Upgrade time for son's PC

valve90210 · 2025-11-14T21:48:39+0000

Over the last few years, my son has been playing on a PC which I got second hand from the Members Market and have added a few bits to and it largely does the job quite nicely, however for Christmas I'd really like to be able to get him the bits for a new PC so we can build it together and he can get a bit more performance than he currently is. About a year or so ago I built myself an AM5 system and am finding it great, so I'm looking to build something similar. I'll be reusing monitors, case, PSU (750W) and GPU (1080ti)

This is the spec I have:

Ryzen 5 7600 (with Thermalright Assassin King cooler - might need something a little smaller for his case...)
Asrock B650M PG Riptide
Teamgroup Delta 32GB DDR5 6400MHz
WD Black SN770 2TB

I'm thinking something similar but I know things will have changed a bit over the last year (I looked and can't find the same mother board or SSD for example), can anyone spec me something suitable please? Loking at M-ATX for the motherboard to fit in his existing case. Budget is around the £500 mark if at all possible.

Thanks

hornetstinger · 2025-11-14T21:51:10+0000

RAM prices are stupid now- a bit time to buy RAM. Check the prices, they've gone absurd.

valve90210 · 2025-11-14T21:53:30+0000

hornetstinger said:
RAM prices are stupid now- a bit time to buy RAM. Check the prices, they've gone absurd.

Wow, you're not kidding!! The ones I got which cost me £99 - are £329 :eek:

Tetras · 2025-11-14T22:12:17+0000

If you wanted to stick with the later gen, you could get something like this:

My basket at OcUK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 5 9600 Six Core 5.20GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-05398) = £179.99
1 x Sapphire Nitro+ B850M WiFi (Socket AM5) DDR5 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-SPR-05690) = £139.99
1 x Crucial Pro OC 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-02219) = £128.99
1 x Gigabyte Aorus 7300E 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-GIG-06500) = £59.99

Total: £516.95 (includes delivery: £7.99)

valve90210 said:
(with Thermalright Assassin King cooler - might need something a little smaller for his case...)

How small is the case exactly? The 9600 non-X does come with a cooler, though obviously not the best.

The 7600 non-X also comes with a cooler.

With last gen stuff, note the lack of WIFI on the board:

My basket at OcUK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 5 7600 Six Core 5.10GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DW-AM) = £160.99
1 x Sapphire B650M-E (Socket AM5) DDR5 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-SPR-05695) = £100.00
1 x Crucial Pro 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (SKU: MEM-CRU-03115) = £128.99
1 x Team Group Z44A7 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-TMG-02624) = £114.94

Total: £512.92 (includes delivery: £7.99)

valve90210 · 2025-11-15T08:52:51+0000

Oh that's great thank you. Both specs seem good to my untrained eye. How much of a difference is there in the two motherboards you listed and the two sets of RAM?

The case says it has space for a 148mm cooler, which is the listed height of the cooler I have but I think something that tall might interfere with the fans on the side of the case? Does Thermalright do anything that's a touch shorter? I've had a bit of a look but am a bit unsure on what would work.