Build for my Dad

Dom TNG

Dom TNG

Dom TNG

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12 Feb 2020
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7
My Dad loves gaming but doesn't know much about computers so I'm going to build something for him. I'm no expert but have built a few systems over the years.

He wants something that will run anything he throws at it while also being fast enough to run VR when he decides on a headset. He has a budget of around £1500 for the PC and £1000 for the monitor although both can be moved around if something is a bit more/less. I don't want him to spend too much so I've specced up the below system after some serious scouring around (mainly here, so thanks already!). I realise that the Aorus 2070 Super is overpriced but he wants the direct USB-C for the virtual-link availability (should it ever come to fruition) and that card gets good reviews being a top of the range 2070 Super. I also know that the 3900x is overkill for gaming and Lightroom use but I know him and he's not going to want to muck around with this ever year or two to keep it top notch. I'm thinking maybe get him a 3700x and we get a 4000 Ryzen in a couple of years, will the rest of the kit stay the same assuming we could do that with the below?

Also, overclocking, RGB and fancy cooling matter none. He has a Fractal Design case (R6 with no window I think) so won't need it to look pretty, just run well. I didn't spec any cooling as the included Wraith prism looks fine, or are we better getting a https://www.overclockers.co.uk/arctic-freezer-34-esports-duo-red-cpu-cooler-2-x-120mm-hs-075-ar.html to keep things cool?


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,844.58 (includes shipping: £11.70)​
​

As for monitors he likes the look of the Alienware AW3420DW but I don't know if it's worth £1100 and think he should get something like https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aoc-...wide-curved-led-gaming-monitor-mo-04t-ao.html as it ticks similar boxes (1440p, 120HZ, 4ms).

I'd appreciate any expert thoughts on the above! Thanks in advance.
 

EsaT

EsaT

EsaT

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Welcome aboard.

Without overclocking 650W PSU will do fine with gaming being the heaviest load.
Few gaming PCs have power draw exeeding 350W and some photoshopping won't be simultaneously maxing both CPU+GPU.
Phanteks Amp is the best priced 10 year warranty PSU.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phanteks-amp-650w-80-plus-gold-modular-power-supply-ca-09q-pt.html

For one time buy 12 core is certainly the longest lasting with enough cores to dedicate exclusive for game even if there's going to be background tasks.
Though 3700X now and then 12 core Zen3 when those go into discount would be the longest usage life giving path from same platform/base hardware.
Aorus Elite is for the price very good motherboard for that with strong VRM and good feature set.

In CPU coolers £43 Scythe Mugen 5 is only step behind the best and good for 12/16 cores.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/scythe-scmg-5100-mugen-5-rev.b-cpu-cooler-hs-046-sy.html

For memory this is £11 cheaper and no doubt has exactly same quality level chips.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...zen-tuned-ddr4-memory-dual-kit-my-4cl-cs.html
Though for bang per buck this £155 Crucial kit with the second best of all for Ryzen Micron rev.E chips would very likely clock to tighter timings.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cruc...b-kit-2-x-16gb-ddr4-3200-udimm-my-20d-cr.html
Those routinely clock to 3600MHz CAS16.

In graphics cards there's no future proofing no matter how much you pay.
NVidia's marketing "forgets" (=purposely neglects) to tell that using marketing feature, raytraching, makes performance of RTX cards crash down with 30-50% framerate loss.
So no sense to pay from any super expensive models with no difference to fact that in about half year they're obsolete as far as high end gaming goes.
And no doubt also next-gen consoles will do raytracing better.

TeamGroup MP34 costs £140
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/teamgroup-mp34-1tb-nvme-pcie-m.2-solid-state-drive-hd-00b-tg.html
Though that £330 total could get one 2TB NVMe drive and 2TB HDD.
Patriot is just short in three year warranty...
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/patr...80-pcie-2tb-ssd-vpn100-2tbm28h-hd-015-pa.html


In monitor just cross over anything which has only G-Sync...
Unless liking the idea of paying extra for Nvidia to attach ball and chain to your ankle, so that you get to pay also future Nvidia overprices in graphics cards to use variable refresh rate.
FreeSync monitors will work with graphics cards of all three GPU makers.
Intel is also joining discrete GPU game and they sure have resources, if they want to compete seriously...

Also anywhere around £1000 I would be demanding 3840x2160 to have proper vertical resolution for also that photoshopping etc.
I wouldn't be satisfied to vertical resolution of only 1440 pixels even for web surfing.
 

Dom TNG

Dom TNG

Dom TNG

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OP
Joined
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Posts
7
Cheers @EsaT those were the details on each piece I was looking for so thanks for the recommendations. I'll speak to him about what his future plans are, it'll probably be up to me anyway as I'll be the one installing/configuring it!

Still unsure on the monitor front, ideally a 4k resolution would be great but I think the UW monitors he would enjoy more, his PS and LR skills are minimal although I do take your point on board. I'm guessing 4k UW monitors don't exist due to, well, mathematics but I'll research some other options with that and the FS/GS compatibility in mind.
EsaT said:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cruc...b-kit-2-x-16gb-ddr4-3200-udimm-my-20d-cr.html
Those routinely clock to 3600MHz CAS16.
Click to expand...


