Out of the loop - £1500 to spend on gaming PC (no monitor, case, ssd, peripherals)

[md99]

Hi boys & girls,

I've not upgraded since 2016 - when I buy a PC I buy one to last (current setup, i76700, gtx 1070, 16gb ram, etc) It's served me well but I want something a lot better. £1500 budget, don't need case, monitor or any ofther bits & bobs, just the usual. Here is what I'm toying with but as I said in the thread title, been so long since I upgraded I'm not sure what the best buys are.

1 X Intel Core i7-12700KF 3.60GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail - £289.99
SKU: CP-6A0-IN

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1 X Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-52800C32 6600MHz Dual Channel Kit - £229.99
SKU: MEM-CRS-01224

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1 X Asus Prime Z790-P WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £209.99
SKU: MB-6JR-AS

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1 X Corsair RMx Series RM850x 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (CP-9020200-UK) - £147.95
SKU: CA-267-CS

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1 X Cooler Master Hyper H412R CPU Cooler - 92mm - £29.99
SKU: HS-07T-CM

I've never gone big on mainboards, power supply's or coolers, anything I've ever bought has been fine. The big omission above is the gpu. My preference is something from the 4070 range but on principle I don't think I could fork out the money nVidia wants for them. Its obscene. I have no allegiance so I'm happy to go with a comparable or better AMD gpu either. Any suggestions? If I really really have no choice I'd go nVidia through gritted teeth. I have six hundred quid left over from my budget but I'd go a hundred more. A GPU over seven hundred, not a chance.

This is a pure gaming PC, I want to run everything at max settings or as close as @ 60fps but here is the big trade-off, to ensure I've been able to get the most out of my setups I haven't gone down the 4k (or even 1440p) route. Everything I play will be maxed out on my 1920 x 1200 16:10 monitor so I trade resolution for all the graphical bells & whistles and smooth frame rate for years to come.

Thanks for your time

 

[Tetras]

The 13600K (or 14600K) are generally faster than the i7-12700K, for both games and applications (weird, I know...).

That's a fairly hefty memory speed for a 12th gen CPU too and I can't recall if they're generally alright with the OC to that kind of speed, or not.

Z790-P is one of the cheaper Z790 (PCI-E 5.0 graphics) DDR5 boards, so that part is cool, but the less cool part is that it only has 3x M.2 slots and a spec similar to a midrange/higher-end B760 board.

1 X Cooler Master Hyper H412R CPU Cooler - 92mm - £29.99

Looks can be deceiving, but this appears way too puny a cooler for a modern Intel CPU. I'd consider this:

Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO Review: This isn’t a competition. This is a massacre.

As long as it will fit in your case, this is the air cooler you should probably buy.

www.tomshardware.com

Air cooling a modern i7 is a tough ask already, so you need to make sure it is a good one.

The big omission above is the gpu. My preference is something from the 4070 range but on principle I don't think I could fork out the money nVidia wants for them. Its obscene. I have no allegiance so I'm happy to go with a comparable or better AMD gpu either. Any suggestions? If I really really have no choice I'd go nVidia through gritted teeth. I have six hundred quid left over from my budget but I'd go a hundred more. A GPU over seven hundred, not a chance.

For 1080p a 4070 or 7800 XT is fine. The newer choices would be 7900 GRE or 4070 Super. You could blow your whole budget on a 7900 XT and they're great cards, but for 1080p I don't think I'd bother going higher than the 7900 GRE or a 4070 Super (if ray tracing matters).

Alternative budget squeeze:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i7-13700F (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6BD-IN) = £359.99
• 1 x MSI B760 Gaming Plus WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-37M-MS) = £159.99
• 1 x Crucial Pro 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C46 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01085) = £170.00
• 1 x SAPPHIRE PULSE AMD Radeon™ RX 7800 XT Gaming Graphics Card with 16GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA™ 3 architecture (SKU: GRA-SPR-00764) = £479.98
• 1 x Seasonic Focus GX-850 850W 80+ Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-06T-SS) = £119.99

Total: £1,297.94 (includes delivery: £7.99)​

Cooler as above.

Note for 14th gen: B760 Gaming Plus does not have flashback and it only has 2x M.2 slots. Alternative with flashback: B760 Gaming X AX DDR5 (3x M.2 slots).

 

[md99]

Interesting, thanks for taking the time to research that. I could I guess with the money saved on ram, power supply and mainboard do something daft and go for complete overkill and buy a 7900xt.

 

[Tetras]

Interesting, thanks for taking the time to research that. I could I guess with the money saved on ram, power supply and mainboard do something daft and go for complete overkill and buy a 7900xt.

I wouldn't, but sure, you could

If it was me, since you want the PC to last, I'd probably get a better motherboard with more features (e.g. more M.2 slots than just 2, more USB 3 than just 2 & a Type-C), native 14th gen support (so you could switch to the 14700) and a CPU that has integrated graphics, so that you have an alternative GPU in a pinch and a troubleshooting aid.

The above suggestions wouldn't be of any help to your gaming performance though, so if that's all your interested in, the 7900 XT is a much better use of your money.

