Kid wants the cheapest bestest build that plays everything for £300!

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Sorry to @mickyflinn and the OP, I'd like to make it clearer what I meant, as I think I worded it a bit arse about face :cry:

The 3600 IMHO is mmore the culprit for the CS2 bottleneck, then when paired with a RX 5700 XT / RX 6600 /XT the GPU just doesn't get to stretch it's legs enough...

However, I did see people playing CS2 with a 5600X and a RX 5700 XT, and it was very hit or miss on the FPS depending on the map, most of the time it was around 190-220FPS, but the minute there's smokes going off or a more demanding map, it would tank...

It was FWIW just 'smoother' than my RX 570 8GB that's paired with the 3600 non X, so no stuttering but you'd look at the 1% lows/FPS and think, this is NOT worth the money as a combo, but that is due to CS2 being CS2 and highly strung/buggy.
The RX 570 8GB will start off with above 165Hz in a few maps, then as soon as it's warmed up it just drops randomly, sometimes down to 80FPS, and FSR makes no difference, nor does 720P, so I'd def say there's some ******* going on with CS2!

I've seen the same happen with a 5600X and a RX 6700 XT in videos dropping below 165 or barely keeping it in the 180-220 range when smokes are going off, however when they're not a RX 6700 XT will do 300+ fine, only got YT footage to go by though, for all I know it could be fixed now and something like a 5700X onwards could be fine.

But yeah TLDR, for SP gaming or less buggy games that aren't CS2, I'm sure it'll be fine, at worst you can put up with the 3600 non X for a bit and then bang a 5600X or 5700X in at a later date :) It is a hard one to judge as a lot of games the 3600 non X still is a beast.
 
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Thanks all, massive thanks to all who spent time commenting, i think i have enough options to go with now and see what he thinks. i think the 5600 is a good call with the RX 7600. its a much better option and the 32gig of ram option all at the expense of cheaper mobos / cases / stock cooler. putting the money into where it counts.
 
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Thanks all, massive thanks to all who spent time commenting, i think i have enough options to go with now and see what he thinks. i think the 5600 is a good call with the RX 7600. its a much better option and the 32gig of ram option all at the expense of cheaper mobos / cases / stock cooler. putting the money into where it counts.
A RX 7600 is just a RX 6600 XT in a new dress mate, might as well just grab one of them instead as I'd imagine they're cheaper than a RX 7600?
 
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A RX 7600 is just a RX 6600 XT in a new dress mate, might as well just grab one of them instead as I'd imagine they're cheaper than a RX 7600?
the 7600 is 10-15% faster than the 6600xt, and the 6600xt is no longer on sale
the 6650xt is the most comparable but still slower than the 7600...and it's also equally comparable in price like a £10 difference between them
might as well get the 7600 and tell the kid he has the latest generation graphics card...that's worth more than the £10 difference :D

 
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the 7600 is 10-15% faster than the 6600xt, and the 6600xt is no longer on sale
the 6650xt is the most comparable but still slower than the 7600...and it's also equally comparable in price like a £10 difference between them
might as well get the 7600 and tell the kid he has the latest generation graphics card...that's worth more than the £10 difference :D

Oh is it, my bad! I didn't know that. Decent!
 
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A RX 7600 is just a RX 6600 XT in a new dress mate, might as well just grab one of them instead as I'd imagine they're cheaper than a RX 7600?

There is some features the 7 series cards have which the 6 doesn't. Can't remember which. I think it might be Fluid Motion Frames or Radeon Boost.

The cooler on the 7600 is also extremely quiet, which is always nice.
 
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There is some features the 7 series cards have which the 6 doesn't. Can't remember which. I think it might be fluid motion frames or Radeon boost.
I'd say the main one is the AI cores (AMD have said they may be used in future FSR & frame generation versions) and DP was upgraded from 1.4 to 2.1, but I believe this is an optional feature for the RX 7600 cards, since the Pulse and Asus Dual do not have it and the Hellhound does. Ray tracing was supposed to be improved too, but I can't say I've seen that in any benchmarks. For streamers it also has AV1 encoding (instead of only decoding on RDNA2).
 
