Gotcha, thank you for additional context.
What I read, DLSS 3.0 is like magic and running 1440p games, you’d possibly benefit from it if you stick to Nvidia. I don’t know how much $40 means to your budget but I would invest in that solely because of that. THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH AMD GPUs, buy it’s something I’d consider.
If I was building today, I’d certainly go DDR5 as you are.
I can’t comment on stock cooler as I also value quiet operations because it’s annoying when I’m gaming next to a jet engine, so even though the cooler might be overkill, I want them quiet. I haven’t tested stock cooler but a nice Noctua was in my budget.
Same with my case, Be Quiet! 500DX but again, because I want as silent as possible while gaming.
Humble Bundle is actually running a pretty good promotion on Python courses/materials.
I haven’t opened them yet but there are like 45 items in that bundle. I had decided to learn a new language myself and this made the choice for me.