New PC Build w/ Monitor

awbb

awbb

awbb

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Hi all,


The time has come to finally retire my trusty 11-year-old PC. It’s been a great servant, but it’s really starting to show its age. Since I’m very out of practice, I’d really appreciate the community’s advice on a recommended build to replace it. Another push factor is that my current CPU isn’t certified for Windows 11, so the upgrade is overdue. If it wasn't obvious, I've put my initial rambling post through Chat GPT to make it, well, readable! I should be ashamed.



Purchase Timeframe
By the end of October at the latest, though ideally sooner.



Budget
£3,500 (including a new monitor).



Usage
Primarily gaming – Football Manager, Elite Dangerous, Red Dead Redemption 2, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, GTA VI (if/when it appears).


I’m not a streamer, and I don’t generally play competitive FPS titles, but I’d like enough power to handle pretty much anything that comes out over the next five years without worry.



Preferences
  • Historically I’ve stuck with Intel/Nvidia (a bad experience with an AMD CPU 20 years ago scarred me a bit!). That said, I’m open to AMD now if there’s clear value or performance gains.
  • Storage: At least 2TB – 1TB just isn’t enough with modern games. When I last built a PC, the advice was to run Windows on a dedicated SSD. I assume that’s no longer necessary?
  • RGB isn’t a priority. If it comes with the best-value components, that’s fine, but I don’t want to pay a premium for it.
  • Noise isn’t critical as I use headphones almost exclusively, but I’d prefer something reasonably quiet rather than jet-engine loud.


Current Hardware
Probably not relevant since this will be a full new build, but for reference:
  • Asus Maximus VII Hero motherboard
  • Intel i7-4770K (slightly overclocked)
  • GTX 1060 6GB
  • 16GB DDR3 RAM
It’s served me well, apart from an AIO water cooler failing after about 4 years. I know it’s far beyond upgradable (the socket doesn’t support anything newer than 4th gen i-series).


Peripherals (Monitor etc.)
I need a new monitor. Currently I use two cheap 1080p, 60Hz, 24” panels.


For the upgrade, I’d prefer higher resolution, ideally an ultrawide for Elite Dangerous (though I have no interest in VR). Fidelity and immersion are more important to me than very high refresh rates. Since I play Elite in borderless windowed mode (for third-party tools), I don’t think that will impact monitor choice much. Recommendations here would be very welcome.



Special Requirements (inc. Wi-Fi)
  • Wi-Fi is required. I do have a Virgin Media extender pod with an ethernet port right next to the PC, but Wi-Fi gives me flexibility.
  • Easy access to at least 2–3 USB 2.0/3.0 ports on the front or top of the case is important (I won’t have easy access to the rear). Could monitor USB ports substitute here?
  • The PC will sit on the floor in a carpeted room, so I imagine a riser/stand would be a good idea – do such things exist?
I haven’t done a full build in over a decade – just a few small upgrades and fixes for friends/family. I enjoy building, but given the budget (and my lack of practice) I’d prefer a reputable company (e.g., OC) to build it and provide warranty cover.


Many thanks in advance for your advice!


Kind regards,
Sim
 
Hi and welcome.

Overclockers pre built pc 9800x3d , 64gb memory with a 5080 for £2500 leaving a £1000 for a monitor.

My basket at OcUK:
  • 1 x OcUK Gaming Hydrogen - Ryzen 9800X3D RTX 5080 Compact Gaming PC (SKU: SYS-OCG-00090) = £2,504.99
    • Case: 1 x *Build* Lian Li A3 Micro ATX Case - Black - Wood Panel
    • Processor: 1 x Build Stock AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core 5.20GHz (Socket AM5) Processor -
    • Graphics Card: 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5080 Solid Core 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card
    • Memory: 1 x Kingston FURY Beast RGB 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black
    • M.2 Solid State Drive: 1 x WD Black SN7100 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 Solid State Drive
    • Operating System: 1 x Build Stock Microsoft Windows 11 Home Advanced - Systems

Total: £2,504.99 (includes delivery: £0.00)​
 
mickyflinn said:
Hi and welcome.

Overclockers pre built pc 9800x3d , 64gb memory with a 5080 for £2500 leaving a £1000 for a monitor.

My basket at OcUK:
  • 1 x OcUK Gaming Hydrogen - Ryzen 9800X3D RTX 5080 Compact Gaming PC (SKU: SYS-OCG-00090) = £2,504.99
    • Case: 1 x *Build* Lian Li A3 Micro ATX Case - Black - Wood Panel
    • Processor: 1 x Build Stock AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core 5.20GHz (Socket AM5) Processor -
    • Graphics Card: 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5080 Solid Core 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card
    • Memory: 1 x Kingston FURY Beast RGB 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black
    • M.2 Solid State Drive: 1 x WD Black SN7100 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 Solid State Drive
    • Operating System: 1 x Build Stock Microsoft Windows 11 Home Advanced - Systems

Total: £2,504.99 (includes delivery: £0.00)​
Click to expand...
Thank you for such a swift reply. This looks very reasonable for the price, from what I have seen. Though I must admit I'm scared of the "small" factor case!

