on the 11900k. The cliff notes are that they are sort of like "auto-Overclock" features. If there's enough thermal headroom, they will automatically boost the CPU to higher clocks when enabled. The CPU will run hotter and consume more power when they are enabled, and you can see in the initial charts and the one in this post the differences between "ABT On" and "ABT Off" for the 11900k. You can get better results from a manual overclock, but this is basically the "easy" button that is still fully under warranty. However, without adequate cooling, turning on ABT won't buy you much. It'll just rail off the thermal throttle and keep dropping back off to lower clocks anyway. You're AIO of choice in that case (as far as the reviewers tell me) seem like they'd do just fine with it. You'd have trouble going to 5.2-5.3GHz all-core (I think everyone has trouble with this unless they spent a lot of money on a custom loop lol), but I have no doubt you could just turn on TVB and ABT and call it good, which is why I proposed that as one option for you that is technically "Better" than an 11700k. The whole point of this post though, was to give you the background information on what "better" actually means and that it might not be "better" enough to warrant the cost and extra heat.
 
Breakdown from this perspective:
11600K: $262, averages 98.7%fps stock with good temps (104%fps at 5.0GHz reasonable temps when OC).
11700k: $370-390, averages 100%fps stock with reasonable temps (105.3%fps at 5.0GHz, little toasty maybe).
11900k: $544 currently, averages 104%fps stock with reasonable temps (106%fps with ABT, little toasty maybe).
 
As far as variance of "average" FPS goes, if their setup is the same, you can generally pick one site and just compare the %'s as the actual FPS number isn't as important because that varies so much from setup to setup. So for the above, I just set the stock 11700k FPS as 100% and varied from there.

B0baganoosh
Sorry, I just realized I missed a really important factor about overclocking:
what resolution do you plan to game at? Also, do you do other tasks with the computer that are not gaming? For example, if you're using a 4k or even 1440p monitor, the difference is not going to be substantial for gaming. So folks like me that just have an itch for it can probably just be ignored lol. For example:

(sorry, the earlier charts from Tom's didn't have the 11700k because they split it into a separate review)
If you look at 11700k at stock, it's 4th from the bottom. Set it at 5.0 like I suggested and it goes to 4th from the top. However, and I guess I did allude to this earlier so I didn't do too awful bad, but I just wanted to point out that on average, they saw an 8fps increase, out of 158 (so 5%). When they did a multi-core stress test in that review, the temperatures were sitting just under 90°C for the most part on a 280mm AIO when they set it at 5.0GHz all-core (which is why I suggested going bigger than that lol). That's about 12.5°C hotter than stock for 5% gaming improvement at 1440p. My point is that it is easy to just look at the chart without the numbers and say "this one's better" but if you weigh the difference and the cost, it might lead you to a different conclusion.
 
Is that worth it? Well, that's up to you. If you run a 360mm AIO like you're planning, do a good job with airflow, maybe it isn't 12.5°C hotter. Maybe it's only 5-10°C hotter and even stock clocks runs cooler than what they showed, so maybe you're hitting 75-80°C peaks. That would be fine with me as most games don't actually run the CPU that hot anyway (save for Battlefield V...that game is intense lol).

The reason 11600k is often suggested is the huge increase in bang/buck. At stock, it's only 2fps average lower than the 11700k. Both at 5.0GHz, it's still only 2fps behind. In their multi-core stress test on that CPU at 5.0GHz on the same 280mm AIO, it mostly sat below 80°C. So it isn't much cooler, but a little bit, and in games it performs almost as well (close enough you probably won't notice). So it is a good option. It's also worth noting that maybe that last 5% is more important a few years down the line when you're trying to eek out every last drop of performance you can get before you do an upgrade. So you wait and do your overclocks then, especially if it makes the difference between bottlenecking the GPU or not in some future title/GPU. Right now that's not likely to be any kind of noticeable bottleneck, so it isn't as important.
 
