£1200 intel/nvidia build advice

[Journey]

Purchase Timeframe: Next few weeks

Budget: £1200

Usage: Mainly gaming

Preferences: Intel CPU, Nvidia GPU, due to compatibility with renderers, AI tools, reliability and quality of drivers/software.

15 years... a lot has changed in 15 years. Mainly gaming and Intel do not go in the same sentence in 2025/24.

I also have 2 Samsung 850 EVO SATA drives and 2 IDE drives for storage.

Replace, replace, replace.

What sort of rendering are you doing that you mention and how frequently? If gaming is your main focus then changing the system platform to support something you don't do as a job/infrequently seems like a bad choice.

My choice would be cheap 7700X on a B650, 32GB C30 6000MT/s RAM, an RX 5070 XT, a decent PSU and however much storage space you need.

 

[jigger]

That's not in the same price bracket though. c£75 more.

It’s more than worth every penny tho.

I would keep the PSU as it should be fine. The case will either need modification or changing to deal with the increased heat load which will be pretty significant.

May advise would be to avoid Intel like the plague, take great care with the Nvidia 12vHP connector and use a case that resembles a wind tunnel.

 

[gunnytron]

Is there much point in having 2 M.2 drives? Maybe one for having the OS and one for games, then using standard sdd drives for storage?

 

[Craig_d1]

That's not in the same price bracket though. c£75 more.

i have a 7800x3d and a 9800x3d..unless you're putting a 5090 in there, I can't tell the difference between the 2. admittedly I'm playing 4k upscale, but I'm using a 9070xt, and at 1080p, both cpu's will be more than capable. Seeing as you want to play at 1080, then x3d is the way to go, and seeing as you're not looking at a gpu too high up the stack, I'd eith go 7600x3d new or get a used 7800x3d (for a guide bought a 2nd 7800x3d for my other son for £250, which is slightly less than a 7600x3d i bought for one of his friends, which he wanted new)...I'd pair with a 9070 personally which will give you a 41% uplift over a 5060ti 16gb in raster performance. in ray tracing a 9070 beats a 5070 according to Tom's hardware...techspot had it winning against some title, loosing on others but av was same..either way, ray tracing is no longer a no brainer going nvidia...you have to see which games you want to play
I switched to amd from nvidia for 1st time with my 9070xt...I've had no issues with it so far..in fact it's behaving better than my 3070ti i was using previously
actuallu just reread thread and it was,'t you that said they were going to game 1080(as far as just saw)..don't think it changes my thoughts though

 

[Craig_d1]

Is there much point in having 2 M.2 drives? Maybe one for having the OS and one for games, then using standard sdd drives for storage?

my current build i have 2 m.2's 2tb for my main drive and os..use for work etc
2nd drive is a 4tb which i've put all my games on...steam, ea, ubisolft, xbox etc...all on there...nice thing is next upgrade, i'll just take it out and put n new pc, though tbh, that wont be for a long while

 

[gunnytron]

Going with most peoples advice here, here is my new cart. Blown the budget due to a new case, PSU and needing new storage.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Crucial T500 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-01089) = £77.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £349.99
• 1 x Phanteks AMP GH 750W 80PLUS Gold ATX Power Supply Modular - Black (SKU: POW-PHK-02517) = £84.95
• 1 x TeamGroup Vulcan EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C38 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLABD532G6000HC38ADC01) (SKU: MY-0B2-TG) = £79.99
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £149.99
• 1 x Fractal Design North Charcoal Black Mesh Mid Tower Case - Black (SKU: CA-0AU-FD) = £139.99
• 1 x PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 Reaper 16GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-PWC-04020) = £499.99
• 1 x Samsung 2TB 870 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 64 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-77E2T0B/EU) (SKU: HD-24H-SA) = £159.95

Total: £1,542.84 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[Tetras]

Is there much point in having 2 M.2 drives? Maybe one for having the OS and one for games, then using standard sdd drives for storage?

I wouldn't, because M.2 slots are rarely plentiful, you get 3 in most boards, 4 if you're lucky, but some only have 2!

Best to fill them with at least 2TB drives, especially since the advent of tech like DirectStorage, which could be a problem for future gaming if you don't have it (SATA drives don't support it).

It's kind of a nice to have I guess. I am in motion graphics and I have a work Mac for that, but it's nice to be able to follow tutorials and experiment on my personal pc. For AI I will probably have to pay for a remote service anyway as having it local requires a beast of a machine from what I gather.

Hmm, alright, I guess you don't need to prioritise it then.

 

[gunnytron]

I wouldn't, because M.2 slots are rarely plentiful, you get 3 in most boards, 4 if you're lucky, but some only have 2!

Best to fill them with at least 2TB drives, especially since the advent of tech like DirectStorage, which could be a problem for future gaming if you don't have it (SATA drives don't support it).


Hmm, alright, I guess you don't need to prioritise it then.

Sorry, I am a bit confused by your reply. Are you saying to not use all the m.2 slots?

 

[Tetras]

Sorry, I am a bit confused by your reply. Are you saying to not use all the m.2 slots?

I just mean: since you only get a few slots, don't fill them with small drives.

