Just got a big raise. Upgrade or New Start?

Loony BoB

Loony BoB

Loony BoB

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10 Mar 2007
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210
I'm getting a promotion next month and a hefty pay rise on the back of it, so I'm thinking I'll spend maybe £3k on a PC upgrade, perhaps close to £5k (preferring notably lower though) if I go for an completely new computer. I'm just not sure which would be better at the moment. My PC is pretty solid but when playing some of the higher end games it can stutter a bit, so looking to just ensure I'm more capable in that end of things.

My current specs:
MBD: Asus ROG Strix B350-F AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Six-Core Processor (12 CPUs) ~3.6GHz
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
RAM: Team Group Dark Pro 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Grey (TDPGD416G3
PSU: EVGA SuperNova G2 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply
Drives: 2x 500GB SSD (both pretty full), 3x HDD (500GB, 1TB, 3TB, probably could use another 3TB to replace the 500GB tbh)
Case: Lian Li PC-7FN
Monitors: 2x Asus PB287Q using 2560x1440 resolution
Cooling: Arctic Freezer 33 Plus CPU Cooler - 120/120mm

- Gut feeling says to replace the entire thing, even though it's honestly only struggling with games like RDR2. Monitors can obviously stay as-is. I'm wanting something that will last me a while, so don't mind going for the good stuff, but if you guys think there is room to stay low on a certain component and then upgrade later then just mention that.
- I'm not an overclocker, personally. I have a fair chunk of experience with putting machines together from my previous rigs and work, but I just don't care to meddle in the BIOS if I can avoid it. If it's overclocked pre-shipping then that's fine.
- I don't care for flashiness - I like a nice dark black PC that kind of hides away, with ports at the front/top for easy access. I'm not against windows or anything, but my rig stays underneath my desk so it's not really that beneficial other than making the cat want to mess around with it :D
- For cooling, I'd prefer to not require any kind of plumbing requirement, but don't mind the idea of my first watercooled unit if it's standalone and doesn't require much (if any) maintenance.

Also, I know this might be a stupid question, but... with the pre-built rigs from the site, most of the better gaming PCs are 100% SSD with no option for storage. Is there any reason for that? I feel like having a £500 3TB SSD is a bit overkill for media storage when you can get a HDD of the same capacity for one fifth of the cost or better. I know they're gaming PCs but not EVERY single drive needs to be a SSD, surely? I feel like anything more than one big drive for OS and one big drive for games is overkill, but maybe there's a reason to it, like physical space or something, that I'm not very aware of. Hoping that if I do think about and go for a pre-built rig that I can throw some 2.5" drives in there for the bulk capacity rather than shelling out huge amounts for something that does the same job (and if it's just data storage, probably won't benefit that much from speed).
 
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Yeah, thankfully I was already in a pretty healthy financial position and am due a bonus in March too. It's a weird time because of job change (had to rush it because my old role is being outsourced, but it certainly paid off for me).

I'll have to do some research into the NAS side of things, but if it's documents backup I'm all for it. I can indeed use this PC as a backup server once everything is moved to the new one which is a big plus. I've been doing some digging around the pre-built options at OcUK and I must concede they're rather tempting, although I'd probably want to tweak a couple of things. Does anyone here (perhaps OcUK staff?) know if OcUK are the kind of guys to allow custom tweaking on their already heavily configured PC options?

I'm thinking the following, but with a better PSU for future-proofing and also some storage disks (perhaps that NAS you've mentioned). Not sure on how viable it is but I feel like the remaining specs are all really solid. Would love your thoughts on it though!

TitleOcUK Gaming Khopesh - Ryzen 7600X, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming PC
CasePhanteks Eclipse P400 Air Midi Tower DRGB Case - Black
MBDASUS TUF B650 WIFI Motherboard
CPUAMD Ryzen 9 7900X Twelve Core 4.9GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Tray
GPUNvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12GB GDDR6X Graphics Card
RAMCorsair Vengeance EXPO 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-41600C40 5200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black
SSD1WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E)
SSD2Samsung 2TB 870 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 64 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-77E2T0B/EU)
PSU750W 80 Plus Gold Rated PSU
CoolingLian-Li GALAHAD AIO 240mm High Performance RGB CPU Water Cooler - Black
Cost£ 2,673.04

EDIT: Would be the first time I've bought a pre-built PC since the Compaq I got back in 2002 :D
 
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Cheers for all the advice guys. I decided that I'd check out what I could come up with if I pick and choose, like the old days...

