New Gaming PC - Advice gratefully received

HumphBlackfur

HumphBlackfur

HumphBlackfur

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Hi. So, after using off-the-shelf machines for my gaming for years, the opportunity has presented itself to replace my aging gaming machine with something a bit more custom. Delved into the whole thing a bit and, well, it's a bit of a maze, so I'm going to put out a call and see if people might be willing to point me in some useful directions.

Total available budget could potentially go to about £2500, but that would need to include a 1440 monitor, as I figure if I'm going to get a nice new box, my existing 1080 screen isn't going to do justice to what's running. So probably for the PC itself, I'm thinking under the 2K mark. I'm also looking to get this done soon - no doubt there will be cases of "well, if you waited another couple of months, there'd be THIS!", but I figure that's almost always going to be the case, so I'm thinking in terms of what's available now.

Recent games I've been playing: Assassins Creed Odyssey, Elite Dangerous, Last Oasis. Tried Star Wars: Fallen Order, but my machine wasn't really up to it - very jerky. Games I'm looking forward to: Assassins Creed Valhalla, Vampire: Bloodlines 2, Cyberpunk 2077. The usual suspects, in other words.

So, here's my thoughts on various components - your comments and advice would be welcome. Please be gentle.

Processor: Reading the forums, AMD seems to be the way to go, with the Ryzens getting strong marks. So I'm looking towards the 3700X, possibly a bit higher if there's room in the budget.

Motherboard: No idea. Really kinda lost here.

Memory: Most machines seem to default to 16Gb, but the cost difference to go up to 32Gb doesn't seem too bad, so I'm not seeing any reason not to do so.

Drives: 2 SSDs. First around the 250Gb mark, to handle the operating system and other non-gaming things. The second around the 1Tb mark to hold the games - my current games folder is a bit under the 500Gb mark, so I would think 1Tb should give me space for new stuff. Plus one HDD for storage.

Graphics Card: From reading the forums, it seems that the consensus is that Nvidia are probably functionally better cards, but are expensive, while AMD are cheaper and overall represent a better bang for your buck, so to speak. I'm guessing there probably isn't a specific advantage in pairing an AMD graphics card with an AMD processor, but the bang-for-your-buck aspect does have me leaning slightly that way. Advice particularly needed here.

Cooling: Another area I know little about. I would imagine that the default stuff is probably workable enough, but, again, I could up this a bit if budget allows.

PSU: I've been looking at the AMD Ryzen 3rd Gen Pro Gaming Configurator as something to work with and that has a 1050W supply as standard. Enough?

Case: Does this really matter significantly, or is there more involved than just personal preference?

Monitor: I currently have a 27" 16:9 1920x1080 Samsung that's done me well, but seems a bit underspec for the new machine. If people have any views on a suitable replacement, I'd be interested to hear them, particularly if it would impact on graphics card selection.

So, long post, sorry - bad habit. But if people give me a pointer or two, that would be great.
 
HumphBlackfur said:
I'm also looking to get this done soon - no doubt there will be cases of "well, if you waited another couple of months, there'd be THIS!", but I figure that's almost always going to be the case, so I'm thinking in terms of what's available now.
Click to expand...

Wait til next month. Nvidia are literally announcing next-gen GPUs on 31st Aug :D

But yeah the rest of the system, I'd probably go 3700X, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVMe, 750-850w PSU, etc...

Monitor wise, look into the new Dell S2721DGF (huge thread here) - brilliant 1440p, 165Hz, IPS panel... I just got mine this week and love it. You can get it for £331 if you can get Student/NHS discount. ;)

Edit: What's your current system specs and GPU? You could always buy & build now, re-use existing GPU then get Nvidia's next-gen GPU next month on release.

Edit2: Build wise I'd go with along these lines, assuming re-use GPU temporarily. Case is personal preference, extra fan is for rear exhaust, then you'd top-mount the AIO cooler. Leaves ~£1k for a new GPU when new models release, assuming got a monitor like the Dell mentioned.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,175.87 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​
 
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Hi welcome to the forum.