 

[md99]

7900 XT (likely) it is then! As I originally said, my last build was 2016 so by the time this new one is on its knees (approx 2032!) it'll just be a complete new build again instead of doing the relatively sensible thing now and investing in a better mainboard, cpu etc.

 

[adrichardson81]

Are you carrying over a gen 4 m.2 from your current build? If not, I'd suggest adding a WD SN850x.

 

[md99]

Are you carrying over a gen 4 m.2 from your current build? If not, I'd suggest adding a WD SN850x.

Nope. I'll go down that route a little later, five hdd's (12tb) and two ssd's (2tb) I'm currently using so I've not really been too fussed about upgrading them.

Advice taken on board though, cheers.

 

[adrichardson81]

No problem!

 

[Quartz]

This is a pure gaming PC,

Then go AM5 with the Ryzen 7800X3D.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £349.99
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K1-AS) = £169.99
• 1 x Crucial 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-38400C40 4800MHZ Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MY-213-CR) = £179.99

Total: £699.97 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

Everything I play will be maxed out on my 1920 x 1200 16:10 monitor so I trade resolution for all the graphical bells & whistles and smooth frame rate for years to come.

Your budget should encompass a decent gaming monitor. £150 will buy you a high refresh rate 1080p monitor and £200 will get you a 1440p high refresh rate monitor. How high a refresh rate you will want will depend upon the games you play and your age, but 100+ Hz makes a significant difference to me. It's a qualitatively better experience. High refresh rates don't work at all for some people: if you're one of those, Lenovo do a Freesync 60 Hz 27" 4k monitor for around £200 and 27" 4k is again a qualitatively better experience.

 

[md99]

Made a few adjustments to build and budget based upon above recommendations and am going to pull the trigger on this, could some of you cleverer folks give it a once over.....

1 X Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £739.99
SKU: GX-3A7-SP

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1 X AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail - £349.99
SKU: CP-3DT-AM

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1 X Asus TUF Gaming A620-Pro WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £149.99
SKU: MOT-ASU-01162

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1 X Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-51200C32 6400MHz Dual Channel Kit - £134.99
SKU: MEM-CRS-01177

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1 X Gigabyte UD850GM PG5 850W 80 PLUS Gold Modular ATX Power Supply - £109.98
SKU: CA-03K-GI

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1 X APNX AP1 High Performance 5 Pipe CPU Air Cooler - Black - £34.99
SKU: COO-AER-00613

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1 X WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E) - £67.99
SKU: HD-58F-WD

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1 X LG 27" 27GR75Q-B 2560x1440 IPS 165Hz 1ms FreeSync/G-Sync Gaming Monitor - £248.99
SKU: MON-LGC-00585

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Grand Total: £1,836.91

Should it be good enough to run Pong at max settings? I like my games to look good, really good and run very smoothly but not quite to the point of Digital Foundry obsession. So if there is a different monitor with slightly redder reds or an alternative cpu that'll give my games an extra 2fps boost I'm not really interested!

Thanks again for your time.

 

[Tetras]

Memory: this doesn't look like an EXPO kit? If it isn't on the QVL, I'd switch to an EXPO kit of around 6000.

PSU: buying a Gigabyte PSU is a bold move after their recent history. Personally, I'd switch to the Seasonic GX-850 which is £10 more and does give you a 10 year warranty.

Cooler: I have no idea what the performance of this cooler is like, but would need to see how it compares to the peerless assassin or phantom spirit.

 

[Quartz]

PSU: buying a Gigabyte PSU is a bold move after their recent history.

Just for those unaware:

 

[md99]

Wasn't aware of the Gigabyte thing. Can switch to a new Corsair in that case, my current one (500w) must be well over 10 years old and never had a hiccup out if it so I'll just stick with them again.

Same re memory/expo, never heard of it but will switch to that too.

Much appreciated folks, I learn a little every time I upgrade (every 8-10 years!) Will hopefully nail it all down tomorrow and maybe you can cast your eyes over it one last time.

 

[Craig_d1]

I personally wouldn't use a a620 chipset for gaming build at all...they were designed for low power basic budget setup in my view like a 8600G where theres no intention of upgrading everything. when they 1st came out the were all listed as 65W TDP max, though now with an update that's been raised. The tuf is prob the best of the lot but you're so close to B650 board money, just go b650 board..the b650 tuf wifi board is reduced to £169. I don't view it as 13% more or extra £20...in overall build cost is 1%, and for that your getting far better vrm's.
Also the timings of ram for amd cpu are more inportant than outright speed..

a620 board below...not the tuf, but sort of explains why I don't like them...if a board can struggle now, what about future cpu upgrades where next gen might draw more power etc.
I have seen another yt with an a620 board being used with a 4090 and a 7800x3d, and he only lost a few fps compared to a b650 board, the downside being he had to thermally limit the cpu, and the vrm were still hovering just below 90 degrees. and the 7800x3d isn't a power hungry cpu
Just my view though, but I don't classify yours as a budget build

Below was testing a 7600C36 ram vs 6000C30 ram (so megatransfers against timings with 7800X3d). there are instances where the 7600 kit beats the 6000 kit, but also in general the 6000 kit beat the 7600 ram, and seeing as the 7000+ kits are more expensive, not worth it...go for tighter timings There's also a yt with kitguru going through ram, talking to AMD, who again say timings are important

Regarding 32gb or 64gb ram...I use 32gb and don't have a problem at all, though I mainly play 1st person games, or co-op games rather than battle royal multiplayer shooters etc Saw a vid recently showing the diff with 32 vs 64 vs 96...only very basic with couple games, but what it did show was that with the 64 and 96gb kits, the 0.1% lows were a lot higher, so the extra space allows more caching and maybe would help reduce stutters..downside is with extra size ram, actually reduced overall framerates

 

[mickyflinn]

Agree with brother @Craig_d1 spend an extra £20 and get the b650 tuf.

