Gaming pc for my son..budget £1000ish

Ginger-Uggy

Ginger-Uggy

Ginger-Uggy

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Hi, like others on this forum my son wants to build a gaming pc for around £1000 including monitor.

One of his friends has sent the following spec:

CPU : AMD Ryzen 7 2700 3.7 ghz 8 core processor
Motherboard: Asus prime X470 pro ATX Am4
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB pro 16 gl ddr 3200
SSD Storage: A400 120Gb SSD
Internal Storage : Seagate Barracuda 2Tb 3.5 7200rpm
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8gb
Case : NZXT H500 ATX Mid Tower case
PSU : Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ bronze
Monitor : MSI Optix MAG241 C 23.6” 1920x1080

Could I do better on any of the parts?
If I was focussing my bang for the buck what should my priority be in terms of longevity ( ie not having to upgrade for a couple of years) and performance.

Appreciate any assistance and comments.
 
I'd just get a big 1TB SSD rather than bothering with two drives, even if you end up with less storage, you can easily add more (when you fill it) and the cost isn't that much greater if anything.

I'd avoid X470 unless you are buying the premium boards, but then you might as well go X570, the B450 board at £95-125 from MSI are a good call for value and have good features and power delivery for the price.

I'd also be going for a Ryzen 5 3600, rather than an R7 2700 if it is for gaming.

GTX 1070 Ti is not out of date and no longer made, something like an RTX 2060 super or the AMD Radeon 5700 XT is much better bet moving forward, but I'd be aiming to play at 1440p with those cards not 1080p.

Plenty of options, are you self building it? :)


CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport AT 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Storage: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB SC ULTRA GAMING Video Card
Case: NZXT H500 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply

That comes to about £950, so a bit over budget once you add that £179 monitor, if you drop the graphics card budget then you'll get towards £1k, but honestly if you don;t want to faff with it for a few years this would be a great base.
 
Last edited:
Soldato,
Many thanks for your reply.
My son is supposed to be building it, so yes more likely to be us or me!! I’ve seen a couple of the videos in this forum, the build looks ok but any thoughts anyone has about the dos/donts of putting it together that isn’t covered in them would again be much appreciated.

One thought overnight, while we have super fast bband at home is it best to connect via the Ethernet ports to get the best use from this set-up?

Uggy.
 
Ginger-Uggy said:
One thought overnight, while we have super fast bband at home is it best to connect via the Ethernet ports to get the best use from this set-up?
Click to expand...
Hello, if you can connect via ethernet you should, more reliable, lower latency, easier set up, potentially faster. That being said if wifi is more practical you don't have to feel bad for using it.
 
on here


ODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,024.84 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

ryzen 3600 peaks nicely with 1080p but cost of it on ocuk, looked at 2700x - with journeys , it was good shopping around - unfortunately we can help you with that so its up to yourself. Its a damn good list they have speaked above - also Free-sync monitors that have G-Sync compatibility start at a slightly higher cost . with a 2060 Super, you'll need one , at 144hz .


intel does have lead at 1080p gaming, but again on here. to costly to spec

Intel Core i5 9500F 3.0GHz Hexa Core CPU

Gigabyte Z390 UD Intel Socket 1151 Motherboard

Gigabyte 16GB (2x 8GB) 2666MHz DDR4 RAM

PromoGigabyte Radeon RX 5700 8GB Graphics Card

Antec EarthWatts Gold Pro 650W Modular PSU

Zalman i3 Midi-Tower Case - Black Window

Western Digital Blue 3D NAND 500GB M.2-2280 SSD

Acer KG241P 24" Full HD LED 144Hz Gaming Monitor

BeQuiet! Pure Rock Slim CPU Cooler

same price as above
 
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I'm also interested in suggestions. Been watching various youtube videos on gaming PCs and want to start my son on this journey as I loved building mine a few decades ago. Don't need the latest and greatest. Mid range to high is perfect.

So would nobody suggest Intel CPU over AMD ?
I do like the case but are there any other cases where RGB fans could be used as they look pretty slick.
Graphics cards have always been contentious. Lots of choices I know.
 
The system you listed is fine, but I’d change the psu to something better with spending that much money.

Only buy ryzen 3 and a rtx card if what you listed wouldn’t do the job, also get a 240gb ssd at least.
 
Fully loaded at the wall you are looking at less than 300w, so 500w PSU is more than enough.

The only reason to buy a much better PSU is if you plan on running it at full tilt, pulling near to the rated power, or for some reason want to stay below the peak efficiency curve.