Here is a cheaper alternative. If for some reason you don't want to wait on the new gpu's then a 5700XT or 2070 Super is fine for 1440p. I wouldn't bother with an SSD for the O/S but you can add one if you want to.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £943.14 (includes shipping: £12.30)​
​
 
MissChief said:
If you’re used to two 27” monitors then dropping to a single monitor, even if it’s a big one will be a serious drop in screen real estate. I’d recommend going for an Ultrawide.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...rved-widescreen-gaming-monitor-mo-00d-ms.html Although it’s VA.
Click to expand...

He doesn't mention using 2 x 27" screens, unless I read his post wrong :confused: Looks like he just wants a 27" 1440p to replace the 1080p that he already has. Nothing wrong with a 3440 x 1440 though if he has the space for it.
 
I’d probably start with the monitor and work backwards, tuning for the best performance at X resolution X refresh rate as possible.
 
HumphBlackfur said:
no doubt there will be cases of "well, if you waited another couple of months, there'd be THIS!"
Click to expand...



In this case Nvidia's GPUs are due in 9 days.Well worth waiting. For the rest of it:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,429.15 (includes shipping: £20.82)
​

This leaves you a lot of money for the GPU. You'll probably want some extra 140mm fans and fan splitter cables.
 
Quartz said:
In this case Nvidia's GPUs are due in 9 days.Well worth waiting. For the rest of it:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,429.15 (includes shipping: £20.82)
​

This leaves you a lot of money for the GPU. You'll probably want some extra 140mm fans and fan splitter cables.
Click to expand...

Nice board, but if he doesn't need wifi then he can easily save money there with a B550 option.

No point paying more for RGB Ram with a non windowed case. The 3200MHz kit in my list for £95.99 is better value.

No need for extra thermal paste.

That psu is a bit meh. No reason to skimp with a £2000 budget.

Why a SATA SSD ? The SN550 is only £8 more.
 
lee32uk said:
Nice board, but if he doesn't need wifi then he can easily save money there with a B550 option.
Click to expand...

Extra PCIe lanes for a second M2.

lee32uk said:
No point paying more for RGB Ram with a non windowed case. The 3200MHz kit in my list for £95.99 is better value.
Click to expand...

It was the cheapest 32 GB kit.

lee32uk said:
No need for extra thermal paste.
Click to expand...

One hopes not but accidents happen and paste is one of those things which is better to have and not need than to need but not have.

lee32uk said:
Why a SATA SSD ? The SN550 is only £8 more.
Click to expand...

Good catch.
 
lee32uk said:
He doesn't mention using 2 x 27" screens, unless I read his post wrong :confused: Looks like he just wants a 27" 1440p to replace the 1080p that he already has. Nothing wrong with a 3440 x 1440 though if he has the space for it.
Click to expand...

Just re-read it, no idea why I thought he was using two screens. My advice to buy an Ultrawide still stands though! :D
 
Quartz said:
Extra PCIe lanes for a second M2.



It was the cheapest 32 GB kit.



One hopes not but accidents happen and paste is one of those things which is better to have and not need than to need but not have.



Good catch.
Click to expand...

You can run 2 x M.2 on B550 though.

The Team Group kit in my list is cheaper.

You get paste with the cooler though. Also Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is better than AS5 anyway.
 
Hi, everyone. Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you - real life got in the way, as it does, and I had to go away for a few days.

I want to thank you all for your suggestions, which have given me much more of an idea about what I'm looking at here.

I have to admit, I wasn't initially thinking about building this myself, but the more I read your ideas, the more I'm thinking why not. I'm reasonably technically minded, I have built one before (admittedly with help and a LOT of years ago) and there are plenty of how-to videos online, so I figure I can afford some better parts if I build it myself. That being said, if there is anybody in East Kent who might be willing to help out, some sort of bribe could probably be arranged.

