Gaming PC budget overhaul 600-700 budget

Rendiz

Rendiz

Rendiz

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Joined
26 Apr 2015
Posts
4
Still using a build from over 9 years ago and it's really showing its age. Would prefer to reuse my case, psu and storage if possible to save some money for now. Hard budget is 700 but any penny pinching would be appreciated if it doesn't impact the performance too greatly. (will probably upgrade to m.2 later on to save a little bit of money for now).

So I'm really mostly looking for motherboard, cpu, ram and gpu but open to other suggestions.

Case is Cooler Master HAF 912 and have a 850w gold psu

Thank you in advance
 
First off, gotta decide on a strat for the GPU purchase. The guy a couple of threads below asking for advice on his £5K build was straight up 'not buying a GPU till 4000 series, sticking with 5 year old card - what else should I spend 5 grand on?'.

So you still need one to last you till either;
1: November ish when 4070 comes out around the £550-600 mark.
2: Cheaper AMD cards and 4060 comes out early next year. [no doubt in time for Starfield, though]
3: Decide when to buy an ex mining 3000 series card (or older)
4: What have you currently got?
5: Buying brand new now. AMD 6600xt's are OK ish at the £360 mark.

*these dates are all coming from recent rumors. They might be wrong.
 
Trickle said:
First off, gotta decide on a strat for the GPU purchase. The guy a couple of threads below asking for advice on his £5K build was straight up 'not buying a GPU till 4000 series, sticking with 5 year old card - what else should I spend 5 grand on?'.

So you still need one to last you till either;
1: November ish when 4070 comes out around the £550-600 mark.
2: Cheaper AMD cards and 4060 comes out early next year. [no doubt in time for Starfield, though]
3: Decide when to buy an ex mining 3000 series card (or older)
4: What have you currently got?
5: Buying brand new now. AMD 6600xt's are OK ish at the £360 mark.

*these dates are all coming from recent rumors. They might be wrong.
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Would probably prefer not to wait. And I doubt a 4070 would fit into my budget when including the other components.
I currently have a 7950 but been encountering increasingly more and more issues and want to upgrade as soon as possible.
 
I'd prob go something like below if buying right now(and buying new). The mobo isn't the cheapest but a quality b660 board, on offer at mo, so can take any alderlake and prob rocket lake CPU in the future. Put a 12100f in there. Bottom of rung but still a good little CPU.. 16gb of 3200c16 ram leaving just enough for a 6650xt gpu


My basket at OcUK:

Total: £699.42 (includes delivery: £10.50)​

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For gpu, sub to fepartalert on telegram. Maybe they'll have another 3060tife drop in future but you'll have to wait, and know telling when drop happens​
 
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My basket at OcUK:

Total: £730.46 (includes delivery: £10.50)​

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If you do not wish to upgrade to a more power hungry processor later, then you could consider spending less on the motherboard and hit the £700 max target. Or go the 4 core processor route as suggested in the post above to get under £700. You could upgrade the processor later to a 6 core. Its likely that next gen 6 cores would be fine on a cheaper £120 motherboard (I wouldn't go for the absolute cheapest £110 ones without VRM heatsinks).​
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Thank you both for the advice and sorry for the late reply, I've been really busy the last couple of days. I guess my main options are getting a more expensive motherboard and an i3 if I want to upgrade when the new gen comes out or buy a cheaper motherboard and an i5 for now.

Trickle said:
Its likely that next gen 6 cores would be fine on a cheaper £120 motherboard (I wouldn't go for the absolute cheapest £110 ones without VRM heatsinks).
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If possible do you have any recommendations on solid motherboards around the £120 region or would they mostly be comparible?
 
Rendiz said:
Thank you both for the advice and sorry for the late reply, I've been really busy the last couple of days. I guess my main options are getting a more expensive motherboard and an i3 if I want to upgrade when the new gen comes out or buy a cheaper motherboard and an i5 for now.


If possible do you have any recommendations on solid motherboards around the £120 region or would they mostly be comparible?
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bit above, but if you don't need wifi, the MSI Pro B660M-A can be had for £130, prob best budget board you can get. if wifi, seen the Asus Tuf gaming B660 plus wifi d4(not budget board) on offer for £136 which for a board over £200 when released isn't bad.
nvidia dropped some fe cards which are still available...you can get the 3060tife for £369....get that now if I were you before sells out
 
Craig_d1 said:
bit above, but if you don't need wifi, the MSI Pro B660M-A can be had for £130, prob best budget board you can get. if wifi, seen the Asus Tuf gaming B660 plus wifi d4(not budget board) on offer for £136 which for a board over £200 when released isn't bad.
nvidia dropped some fe cards which are still available...you can get the 3060tife for £369....get that now if I were you before sells out
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for the help. Just grabbed a 3060 ti, ty for letting me know about this.
Don't need wifi so will probably look into MSI Pro B660M-A and grab an i3 and look to upgrade to a newer i5 later on
 
Rendiz said:
Thanks so much for the help. Just grabbed a 3060 ti, ty for letting me know about this.
Don't need wifi so will probably look into MSI Pro B660M-A and grab an i3 and look to upgrade to a newer i5 later on
Click to expand...
np...looking, I'd prob get the tuf board..for the extra £7, worth it imo..full atx rather than micro atx as well which might fit better in you haf 912 case...also comes with free delivery...the other doesn't so might actually work out cheaper...just noticed, the gpu slot is pcie5 also.doesn't really make a diff, just thinking for a few years down the line if you upgrade gpu or sell on
 
Hardware unboxed gave the B660M-A a good result on vrm temps, so a £130 non-wifi version sounds like a fair price. The other specs look OK but not stella. Week areas compared with AMD boards at the same price point are 2.5gb lan and the audio codec. But these seem to be the same as other intel boards at the price.

The £160 Mortar first suggested above has a better audio codec and vrms capable of all the super power hungry intel chips. The 2nd hand value difference for wifi enabled boards is significant even years later, so you'd always get some of that extra outlay back. Its useful as a backup connection option.
 
Trickle said:
Hardware unboxed gave the B660M-A a good result on vrm temps, so a £130 non-wifi version sounds like a fair price. The other specs look OK but not stella. Week areas compared with AMD boards at the same price point are 2.5gb lan and the audio codec. But these seem to be the same as other intel boards at the price.

The £160 Mortar first suggested above has a better audio codec and vrms capable of all the super power hungry intel chips. The 2nd hand value difference for wifi enabled boards is significant even years later, so you'd always get some of that extra outlay back. Its useful as a backup connection option.
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Do you use the onboard audio? I use a DAC and haven't used onboard audio in ages.

I don't know many people that still use onboard so I'm curious.
 
The last sound card I owned (excepting a USB built into headset solution once) was PCI format. Therefore I think it must been around the Athlon64 or x2 era when I moved to a mobo without a socket for the Soundblaster.
 
Craig_d1 said:
I'd prob go something like below if buying right now(and buying new). The mobo isn't the cheapest but a quality b660 board, on offer at mo, so can take any alderlake and prob rocket lake CPU in the future. Put a 12100f in there. Bottom of rung but still a good little CPU.. 16gb of 3200c16 ram leaving just enough for a 6650xt gpu


My basket at OcUK:

Total: £699.42 (includes delivery: £10.50)​

​
​
​
​
​
​
For gpu, sub to fepartalert on telegram. Maybe they'll have another 3060tife drop in future but you'll have to wait, and know telling when drop happens​
Click to expand...
that's a surprisingly punchy setup for that budget, I'm genuinely impressed considering how quickly things get into four digits when pricing up stuff!
 
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