A £50 bronze rated well made PSU is way more than adequate.
 
The Leadex III 550w is going for £65 at the moment, I'd say that was worth the extra £15 over a cheap bronze unit.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £64.99 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

I wouldn't buy a low tier PSU at the moment for any reason personally, there's too many well priced gold units on the market. The cheapest I can find that SeaSonic S12II 520 W 80 you recommended is for £58 on OCUK. Similar story for most of the 'decent' bronze units at the moment.
 
gold, bronze- doesn't mean a thing. cant get superflower Plat rated King unit for dirt cheap! what counts is inside etc, then cost to warranty.

depending on the load, pulling 60% is the golden spot- not just for eff rating but PSU temps and fan speed etc

PSU is the heart - but doesn't determine the FPS :(
 
Guys, excellent couple of suggestions there, first one slightly more expensive. I ran both options through a compatibility checker and I received the following message

"a) Some AMD B450 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Zen 2 CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions.
b) The motherboard M.2 slot #1 shares bandwidth with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports. When the M.2 slot is populated with a PCIe-based M.2 drive, two SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports are disabled."

a) Is that still a concern regarding the B450 chipset or is the current version BIOS already updated?
b) Not sure what this means - does it affect me with my current spec?

Many thanks
 
Ginger-Uggy said:
Hi, like others on this forum my son wants to build a gaming pc for around £1000 including monitor.

One of his friends has sent the following spec:

CPU : AMD Ryzen 7 2700 3.7 ghz 8 core processor
Motherboard: Asus prime X470 pro ATX Am4
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB pro 16 gl ddr 3200
SSD Storage: A400 120Gb SSD
Internal Storage : Seagate Barracuda 2Tb 3.5 7200rpm
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8gb
Case : NZXT H500 ATX Mid Tower case
PSU : Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ bronze
Monitor : MSI Optix MAG241 C 23.6” 1920x1080

Could I do better on any of the parts?
If I was focussing my bang for the buck what should my priority be in terms of longevity ( ie not having to upgrade for a couple of years) and performance.

Appreciate any assistance and comments.
Click to expand...

So looking at this there are a few things standing out to me.

1, the 2700 is a solid cpu and will do great - but if you can stretch to it go for the new 3700 as its a brilliant cpu.
2, memory - do you need RGb, well if you need to trim a bit off the spec to afford a 3700 for instance then drop the leds on this for a few quid savings
3, storage - as been said go for a decent single ssd not a 128 and 2tb drive if you want to keep two of them then make sure the ssd is 400-500 plus gb
4, video card - well as your running a 1080p screen you dont really need the grunt of a 2070 ti. Imho chop to a radion 580 or better still the new navi 5700 and save a couple of pennies - if your wanting gsync instead then the 2070 is fine but not outstanding.
5, psu is a bit pony, if you can see about 650w or thereabouts.

Ohh and remember to budget in the cost of windows.
 
Ginger-Uggy said:
Guys, excellent couple of suggestions there, first one slightly more expensive. I ran both options through a compatibility checker and I received the following message

"a) Some AMD B450 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Zen 2 CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions.
b) The motherboard M.2 slot #1 shares bandwidth with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports. When the M.2 slot is populated with a PCIe-based M.2 drive, two SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports are disabled."

a) Is that still a concern regarding the B450 chipset or is the current version BIOS already updated?
b) Not sure what this means - does it affect me with my current spec?

Many thanks
Click to expand...

Boards such as the MSI B450 "MAX" like the below linked are updated to be compatible with Ryzen 3 out of the box.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £99.95 (includes shipping: £0.00)​
​
 
 
If you do want to go with nvidia as above I would look at a 2060 super over the 2070, even with that price cut a 2060 super in only a hair less performance but as much as £50 cheaper. Though for me in that price bracket the 5700XT offers the best bang for your buck.
 
If you are specifying Intel you need to be pushing a K chip now, since the 9400F is clocked lower than the R5 3600, and the IPC is better on the AMD part. Not to mention you end up with only 6c/6t not 6c/12t and on platform that is now EOL.
 
9400F boosts to 4.1GHZ which is pretty huge for just a gaming system with a 2070 in. There really is no need for a more expensive cpu.

I did look at the 2060 super but pricewise you only save a noticeable amount of money by going to a budget brand. If you dont mind the budget brands then i agree its a nice money saver for very little performance loss.
 
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