CPU
When it came to the CPU with the motherboard picked out and the fact that this is our Ryzen build meant the CPU was already narrowed down to one of the 7 Ryzen CPUs currently introduced. I had considered going with a Ryzen 5 CPU but I was aiming for something a little more powerful for Carmine. Dropping in the 1800X would have been the easy choice but I decided to go with the Ryzen 7 1700. Water cooling is already planned and I plan on overclocking the build so the 1700 was a good pick. They are known to overclock just about as good as the 1800X and cost $150 less.
So I dropped the R7 1700 in and went ahead for the time being put the Wraith MAX cooler in with it. Water cooling is coming in the near future, but this way I can get the build up and running with windows and everything installed ahead of time. Plus, let’s be honest, the Wraith Max cooler looks really good with its RGB rig lit up. I hooked the lighting up to the one RGB header on the Asus X370 Prime for now and once I get Windows installed I can sync the lighting to match the case.
While I haven’t spent much time overlocking the Ryzen R7 1700, I have spent a lot of time testing Ryzen. Check out some of our other coverage.
I7-7700K vs the R7 1700 in gaming