£1500 gaming rig for a friend

Megahurtz400

Megahurtz400

Megahurtz400

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Hey all,

Friend is wanting to upgrade from his Alienware laptop to a desktop, has a max of £1500 to play with but would only want to top out the budget if it's really worth the extra.

This is what I have so far:

  • Gone for the Phanteks case as i'll be building it, and am a massive fan of Phanteks cases and the build quality.
  • Gone for an AIO as when I got my 2700x everyone said the standard air cooler would suffice, which I suppose it did but I didn't have to turn the heating on in the house! :p
  • Anywhere else where I can save some pennies, or get something better bang for buck for a bit more?

    Cheers :D

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,424.54 (includes shipping: £14.70)​
​
 
Hey,

The Ryzen 7 3700X is a 65 W processor and unless they would like to heavily overclock it, water cooling is overkill.
32 GB of RAM for gaming is also an overkill.

RTX 2070 S is heavily overpriced, you can order the new RX 5600 XT that will be within 25-30% for half the price.

Why not 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X with a new board X570?
 
4K8KW10 said:
Hey,

The Ryzen 7 3700X is a 65 W processor and unless they would like to heavily overclock it, water cooling is overkill.
32 GB of RAM for gaming is also an overkill.

RTX 2070 S is heavily overpriced, you can order the new RX 5600 XT that will be within 25-30% for half the price.

Why not 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X with a new board X570?
Click to expand...

Cheers for the reply!

Haven't kept up to date with what's going on properly since my build in early 2019, probably won't be overclocking it, so could you recommend an air cooler?

How does the 5600XT compare to the 2070S?

In the same vein, can you recommend an MATX x570 board?

He's looking for a machine which will be a build and forget build for the next 5 years or so if this helps
 
Megahurtz400 said:
Cheers for the reply!

Haven't kept up to date with what's going on properly since my build in early 2019, probably won't be overclocking it, so could you recommend an air cooler?

How does the 5600XT compare to the 2070S?

In the same vein, can you recommend an MATX x570 board?

He's looking for a machine which will be a build and forget build for the next 5 years or so if this helps
Click to expand...

Yup,

MATX X570 board:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £190.49 (includes shipping: £10.50)​
​

The RX 5600 XT is 25-30% slower than RTX 2070S but also half the price:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £269.89 (includes shipping: £9.90)​
​

I have been using the Arctic Freezer 13 cooler, it's crazy - up to 200 W processor heat dissipation and super cheap:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £40.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)​
​
 
This is the best value 2070 super though as a downside it does only come with a 2 year warranty but has a lot of positive reviews on ocuk.

What rez and hz is your friends monitor?

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £444.90 (includes shipping: £9.90)


Megahurtz400 said:
Cheers for the reply!

Haven't kept up to date with what's going on properly since my build in early 2019, probably won't be overclocking it, so could you recommend an air cooler?

How does the 5600XT compare to the 2070S?

In the same vein, can you recommend an MATX x570 board?

He's looking for a machine which will be a build and forget build for the next 5 years or so if this helps
Click to expand...

If it's just for gaming an not planning to overclock then the stock cooler is fine.

No need for an x570 unless he wants / needs pcie4 ssd.
​
 
Last edited:
Joxeon said:
This is the best value 2070 super though as a downside it does only come with a 2 year warranty but has a lot of positive reviews on ocuk.

What rez and hz is your friends monitor?

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £444.90 (includes shipping: £9.90)




If it's just for gaming an not planning to overclock then the stock cooler is fine.

No need for an x570 unless he wants / needs pcie4 ssd.
​
Click to expand...

1080p 144hz, but think he'll upgrade to 1440p at somepoint in the next few years once he settles down after uni.

4K8KW10 said:
In the next 5 years, PCIe 4 for sure will come handy, even if today it looks a little bit far fetched.
Click to expand...

Great point!
 
 
 
An R9 3900X is a massive waste of cash for a gaming pc. You can also ignore the 'pcie 4.0' argument as well. A B450 board is more than fine.

Also take advice from the likes of @tamzzy @Danny75 @Plec Listening to 4K8KW10 will just send you down the wrong path.

The spec below would cover you for 1080p/1440p.

You might want to add an extra fan or two. The Arctic PWM PST fans are good value.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £992.12 (includes shipping: £13.20)
​
 
lee32uk said:
An R9 3900X is a massive waste of cash for a gaming pc. You can also ignore the 'pcie 4.0' argument as well. A B450 board is more than fine.

Also take advice from the likes of @tamzzy @Danny75 @Plec Listening to 4K8KW10 will just send you down the wrong path.

The spec below would cover you for 1080p/1440p.

You might want to add an extra fan or two. The Arctic PWM PST fans are good value.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £992.12 (includes shipping: £13.20)
​
Click to expand...

I'd get a NVME drive in there for OS and have the SSD for gaming files. A x470 board and I'd get a better rated cooler too for the budget he has available. He wants this to last a few years so a x470 would age better than a b450 no?

...or does the NVME drive affect the PCI-E x16 lanes with the GPU?
 
Megahurtz400 said:
@lee32uk cheers for the spec!

Would it be worth going further up that £1500 budget to get a good 4/5 years of future proofing?
Click to expand...

You could stick a 3700X in there instead if you don't want the hassle of removing/reinstalling the cooler, but the R5 3600 is definitely the 'value' option. And don't forget there is still the 4000 series to come later this year so 3000 prices will drop at some stage.

As for the gpu then unless you are wanting 1440p at the highest possible frame rates then the 5700XT is more than fine. Easy to upgrade the gpu.
 
 
lee32uk said:
You could stick a 3700X in there instead if you don't want the hassle of removing/reinstalling the cooler, but the R5 3600 is definitely the 'value' option. And don't forget there is still the 4000 series to come later this year so 3000 prices will drop at some stage.

As for the gpu then unless you are wanting 1440p at the highest possible frame rates then the 5700XT is more than fine. Easy to upgrade the gpu.
Click to expand...

So asked the question and he'll be wanting to upgrade to 1440/144hz at some point in the next year or so, how would you change the spec to account for this?

cheers for all the help guys! :)
 
Megahurtz400 said:
So asked the question and he'll be wanting to upgrade to 1440/144hz at some point in the next year or so, how would you change the spec to account for this?

cheers for all the help guys! :)
Click to expand...

So he is running a 1080p screen at present ? Then the 5700XT is more than fine. I would wait until after buying the 1440p screen before thinking about changing the gpu. You could even drop down to a 5600XT for 1080p.
 
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