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £3,205.84 (includes delivery: £11.99)​

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Cooling: I legitimately struggle with cooler knowledge, so I'm really not sure what this would warrant, or whether all these components would fit nicely alongside a good AIO cooler or anything like that - it's not the biggest case, after all. Went for the Fractal case as I really prefer the reserved look and also wanted a 'closed' top as my cat likes to hang out on top of my PC way too much for me to trust any topside vent to deflect all the cat hair! And most importantly, it fits my under desk space with room to breathe a little. Although speaking of breathing, the bottom intake fan does concern me a little, not used to that position for a fan.

Internal Components: Drives chosen based on pricing and capacity - 1/2TB SSDs for software/gaming respectively (I know I can fit my games onto 500GB but I figured 2TB would give me a bit of future-proofing), 2TB WD Black for document storage and 6TB Barracuda for media storage should mean I can decrease the total disk drives I'm holding onto (as I've got six drives in my existing PC). 4080 on lsg1r's advice, Intel CPU because all this mention of RAM issues sounds like potential regret. Trying to combine base specs and reliability across the board. Motherboard... honestly I've no idea if this one is overkill or not, but I like the volume of ports, I've had great experience in the past with Gigabyte, and I'd like to have some Wifi and Bluetooth on my board. Again, still not really certain on what to do for cooling... and also admittedly not 100% sure if I should jump into Win11 just yet, but might throw that on just to keep myself tidy for having two Windows licences for my two desktops. Guessing cooling + Windows would jump my cost roughly £300 total.

Help!: Criticism absolutely continues to be welcome! Also, if I were to be lazy (and kind of curious), how would I go about asking OcUK to custom build this and ship intact? I've enjoyed my time building machines in the past but honestly I'm swamped lately and wouldn't mind having it all done tidily for me (I've seen great things about the quality of the build work done in the reviews across OcUK pre-built rigs).

EDIT: Also, thinking I'll try and set up my current PC as a backup machine for the new PC... only really will be wanting to backup my documents drive, not too worried about media/game/software drives.
 
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First up: This is exactly why I love posting here, you guys know freakin' everything I don't. I genuinely appreciate it!

CPU: Makes sense. I'm going to assume that since I'm going for a GPU (obviously) that I may as well save a £20 and get the 13700KF.

Motherboard: Knowing me, it's not entirely likely I'll use 4x M.2 so dropping one slot isn't an issue to me. SPDIF isn't something I believe I've used and I'm not much of an audiophile, so I expect it's not important. VRM variance between the boards... how important? Probably not much, I'm assuming? I'll switch down and save some more cash.

PSU: Picking up the MSI option (Thermaltake one not in stock at the moment, pre-order only unless I drop to 850W). £20 more, but I saved that on the CPU so it's a neutral ending position.

Storage: This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about at the start of this post. Switched the 980 for the SN850X. Also switched out the 2TB HDD for a 2TB WD Black 2.5" SSD.

RAM: How would the 5200 fly with a 13700K? May as well drop down to 5000 or 4800 or just keep the 5200?

Cooling: Yeah, I did read about the size issue when looking through the various Fractals. I'm genuinely a bit clueless about cooling, in all honesty. It's definitely the area I have the least knowledge of when building a PC and every single time I've just ended up going with whatever people here suggest. Which I'll probably do again :D Having dug around online, it seems like watercooling isn't as big a deal as I had thought, so I'm starting to wonder if I should just go with pure air cooling like you mentioned... It's not a dealbreaker to get a AIO, but one thing that is absolutely crossing my mind is the nervousness about a big cooling unit wobbling around in the back of a DPD van. I do wonder how well OcUK's custom rigs travel when it comes to that end of things! I know I could just build it myself... again... but I think the novelty of that has worn off for me after years of working in IT. Having enough money to let someone build a rig for me and do it really nice and tidy like I hear OcUK does is admittedly very appealing. xD

And yeah, RGB means pretty much nothing to me, as you can probably tell from my Fractal case choice :D

Current basket, still pending cooling/OS... £300 or so saved already thanks to your advice, guys, while also having generally more reliable gear based on your knowledge!

