Recommendations - Pre-built ~5k budget

Wataman

Wataman

Wataman

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Joined
2 Apr 2011
Posts
23
Hi all,

Current PC has turned a decade old, still running relatively ok with a GPU swap out a few years ago (2x980ti to 3070ti) but struggling feeling bottlenecked/slow on newer games with high settings. Wanting to play Crimson Desert/Death Stranding 2 and a few others but struggling, so thought I'd look at options.
Don't have the time to put something together myself anymore, but I do have a ASUS Xonar Essence STX II sound card I use with Edifier S530D 2.1 Speakers I'd like to move over to the new PC ideally - so think it'd need a 'spare' Pci-e (or a soundcard to replace this one.)

I've been looking at 5090's and 9950x3d but I've not kept up with PC speccing over the 10 years since I last looked for one, so help hugely appreciated!

Additionally the case would have to fit into a Secretlabs PC mount for my desk (https://secretlab.co.uk/products/premium-pc-mount). Would like a black/red theme in line with current!

Here's my current one:

Corsair Graphite 760T V2 Windowed Full Tower Case - Black
Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion Intel X99 (Socket 2011) DDR4 EATX Motherboard
Intel i7-5930K 3.50GHz (Haswell-E) Socket LGA2011-V3 Processor
Corsair Vengeance 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Black
Blu-ray reader
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070Ti
Super Flower Leadex GOLD 1000W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black
Seagate 4TB 5900RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM
Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD
PciE SSD 2TB
Corsair Hydro H110i GT 280mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler


Oh, I should add I have 2 ROG Strix XG32UQ, intending to game at 4k.

Cheers :)
 
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Is gaming the only thing you use the system for, or do you use it for work related tasks also? If so, which exactly?

If purely for gaming:

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £4,411.98 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

I tried to spec a parts list, OCUK will actually do custom builds if you tell them what you want for a fee. Even going for the some of the cheapest (quality) options, it was still coming to £4200-4300, after the build fee it'd end up more expensive than the above and probably take longer to arrive.

The case it uses is the Phanteks Eclipse G400A, so measure that up against your mount, if it wont fit give OCUK a ring as they might be able to swap the case to something that would.
 
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Gray2233 said:
Is gaming the only thing you use the system for, or do you use it for work related tasks also? If so, which exactly?

If purely for gaming:

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £4,411.98 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

I tried to spec a parts list, OCUK will actually do custom builds if you tell them what you want for a fee. Even going for the some of the cheapest (quality) options, it was still coming to £4200-4300, after the build fee it'd end up more expensive than the above and probably take longer to arrive.

The case it uses is the Phanteks Eclipse G400A, so measure that up against your mount, if it wont fit give OCUK a ring as they might be able to swap the case to something that would.
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Thank you - I did end up doing a custom build too but having both 5090 and the 9950X3D only seemed available in a custom rig starting at 7k :/
Do you know if there's much of a difference between the 9800X3D and 9950X3D? I have tried to do a "one and done" approach for rigs, in that aiming to futureproof them so usually just look at spending a big "one off" which hopefully can last me another 10 years.

Yes, solely for gaming really - I have some free time from work currently and may try to do some streaming but can't imagine that would need anything "heavy" adding on to do so.

Appreciate your help!
 
Wataman said:
Thank you - I did end up doing a custom build too but having both 5090 and the 9950X3D only seemed available in a custom rig starting at 7k :/
Do you know if there's much of a difference between the 9800X3D and 9950X3D? I have tried to do a "one and done" approach for rigs, in that aiming to futureproof them so usually just look at spending a big "one off" which hopefully can last me another 10 years.

Yes, solely for gaming really - I have some free time from work currently and may try to do some streaming but can't imagine that would need anything "heavy" adding on to do so.

Appreciate your help!
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For gaming there's absolutely no difference between the two, the number of games that can utilise a higher core count than the 9800X3D are probably less than 1% and extremely niche.

In fact, there's a chance the 9950X3D might make things worse, it's a dual CCD chip, meaning you have 2x8 cores split over two modules. Only half of those on one module have the extra L3 cache which is what makes the X3D CPU's so competent with games, while rare it can lead to problems with a game running on the correct cores.

By the time games might more heavily utilise more cores (if they ever do) you're probably looking at the CPU being out of date anyway, the 9800X3D is an 8c16t processor and it's not like in the 2010's where X99 made more sense due to Intel being glued to nothing but quad cores for consumer platforms.

You also need to consider that at 4K resolution, the GPU is more often than not the deciding factor for performance and the overall bottleneck, your processor gets used a lot less outside of a handful of CPU heavy games (Strategy/city builders, MMO's and a few more fall into this category).
 
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If I was spending this kind of money on a gaming PC, I would hold out and see if AMD releases the 9950X3D2, but the best time to buy is when Nvidia releases a new flagship card. At the moment the 5000 cards are long overdue a refresh, had suffered prices hikes and the 6000 series is on the horizon.
 
jigger said:
If I was spending this kind of money on a gaming PC, I would hold out and see if AMD releases the 9950X3D2, but the best time to buy is when Nvidia releases a new flagship card. At the moment the 5000 cards are long overdue a refresh, had suffered prices hikes and the 6000 series is on the horizon.
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Is the 6000 series really on the horizon? Everything I've seen suggests 2028/9, and I don't think I've got much chance of my PC lasting that long with current gen AAA's.
I was thinking of holding out for the new CPU as you've said though, I can cope without Crimson Desert for a while as other things run (albeit not amazingly) still :)
Appreciate both your inputs!
 
jigger said:
If I was spending this kind of money on a gaming PC, I would hold out and see if AMD releases the 9950X3D2, but the best time to buy is when Nvidia releases a new flagship card. At the moment the 5000 cards are long overdue a refresh, had suffered prices hikes and the 6000 series is on the horizon.
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I think Jigger is saying best to wait until the moment rather than this being that moment.
I'd also disagree with the point as 4000 series prices actually increased when the 5000 was released as it got a lot of people thinking about new GPUs and their availability was poor.
 
