Build advice please (£1500?)

trrocket · 26 Mar 2022 at 16:32

I'm looking to replace my now fairly antiquated i5-6600K and GTX 1050, and was hoping to get close to a budget of £1500 for pretty much everything.

Will mostly be used for compiling software and a bit of gaming - nothing too demanding but I suspect my CRG9 ultrawide is causing some problems for my current graphics card. I'd like it to be quiet-ish and cool. Would be aiming to keep this for 5+ years with the potential for upgrading the graphics card in a few years if necessary. Happy to push the budget a little if it gives it some longevity.

I'm very much out of the loop with current hardware, so I won't be surprised if the following are a bunch of terrible choices... also it's a bit over budget at the moment.

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i5-12600K 3.70GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - OEM (SKU: CP-6A7-IN) = £259.99
1 x MSI Pro Z690-A WIFI DDR4 - Intel Z690 DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-36D-MS) = £199.99
1 x Crucial P5P 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 3D NAND NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-075-CR) = £260.00
1 x be quiet! Pure Base 500 Midi Tower Case - Black (SKU: CA-13P-BQ) = £79.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-29200C16 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (SKU: MY-4C4-CS) = £158.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 6600 XT Nitro+ RGB Gaming 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-39Q-SP) = £389.98
1 x be quiet! Dark Power 12 750W 80 Plus Titanium Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-14A-BQ) = £206.00
1 x Corsair Hydro Series iCUE H150i PRO XT RGB Performance Liquid Cooler - 360mm (CW-9060045-WW) (SKU: HS-03Z-CS) = £159.94

Total: £1,728.08 (includes delivery: £13.20)

Thanks in advance for any advice

GreatAuk · 26 Mar 2022 at 17:24

What resolution is your monitor? 3440x1440? [edit: ah, 5,120X1440] If so then gpu is likely to be the performance limiting factor in the majority of games, but then basically every single current gpu will be a big upgrade on a gtx 1050.

In some ways not a bad time to be buying as gpu prices have come down a lot in the past few months, but on the other hand the next generation will be out soonish (potentially by end of Q3, if not then by end of the year... Apparently), so whatever you buy now will be outclassed fairly soon (but who knows what the pricing or availability will be like for the next generation gpus).

Your build looks reasonable to me. I guess things to comment on are:

Some people prefer to have separate drives for OS & programs, games, and data. Gives a marginal performance improvement, but also means less wear on SSDs so theoretically better reliability. Might be worth it, might not, depends a bit how intensively your workflow will use your drives. Most people will never write anywhere near as much data to their drives as they're rated for, so at least in terms of rated endurance it's not a massive issue for most people.
That's a decent case, but in general for performance builds the preference for cases is for well ventilated mesh fronted cases now, on the basis that even if you want a quiet PC, a well ventilated case will be quieter than a 'silent' case because the fans will be working a lot less hard. Eg something like this: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phanteks-eclipse-p400-air-midi-tower-case-black-ca-09f-pt.html or this: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lian-li-lancool-ii-mesh-rgb-midi-tower-case-black-ca-78d-ll.html
That's a very expensive 750W psu - efficiency is great, but will come nowhere near paying for itself over a gold rated option, and any noise benefit will probably be completely inconsequential next to the noise from gpu cooler / cpu cooler fans under load. I might save my £110 and go for something like this : : https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...lar-power-supply-cp-9020187-uk-ca-252-cs.html or a 650W model (which should still be plenty for that cpu and a mid range gpu, potentially more likely to need to upgrade in future though) like this : https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phanteks-amp-650w-80-plus-gold-modular-power-supply-ca-09q-pt.html
The arctic liquid AIOs are better value, and often better performing than other options, so tend to be recommended a lot. Eg saving £60: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/arct...ormance-cpu-water-cooler-280mm-hs-07c-ar.html

If you had a bit of time / patience then you could get Telegram and sign up to the FE PartAlert channel to get notified the moment that nvidia FE cards are available at RRP (seem to be drops every few weeks, not sure if they might stop in the near future of keep going...), but a 3060Ti FE would be a good option in this budget.

Haz123 · 26 Mar 2022 at 17:35

5120x1440 120hz .......... Lovely monitor but that is a lot of pixels.

The 6600xt is a competitive gpu for 1080p and ok for 2560x1440 but you are looking to push twice that amount of pixels and its odd BUS means its performance drops off a cliff the higher the res. Like GreatAuk says try to look for a 3060ti drop from Nvidia by using Telegram + fepartalert. A 3060ti is the best choice for your monitor and to try and keep it within budget.