I actually have that memory, it can clock higher than the 3200 it states without extra cooling? Interesting..
 

Darkpassenger

Darkpassenger

Darkpassenger

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Posts
248
Dom TNG said:
My Dad loves gaming but doesn't know much about computers so I'm going to build something for him. I'm no expert but have built a few systems over the years.

He wants something that will run anything he throws at it while also being fast enough to run VR when he decides on a headset. He has a budget of around £1500 for the PC and £1000 for the monitor although both can be moved around if something is a bit more/less. I don't want him to spend too much so I've specced up the below system after some serious scouring around (mainly here, so thanks already!). I realise that the Aorus 2070 Super is overpriced but he wants the direct USB-C for the virtual-link availability (should it ever come to fruition) and that card gets good reviews being a top of the range 2070 Super. I also know that the 3900x is overkill for gaming and Lightroom use but I know him and he's not going to want to muck around with this ever year or two to keep it top notch. I'm thinking maybe get him a 3700x and we get a 4000 Ryzen in a couple of years, will the rest of the kit stay the same assuming we could do that with the below?

Also, overclocking, RGB and fancy cooling matter none. He has a Fractal Design case (R6 with no window I think) so won't need it to look pretty, just run well. I didn't spec any cooling as the included Wraith prism looks fine, or are we better getting a https://www.overclockers.co.uk/arctic-freezer-34-esports-duo-red-cpu-cooler-2-x-120mm-hs-075-ar.html to keep things cool?


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,844.58 (includes shipping: £11.70)
​

As for monitors he likes the look of the Alienware AW3420DW but I don't know if it's worth £1100 and think he should get something like https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aoc-...wide-curved-led-gaming-monitor-mo-04t-ao.html as it ticks similar boxes (1440p, 120HZ, 4ms).

I'd appreciate any expert thoughts on the above! Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Wow great system lucky old dog!!
 

EsaT

EsaT

EsaT

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Joined
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Posts
11,618
Location
Finland
Dom TNG said:
Still unsure on the monitor front, ideally a 4k resolution would be great but I think the UW monitors he would enjoy more, his PS and LR skills are minimal although I do take your point on board. I'm guessing 4k UW monitors don't exist due to, well, mathematics but I'll research some other options with that and the FS/GS compatibility in mind.

I actually have that memory, it can clock higher than the 3200 it states without extra cooling? Interesting..
Click to expand...
3840x2160 monitor fits good amount more content than those 3440x1440 low screens.
When marketing says wide what they actually mean is low screen, which eats more desk space for little vertical image size.
Also actual screen surface area per diagonal gets smaller in every step.

Myself have used 30" 2560x1600 for six years and still can't find anything which wouldn't be step back/lacking in something.
1440p being marketing BS for "we took 10% away from height" and 3840x2160 not having any IPS higher refresh rate monitors in 32" size.
27" is simply horribly small with 7cm smaller image height and would have to be moved closer to compensate for that.
And CES paper announced models are still far away even assuming Coronavirus won't mess things further...
https://www.displayninja.com/new-monitors/


At stock settings most memories wouldn't need those heatspreaders at all and they do good job at keeping memory temperature good for as long as volts are kept reasonable.
IIRC Micron is supposed to stay cool more easily than best clocking Samsung B-die...
Which while scaling well with voltage also doesn't tolerate much above 50C temps or stability flies out of window.

Memory subforum has whole thread about overclocking Crucials.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/ballistix-sport-lt-overclocking.18861166/
And then there's DRAM calculator to help with values.
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ryzen-dram-calculator/
Number of memory ranks is 2 for 16GB DIMMs, because servers eat all 16Gbit/2GB capacity DDR4 chips and consumer/desktop memories are stuck using 8Gbit/1GB chips.
(with data bus width of single chip being 8 bits, only 8 of them fits into 64 bit wide memory bus before that single rank is full)
 

tamzzy

tamzzy

tamzzy

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Joined
26 May 2012
Posts
16,460
same price for a 2080 super build

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,851.94 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​
 

Dom TNG

Dom TNG

Dom TNG

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OP
Joined
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Posts
7
@EsaT I never really thought about the UW monitors like that, currently I use a 2560x1440 27" monitor at home, work and Dad has one too. This is perhaps why the UW monitors seemed tempting, only adding horizontal space for multiple window browsing and fov in games.

@tamzzy thanks for the build, it looks good and amazing what you guys can do with shuffling around various bits here and there! I did look at the 2080 super but the prices seemed to keep going up with less of a performance boost/diminishing returns. He's currently running a 1050 ti so either way it should blow that out the water.
 

tamzzy

tamzzy

tamzzy

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Joined
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Posts
16,460
Dom TNG said:
I did look at the 2080 super but the prices seemed to keep going up with less of a performance boost/diminishing returns.
Click to expand...
Individually the 2070 super you listed is worse value.
Hence why I've juggled the build around to fit a 2080 super
 
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