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Wataman said:
Is the 6000 series really on the horizon? Everything I've seen suggests 2028/9, and I don't think I've got much chance of my PC lasting that long with current gen AAA's.
I was thinking of holding out for the new CPU as you've said though, I can cope without Crimson Desert for a while as other things run (albeit not amazingly) still :)
Appreciate both your inputs!
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Nope. If anything I'd say it's probably been pushed back in house, I can't see it happening anytime soon.
 
Wataman said:
Is the 6000 series really on the horizon? Everything I've seen suggests 2028/9, and I don't think I've got much chance of my PC lasting that long with current gen AAA's.
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From what I've seen, rumours are that they'd probably rather not release anything new ever. Been hearing about new delays almost weekly since the crunch. But, with nvidia, who knows.

Wataman said:
and I don't think I've got much chance of my PC lasting that long with current gen AAA's.
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Is that CPU overclocked? If you're playing at 4K, something like a 9070 XT is ~£570 at OCUK right now, which TPU's database says is 66% faster and would double your VRAM. Not a bad value stopgap. 5070 Ti would be preferable for DLSS over FSR, but the cheapest I can see is £800 and that's not justified on performance.

If your CPU is not overclocked, it will chug pretty bad on some of the newer games, so the new card may not help as much, even at 4K.
 
Tetras said:
From what I've seen, rumours are that they'd probably rather not release anything new ever. Been hearing about new delays almost weekly since the crunch. But, with nvidia, who knows.


Is that CPU overclocked? If you're playing at 4K, something like a 9070 XT is ~£570 at OCUK right now, which TPU's database says is 66% faster and would double your VRAM. Not a bad value stopgap. 5070 Ti would be preferable for DLSS over FSR, but the cheapest I can see is £800 and that's not justified on performance.

If your CPU is not overclocked, it will chug pretty bad on some of the newer games, so the new card may not help as much, even at 4K.
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Yeah that's what I think I'm seeing, the move to the 3070ti was out of necessity since the 980's both died very close to each other - but it does feel like the CPU is causing a bit of a bottleneck. I'm comfortable playing things not on highest settings as long as they don't look just like a smudge across the screen - Crimson Desert is the first which just absolutely tanked the system into unplayable-ness.

Would thr 9070 XT work on my motherboard? Might be a good shout to just look at upgrading that and seeing how the PC gets on for the time being - though it's been a fair while since I touched a CPU swap out so I'd be nervous haha.

The fact that no GPUs seem on the horizon does tilt me more towards just slinging in for a prebuild still and just cracking on!

Thanks again everyone for the comments and help - just wanted to add that it's much appreciated.
 
Wataman said:
Would thr 9070 XT work on my motherboard? Might be a good shout to just look at upgrading that and seeing how the PC gets on for the time being - though it's been a fair while since I touched a CPU swap out so I'd be nervous haha.
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In theory, it should work fine, but compatibility with old boards can be hit and miss because they're unlikely to be testing them thoroughly.

A stopgap CPU/board to push you into playability would also be tricky right now, with the super high RAM prices. If you kept what you have, then you'd only have Intel 12th-14th gen and AMD AM4. Both of those are effectively dead sockets (bartlett lake is a maybe, though they're OEM and dubious compatibility with consumer boards). AM4 CPUs (at least, the best ones) are also in very high demand.

12600K was going for around £125 not long ago (used). Could also check out similar performing CPUs (or better) like 13400, 14400, 14500. The 13th-14th gen -K CPUs are potentially degraded so I'd be very wary of buying used ones.

On the AMD side, paying e.g. £200 for a 5700X/5800X is just nuts to me (they've gone up in price so much). There's no way I'd be doing that. If you can get a regular 5600 model (not -G or -GT) for close to £100, that's much better value.

Something to be wary of going from a HEDT board, PCI-E lanes/expansion is more restricted and likely less SATA ports.

I guess you could go with either/or, pick up a new CPU/motherboard and see if it helps, OR get a 9070 XT/5070 Ti.

If you went the full rebuild with a 9800X3D and DDR5, that's going to cost you, so that's a serious investment rather than stopgap money.
 
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Nvidia is shipping Rubin parts in the next quarter to data centres and the Blackwell SMB products are lack lustre. The desktop cards can’t be far off now.
 
jigger said:
Nvidia is shipping Rubin parts in the next quarter to data centres and the Blackwell SMB products are lack lustre. The desktop cards can’t be far off now.
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When can you see 60 series cards launching?

The fact the 50 supers didn’t show doesn’t make me think the 60’s will be here anytime soon.

If I was betting on it I’d say late 2027 for flagships and early 2028 for the whole range.
 
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ChocAndGray said:
When can you see 60 series cards launching?

The fact the 50 supers didn’t show doesn’t make think the 60’s will be here anytime soon.

If I was betting on it I’d say late 2027 for flagships and early 2028 for the whole range.
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Rubin is shipping within a quarter, it’s here already. The desktop refresh is long overdue and those parts have been used to flesh out WS/LiteDC stack. The Blackwell desktop line up is left incomplete and very power hungry.
 
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