ASMB · 26 Mar 2022 at 19:58

Turn · 27 Mar 2022 at 06:47

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i7-12700K 3.60GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-69Z-IN) = £375.00
1 x MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 - Intel Z690 DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-36C-MS) = £199.99
1 x Crucial P2 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-071-CR) = £169.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Promotion: £20 Gamesplanet Voucher (SKU: XX-004-CR) = £0.00
1 x Corsair 4000D Airflow Mid-Tower Case - Black Tempered Glass (CC-9011200-WW) (SKU: CA-25G-CS) = £89.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 32GB (2x16GB) 3600 MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Dual Kit (SKU: MY-4CL-CS) = £128.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 6600 XT Nitro+ RGB Gaming 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-39Q-SP) = £389.99
1 x CORSAIR RM Series RM750 Fully Modular Ultra-Low Noise ATX Power Supply - black (SKU: CA-26R-CS) = £109.99
1 x Noctua NH-D15 Chromax Pure Black CPU Cooler with Dual 140m Fans (SKU: HS-03M-NC) = £109.99

Total: £1,587.13 (includes delivery: £13.20)

Works out around ~£1570 w/ the Noctua cooler & ~£1620 w/ the iCUE cooler (before Delivery).
I definitely wouldn't get that Platinum PSU & I would recommend getting 3200Mhz instead of 3600Mhz RAM, you're not going to see any difference.

Intel > AMD right now.
I do like the idea of having a separate NVMe for my Windows & programs as @ASMB has gone with.
I generally stick with having a 500GB for my applications & Windows, and the other NVMe for all my larger files. Allows you reinstall and that sort of thing easily, and for me that's essential as I have the habit of doing so quite often

trrocket said:
Will mostly be used for compiling software

Wasn't sure the extent to how CPU dependent this task is.
If you think you don't really need the extra compute power of a 12700K, then the 12600K is a good choice.

trrocket · 27 Mar 2022 at 09:12

Wow, thanks for all the advice, I really appreciate all the help.

It sounds like the biggest issue I'll have is whatever GPU with my monitor. I kind of regret that particular impulse purchase but that's another story.

To respond to a few questions/comments above:

Hard drives: Good advice - probably the only component from my current machine I'll be reusing is a 1TB EVO plus (I definitely prefer to keep Windows well away from anything I consider important)

Case: I appreciate the insight re ventilation being better for noise reduction - although now I'm faced with an intimidating level of choice at a decent price point

CPU: I suspect some extra cores would speed up compile times, but I'm struggling to anticipate by how much, and I think (maybe) I'm inclined to just enjoy the massive improvement over my existing setup because the i7 is so much more expensive

Cost: PSU and cooler suggestions from @GreatAuk bring me pretty close to my budget, thank you!

Couple of follow up questions:

- If I bought this system without the GPU, or with the 6600 XT for now and then got my hands on a 3060Ti, would 750W be enough? I've struggled to find any helpful guides on power requirements

- Is an AIO cooler worthwhile? Is a 360mm any better/worse than 280mm (the Arctic liquid ones are the same price)? I've never bothered with water coolers in the past but I'm very tired of a loud and hot PC sitting in the corner

Haz123 · 27 Mar 2022 at 11:59

Yes a 750w psu would be enough for 12600k and 660xt or 3060ti and have quite a lot of headroom on top.

I personally really like AIO coolers and would always use them. 360 and 280 aio are almost identical in performance because the surface area of 3x120 is almost identical to 2x140. There is a large variety of AIOs and you can just pick which one fits best into the case you pick.

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Arctic Liquid Freezer II High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 240mm (SKU: HS-07B-AR) = £69.95

Total: £78.65 (includes delivery: £8.70)

The above cooler is only a 240 but will easily cool a 12600K.

ASMB · 27 Mar 2022 at 17:56

Total 1525.87

ASMB · 28 Mar 2022 at 15:03

I see that the price of the Sapphire Nitro 6700xt has shot back up again today as their stock levels have gone down

trrocket · 31 Mar 2022 at 05:50

In the end I decided to hold off on the graphics card and just get the following for now (made a couple of tweaks based on the advice and to get the cost down a bit). Hoping a 3060Ti or 3070Ti FE comes up soon...

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i5-12600K 3.70GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - OEM (SKU: CP-6A7-IN) = £269.99
1 x MSI Pro Z690-A WIFI DDR4 - Intel Z690 DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-36D-MS) = £199.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-29200C16 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (SKU: MY-4C4-CS) = £158.99
1 x Corsair RMx Series RMx750 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020179-UK) (SKU: CA-23W-CS) = £114.95
1 x Lian Li Lancool II USB3.1 Type-C Cable (SKU: CA-77Y-LL) = £11.98
1 x Lian Li Lancool II Mesh Performance Midi-Tower Case - Black (SKU: CA-78B-LL) = £96.95
1 x Crucial P5P 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 3D NAND NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-074-CR) = £112.99
1 x Arctic Liquid Freezer II High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 240mm (SKU: HS-07B-AR) = £69.95

Total: £1,051.69 (includes delivery: £15.90)

Thank you again for the help <3