 

[Craig_d1]

Made a few adjustments to build and budget based upon above recommendations and am going to pull the trigger on this, could some of you cleverer folks give it a once over.....



Should it be good enough to run Pong at max settings? I like my games to look good, really good and run very smoothly but not quite to the point of Digital Foundry obsession. So if there is a different monitor with slightly redder reds or an alternative cpu that'll give my games an extra 2fps boost I'm not really interested!

Thanks again for your time.

I blew you budget by £100 (from the one you did with monitor), but downgraded the cpu to 7600X, and upgraded gpu to 4080super. Also put in a bigger faster ssd and a better psu.
Reson beiing cpu/gpu choice
People getting too caught up in the 7800x3d being the best without realising to get most out of it you have to pair it with a monster of a card, so all test are with a 4090. Even then, the 7800x3d is on average 5% faster than the 7600X with a 4090 (remember a 7600X still beat the 5800x3d in av on gaming so is still a very good gaming cpu)..actually looking at cyberpunk being played at 1440p max settings with a 4090, 7800x3d gets 155fps, 7600x 145 fps (so that's 6.8% diff)..
now in HU 12 game av 4080sup with a 7800x3d at 1440 got 141 fps vs 127 for 7900xt, so 4080s was 11% faster...lop the 6.8%off the 4080s if scales(for 4080s with 7600x while 7900xt keeps the x3d cpu) and it's still faster than the 7900xt ...with the extra £100 though, the 7900XT prob one to go for in this instance...
however, with raytracing at 1440 the 4080s averaged 101fps, whereas the 7900xt managed 66fps, so the 4080s was 53% faster, making it a no contest(don't need to factor a 7% drop here with 4080s being so far ahead). Factor in dlss being better than fsr too and I say pendulum swings other way and getting more powerful gpu way to go
Some games really like v cache though, so depends on games you play..if you play a broad range, then the hu av is good to look at..if you play a couple specific games good to watch some yt with those specific games.
Would also say raytracing makes a difference visually in games that doesn't come across in vids

below showing similar strategy of 7600 and 4070ti vs 4070 and 7800x3d (as same price and on whole 4070ti won as gpu still more important than cpu)...if you go 4k in future, no brainer, it's all gpu

Faster GPU or Faster CPU: Ryzen 7600 + RTX 4070 Ti vs. Ryzen 7800X3D + RTX 4070

Usually we recommend PC gamers on a budget to adopt the min/max strategy. This means spending as little as possible on almost everything, except the GPU, where...

www.techspot.com

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £169.99
• 1 x Corsair RMe Series RM850e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply v2 (CP-9020263-UK) (SKU: CA-27N-CS) = £124.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FF3D532G6000HC30DC01) (SKU: MY-0B8-TG) = £110.00
• 1 x MSI SPATIUM M480 Pro 2TB SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-MSI-00815) = £125.98
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 7600X Six Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DG-AM) = £200.00
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 4080 Super Trinity Black 16Gb Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-01496) = £959.98

Total: £1,690.94 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[md99]

Okay, change made to mainboard (again, its something I never really overemphasized - I usually closed my eyes and picked a £100 model in the past and hoped for the best).

The 4080 super, blimey, a grand for a card, maybe for a 4090 but even within the confines of my budget that's a hard one to swallow. And ray tracing isn't a deal clincher for me. Even the seven hundred plus for the 7900xt is a bit ott - but I am coming from a time when the highest-end cards of the time (1080ti) was six hundred quid I think.

I'll cobble together one final shopping list later today based upon all the above and cross my fingers.

 

[md99]

Right, I'm £350 over budget, I hope there are no major issues with this. Longevity is the main thing here, I don't want to have to upgrade for about five years!

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-3A7-SP) = £739.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £349.99
• 1 x WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E) (SKU: HD-58F-WD) = £68.00
• 1 x LG 27" 27GR75Q-B 2560x1440 IPS 165Hz 1ms FreeSync/G-Sync Gaming Monitor (SKU: MON-LGC-00585) = £248.98
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £170.00
• 1 x Corsair RMe Series RM850e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply v2 (CP-9020263-UK) (SKU: CA-27N-CS) = £124.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRS-00996) = £109.99
• 1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Halo² Black Edition CPU Cooler - 120mm (SKU: HS-090-CM) = £39.95

Total: £1,851.89 (includes delivery: £0.00)​