Seems to be a consensus that the AMD Ryzen is a good choice, so that's inked in, likely the 3700.

I probably don't need the wifi option. I am using it with my current PC, just for convenience, but with the new one, I'm thinking that I should really get a cable over to the router. I'm in a newly built house now with a fibre network running straight into the building, so I might as well take advantage of that by going the cable route. So I'm thinking the motherboard that Sparx recommended will do just fine.

The Corsair RAM seems popular, so I'm good with that. I'm also thinking of a Corsair case, as I already have keyboard, mouse and headphones from them, so there's an appeal to keeping things consistent.

Graphics card, well, as was universally pointed out, kinda foolish not to see what Nvidia have to offer, particularly now it's only going to be a couple of days until they drop.

Drives-wise, the WD SN550 gets a couple of nods, so that seems like a good one to go for. People seemed fairly meh on my idea to run with two SSDs, so I'm pondering that one at the moment - if I do, I'll stick with the WD models. I do like to compartmentalise things a bit (I suspect mild OCD), so that was at the bottom of that thinking. That'll probably come down to money, in the end. The motherboard that was recommended will handle two SSDs if I decide to go that way anyway, yes? The storage HDD isn't that big a deal and I have a good history with Seagate drives, so that'll work fine.

PSU-wise, I found it interesting that nobody went higher than 750W. Seems like my original plan of somewhere in the 1000W range is likely overpowered, so I can save a bit of money by bringing that down to a lower level.

Monitor, I'm debating. The Dell that Sparx mentioned looks like a very nice bit of kit, but, on the other hand, there is an appeal in getting a bit more real estate in front of me, so I'm certainly giving some thought to the Iiyama that Quartz suggested. I've had one of their monitors in the past and liked it very much.

Cooling-wise, the Arctic looks like a good bit of kit, and the suggestion of at least another fan is obviously going to be a good one. I guess see what case I end up going with and what'll fit.

I think that's everything. Once again, I do want to thank you all for helping me out, and if anybody has any other thoughts, I'd be most happy to hear them.
 
HumphBlackfur said:
real life got in the way, as it does, and I had to go away for a few days.

The Corsair RAM seems popular, so I'm good with that. I'm also thinking of a Corsair case, as I already have keyboard, mouse and headphones from them, so there's an appeal to keeping things consistent.

Drives-wise, the WD SN550 gets a couple of nods, so that seems like a good one to go for. People seemed fairly meh on my idea to run with two SSDs, so I'm pondering that one at the moment - if I do, I'll stick with the WD models. I do like to compartmentalise things a bit (I suspect mild OCD), so that was at the bottom of that thinking.

PSU-wise, I found it interesting that nobody went higher than 750W. Seems like my original plan of somewhere in the 1000W range is likely overpowered, so I can save a bit of money by bringing that down to a lower level.

Monitor, I'm debating. The Dell that Sparx mentioned looks like a very nice bit of kit, but, on the other hand, there is an appeal in getting a bit more real estate in front of me, so I'm certainly giving some thought to the Iiyama that Quartz suggested. I've had one of their monitors in the past and liked it very much.

Cooling-wise, the Arctic looks like a good bit of kit, and the suggestion of at least another fan is obviously going to be a good one. I guess see what case I end up going with and what'll fit.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that overhyped Life often disturbs hobbies...

In RAM there's no sense to pay for brand, because all brands use same standard components. (well, except Micron owned Crucial)
But currently Corsair is best priced in available kits in both RGB and non-RGB 3600MHz.

There's no sense and no need for multiple drives with SSDs.
Even in HDD time that was issue in gaming PC only if you had insufficient memory and there was need for constant use of page file.
To keep operating system separate allowing its formatting in case of OS problems you can simply partition drive.


In PSUs availability situation is now horrible.
SuperFlower Leadex III is about only well stocked good PSU at good price.


