Building my first PC for around £1200

OAidiO

OAidiO

OAidiO

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1 Dec 2019
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26
Hi there, thanks to all that helped with my previous post to do with my sons PC. I ended up buying him a pre built which in fairness he loves. My work laptop needs replacing and since I myself am now addicted for Fortnite (for my sins) I've decided to build my own gaming PC. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone, laptop needs replaced and I don't have to buy the PlayStation 5 next year is how I'm justifying it. I'e put this basket together with my budget and would like some input as I've never built a PC before.

I haven't decided on a case yet but I do like the look of the NZXT ones and I'm not sure about needing extra cooling. Here's the basket.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,225.96 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​
 
Hello,

The SSD is overpriced in terms of faster NVME M.2s being available for the same price or less. Gigabyte NVME 1TB, TeamGroup MP31 NVME 1TB, Corsair MP510 NVME 1TB, Sabrent Rocket NVME 1TB, etc.

That motherboard is extremely overpriced at OcUK compared to the competition. Think it's fair to point that out. MSI X570 motherboards are not as good as alternatives until you reach X570 Unify/Ace level. However their B450 motherboards are very good. You don't need the motherboard to be an X570 unless you want a feature that B450 doesn't have. B450 Tomahawk MAX and B450 Pro Carbon are great ATX choices.

A better cooler is optional and personal choice as that CPU comes with one. Personally I think it's a good investment as the stock can be noisy with Ryzen ramping up and down a lot. £30-40 will land you a good CPU cooler. If you go this route, pick one that doesn't cover any of the memory slots, since you're going for RGB RAM (and tall-ish at that).

PSU looks good. So does the Seasonic-built Phanteks AMP 650 Gold for £13 less.
 
Thank you mate. I was going to go with the B450 Carbon originally as it has the built in WiFi. I'd seen someone say the 570 was a better board so figured it would save an upgrade for a while but if its unneeded then I'll stick with the B450.

Any coolers that come to mind?
 
You're not only going to play fortnite right? Cos you could spend a lot less for this game. I get it as a console replacement though.
 
If the pc's intended mainly for gaming, 3600 may be a better choice?: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-...hz-socket-am4-processor-retail-cp-3b9-am.html

3700 if, as well as gaming, you'll also be doing more cpu intensive tasks, such as video encoding.

As for a cooler, I went with: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/scythe-scmg-5100-mugen-5-rev.b-cpu-cooler-hs-046-sy.html for a 3700 build and it's very good.

Motherboard, as mentioned above, tomahawk max, same one I went with, is fine: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-b450-tomahawk-max-socket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33t-ms.html unless there's a reason you want a different board.
 
OAidiO said:
Thank you mate. I was going to go with the B450 Carbon originally as it has the built in WiFi. I'd seen someone say the 570 was a better board so figured it would save an upgrade for a while but if its unneeded then I'll stick with the B450.
Click to expand...

Pro Carbon if you need Wifi, yes. Otherwise Tomahawk.


OAidiO said:
Any coolers that come to mind?
Click to expand...

That'd depend on the case. The Scythe Mugen 5 which Tyrion2 linked to gets great reviews.

Also, Tetras brings up a good point which brings me to the question: which monitor are you planning on using? Because 5700 XT and Fortnite only really makes sense at 1440p 144Hz. You could get a GTX 1660 Super if planning on using a 1080p 144Hz screen for the next year or so.
 
Fortnite is literally the only game I have time to play. I'm not going 1440p just want as many FPS as possible on 1080p 144hz so maybe you're right. When I first started looking I was going to go with the 1660ti and the 3600x with 16gb ram. I don't need to do editing either. Workwise it's mainly spread sheets and Web pages so not intensive in the slightest. The reason I was going for the better components was just so it lasted longer mainly and I came into a bit of extra money. I'm pretty sure the 1660ti and 3600 worked out at around £300-400 cheaper which makes sense for my first build I suppose and would still give me what I'm looking for on Fortnite.
 
OAidiO said:
Fortnite is literally the only game
Click to expand...

I play it a lot too, simple fun, easy to load and start playing. Used to get higher than 144 fps at 1080p with a GTX 1070 with very nice settings. A 1660Ti is about the same. Switched to 1440p recently.

Check the price of the 3600X when you pull trigger. Might be very close to the 3600.

Though you may have a case for Intel here. You're sticking with 1080p, just Fortnite, you don't need all that many threads. 9600K or 9700K and overclock it.
 
Following this with interest. I'm looking for a similar spec for video editing and 1440p 144Hz gaming.

With the B450 motherboards what's the main advantage of the Carbon over the Tomahawk? Also I'm thinking of 32GB RAM so what would be the best bang for buck/comparability?
 
Prophet said:
Following this with interest. I'm looking for a similar spec for video editing and 1440p 144Hz gaming.

With the B450 motherboards what's the main advantage of the Carbon over the Tomahawk? Also I'm thinking of 32GB RAM so what would be the best bang for buck/comparability?
Click to expand...

The Carbon is £40 more expensive but has Wifi and Bluetooth.
I was looking at getting the Carbon but OcUK is currently out of stock of that board.
 
Prophet said:
Thanks for that :)

I don't need WiFi. Are there any other benefits?
Click to expand...

2 x M.2 slots versus 1. Addressable/Digital RGB along with normal RGB.

Slightly better sound and VRMs/VRM cooling. Though that won't impact in a meaningful way.

For what it's worth, the Mortar MAX micro-ATX has 2 x M.2 slots and is about the same price as the Tomahawk MAX.
 
Thanks for the help so far.