So I think the big questions are:
1. what resolution are you gaming at?
2. Is gaming the primary focus? (if you do multi-core workloads from work related applications, you will want to go with an 8-core CPU over the 6-core)
3. Is the increase in temperature worth the small increase in performance?
4. What is my case and cooling solution capable of keeping up with?
 
We've talked a lot about number 4, and that's the big one I try to warn people about with the 11900k. It has Thermal Velocity Boost and Adaptive Boosting Technology, which you can google as there are tons of articles that explain how those work, which are only available on the 11900k. The cliff notes are that they are sort of like "auto-Overclock" features. If there's enough thermal headroom, they will automatically boost the CPU to higher clocks when enabled. The CPU will run hotter and consume more power when they are enabled, and you can see in the initial charts and the one in this post the differences between "ABT On" and "ABT Off" for the 11900k. You can get better results from a manual overclock, but this is basically the "easy" button that is still fully under warranty. However, without adequate cooling, turning on ABT won't buy you much. It'll just rail off the thermal throttle and keep dropping back off to lower clocks anyway. You're AIO of choice in that case (as far as the reviewers tell me) seem like they'd do just fine with it. You'd have trouble going to 5.2-5.3GHz all-core (I think everyone has trouble with this unless they spent a lot of money on a custom loop lol), but I have no doubt you could just turn on TVB and ABT and call it good, which is why I proposed that as one option for you that is technically "Better" than an 11700k. The whole point of this post though, was to give you the background information on what "better" actually means and that it might not be "better" enough to warrant the cost and extra heat.
 
Breakdown from this perspective:
11600K: $262, averages 98.7%fps stock with good temps (104%fps at 5.0GHz reasonable temps when OC).
11700k: $370-390, averages 100%fps stock with reasonable temps (105.3%fps at 5.0GHz, little toasty maybe).
11900k: $544 currently, averages 104%fps stock with reasonable temps (106%fps with ABT, little toasty maybe).
 
As far as variance of "average" FPS goes, if their setup is the same, you can generally pick one site and just compare the %'s as the actual FPS number isn't as important because that varies so much from setup to setup. So for the above, I just set the stock 11700k FPS as 100% and varied from there.

I can't thank you enough for all the valuable time and information you have given me. I truly appreciate it! 
 
To answer some of your questions...
 
1. My resolution will be 2560 x 1440. Hubby just surprised me recently with a new monitor. What a guy! 
2. This will strictly be a gaming build. I have a totally separate work computer. I'm self-employed and because of Covid-19 and health concerns, I've had to re-arrange my work schedule so that I work mostly after hours. Makes for some late nights in the office, but a lot of free time during the day. I thought this would be a fun, learning project to keep my idle hands and mind busy during these long days. 
 
Once I get my first build done, I will go about learning more about overclocking. It does sound intriguing and I enjoy expanding my knowledge base.
 
Last night, I did break down and get my CPU. I bought the i7, 11700k. I have 15 days to return it if I decide to switch it out for another model. In the meantime, I just need to get my AIO and then I can start my build.
 
As you know I'm on the list for an EVGA GPU. I like to stay brand loyal and keep everything consistent. However, knowing I have 6 months to a year of waiting ahead of me, I managed to snag a 3070 GPU on Shuffle. It was a combo deal that came with a 2TB SSD. (*hangs head* Not an EVGA. I'm leaving my name on the list, though, because I want to go with an EVGA build. Once I get my hands on an EVGA 3070/3070 Ti, I will switch it out on my build and upgrade hubby's pre-built that has a 2060 with the Shuffle win.) In the meantime, this will allow me to give my husband's pre-built gaming computer back to him. He thoughtfully allowed me to confiscate his when my gaming computer died.
 
Thanks again, B0baganoosh. Your advice has been so helpful! 

11700k is solid. I feel when comparing all the CPU's in the same tiers, it's splitting hairs (even between Intel & AMD).

and dont trust the benchmarks either. its hard to get real/true info in this world. 

Any reason not looking at the i9-10850K?  I am having the same debate as MsKrissie.