Base build - £800-£1000

[white43]

Hi All,

I want to get back into PC gaming. I haven't built or upgraded in about 5/6 years! So I don't have a PC now (just work laptop). Been out of the loop for years, so no idea what's hot or not now.

- I already have widescreen 1080p monitors, mouse and keyboard.
- Already have access to Windows 10 license.
- Not precious about the processor - I just want something that will give me the best bang for my buck.
- I do want to play Half Life: Alyx - so something that will support VR gaming?
- Not precious about how it looks either, it's the internals and performance that matter to me.

I've put up to £1000, I'd rather not spend that much, but at the same time I don't want to miss any deals.

Any help/guidance would be most appreciated!

Cheers

 

[white43]

Hey @Sparkx!

Are people using separate HDDs (non-SSD) these day for storage of games, or just completely running from the SSD?

Here's an mATX build idea, for something on the chunk lower than £1k bracket that would run very nicely for 1080p

Alternatively if you think you may upgrade to 1440p in the future, or start playing heavier game titles - then might want to consider the 5700 XT for an extra £160, which would push you just over the £1k limit. But the 1660S is fantastic GPU for 1080p gaming though to get you back into the swing of things.

PSU stock is practically non-existent, this is the first of what's 'good' left in stock with OcUK atm. The 550w version is only £10 less, so thought may as well go 650w to future proof for anything beefier you may upgrade to (usually the GPU).

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £188.99
• 1 x Crucial P1 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £104.99
• 1 x Super Flower Leadex III ARGB 650W 80 PLUS Gold Modular Power Supply - Black= £114.95
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS416G360C7K)= £74.99
• 1 x Gigabyte B550M AORUS ELITE (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard= £109.99
• 1 x Thermaltake S100 Micro-ATX Tower Case - Black Tempered Glass= £44.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER OC 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £239.99

Total: £878.89 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

 

[white43]

SSD pricing has come down a lot over the last year or two. More people are going solely with SSD drives and binning HDDs of completely. Or going the extra step and solely using NVMe drives only (like me ). Using NVMe removes the need for SATA+PSU cables, keeping builds very neat. NVMes are also a lot faster than SATA SSDs, but in the real world gaming-wise you prob wouldn't notice that element.

If you need loads of storage for downloads, videos, torrents, etc then grab yourself a HDD too. But personally I wouldn't bother gaming on one these days, I'd go pure NVMe/SSD.

Thanks for your help - really appreciate that

 

[white43]

@white43
yeah, would def look for 550w/650w for better pricing. shouldnt take too loong for PSU manufacturing to get back on top.

ELITE is a good cheap board, better then most b450 and keep to b450 pricing range . Pro version is about £130 - basically adds doublers to the VRM

top end- dropped to a b-grade msi b450 for this

AMD version- have the edge in non VR gaming

Thanks for the advise mate.

Are the B grade boards OK? Not missing anything?

You mention AMD have the edge in non VR gaming - So if I want to - and I wanna play Half Life: Alyx, are these builds gonna be ok for that?

 

[white43]

edge in price bracket . Normally 5700XT performs better then 2070 non super for non VR but in VR 2070 matches it. 2070S beats it

what headset are you using for Alyx ?

Sorry for the delay - couldn't seem to get my new email address verified!

I hadn't even thought about a headset. Given limited budget it'll probably wind up being a Windows Mixed Reality

 

[white43]

@orbitalwalsh @Sparx
How about this ?

As I think I'll be playing mostly nonVR, I went for the 5700XT as I'll be more likely to play 1400p. The other parts were selected as they are in stock. It's blown over my £1000 limit, but I've taken best parts (I think) from each configuration.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x CoolerMaster MasterBox Q300L Micro-ATX Case - Black Window= £44.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £188.99
• 1 x **B Grade** MSI B450M Mortar (Socket AM4) DDR4 mATX Motherboard= £70.00
• 1 x Gigabyte Radeon RX 5700 XT Gaming OC 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £419.99
• 1 x be quiet! Pure Power 11 700W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply= £89.99
• 1 x Crucial P1 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £104.99
• 2 x Team Group Vulcan TUF Gaming Alliance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C19 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Blac= £70.99

Total: £1,074.13 (includes shipping: £13.20)
​

 

[white43]

higher the resolution, the more GPU power you;d need etc. and then if they have high Hz rate. to be honest want your fps as high as you can get it to combat if you get motion sickness easily

Hey mate - given that a majority of my games will be 1080p, will I be better off with a 5700XT or a 2060 Super? They're about the same price.

I was going to go with a 5700XT - but someone has flagged that apparently they ship defective and many users are having issues with them?