Since this is a gaming rig, I think it’s worth considering an X3D CPU instead of the 9700X. The extra cache has been known to help games quite a bit.

I’ve got no expertise to offer towards your question. Just came to offer my sympathies to anyone building a PC today.

Everything looks good to me. You should be pretty happy with the performance given what you’ll be using it for. It looks like your system bottleneck is your cpu, which is just something to keep in mind for potential upgrades if the performance gets to you enough and you have enough extra spending money to justify dropping another 400-500 for a new processor/aio. Not sure it’d really be worth it since it sounds like the most cpu intense thing you’ve mentioned is characterized as light usage anyway. The thing I’d be concerned about is thermals if it’s getting to those temps in the room you’d be using the desktop in during sustained graphic intense sessions at higher resolution. You might see about throwing in another fan or two in the case.

As for cooling the cpu, you should be fine with what you have considering it’s generally pretty thermally efficient. Just be sure to have a good thermal paste that’s actually spread well over the cpu before attaching the heat sink. Don’t just smush a random dab like I’ve seen way too many people do before. As for an AIO like the Liquid Freezer III(great choice, btw), I doubt it’d be necessary unless your cpu usage gets more intense than you anticipate. I’d keep an eye on the thermals as you go just to be sure things don’t get too out of control. I wouldn’t worry about the reliability of throwing an AIO in the system, they’re specifically made to be pretty maintenance-free outside of blasting dust out of the radiator every now and again. The biggest thing is good EVEN contact between the cpu and heat sink no matter what solution you end up with.

Very good bang for your buck on the video card, however, I’d be sure to have some kinda gpu holder in the case since it’s a long boi. At around 300mm, sag will definitely be an issue in the long run. GPU holders are real cheap anyway, unless you’re a trash panda like me who likes having the pretty lights hold up their oversized gpu.

So yeah, everything looks good, good/decent manufacturers where it counts, everything should play nice together, everything should bench well especially for their price point, and you’ve got good headroom for any upgrades you may want to add. Things I’ve suggested(if you haven’t considered them already): good thermal paste like Artic Silver 5(I’ve sworn by this for like 25 years), gpu holder, add like two case fans(one more up front, one below gpu). Ideally, you would want to add as many case fans as you can fit, so theoretically 6 more than what comes with the case, but I don’t know if you’d be able to get one or both of the top fans in depending on clearance with the cpu cooler. Just be sure the fan orientation makes air flow in from the bottom/front and out the back/top, the rear fan probably being the most important.

Anyway, sorry this is so long, hope this helps.

The part list looks good to me, it should result in a very nice gaming machine :) I think you were a bit generous with the PSU wattage, but I don’t think you can save a lot there anyway. If you play a lot of competitive (high-FPS) games, you could also consider spending a bit more on the CPU (e.g. 9800X3D) instead of the GPU.

The BIOS update should be fine as you already have another computer and the mainboard supports BIOS flashback. One note from my experience is that I needed to use the Windows version of 7zip (through Wine) to extract the BIOS on similar MSI B650 board. Otherwise, the BIOS update would fail.

I think that massive tower cooler should easily handle your 65W CPU (even in your hot climate). An air cooler also has the additional benefit of an air current over nearby components (RAM, VRM, …). IMHO, liquid cooling is mostly something that people do because it’s nice (and quiet). But, it’s always higher maintenance than simple air cooling.