To start off with, my budget is a hard cap of $3,550 including tax and shipping etc. While i won't say where I live, my local tax rate is 8.35%. I already know what keyboard, mouse, and monitor I'll be getting and those costs are in a separate budget altogether. I originally considered prebuilt PC's, and was deciding between https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Systems/CORSAIR-VENGEANCE-Series-Gaming-PC/p/CS-9050046-NA#tab-overview at $3,299.99 or https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Systems/CORSAIR-VENGEANCE-Series-Gaming-PC/p/CS-9050057-NA at $2,799.99 . But everyone tells me that I need to just build a PC myself, I'll straight up get better everything at the same value. So I've tried that. hours upon hours of research, late nights on youtube, watching Linus tech tips, Jay two cents, anyone and everyone that comments sections say is trustworthy sources. it's left me drained and even more confused, and lost, than how I started. Notable PC build lists I came up with and realize avidly are failures of lists include https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xLQg6r , https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MDzkNc , and https://pcpartpicker.com/list/nMYNMb though in total I've probably made about two dozen builds. I realize all of them are failures, as I don't have enough of the right knowledge to make and get what I need. Before I continue, I realize that this is not a subreddit to have a whole build list made for me, and that's not what I'm asking. I do however feel it necassary (nessisary? nesicarry? Necissary?) to show what's lead up to what I'm actually asking, and I apologize for rambling. Anyhow, my actual question is this: With the PC goals I'll list below, what parts should I focus on, as more important parts of the system? Is me wanting to stick to intel only an issue for my goals? And how in the world can I tell how many PC fans I can actually attach to a build? Everyone tells me to check the motherboard manual, but I'd have to buy the motherboard to check that. Please Help!

As to my actual PC Goals: Play, run, and heavily (Thousands) mod the following games: Skyrim, fallout 4, Minecraft, with ray tracing shaders, Starfield when it comes out, Elder Scrolls and Grand Theft Auto 6 when they both come out, Project Zomboid, Beam NG Drive, I also play a lot of RenPY Visual Novels, though I realize all that really needs is just storage. Maybe this is foolish of me, but I'm very preferential to a black color scheme, and I think I need a 40 series GPU and DDR5 though I may be wrong. I'm only gaming, no streaming or editing etc. etc. though I do enjoy listening to music via opera gx while gaming.