Help: Gaming Build - £2k Budget

Rexonon

Rexonon

Rexonon

Associate
Joined
20 Apr 2011
Posts
39
Hi All,

Backstory (Don't need to read this bit)
I built myself my first gaming PC around 5 years ago after seeking build advice from this forum. The PC has served me incredibly well especially considering the fact it was only £1000 and played everything I threw at it with no problems including VR!

Sadly, my computer died and during the process of tearing it all down for a 4th time the plastic PCIe connector peeled off the motherboard and bent a handful of pins. I'm fairly sure the GPU has packed in so it's time to upgrade now I need to replace both the GPU/Mobo...

I've tried using the configurator but A) It seems really overpriced and B) thee myriad of options is just too confusing considering that so much of it appears to be identical on the surface but at completely different price points coupled with the fact that the information I'm finding on the internet tends to be extremely contradictory everywhere I look...

So that's where I need your help again OCUK members if you can spare the time! I'm looking for a good bang-for-buck upgrade that's going to last me another 5 years or more.

Current PC
Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM
Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gbs Basic
EVGA SuperNova NEX 750W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply
BitFenix Ronin Tower Case - Black
TeamGroup Xtreem LV "Frost Edition" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gbs 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD
Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler
EVGA SuperNova G2 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply

Probably not going to salvage anything from this other than the SSD/HDD most likely... I don't think I kept the PSU modular connectors and it's probably worth just buying a new one anyway I guess?

New Build Considerations - £2,000 Budget (Can go slightly over if necessary)
Main Purpose - Fairly heavy gaming at 4k if within budget and reasonable but quite happy to stick to 1080. Emby/Plex. Some Hyper-V lab stuff. Some VR gaming. No streaming/photo editing/video editing although would prefer to be able to do this in those rare instances. Doesn't need to be flashy/RGB and all that nonsense.

Case - Not massively bothered here. I've been looking at the Be Quiet! 900 which is rated very highly it seems but it rather expensive or the Lian-Li PC-011 which also showed up quite a lot.

CPU/Mobo - Looked like a total minefield with very contradictory information. The i9-9770 looked like good bang-for-buck but I'll need you guy's expertise on this.

GPU - Going to need something meaty here of course. Was looking at the 2080Ti which will likely blow half the budget but I'm sure will easily last 5 years if reliable. Was a total minefield again with so many brands at so many prices... will take your advice here!

Cooling - Again, I'll take your advise but looking through the configurator I quite liked the Be Quiet! Silent water cooling thing...

RAM - Ideally want 32GB

Storage - I've got an SSD and HDD as well as a x4 6TB NAS so storage isn't much of an issue however I quite liked the idea of the 2TB NVMe that I saw in the configurator. Extremely fast speeds and plenty of storage so I don't have to split everything.

Lastly... A huge thankyou in advance and I look forward to seeing any responses! :)
 
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At 4k the GPU will take the brunt so an AMD CPU would be a smart move. 2700x with 8 cores and 16 threads will serve you well. The new amd stuff is due in the next few months but if you can't wait until then, a high end x470 board with the 2700x CPU is within your budget, then you can get a high end cpu for the 4k gaming.
 
If wanting to run high graphics settings there aren't much really capable graphics card for 4K.
2560x1440 would be sweet spot where you don't have to sell all your internal organs.

GPUs have been badly stagnating for many years with AMD needing to focus its resources on surviving and getting CPUs back on track.
Hence Nvidia has been pumping up customers butt... err prices instead of bringing real bang per buck advance.
And those super expensive cards are very unlikely to hold their value long.
During this year AMD is finally starting to replace its old architecture cards, along with TSMC's 7nm maturing for big chips.
New high end architecture might come in next winter.
Also Intel is joining discrete GPU market some time in next year.
So there should be lot advance inside next two years.
We might even get cards which are actually capable to raytracing without major performance penalty.


Also in CPUs there's not a single one which would stay as high end for years.
No matter how ridiculous overpricing Intel has... After stalling advance of game development for so long by skimping in core counts.
Next-gen consoles are going to bring huge advance to games.
They'll very likely use 8c/16t Zen2, whose engineering sample AMD demoed matching 9900K's processing power at 50W lower power consumption.
With rumoured chiplet design confirmed and AMD's talk about pushing processing power forward, we're quite certain to see 12c/24t during summer for £300-350 price level.
That's the level I would consider future proof for running next-gen console multiplatter games.
Wintoys10 PC has much more bloatware/overhead and games lack fixed hardware coding/optimizing of consoles.
(into 9900K's price level AMD can bring out 16c/32t CPU)

Stuck in old 14nm node Intel with their monolithic designs can't answer those in any reasonable ways. (200+ W CPUs aren't that)
Also"9th" gen of marketing is architecturally only one small upgrade step from your Haswell, because in reality its still architecturally same old sixth gen Skylake.
In honest naming those should be at most in seventh generation and work in Skylake motherboards.

If you can't wait for summer Zen2 based CPUs will work with current motherboards after BIOS update.
Even graphics card's slot might be BIOS setting "upgradable" to PCIe v4.0 speed in better designed motherboards.



Thanks to DRAM maker cartel memory is still notably more expensive per GB than what it was in DDR3 era and especially faster (higher clocks at tighter latencies) DIMMs are insanely expensive.
So 32GB isn't such easily justified now.
Zen2 Ryzens are going to have completely different internal design and certainly new memory controller, so it's not sure what kind memory they like most.

NVMe drives are basically complete waste of money for games.
You'll pay about doubled price per GB for mostly non-existing/very small difference in game loading times.
 
What is the resolution of your monitor? Which VR set do you have?

You can save yourself money by re-using the CPU cooler, the case, and the PSU. I'm sure EVGA will be only too happy to sell you any missing cables. 32 GB is unnecessary; stick to 16 GB. You can use that money you save to buy a larger SSD. As @EsaT said, don't bother with NVME.

Do go for the 2080 Ti. Minimising frame times and reprojection will massively improve your VR experience.
 
Rexonon said:
Current PC
Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM
Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gbs Basic
EVGA SuperNova NEX 750W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply
BitFenix Ronin Tower Case - Black
TeamGroup Xtreem LV "Frost Edition" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gbs 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD
Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler
EVGA SuperNova G2 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply

Probably not going to salvage anything from this other than the SSD/HDD most likely... I don't think I kept the PSU modular connectors and it's probably worth just buying a new one anyway I guess?
Click to expand...

Which one is it exactly? If the G2 850 I'd be tempted to keep it and you'd have no need for extra cables for drives, especially if you purchase an M.2 drive. As EsaT and Quartz said, for a mostly gaming system no need to bother with NVME. But you can still get an M.2 with similar speeds to Sata SSDs for the same money as the latter.

If it turns out you need an extra Sata power connector for a liquid cooler or for something to do with the case (lighting or something), then just buy a Sata splitter to attach to the existing cable that powers your SSD and HDD.

G2 850 had a ten year warranty.
 
normally would list cheaper mobo/ram but went flagship X470 along with Samsung B-Die ram with 6 core 2600x - reason being Ryzen 3000/4000 chips should work with the flagship ryzen 2000 series board with they provide the CPU Speed and Cores stated. Currently 6 Core 2600x would be fine for 4K gaming.

Allows RTX 2080 Ti to be placed in , 4 year UK warranty on it along with the board too .

Added Braided cables since your not sure what cables your missing... though quite expensive ... wouldn't run the Nova NEX with it though. Up to yourself if you wanted to go new PSU for roughly the same price or a tad more



My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £2,016.89 (includes shipping: £13.20)
​

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...price-performance-contender-arrives.18817302/

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