First Gaming PC Build Advice needed

[mjeccs]

Hi guys,

I have joined these forums in the hope of some expert advice. I am looking to either build or buy a custom desktop for gaming.

having spent most of the day looking at parts etc I stumbled across this site and build in particular. Any advice on whether this build is any good or which parts I should look to upgrade would be welcome.

I am also open to sourcing the individual parts and building myself. It’s something that my late father used to do and I think this experience would be a journey and sentimental in a way.

I will use the pc primarily for gaming and have a 4K monitor.

anyway, thanks in advance!

*** Competitor info removed ***

 

[Space Monkey]

Hi and welcome,

Just a heads up, this forum is run by and paid for by Overclockers UK Retailer so please only use their own shop links or just list your budget and requirements and I'm sure you'll get some help, thanks.

 

[Joxeon]

Hi there, whats your budget?.

 

[mjeccs]

Ah I’m very sorry for that.

Ok, well my budget will be up to £1700ish there is some flex. Some of the components I have looked at so far are as follows…

Processor AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6Ghz
Motherboard Asus TUF B450-Plus Gaming
RAM 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz DDR4
Graphics Card Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB
Hard Drive 500GB 960 EVO SSD
2nd Hard Drive 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM

Not looked into case or power supply

 

[Joxeon]

If your going with b450 then msi has the best boards in the mortar max, tomahawk max and pro carbon if you need wifi.

You can get a 1tb nvme for the price of the 500gb Samsung or a 500gb drive for half the cost. Having your games on a SSD will vastly improve load times and is well worth it.

You want a good 650-750w gold psu from a good make, corsair, superflower, seasonic to name a few.

 

[mjeccs]

If your going with b450 then msi has the best boards in the mortar max, tomahawk max and pro carbon if you need wifi.

You can get a 1tb nvme for the price of the 500gb Samsung or a 500gb drive for half the cost. Having your games on a SSD will vastly improve load times and is well worth it.

thanks, yes I will need WIFI. Was going to buy a wireless card, so this is very welcome info

 

[mjeccs]

If your going with b450 then msi has the best boards in the mortar max, tomahawk max and pro carbon if you need wifi.

You can get a 1tb nvme for the price of the 500gb Samsung or a 500gb drive for half the cost. Having your games on a SSD will vastly improve load times and is well worth it.

You want a good 650-750w gold psu from a good make, corsair, superflower, seasonic to name a few.

Should I be looking to spend more on the motherboard or will a b450 suffice?
so a psi like the Corsair RM650x 650 should be ok?

I will be sure to look into NVME drives. Any anyone has had experience with?

 

[Joxeon]

Should I be looking to spend more on the motherboard or will a b450 suffice?
so a psi like the Corsair RM650x 650 should be ok?

I will be sure to look into NVME drives. Any anyone has had experience with?

A B450 is perfectly fine for a gaming motherboard those msi ones come with a good Vrm so you could even upgrade to a 12 or 16 core CPU in the future.

The RM650X is a very good psu.

Take a look for the sabrent rocket NVME as it offers very good price/performance.

 

[mjeccs]

Of the 2 Sabrent am I ok getting the cheaper of the 2 versions (non maximum). Thanks for all of tour advice btw Joxeon.

are there any other components you would look to improve or change?

 

[Joxeon]

Of the 2 Sabrent am I ok getting the cheaper of the 2 versions (non maximum). Thanks for all of tour advice btw Joxeon.

are there any other components you would look to improve or change?

I would get the non Q version of the sabrent unless it's a lot more expensive as its a bit faster with better endurance.

You could go with an aftermarket CPU Cooler although the stock one is pretty decent but not the quietest.

 

[EsaT]

thanks, yes I will need WIFI. Was going to buy a wireless card, so this is very welcome info

If board with Wifi is clearly cheaper than adding separate Wifi card then it's sensible.
Otherwise separate Wifi card is better for ability to move it over upgrades.

And at the moment out of stock B450 Carbon costs only £10 more than Tomahawk whose price has increased notably.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...ocket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33s-ms.html

Should I be looking to spend more on the motherboard or will a b450 suffice?
so a psi like the Corsair RM650x 650 should be ok?

Asus B450 boards are flimsy or plain brand scams.
But MSI B450 Tomahawk/Carbon are perfect for only 8 core CPUs.
And with working case cooling would do decently well with 12/16 core.
Expensive X570 board would really make only sense with 12/16 core or fast upgrade to them and heavy/longer use.

