£1500 gaming rig for a friend

[Megahurtz400]

Hey all,

Friend is wanting to upgrade from his Alienware laptop to a desktop, has a max of £1500 to play with but would only want to top out the budget if it's really worth the extra.

This is what I have so far:

• Gone for the Phanteks case as i'll be building it, and am a massive fan of Phanteks cases and the build quality.
• Gone for an AIO as when I got my 2700x everyone said the standard air cooler would suffice, which I suppose it did but I didn't have to turn the heating on in the house!
• Anywhere else where I can save some pennies, or get something better bang for buck for a bit more?
  
  Cheers

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £299.99
• 1 x MSI B450M Mortar MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 mATX Motherboard= £84.95
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS432G320C6K)= £119.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER WindForce OC 3X 8G 8192MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £479.99
• 1 x WD Blue SN550 1TB NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T2B0C)= £124.99
• 1 x EVGA Supernova P2 650W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply= £99.95
• 1 x Phanteks Enthoo Evolv Micro-ATX Glass Case - Black= £119.99
• 1 x Corsair Hydro Series H100x Performance Liquid CPU Cooler - 240mm (CW-9060040-WW)= £79.99

Total: £1,424.54 (includes shipping: £14.70)​

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[Megahurtz400]

Hey,

The Ryzen 7 3700X is a 65 W processor and unless they would like to heavily overclock it, water cooling is overkill.
32 GB of RAM for gaming is also an overkill.

RTX 2070 S is heavily overpriced, you can order the new RX 5600 XT that will be within 25-30% for half the price.

Why not 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X with a new board X570?

Cheers for the reply!

Haven't kept up to date with what's going on properly since my build in early 2019, probably won't be overclocking it, so could you recommend an air cooler?

How does the 5600XT compare to the 2070S?

In the same vein, can you recommend an MATX x570 board?

He's looking for a machine which will be a build and forget build for the next 5 years or so if this helps

 

[Megahurtz400]

This is the best value 2070 super though as a downside it does only come with a 2 year warranty but has a lot of positive reviews on ocuk.

What rez and hz is your friends monitor?

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER EX 1CLICK-OC 8192MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £435.00

Total: £444.90 (includes shipping: £9.90)




If it's just for gaming an not planning to overclock then the stock cooler is fine.

No need for an x570 unless he wants / needs pcie4 ssd.
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1080p 144hz, but think he'll upgrade to 1440p at somepoint in the next few years once he settles down after uni.

In the next 5 years, PCIe 4 for sure will come handy, even if today it looks a little bit far fetched.

Great point!

 

[Megahurtz400]

Thoughts?

Missing an SSD as I think he may have a 1TB NVME in his laptop

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Twelve Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £449.99
• 1 x Asrock X570M Pro4 (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset mATX Motherboard= £179.99
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS432G320C6K)= £119.99
• 1 x EVGA Supernova P2 650W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply= £99.95
• 1 x Arctic Freezer 13 CO CPU Cooler - 92mm= £31.99
• 1 x Fractal Design Meshify C Mini Dark TG Micro-ATX Case - Black= £79.99
• 1 x KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER EX 1CLICK-OC 8192MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £435.00

Total: £1,410.10 (includes shipping: £13.20)
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[Megahurtz400]

I think this is really good

Slight change of plan, is there an ATX mobo you'd recommend over the asrock MATX?

 

[Megahurtz400]

@lee32uk cheers for the spec!

Would it be worth going further up that £1500 budget to get a good 4/5 years of future proofing?

 

[Megahurtz400]

You could stick a 3700X in there instead if you don't want the hassle of removing/reinstalling the cooler, but the R5 3600 is definitely the 'value' option. And don't forget there is still the 4000 series to come later this year so 3000 prices will drop at some stage.

As for the gpu then unless you are wanting 1440p at the highest possible frame rates then the 5700XT is more than fine. Easy to upgrade the gpu.

So asked the question and he'll be wanting to upgrade to 1440/144hz at some point in the next year or so, how would you change the spec to account for this?

cheers for all the help guys!

 

[Megahurtz400]

Right, feedback sent to mate,

• He wants to go for a 2070 as he'll be getting a 1440p 144h monitor in the near future.
• Wants 2 x m2 slots on the mobo.

With this in mind, have put together the follow, is the PSU beefy enough and are there any other compatibility issues? Also, any other recommendations for fans? Not after RGB blingness.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £289.99
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS416G360C7K)= £74.99
• 1 x Phanteks AMP 550W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply= £86.99
• 1 x Corsair Force MP510 series 960GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F960GBMP510)= £139.99
• 1 x Alpenfohn Brocken ECO Advanced CPU Cooler - 120 mm= £29.99
• 1 x Fractal Design Meshify C Blackout Midi Tower Case - Black Light Tempered Glass= £89.99
• 1 x ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £119.99
• 1 x KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER EX 1CLICK-OC 8192MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £435.00
• 4 x Arctic Cooling F14 Silent Case Fan - 140mm= £5.99

Total: £1,304.09 (includes shipping: £13.20)
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