Looking for advice on upgrading gaming setup

danbywinby

danbywinby

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Hi All

I am looking for some advice on how best to upgrade my gaming setup.

Currently my setup is a laptop with a second monitor that i switch to when playing games with my steering wheel and pedals.

I am not 100% sure how i want to upgrade my setup because i don't really want to spend lots and lots of money however i've already worked out that to upgrade to a decent gaming desktop will be at least high 100s most likely £1,000.

I don't want to get rid of my laptop as there isn't anything wrong with it and it was expensive so however i decide to upgrade i still want my laptop to be a part of the setup.

In terms of the games that i play i play mostly simulation games (Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator, Cities Skylines etc.) so i don't need a computer that will handle fast-paced first person shooters or anything like that.

The reason why i am looking to upgrade is because recently i've moved in with my partner and so have gone from having a small desk that can only just fit my laptop and steering wheel on to a massive desk which has allowed me to add a second monitor and so now i want to be able to play my games in high graphics and high detail settings so that i can make the most of being able to play on an actual monitor as opposed to a laptop screen.

Any advice will be great.

Thank You
 

ExRayTed

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I think he's asking for ideas on a pc to play those games. @danbywinby We'd need the resolution of the monitor you have and whether you want to keep it or not? Also an idea of an upper budget would be helpful as I'm sure you know, gaming setups can be ruinously expensive.

I'm not sure how he can keep his laptop as part of his gaming setup however but then I don't play those games.
 

danbywinby

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tl; dr version:

What would be the best desktop for me to upgrade to for playing simulation games (Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator, Cities Skylines) that as well as being great to play those games at high detail settings is also not too expensive. About £1,000 is what i'm aiming for but obviously a little less would be better and i might be willing to stretch to a little over?

Monitor size i'm looking at 24 inch which i believe resolution wise would be 1920 x 1080.
 

pastymuncher

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ETS2 and ATS can be played with all settings set to maximum at 2560x1440 on my pc (specs in siggy) . They are mostly single threaded so cpu speed is important. Cities Skylines on the other hand will use up as many cores as you can throw at it. If I was building a pc now I would be going with a Ryzen 3600/3600x or 3700x coupled with a decent B450 or X570 motherboard and some decent memory around 3600mhz C16. On the gpu side I would be looking at a 5700XT linked to a good Freesync 27-32" 1440p monitor. I wouldn't bother with 4K as you would need a beast of a gpu to power it to get decent framerates.
 

danbywinby

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It is a big desk but it's a corner desk not a standard straight desk so i'm looking at a 24 inch so that i can still have it split into two 'sections' one with monitor, steering wheel and pedals and then the other either another monitor or my laptop.

I would prefer prebuild.
 

orbitalwalsh

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if your laptop has thunderbolt port then use that with egpu :)

racing sims- ultra wide! RTS then big screen and 1440p if you can .

if you can build yourself. Intel has lead with 1080p and sim games that uses 1-2 cores

My basket at Overclockers UK:
 

danbywinby

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Unfortunately no my laptop does not have a thunderbolt port.

Thank you for those recommendations you have reminded me of a few things i may have forgotten to consider before like the ports on the graphics card and the ports on the monitor (need to make sure they are compatible especially if i want to have a dual monitor setup).

Also i'm surprised to see you recommending an AMD processor as in the past i have been told that they aren't the greatest for gaming also im happy to see you recommending an I5 i was thinking i would have to go I7 which is very expensive.
 

orbitalwalsh

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danbywinby said:
Unfortunately no my laptop does not have a thunderbolt port.

Thank you for those recommendations you have reminded me of a few things i may have forgotten to consider before like the ports on the graphics card and the ports on the monitor (need to make sure they are compatible especially if i want to have a dual monitor setup).

Also i'm surprised to see you recommending an AMD processor as in the past i have been told that they aren't the greatest for gaming also im happy to see you recommending an I5 i was thinking i would have to go I7 which is very expensive.
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ryzen ZEN2 is a different animal. and at 1440p gaming is DAMN GOOD, along with its pricing - not the x570 boards though

i5 is NOW 6 cores 6 threads. MOST gaming its fine - hope is though with consoles being 8 core Ryzen 3700 next year developers will code for more cores, but reality is the Console games are ported over POORLY . 90% of games on Steam still based on 2 cores , modern AAA titles recommend 4 cores and 8 thread older i7's .

either way, will be good . everything has its strengths and weaknesses
 

danbywinby

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Apparently that CUP cooler is no longer available can you please recommend another or is it something I don't really need seen as your AMD choice doesn't have it?
 

pastymuncher

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The AMD build doesn't have it because Ryzen already comes with a very good cooler. The AMD Ryzen build will last you much longer than the Intel build and isn't riddled with security flaws like the Intel cpu's. They keep releasing "fixes" for some of the Intel security issues but a lot of them decrease performance as well. I should have been patient back in November last year and waited for Ryzen 3000 series to launch instead of going Intel with a 9600k and Z390 board which gave me very little extra over my old [email protected].
 

orbitalwalsh

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pastymuncher said:
The AMD build doesn't have it because Ryzen already comes with a very good cooler. The AMD Ryzen build will last you much longer than the Intel build and isn't riddled with security flaws like the Intel cpu's. They keep releasing "fixes" for some of the Intel security issues but a lot of them decrease performance as well. I should have been patient back in November last year and waited for Ryzen 3000 series to launch instead of going Intel with a 9600k and Z390 board which gave me very little extra over my old [email protected].
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haven't seen any performance hit with gaming ... in work are clients like one of the worlds largest Producers in oil have though with data processing . work we'll be switching to AMD for servers but PCs still will be intel based
 

danbywinby

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I have decided that I am going to go ahead with the AMD build that you have suggested. However I would like to have two hard drives one standard and one solid state. Also seen as this is going to be a build from scratch on guessing that I will also need to purchase a Windows 10 disc and so also a disc drive. Will that case and all the other components you have suggested support all that as well?
 

orbitalwalsh

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danbywinby said:
I have decided that I am going to go ahead with the AMD build that you have suggested. However I would like to have two hard drives one standard and one solid state. Also seen as this is going to be a build from scratch on guessing that I will also need to purchase a Windows 10 disc and so also a disc drive. Will that case and all the other components you have suggested support all that as well?
Click to expand...

recheck prices as some parts might not be on sale etc


tamzzy said:
can get a grey key for £5-15 quid
don't need a disc to install

usb media installation: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10
Click to expand...

watch out for getting a slapped wrist ! lol
 
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