Live on Twitch 1/29/2026 @3PM EST
TLDR;
Specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D
GPU Sapphire PURE AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
Motherboard: Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER X3D ICE
RAM: 32GB DDR5
Storage: Corsair MP700 ELITE w/Heatsink
AIO: be quiet! Light Loop 360mm White
Fans: be quiet! LIGHT WINGS 120mm PWM high-speed white & LIGHT WINGS LX REVERSE 120mm
PSU: be quiet! DARK POWER 14 1200W
Case: HYTE X50 – Matcha
Aesthetic extras: white cable extensions, or cover cables
Will not be live – I will be using fake stained glass paint to give it my own touch! Pictures if it comes out good.
Theme: Think Hobbiton 
LONG - POST below
My thought process
I’m building a PC – with AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D
I’m going to start this out like any food recipe blogger with my full life story, and without the convenience of a link to skip to the actual recipe. OK…maybe not fully, but a little background.
I am an AMD employee – but I didn’t start there for building PCs. It’s been in my soul at a young age, starting with my Dad and PC gaming and I would bug him so much to play games on his PC. One day he got annoyed and said OK if you want to play so much you can, but lets work together and build a PC together (with older PC parts he had, he had the bug to upgrade all the time). So we did, can I say do I remember the specs…absolutely not. But I can say it only worked a little in his favor. It was because it was Doom, I wanted to play Doom all the time. I was so young he didn’t want me to play the game by myself. Did I end up with other games too, yes. But it was all about Doom, heavier focus on Doom II: Hell on Earth specifically. Was it because of the gore, the camel-like grunt of one of the big bads? Maybe, but it was something he enjoyed so I wanted to learn it too. Like building PCs & gaming.
I can digress to one of my first I spec’d out systems had an ATI all-in-wonder so I could have a TV (before easily accessible internetTV & youtube, Netflix etc) & game, but I can go down that memory lane another day.
This one is for you Dad! (He’s still here) I made it! Or at least still building PCs to this day!
OK memory lane trip over.
You’re here for the 9850X3D build!
This is the first time and a long time that I’ve built a system not out of necessity for my job. So I wanted to share! But keep in mind what I do for me, is not what you need to feel pressure for. It’s all about what you can afford & the gaming experience you’d like to have. Also note, some of these parts I have been gathering over several months knowing I wanted to build myself a new PC eventually.
The first few things I go about when I’m spec’ing out a system. CPU (Central Processing Unit), GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), RAM (Random Access Memory - and ouch my wallet) and what aesthetic I want to go for, i.e. Case.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D
GPU: Sapphire Tech PURE AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
RAM: 32GB DDR5
Now aesthetics – I love the color green (sorry AMD red, orange, teal, gold, silver etc). The last case I got was a NZXT H2 in black….in 2011. I have been using this case forever. In part because optical drive use (I know there have been USB driven ones for quite sometime, but it worked so I stuck with it). It actually has my AM4 Ryzen 5 3600X still kicking and going strong, but it will be a legacy/media system more for me now than a gaming system. I still have HDD’s dating back to early 2000s in that bad boy.
I digress, back to green. There are many cases where they’re green but haven’t felt like the ~right~ green for me. Though completely two different greens I was torn between Fractal’s Terra a small form factor, and HYTE’s X50 Matcha – but running back to how long I’ve had my H2 I went with the X50. Not only that the bubble & color reminds me of a Cyber Green New Beetle GLS Turbo I used to drive. It felt like my fit, and I can have space to upgrade etc later on without having to worry about thermals as much as I would with the Fractal’s Small form factor (again nothing wrong with the case, but I don’t think it fits my use/lifestyle).
Case: HYTE X50 – Matcha
Now I know what size the case is I can look at what AM5 Motherboard (MB) to go with!
If you didn’t know there are a variety of sizes to motherboards – that you really have to think about. For the most common sizes in the order of smallest to largest it’s Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX, and eATX (see this article for visuals What Are the Different Motherboard Sizes? | WIRED). If I went with Fractal’s Terra since it’s a small form factor, I’d have to stick with mini-ITX – great for space saving & portability, but limits I/Os (inputs and outputs), thermals, GPU sizing and future upgradeability.
X50 supports all the common sizes of MBs. – So I’m not limited.
Since it’s also my first case with glass that I can see the inside, and the case color is a lighter green I’m going for white aesthetic inside (& LEDs). So white motherboard, white case fans and white cabling if I can. I want to go Hobbit vibes – matching other décor in my gaming space.
Back to motherboard – for AM5 socket I’ll do a quick chart for you guys. (it might not be perfect)
There are two main drivers for me and my decisions at this point. PCIe 5.0 GPU support, and USB4 (very helpful for large media file transfer speeds – also future proofing). So I was between X870 and X870E – but since I like to avoid USB hubs as much as I can. X870E is where I landed in terms of peripherals. Again I’m big on future proofing & keeping that base setup as long as I can.