Right so I've changed things up a bit and this is my basket now and I'm pretty set on these bits. I can get a couple of the bits cheaper elsewhere though. Only thing that's left is I cannot decide on a graphics card and it's realy starting to drain me now, there's only so many review videos you can watch. HA! Ideally I don't want to spend more than £300 ish on one so any help is much appreciated to get the most out of Fortnite. I know other games might take my fancy at some point though.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,145.08 (includes shipping: £13.20)​
​
 
Danny75 said:
2 x M.2 slots versus 1. Addressable/Digital RGB along with normal RGB.

Slightly better sound and VRMs/VRM cooling. Though that won't impact in a meaningful way.

For what it's worth, the Mortar MAX micro-ATX has 2 x M.2 slots and is about the same price as the Tomahawk MAX.
Click to expand...

Thanks Danny. With the micro ATX is the sound also better? I’ll be running it through an amp and bookshelf speakers so a better source would be ideal.
 
OAidiO said:
Thanks for the help so far.

Right so I've changed things up a bit and this is my basket now and I'm pretty set on these bits. I can get a couple of the bits cheaper elsewhere though. Only thing that's left is I cannot decide on a graphics card and it's realy starting to drain me now, there's only so many review videos you can watch. HA! Ideally I don't want to spend more than £300 ish on one so any help is much appreciated to get the most out of Fortnite. I know other games might take my fancy at some point though.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,145.08 (includes shipping: £13.20)
​
Click to expand...

The 3200MHz kit of that Ram is cheaper.

Not a fan of that SSD. The Gigabyte NVMe 1TB is the same price.

I don't know a lot about headsets but £300 seems a lot out of your budget. If it was Me I would rather go a bit cheaper and maybe up the cpu to the 3700X instead. Not a huge difference for gaming but it will last longer than the 3600X before it needs changing.

That case looks really restrictive in terms of airflow. I would maybe look at the CoolerMaster MB530P or something with a mesh front.

That 120mm AIO is bad value for money in terms of price/performance. You could fit a 240mm in the front but it would mean removing the two front fans. You could only reuse one of them in the roof as I think they are 140mm.

Switch out that power supply for something like a SuperFlower Leadex III 550W. That Seasonic isn't very good.


As for a gpu you would be looking at an RX 5700 if you wanted to stay at the £300 mark. The Gigabyte Gaming OC is £299.99 but pre-order. For a bit over £300 you have the Powercolor RX 5700XT Dual at £338.99.
 
@OAidiO

You're paying a lot for a plain speed SSD. Up to you but like I said previously you can get faster NVME M.2 SSDs for the same price.

The RGB on that H510 Elite case is proprietary, forcing you to use their CAM software and integrated controller, meaning if you add more RGB fans they have to be NZXT as well if you want to get everything synched. Also it will be impossible to synch other things (motherboard, GPU, RAM) with the fans because of this. I predict it would give you a headache. Not least because CAM software is unpredictable and is known to break with Windows updates etc.

That wireless headset is expensive and won't give you better sound than a wired one half the cost. It's also closed-back not open-back. Latter is better for soundstage in games like Fortnite to pinpoint where shots/footsteps are coming from, quicker. Although they do leak some sound so if not wanting to disturb anyone else in the same room then closed works better. You may know exactly what you're doing here, just fair warning.

The liquid cooler is expensive too and doesn't guarantee silence because pumps can be noisy, even on the same product (each unit differs).

GPU: like I said, a GTX 1660 Super will get you the frames you want at 1080p 144Hz. If you want to spend more (£300) then look at RTX 2060 on the Nvidia side or RX 5700 on the AMD side.

PSU: Seasonic is a good brand but that model is fairly old now and only a Bronze and overpriced a little.

Some PSU, SSD and CPU cooler options:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £552.95 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​



@Prophet

I don't think the sound is better. I think it should be alright for bookshelf speakers. At least the amp you already have should help, and hopefully the source is good enough for those speakers. Never know with audio though.
 
I'll look at at what you've mentioned in regards t the Ram and PSU. The AIO and case is more for aesthetic reasons and the headset I'm not really accnting for in my budget. I've wanted those for a long time and can get them for £229. The fan on the AIO can replace one of the front fans that's already in there.
 
Still haven't puled the trigger on buying anything yet. Mainly because I've been indecisive on a GPU but I'm definitely going with the 5700XT. Watched far too many reviews and I'm going for the one below as it's on a discount and the reviews are great. Also because I now want to do a mini itx build and this comes in pretty small. I've changed up the PSU and Storage as advised above, Can also get the RAM cheaper than that elsewhere. Last bit of help I need is deciding on the CPU and MB. MB wise I have been thinking X570 as I won't have any issues with updates should I go for the 3600x or 3700x but if anyone can recommend a mini B450 with wifi I'm all ears as they're almost half the price. I know I won't need the 3700x but at only £80 more I keep thinking just get it and then I'm set for a long time or is this completely unnecessary. Thanks again. Cannot wait to get this ordered and start my first build.



My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £871.24 (includes shipping: £12.30)​
​
 
MSI B450i. Thing is - while enough time has passed for them to be coming with the right BIOS update for Ryzen 3000, it's not a guarantee, and unlike other MSI B450 boards, it doesn't have BIOS Flashback to allow update without compatible CPU. So that's how you can save, while being aware of a potential issue which may require sending it back to retailer (or someone else) for them to flash the board for you. AMD also offer a service where they send out a cheap compatible CPU and then you return it.

3600x v 3700x I'd say if you don't tend to upgrade CPU for a long time then might as well get the 3700X, will keep you going a couple more years in the long run. Vice versa if you do upgrade often, why pay more than you need to, especially when Ryzen 4000 is incoming (summer or after).
 
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