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I'd say the main one is the AI cores (AMD have said they may be used in future FSR & frame generation versions) and DP was upgraded from 1.4 to 2.1, but I believe this is an optional feature for the RX 7600 cards, since the Pulse and Asus Dual do not have it and the Hellhound does. Ray tracing was supposed to be improved too, but I can't say I've seen that in any benchmarks. For streamers it also has AV1 encoding (instead of only decoding on RDNA2).

I did try RT on that Quake 2 mod, it works but I wouldn't want to play it like that. Though that probably isn't very optimised being such an ancient engine.
 
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Ray tracing is a bit of a gimmick and marketing bs in these low-end cards

Well it's still useful if you are just using it for rendering or screenshots I guess.

It's a gimmick full stop though. It's too much of an FPS hog and in many games it doesn't look better, just different.
 
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There is some features the 7 series cards have which the 6 doesn't. Can't remember which. I think it might be Fluid Motion Frames or Radeon Boost.

The cooler on the 7600 is also extremely quiet, which is always nice.
Ah nice, never knew that. I was under the impression a 6600 XT wasn't loud? Nice bonus either way.
I'd say the main one is the AI cores (AMD have said they may be used in future FSR & frame generation versions) and DP was upgraded from 1.4 to 2.1, but I believe this is an optional feature for the RX 7600 cards, since the Pulse and Asus Dual do not have it and the Hellhound does. Ray tracing was supposed to be improved too, but I can't say I've seen that in any benchmarks. For streamers it also has AV1 encoding (instead of only decoding on RDNA2).
Interesting, didn't know that.

After the amount of hate they got online, I thought they were just a rehash of previous gen.
 
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Hi,

A friend who's nephew wants a gaming PC with a £300 budget that plays everything! is living in a dream world and he should get him a steam deck. clearly His budget of £300 is unworkable but I've endeavored to get it as low as possible and still not be pants. so far i have come up with this for £734

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 Black 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler
Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE AX ATX AM4 Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Western Digital Black SN770 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB Video Card
Deepcool CC560 V2 ATX Mid Tower Case
MSI MAG A650BN 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply

Can you suggest some savings or improvements to this to get him the best bang for the buck that is going to be better than a pocket calculator. i also don't know what games he is playing he wants it to play everything but he is 14 so i am guessing the usual for that age.

Thanks

P
the 3600 is still capable even with an RX 6600!
I got a entry level build up on gumtree and the amount of £250/300 bids is ridiculous- ok for that you get the card, motherboard and processor.
 
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Well it's still useful if you are just using it for rendering or screenshots I guess.

It's a gimmick full stop though. It's too much of an FPS hog and in many games it doesn't look better, just different.
I was playing on a 3600 with an RX6600 for liek a year.
Anyways I went to my dads for a few months after a bereavement, he was only rocking a 5800X with 32gig of ram and some kind of turbo motherboard.
Slotted the RX in (he was running a 1650 lol) fired up doom etneral - holy **** it was like i was playing a new game, i had ray tracing on.
I dont know if the ray tracing actually did anything - but dam man it was smooooooth all setting hiked to ultra.
 
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I recommend you go second hand. I just sold my sons PC for £300 that was perfectly fine as a starter PC.
Intel 9th gen and 1660 super.
If he wants budget, give him budget :)
 
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I recommend you go second hand. I just sold my sons PC for £300 that was perfectly fine as a starter PC.
Intel 9th gen and 1660 super.
If he wants budget, give him budget :)
good suggestion, However second hand is pot luck, you are probably a decent human being who takes care of your sons PC and used good components for it. Not every second hand seller is like that. i'd hate to suggest that and have him buy somthing that dies just after he gets it. so i think for peice of mind and warrenty new but sensible is the way to go for him.
 
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good suggestion, However second hand is pot luck, you are probably a decent human being who takes care of your sons PC and used good components for it. Not every second hand seller is like that. i'd hate to suggest that and have him buy somthing that dies just after he gets it. so i think for peice of mind and warrenty new but sensible is the way to go for him.
only 340 posts to go until you have member's market access :cry:
 
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