Full specs • CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K • GPU: Gigabyte RTX 3060 GAMING OC 12G rev 2.0 • Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-A WIFI (ATX, Wi-Fi 6E + Ethernet) • RAM: 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5-5600 — 2 of 4 slots used • Storage: 2TB WD_BLACK SN850X NVMe + 512GB T-Force NVMe + 1TB Seagate BarraCuda HDD (3.5TB total) • PSU: EVGA 750 BP, 750W 80+ Bronze • Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition • Case: iBUYPOWER i-Series • OS: Windows 11, fresh install

Why this build

12GB of VRAM is the reason to take this over an 8GB card at the same price. It runs 7B-8B local models comfortably, and it's why 3060 12GB pricing has held while faster 8GB cards have slipped.

Storage is the sleeper. The SN850X is WD's flagship Gen4 drive, not a budget NVMe, and two of the three drives are NVMe. With NAND where it is, that alone is a meaningful chunk of the build cost.

Memory is DDR5-5600 in two of four slots, so there's a real path to 64GB without replacing what's already in there.

Upgrade path

LGA1700 on a Z790 board — a 13700K or 14700K drops straight in. Three M.2 slots, two open DIMM slots.

Honest notes

Started life as an iBUYPOWER prebuilt chassis. The Hyper 212 is fine at stock but I wouldn't call this an overclocking build. Fully tested and stable under load, no issues.

Ships double-boxed with the GPU removed and packed separately to protect the PCIe slot.