Seasonic Focus is better priced fully modular 10 year warranty PSU.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seas...w-80-gold-modular-power-supply-ca-06v-ss.html

In memory you better aim for 3200MHz, or if it doesn't cost much extra 3600MHz.

And especially if caring about noise CPU needs aftermarket cooler.
Arctic Freezer 34 would be class above bundled one for good price.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/arctic-freezer-34-co-cpu-cooler-120mm-hs-079-ar.html


Samsung has brand scam level overpricing in many of their drives.
That's the only honest description for doubled GB price!
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sams...-3.0-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-23w-sa.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t2b0c-hd-56l-wd.html
TeamGroup MP34 would be another properly priced 1TB.

Small half TB drive would be half full after Wintoys10 and Modern Warfare.
And in game/Windows loading times there aren't much differences even from NVMe to SATA SSDs.
So any decent NVMe drive is more than fast enough and having enough space to actually fit games curbstomps some theoretically faster speed of space you don't have.


Not much of well performing graphics cards for 3840x2160...
But because of very bad performance per price don't expect any real future proofness for price:
New Xbox coming in fall/before Christmas has 2080 Super level GPU in raw power.
And with tight optimizations in consoles that's certain to perform.
Also can't see MS and Sony being satisfied with "MCAS augmented" raytracing performance of RTX cards, so in raytracing it's likely faster.

 

[mjeccs]

If board with Wifi is clearly cheaper than adding separate Wifi card then it's sensible.
Otherwise separate Wifi card is better for ability to move it over upgrades.

And at the moment out of stock B450 Carbon costs only £10 more than Tomahawk whose price has increased notably.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...ocket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33s-ms.html


Asus B450 boards are flimsy or plain brand scams.
But MSI B450 Tomahawk/Carbon are perfect for only 8 core CPUs.
And with working case cooling would do decently well with 12/16 core.
Expensive X570 board would really make only sense with 12/16 core or fast upgrade to them and heavy/longer use.

Seasonic Focus is better priced fully modular 10 year warranty PSU.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seas...w-80-gold-modular-power-supply-ca-06v-ss.html

In memory you better aim for 3200MHz, or if it doesn't cost much extra 3600MHz.

And especially if caring about noise CPU needs aftermarket cooler.
Arctic Freezer 34 would be class above bundled one for good price.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/arctic-freezer-34-co-cpu-cooler-120mm-hs-079-ar.html


Samsung has brand scam level overpricing in many of their drives.
That's the only honest description for doubled GB price!
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sams...-3.0-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-23w-sa.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t2b0c-hd-56l-wd.html
TeamGroup MP34 would be another properly priced 1TB.

Small half TB drive would be half full after Wintoys10 and Modern Warfare.
And in game/Windows loading times there aren't much differences even from NVMe to SATA SSDs.
So any decent NVMe drive is more than fast enough and having enough space to actually fit games curbstomps some theoretically faster speed of space you don't have.


Not much of well performing graphics cards for 3840x2160...
But because of very bad performance per price don't expect any real future proofness for price:
New Xbox coming in fall/before Christmas has 2080 Super level GPU in raw power.
And with tight optimizations in consoles that's certain to perform.
Also can't see MS and Sony being satisfied with "MCAS augmented" raytracing performance of RTX cards, so in raytracing it's likely faster.

Wow thanks for the extremely detailed response.

I think I may now be swaying towards waiting for the new Nvidia graphics cards to be released, see if they offer more value. I will have everything else ready (in basket) to go for then.

 

[EsaT]

I think I may now be swaying towards waiting for the new Nvidia graphics cards to be released, see if they offer more value. I will have everything else ready (in basket) to go for then.

Keep asking for more rape&robbery and you're going to get more of that.
Nvidia will improve their performance per price only when people stop buying Nvidia's cult and force them to compete against AMD in pricing instead of allowing leeching.

And delayed Computex/fall is also when AMD likely announces both improved Zen3 architecture CPUs and graphics cards using same GPU architecture as next-gen consoles.
(console level chip is likely the mid size GPU)
B550 motherboards are likely coming before that.

 

[mjeccs]

I’m hoping that the new AMD chips have high tier performance and offer a more competitive price. I guess now that I am holding offf, I may be better going for the Zen 3 cpu and different motherboard if this is required by the new GPUs.

Do you think that there will be significant gains in the performance of the new Nvidia and amd chips?