My basket at OcUK:
Total: £2,936.76 (includes delivery: £0.00)

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Intel Core i7-13700KF (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail
CP-6B7-IN
£390 (incl. VAT)
£315 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Gigabyte Z790 UD AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard
MB-5BN-GI
£170 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 UK PSU 1000W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
CA-00W-MS
£170 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
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CPU: Regarding the igpu, that's fair. I'll switch it just in case. Especially will be useful if in the distant future I convert the PC to a game server.

Storage: Okay, firstly I'm just going to call myself a complete moron for picking an external drive because that was absolutely supposed to be an internal one. Facepalm moment. No need for an external drive.

Regardless, what I'm going for is:
1TB M.2: Operating system and software - quality reasonable important.
2TB M.2: Gaming - quality less important because I can always download games again.
2TB drive: Unique files that require backup. Quality initially vital, but after a bit of research I think I'm going to change my backup system to a cloud option, probably OneDrive or something similar. This lowers the quality demand of the local drive once the backups are in place.
6TB HDD: Pure bulk media storage. Quality less important because I can always download media again (any unique media will go to the 2TB drive).

With the above in mind, is it worth CRM if I'm already backing up to a cloud location, and anything outside the backup location (My Docs drive) will be stuff that can simply be re-downloaded? Also, what would you suggest in the circumstances for the 2TB drive used for important documents - I'm considering just bumping it to a bog-standard 4TB drive since I'll have the comfort of backup.

Regarding fans and cooler, I think you're absolutely right that I reach out to OcUK and ask them what they think. The key things to be considered for me are that the cat spends a lot of time sitting on top of the PC so I don't want topside venting. I'm thinking I might just let them play with it within a budget, once I give them them a run-down of the limitations/criteria from my end.

As for windowed case, it's more so I can see if there's any dust buildup or anything without having to open it up. Honestly it's not a dealbreaker if I don't have a window, I've never had one before after all. I'm also not entirely against having ANY lights, I just prefer a muted experience where possible. I am still looking at the various options from Fractal though.

Once again, thank you. :)
 
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Case: Yeah, I'd love for there to be more options for cases without a top vent, really. Or perhaps I'd just prefer that there were more cases that weren't so gaudy - I prefer an understated look (hence the Define). Prett much very single PC case has top venting these days which is a shame for us cat lovers! Cats love any warm flat surface and PCs are definitely no exception. She's always lounging on either the console or the PC. The vent issue, combined with my need for preference for a case that doesn't go over ~480mm in height, leaves me with a bit of a struggle to find that perfect system. Still, at least I live in Scotland so it's certainly not a hot environment... I feel for those in Arizona, Thailand, Australia etc. Still, if you guys have suggestions for a case that keeps a rather simple look to it but still has a closed top (and obviously still being decent quality materials etc), lemme know for sure.

I reckon I'll call up OcUK tomorrow and see if they can give me a few tips on the cooling area and see if they can throw me a rough quote for the work.
 
Thankfully no matter what I end up with it'll be a big jump from my ol' reliable 980 :) It's served me very well I must admit, but definitely time to switch.
 
Appreciate every cent anyone offers! :D Having said that, I have already reached out to OcUK and we're in discussions on a couple of things regarding case/cooling... I'm pretty settled at this stage on the internals. Still, I love a chat, and it never hurts to listen to free advice...

I generally will try to make my CPU & board last the full distance of roughly 5 years and then upgrade again, starting with the board if required, personally - current one gave me 6 years. I feel like I should get some strong distance with the Intel one, and based on what I'm hearing, the AMD side is struggling with RAM at present.

I definitely play a mixture of games, very across the board. I wouldn't worry about picking any specs based on that as a result of my love for variety.

Probably won't be waiting until April - once I start looking around, I tend to make my choice within a week and be done with it.

I can understand the sentiment of wantint to build it myself, I've built every PC I've owned since ~2004 or so, and I work in IT and have had more than my fair share of helping out the desktop team. Also had a couple of long term relationships during that time and built all the computers for them, too. It's not that I am scared or anything - I'm simply burnt out on it, and wouldn't mind the opposite novelty of having someone else do my work for once ;)

100% agree on the PSU. I'm going for 1000W, I think it should be overkill for the specs I've picked out.

Monitor is actually a pretty interesting thing to think about, I do feel my monitors are great for now though. Their main limitation is probably that they are 60Hz monitors, but honestly, I'm the kind of guy who will overload Rimworld and play the game at far lower fps than 60 at times, so I should be okay. I'm not much of a PVP gamer as well, which helps, as FPS is a little less important for single player games. Still, you never know what I'll switch up in the coming year...
 
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