Now that the CPU is an X3D part – I got drawn into Gigabytes X3D marketing. So….white X870E Motherboard. I went with Gigabtye’s X870E Aorus Master X3D ICE, but I waffled a long time between X870E Aorus Pro X3D Ice, deciding factor just being the difference in I/Os for me. Now do I have 10G internet right now? No, but a girl can dream of a faster internet future.
Motherboard: GIGABYTE X870E AORUS MASTER X3D ICE
Though there can be a LOT said about storage (SSD/NVMe). For me NVMe that 1-2TB is what I went with! Pretty good when it comes to speeds, but since the MB is capable I went with a PCIe 5.0 M.2 device!
Storage: Corsair MP700 Elite with Heatsink (which I’ll probably have to remove the heatsink– remember the comment that I bought things over several months)
Now – power supply unit (PSU).
I have specs for my CPU, GPU, MB, Storage decided – all that adds up power wise!
CPU: Default TDP (thermal design power) 120W – buttt there’s peak power giving some room from 9800X3D that was ~160W
GPU: 317W Typical Board Power, asking for minimum 750 Watt Power Supply
MB: Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master X3D ICE – doesn’t specify but the board and USBs/LEDS/RAM/Storage require power.
Based on minimum just to be safe with peak power spikes I chose a 1200W PSU – though 1000W would have been fine.
I recently met be quiet! at CES 2026 & they heard of this upcoming build & offered to help me in regards of acquiring parts!
While the PSU cannot be white – just like my affinity to German engineering (VW New Beetle mentioned beforehand) it has the power I need for this system.
In addition I had a paint drawing as to what I was looking for in regards to an AIO cooler & fans within the case & be quiet! was here to help me & my system keep cool.
On a side note from my experience of building other PCs & having to worry about cable management from fans between their power & LEDs driving with be quiet! I didn’t have to worry about needing to get an ARGB hub. Though I did still have to worry about daisy chaining or getting a fan hub component for the fans to get it to the MB.
I say this as there are 7 Fans independent of the AIO Fans. For cable management wise I don’t want to route all 7 fans directly to the MB, on top of that I can’t! I need a hub or splitter since there are not enough headers (connections) on the MB to support each individual wiring from each fan. There’s only 4 system fan headers.
I maybe have ordered a few and will figure out what works live!
Quick science refresher: cooler air sinks and hot air rises.
If you want to have a bigger science refresher like where I got this image: (Parcel Theory | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Here’s a drawing of my attempt to explain thermals and why it’s important for my system and how “hot” air exhausts and “cold” air intakes.
Other than properly installing each puzzle piece in the correct spot. For a PC thermal dissipation and keeping things cool is LIFE. Usually, a system loses performance via heat & has to protect itself (ie the chip – so it doesn’t damage or burn itself out completely). So if you can optimize on how to best keep it cool, you can keep your self cool as well and have optimal performance to the best of the overall systems system performance ability etc. & if they’re good fans/setup that cool can also be quiet! (okay I’ll see myself out now).
Another thing to keep in mind is AIO position! You want the part to last and it won’t if it’s incorrectly positioned. If it’s incorrectly positioned the pump may die because it was working overtime and you burned it out early. (there might be some life lessons there – I should take some vacation soon….I’ll have a great system to spend it with if I do!).
Think about water and gravity and that even though it’s an AIO is an enclosed system there’s still some air in there. Biggest thing is keeping the air out of where the pump is!
While the most IDEAL situation is that the AIO radiator at the top of the case, the HYTE X50 doesn’t have a spot for top air flow! So what I’ll be doing is having the AIO in the front panel of the case! With those tubes down, because that keeps the air at the top of the radiator and out of the pump! Now could it also be put on the side of the case, technically yes. BUT I want the least obstruction I can get for the case since I don’t have a top exhaust, only a side and back get rid of that heat!
Next biggest thing to go with that diagram I created are those arrows! They help me to know how I should have the fan direction. So when talking with be quiet! I shared an ever so rudimentary drawing of my plan and I have fans and “reverse fans”. I could technically just flip the fan around for just “fans”, but it could ruin the aesthetic – and I would actually have to see it.
Talking about airflow! Either keep your desktop on a hard surface (like your desk, or hardwood/vinyl/tile/cement you get my drift flooring) OR if you need the desk space, and you have carpet, I recommend a sturdy PC rolling stand (TO BE USED ON THE FLOOR ONLY – please don’t put it then on your desk, I do not want gravity & a quick roll off to be the demise of your hard work effort time into a build). But I do want your PC to be able to breathe and get that cooler air from under into the case!
There’s more I could go into about CPU & different thermal paste styles, but that’ll be LIVE!
Now to actually building!..almost
Few things I’ve done ahead of time outside of purchasing and getting all the parts in.
Created Win 11 installation media on a USB thumb drive: Download Windows 11
Checked & updated that BIOS! Nowadays some MB you can do a BIOS update without CPU RAM etc installed – just needs appropriate power to the MB. I followed Gigabytes Manual & Special Features to get there and honestly other online resources (Q-Flash Plus details are kind of a little too ambiguous imo).
Hope you can join, or watch after!
I’d love to hear about your thought processes!
-TheyShallRule