 

[Craig_d1]

Going with most peoples advice here, here is my new cart. Blown the budget due to a new case, PSU and needing new storage.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Crucial T500 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-CRU-01089) = £77.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £349.99
• 1 x Phanteks AMP GH 750W 80PLUS Gold ATX Power Supply Modular - Black (SKU: POW-PHK-02517) = £84.95
• 1 x TeamGroup Vulcan EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C38 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLABD532G6000HC38ADC01) (SKU: MY-0B2-TG) = £79.99
• 1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £149.99
• 1 x Fractal Design North Charcoal Black Mesh Mid Tower Case - Black (SKU: CA-0AU-FD) = £139.99
• 1 x PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 Reaper 16GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-PWC-04020) = £499.99
• 1 x Samsung 2TB 870 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 64 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-77E2T0B/EU) (SKU: HD-24H-SA) = £159.95

Total: £1,542.84 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

whats the 2tb sata drive for? it's more expensive that a far faster 2tb m.2
tuf board is only pcie4...although you're not using pcie5, it does have benefits...one come upgrade time, the pcie5 board might be usefull as components may all be pcie5 (as standard rather than more expensive purchase), but also HU found that where gpu's ran out of vram, they'd transfer some of the load onto the pc ram, and there the faster pcie5 actually makes a difference...that and you can get a b850 with pcie5 for similar price(gigabyte b850 eagle is same price...though may not look as nice as the tuf board...that's £190 for the b850 tuf) or even something like the asus b650e-f is £175 with pcie 5 gpu and primary m.2 slot, or b850 aorus elite wifi7 for £189.99 will be a nice board for your build...the 9070 also uses the pcie5 interface
Also have a look around...you can buy a 2tb crucial T500 for £123 away from ocuk at mo...no idea what they're doing with their prices at mo, but their m.2 tb drives seem to have jumped £20 recently

 

[gunnytron]

the 2TB sata drive is for storage. All my photos, music and general rubbish I have collected over the years. Made sense to me as they are more reliable than m.2 (from what I can gather).

That's a good point about pcie5, I had overlooked that so will take a look at the ones you suggested.

Apart from the case, I don't care about looks. RGB doesn't interest me in the slightest.

 

[Journey]

the 2TB sata drive is for storage. All my photos, music and general rubbish I have collected over the years. Made sense to me as they are more reliable than m.2 (from what I can gather).

No, they are no worse at all.

 

[Tetras]

the 2TB sata drive is for storage. All my photos, music and general rubbish I have collected over the years. Made sense to me as they are more reliable than m.2 (from what I can gather).

For general use it is not a big deal to use SATA drives, but you can buy a 2TB PCI-E 5.0 drive for that money, so it ain't great value.

I'd buy a 4TB T500 for similar money to your two drives combined.

 

[gunnytron]

My HD strategy has always been to have the OS on one (doesn't need to be too large) then have another drive, one or more, for everything else, in case of failure/virus. To me it makes no sense to have an overly big primary drive if I have my other games/data split over other drives.

That aside, is the preferred setup now to have all data held on m.2 drive/drives and not bother with sata?

Is partitioning still a common strategy?

 

[Journey]

Is partitioning still a common strategy?

I have a 2TB main M.2 disk with a 400GB OS partition the remaining is non-important things, e.g. Game installs. I have a second M.2 disk that is used for everything else, scratch disk, VHDX storage, again nothing important. I have a 3rd M.2 disk for actual data, which is backed up locally to NAS and the really important stuff is also cloud backed up, and I have an static tunnel to another Synology at another premises that copies the same important data.

 

[Craig_d1]

My HD strategy has always been to have the OS on one (doesn't need to be too large) then have another drive, one or more, for everything else, in case of failure/virus. To me it makes no sense to have an overly big primary drive if I have my other games/data split over other drives.

That aside, is the preferred setup now to have all data held on m.2 drive/drives and not bother with sata?

Is partitioning still a common strategy?

I didn't bother though don't see any reason you can't partition.
Also reason going for bigger drive, smaller drives have lower endurance and worse performance. at mo best proce/performance is a 2tb drive and above..if you think a 1tb is £70-£80 for fastest drive, the 2tb version is about £120-125...though I have a lexar nm790 as my 4tb games drive which i got for just under £200 (and available for £216 at mo, though see t500 is £240 so same price per gb as 2tb --£60 per tb so they've really dropped in price...), as it's mainly for reading from I didn't need best of the best of the best (use a sn850x as primary)..it still has a 7400mb/s read speed which is about as fast as you can go with a 5yrs warranty and 3000tbw endurance...with that sort of endurance, guess I'll still be using it 10yrs+ from now
as for whether m.2 is better than sata or vica versa, think it's more to do with the ssd itself..ie tlc will be better than a qlc drive..check endurance rating and warranties..the cheaper drives have really poor endurance rating (ie average amount of data it can write too before it tends to fail)

 

[Gray2233]

I have a 2TB main M.2 disk with a 400GB OS partition the remaining is non-important things, e.g. Game installs. I have a second M.2 disk that is used for everything else, scratch disk, VHDX storage, again nothing important. I have a 3rd M.2 disk for actual data, which is backed up locally to NAS and the really important stuff is also cloud backed up, and I have an static tunnel to another Synology at another premises that copies the same important data.

This is what I've been doing for years, one big drive with partitions for various means, a secondary drive for backups of important data and extra storage.

The 4tb T500 is actually decently priced at the moment too if you can fit it in, maybe buy a cheaper 1TB drive for copies of anything important, the Teamgroup MP44 isn't bad for that at £50 and even if you decide you want a bigger NvME in the slot you can pop the drive into a USB/External enclosure for £10-20.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Team Group MP44L 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-TMG-03128) = £49.99

Total: £53.99 (includes delivery: £3.99)​

 

[Tetras]

That aside, is the preferred setup now to have all data held on m.2 drive/drives and not bother with sata?

Yeah, I'd say so, but a single 2TB M.2 drive is enough for most gaming PCs and 1TB enough for most desktops, so it is likely a power user would need multiple drives, if that be SATA or M.2.

My suggestion of the 4TB T500 was mainly from the perspective of cost per GB, since you're getting an extra 1TB from your spec, for nearly the same cost.