Quartz said:
Do you want a 21:9 (3440x1440) or a 32:9 (5120x1440)?
Click to expand...
I'd love a 32:9, but I'm not sure if the budget would stretch! I reckon I have about 1400mm in physical horizontal space available, if that precludes anything!

Quartz said:
I'm not seeing any specific requirement for RT or CUDA so perhaps a 9070XT for £600 or so might be a better choice? It would free up £400 for a better monitor.
Click to expand...
This is referring to specific cores in the RTX cards? I'm not technically clued up enough to know, but taking advantage on Ray Tracing in newer game, or games going forward would obviously be good. I'm very happy to take on advice, and if I absolutely need to, I can find another £400 for an obviously better monitor that the system deserves.

Thank you both again.
 
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awbb said:
Thank you for such a swift reply. This looks very reasonable for the price, from what I have seen. Though I must admit I'm scared of the "small" factor case!
Click to expand...

Be brave brother it's not really that small it's micro ATX plenty of room for a 5090.
awbb said:
I'd love a 32:9, but I'm not sure if the budget would stretch! I reckon I have about 1400mm in physical horizontal space available, if that precludes anything!
Click to expand...
It's not the size it's the resolution of the monitor so the higher the resolution the more powerful a GPU you need. I would be looking at oled monitors .
awbb said:
This is referring to specific cores in the RTX cards? I'm not technically clued up enough to know, but taking advantage on Ray Tracing in newer game, or games going forward would obviously be good. I'm very happy to take on advice, and if I absolutely need to, I can find another £400 for an obviously better monitor that the system deserves.

Thank you both again.
Click to expand...
Ray tracing is done by and and Nvidia but Nvidia doesn't it better and have better upscaling hence I went fir a 5080 . The £400 saving is an option going for a 9070xt or a 5070ti but you have healthy budget.

Lots of options .
 
mickyflinn said:
Be brave brother it's not really that small it's micro ATX plenty of room for a 5090.

It's not the size it's the resolution of the monitor so the higher the resolution the more powerful a GPU you need. I would be looking at oled monitors .

Ray tracing is done by and and Nvidia but Nvidia doesn't it better and have better upscaling hence I went fir a 5080 . The £400 saving is an option going for a 9070xt or a 5070ti but you have healthy budget.

Lots of options .
Click to expand...

:cry: I am not known for bravery! I suppose the only concern is when later edition cards come out whether they will fit, but we're looking at a grands worth of GPU right now and I should suck it up!

Physical space is a factor, I suppose, particularly for a 32:9 monitor, but you're right as far as the machine is concerned its how many pixels it needs to render and how fast it can change them! I appreciate the advice on OLED being worth it though.

It's been an inexact science for years - manipulating in-game graphics options, higher or lower resolutions to get a refresh rate you're happy with! But I'm, perhaps, naively hoping something like the system you specced will just say "Ultra High"? 5120x1440? 120 FPS no probs! to any game I throw at it.

If there's a specific one that anyone recommends, I'd appreciate it, as pretty much every review website I look rarely has any consistency!

Is this a good one?

 
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awbb said:
I'd love a 32:9, but I'm not sure if the budget would stretch! I reckon I have about 1400mm in physical horizontal space available, if that precludes anything!
Click to expand...

32:9 monitors are often - but not always - curved which complicates matters. I'm not your person of choice on monitors, though.
 
awbb said:
:cry: I am not known for bravery! I suppose the only concern is when later edition cards come out whether they will fit, but we're looking at a grands worth of GPU right now and I should suck it up!

Physical space is a factor, I suppose, particularly for a 32:9 monitor, but you're right as far as the machine is concerned its how many pixels it needs to render and how fast it can change them! I appreciate the advice on OLED being worth it though.

It's been an inexact science for years - manipulating in-game graphics options, higher or lower resolutions to get a refresh rate you're happy with! But I'm, perhaps, naively hoping something like the system you specced will just say "Ultra High"? 5120x1440? 120 FPS no probs! to any game I throw at it.

If there's a specific one that anyone recommends, I'd appreciate it, as pretty much every review website I look rarely has any consistency!

Is this a good one?

Click to expand...
Yes it nice but

Monitor are a minefield I would open a thread in the monitor section of the forum where your more likely to get stronger advice and reccomendations. There's a section on lg ultrawides there so take a look at other posts.

Monitors

LCD monitor discussion. Check out the OcUK Monitor Range.
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
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mickyflinn said:
Yes it nice but

Monitor are a minefield I would open a thread in the monitor section of the forum where your more likely to get stronger advice and reccomendations. There's a section on lg ultrawides there so take a look at other posts.

Monitors

LCD monitor discussion. Check out the OcUK Monitor Range.
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
Click to expand...
Thank you - have done as suggested. Thanks again for your assistance.
 
awbb said:
Thank you - have done as suggested. Thanks again for your assistance.
Click to expand...
Your welcome.