In monitors lot depends on what kind room illumination you prefer.
IPS has the most consistent all around performance, but contrast is average at best and hence it needs normal room lights...
Untill we get proper FALD backlight panels.
In darker room VA's way highest contrast of LCDs simply gives the best looking picture.
For that real estate 3840x2160 would be winner, but high refresh rate choises and 32" models are probably coming only late this year/at winter.


For CPU cooling AMD has lot more honest TDPs than Intel and only 8 core 3700X doesn't require expensive cooler.
£43 Alpenfohn Brocken 3 would be basically overkill and good for updates to 12/16 core. (like that motherboard)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/alpenfohn-brocken-3-cpu-cooler-140mm-hs-05a-al.html
Scythe Mugen 5 is another high end cooler which punches above its price and size.
But if Scythe still uses convex base optimized for concavish Intel heatspreaders that can degrade cooling performance, because of only small area of good contact with AMD's heatspreader.
 
Just out of curiosity why is everyone suggesting to go with Ryzen 3600/3700X when OP is building a computer for Gaming? My understanding is that purely for gaming Intel (10600k/10900k) still outperforms Intel in FPS in nearly every single game?
 
Vogelbekdier said:
Just out of curiosity why is everyone suggesting to go with Ryzen 3600/3700X when OP is building a computer for Gaming? My understanding is that purely for gaming Intel (10600k/10900k) still outperforms Intel in FPS in nearly every single game?
Click to expand...

The value for money option. You can get a 6 or 8 core Ryzen setup for less money, and with a mid range gpu like a 2070S there won't be much difference.
 
Thanks for the replies. Food for thought and, yeah, I think I'm definitely ditching the dual SSD idea. Just partition the drive - slightly embarrassed that that didn't cross my mind.

So now that we have an idea about the new Nvidia cards, the obvious candidate, budget-wise, would seem to be the RTX3080. Given the rest of what I'm considering, does that make sense as a choice?
 
If you're gonna get at least a 1440p, high refresh rate, G-Sync monitor - then yeah definitely go for the 3080 if it's within your budget.

It looks to be a fantastic card. Aiming to pick one up myself when pre-orders are live :)
 
Hi, everyone.

So I'm starting to get the pieces that I need for the new computer, with a certain amount of assistance from Black Friday deals, so the CPU is a Ryzen 3800 rather than a 3700 and so forth. I ultimately went with the Wifi-enabled MSI motherboard that Quartz suggested as I may need to run with wifi for a bit. I also got a nice ultrawide 1440 monitor that I'm pretty happy with right now.

The sticking point right now is obviously the graphics card, with the RTX3080s being impossible to find and not even open for pre-order right now, so I guess the current queues are pretty massive. So I need to consider a couple of options and was hoping for a bit of input from those in the know.

Option 1) My existing computer has a GeForce GTX745 for a graphics card. Now that's obviously pretty old, but I could potentially pull it out of the old machine and install it in the new one (assuming it's compatible). I would imagine that it's going to creak under the requirements of more current games, but with the more oomph provided by the Ryzen (current machine has an i7-6700 CPU) and 32Gb of RAM (as opposed to the current 16), I figure it might be able to hold the line for a while until the RTX3080s become more available.

Option 2) I could purchase a relatively cheap graphics card to tide me over until I can get a 3080. This could then be put into my old computer to give it a bit more pep once I get the 3080, as my lovely wife has indicated that she wouldn't be averse to joining me for a bit of multiplayer at some point, so keeping the old machine working, potentially with a bit more power, is a not unappealing option.

Any thoughts on what might be the better plan would be appreciated, and, if you think Option 2 might be the way to go, what would be a good card to consider?

On the 3080 front, what does seem to be the sort of waiting time people are looking at right now? And there seem to be so many different variants at different prices that it's hard to know what to look for. Are there really significant differences, or does it not really matter?

Oh, and operating system? Windows 10, but Home? Pro? And what's the easiest way to get it?
 
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