1st build, looking for feedback

nicholas mason

nicholas mason

nicholas mason

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2 Aug 2020
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Hey all,

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this. Ive put together a parts list for my first PC build. Im looking for it to be VR ready but keeping it under £1000. If there are any recommendations for changes or general feedback id greatly appreciate it. I think all the parts are compatible.

Case - Corsair Carbide Series 275R Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX Gaming Case - White - £77.99
Motherboard - ASUS ROG STRIX B360-G Gaming Intel mATX Motherboard - £109.99
Processor - Intel CORE I5-9600K 3.7 GHZ SKT1151 9MB CACHE BOXED - £190.87
Graphics - Gigabyte Aorus GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G - £199.98
Cooling - Corsair Hydro 115i RGB Platinum, Hydro Series, 280 mm Radiator - £139.99
Memory - Corsair CMK32GX4M2D3000C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 16 GB) - £122.99
SSD - SanDisk SSD PLUS 240 GB Sata III 2.5 Inch Internal SSD - £38.00
HDD - Seagate 2 TB BarraCuda 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive - £60.38
Power - EVGA 500 W1, 80+ WHITE 500W - £51.00

Total - £991.19
 
Intel's not great value for money, AMD represents much better value and is upgradeable, whereas Intel isn't.

Also seems a waste to put a £140 AIO cooler in when you could put that money towards a better GPU/NVMe for overall better performance. You could also go for a single 1TB NVMe SSD drive with that storage total cost. 32GB RAM is overkill and not needed for a gaming/VR system either.

This is what I would go for to make the most of your money and better gaming performance...

Based on a Ryzen 3600, 16GB RAM, 1660 Super, 1TB NVMe SSD, modular PSU with 10yr warranty, mesh case with 4 fans (although can pick any ATX case you like) and a brilliant performing CPU cooler.

Edit: You could even go for a B450 mATX mobo and get a Nvidia 2060 GPU in there instead for even better gaming performance. See my 2nd basket suggestion further below... I think I would probably go for this personally.

Edit2: Could get a cheaper case (but prob less fans/airflow), £10 cheaper RAM, £10-15 cheaper 550w PSU and £5 off the cooler maybe if really wanted to trim costs down. But all in all, these are good quality parts for the system.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £953.80 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £988.76 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​
 
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Brilliant, thank you very much for the feedback.

What would be the difference between the 2 builds performance wise? Is it worth dropping the price on the others for the better graphics card? Id assume that would future proof it more and be cheaper to upgrade in the long run?
 
The 2nd build has the Nvidia 2060 GPU, which is about 20-30% faster (varies by game) than the 1660 Super in my 1st spec (and the 1660S is about 10% faster than the 1660 you spec'd). So would help with the longevity of the system for sure.

I edited my post again (just to confuse you :D) and tbh you could keep the original parts I lowered, so left them as they are but mobo. So only thing you'd drop is the mobo to the B450 mATX model. Ideally if it was in stock I'd of suggested this Gigabyte B550 mATX board, but it's on pre-order forever. OcUK did say they'd hope to get stock early this month, but the B450 board I suggested has still been promised to support Zen 3 CPUs which is all B550 is going to get anyway. So you're not missing out on anything tbh future-proof wise.

If you wanted to swap the case to a micro-ATX to match the motherboard, you could always swap case to this Kolink Citadel model. But depends if you prefer the Bitfenix ATX one, mATX is bit smaller but fits perfectly in ATX still obviously.

Either way, the 2nd basket with 2060 would serve you very well. You could upgrade the GPU of course whenever you like, the 650w PSU will be more than ample to power anything newer in the future you might want to put in there. Can also upgrade the CPU to a Ryzen 4000 when released if you wished, once MSI release a compatible BIOS for it. But after that neither B450, B550 or X570 mobos will get anymore support for newer CPUs anyway. As AMD will be moving onto a new socket and DDR5 RAM etc at that point in the next year or two.

Edit: If you can squeeze £25 extra and go for the BitFenix ATX case, and want an ATX mobo to match, I'd recommend the MSI B450 Tomahawk Max mobo. Unfortunately not in stock here but you can find it elsewhere in stock for about £120-125.
 
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I went over budget but put in a GPU that will mean not needing to upgrade for a good while.


CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M AORUS ELITE Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC 3X Video Card
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply

Total: ~£1071

You need to add a case to that. If it is too much you could drop the card to a 2060 Super or a better value RX 5700XT
 
@Journey I did wonder how you'd spec a 2070S go in a £1k build... but I just looked and that's £1170 in OcUK basket, or £1215 with a £44 matx case which ofc gonna need - not £1071? Quite a bit over £1k budget lol

PSU bit naff for the price too and 32GB RAM is overkill for gaming rig.
 
@Journey figured it was a PCPP or something, but I was obviously just going of OcUK. Nothing wrong with shopping around ;)

Could get 16GB RAM for £60 to bring it more in line with budget + like you say get a 5700 XT instead to shave another £100 odd.

Mobo not in stock anywhere either though.
 
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