Let's us know how what you decide , there's lots of options so don't rush and if you want is to check before you pull the trigger.

I'll check the monitor thread as well.
 
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awbb said:
Thank you - have done as suggested. Thanks again for your assistance.
Click to expand...
If your playing a Elite Dangerous you should seriously consider investing into an OLED which will help with those deep blacks. Also with such a health budget you may want to look at investing into some decent audio such getting a set of Sennheiser Momentum 4.
 
Freddie1980 said:
If your playing a Elite Dangerous you should seriously consider investing into an OLED which will help with those deep blacks. Also with such a health budget you may want to look at investing into some decent audio such getting a set of Sennheiser Momentum 4.
Click to expand...

I bought a Philips Evnia 34" OLED/Ultrawide over a year back for less than £500 and its been fantastic, hard to find at the moment but there's an AOC model that uses the same panel (I believe) which can be had for around £450-500 too.

Well worth taking a look, if I primarily played a space game like Elite it's definitely worth it.
 
So, due to my inability to not follow good(?) advice, I went for the Hydrogen, with 64G as mickyflinn specced out. It's arrived and I've set it up - I haven't hit it too hard with anything yet though. It fits nicely in between my desk and the wall, far smaller than my old Cooler Master Cosmos that took up most of the room. Only downside so far is that OC dropped the price of the RAM by £24 between me ordering it and it arriving!

I read some reviews of monitors and I am pretty sure that every one has a 5 star rating from one reviewer and a 3 star from someone else. So, like a sheep, I went for Philips EVNIA 49M2C8900L, 32:9. It was £650 at Amazon when I ordered it. From the little I've played with it, the monitor is great. The image looks amazing and seems responsive enough (which was one of the main complaints I read about it) when switching between inputs. Not only that, I can use Picture By Picture to have my work laptop and PC visible at the same time, which was something I thought I was going to lose after giving up the 2 panels I had before and use the USB hub to use KVM to not need a secondary set of input peripherals on my desk!

I'd post a picture or two if I didn't need to host them somewhere!

Thanks again for your help - so far it looks like you did me proud and well under budget... (Do I really need to upgrade my throttle from my modded TWCS to something a bit more fancy? Hmmm.)
 
awbb said:
So, due to my inability to not follow good(?) advice, I went for the Hydrogen, with 64G as mickyflinn specced out. It's arrived and I've set it up - I haven't hit it too hard with anything yet though. It fits nicely in between my desk and the wall, far smaller than my old Cooler Master Cosmos that took up most of the room. Only downside so far is that OC dropped the price of the RAM by £24 between me ordering it and it arriving!

I read some reviews of monitors and I am pretty sure that every one has a 5 star rating from one reviewer and a 3 star from someone else. So, like a sheep, I went for Philips EVNIA 49M2C8900L, 32:9. It was £650 at Amazon when I ordered it. From the little I've played with it, the monitor is great. The image looks amazing and seems responsive enough (which was one of the main complaints I read about it) when switching between inputs. Not only that, I can use Picture By Picture to have my work laptop and PC visible at the same time, which was something I thought I was going to lose after giving up the 2 panels I had before and use the USB hub to use KVM to not need a secondary set of input peripherals on my desk!

I'd post a picture or two if I didn't need to host them somewhere!

Thanks again for your help - so far it looks like you did me proud and well under budget... (Do I really need to upgrade my throttle from my modded TWCS to something a bit more fancy? Hmmm.)
Click to expand...

Someone else was using this host without a problem in another thread, I'm sure we'd all love to see some pictures of your new setup:

Postimages — free image hosting / image upload

Provides free image uploading and hosting integration for forums. Free picture hosting and photo sharing for websites and blogs.
tsmsportz.com tsmsportz.com

As for your throttle, I'm guessing you're on a HOTAS? I know a few people that prefer HOSAS for the likes of Elite but I don't know enough about the game to be 100%.
 
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Not exactly the greatest cable management, but I have a (irrational) problem with wireless keyboard and mouse!

Yes, the TWCS is the throttle that Thrustmaster released with the T16000 stick. I modded it to have metal bearings and it plays nicely albeit being well, plastic. I upgraded my stick to a VKB Gladiator NXT EVO and the difference is obvious. I suspect going with a left hand NXT EVO Omni controller is the best plan for Elite. Maybe stick with the TWCS if I ever get into other flight sims. Not sure I can get one for less than £175 delivered though!
 
awbb said:




Not exactly the greatest cable management, but I have a (irrational) problem with wireless keyboard and mouse!

Yes, the TWCS is the throttle that Thrustmaster released with the T16000 stick. I modded it to have metal bearings and it plays nicely albeit being well, plastic. I upgraded my stick to a VKB Gladiator NXT EVO and the difference is obvious. I suspect going with a left hand NXT EVO Omni controller is the best plan for Elite. Maybe stick with the TWCS if I ever get into other flight sims. Not sure I can get one for less than £175 delivered though!
Click to expand...

Looks great!

I love my Philips 34" but compared to that thing it looks tiny, must be fantastic for your use case.
 
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