My first venture into PC Gaming...

Mr Frodo

Mr Frodo

Mr Frodo

Associate
Joined
9 Aug 2017
Posts
3
Location
Southampton
Good morning all!

My wife and I are in the process of buying a new house, in which I have managed to land a man cave, so a gaming PC setup seems to be the most logical focus point! I am a big gamer, up until now on console, but feel it a good time to move systems to experience some Ultra Widescreen 100 FPS beauty...

I was hoping you guys could help - I have tried to do as much research as I can, but I am at a point where it is all a bit confusing! I have decided I want it to be a Ryzen build, to be future proof as much as possible, with at least a 1080 card, but that is about it!

Budget is £2,500, and I will need everything, from PC to Monitor to Peripherals.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! :D
 
Start with the monitor as that will be the biggest influence on your experience. Then the graphics card to drive that at the performance you want. The rest will be a decision based on AMD/Intel taking into account a) where your 'loyalty' lies and where any potential future proofing will come from.

At this time I would wait to see what Intels Coffee Lake CPUs perform and cost.

A 4K monitor will require a lot of GPU power as will a hi res wide screen. 1440p seems to be a very good compromise maybe going to a widescreen.
HTH
Andi.
 
Do you already have the monitors you'll want to be using, or do you want to factor that into the cost of the full system? Also how much of the budget are you wanting to spend, less the better or are you fine with throwing £2500 into a build, and trying to get the build as close to the budget as possible?
 
IRSHunter said:
Do you already have the monitors you'll want to be using, or do you want to factor that into the cost of the full system? Also how much of the budget are you wanting to spend, less the better or are you fine with throwing £2500 into a build, and trying to get the build as close to the budget as possible?
Click to expand...
Mr Frodo said:
Budget is £2,500, and I will need everything, from PC to Monitor to Peripherals.
Click to expand...
Andi.
 
Thanks for your quick responses!

I have no loyalty, but not having to upgrade in a year or two is a big thing!

Happy to spend the full budget, it's what I have saved so it's what I am happy to spend!!

I haven't researched the Coffee Lake CPUs - will these be the same socket or a new Intel one?
 
With today's CPU the only reason to upgrade for a while will almost certainly be GPU updates. Once you get a PC running fast enough at a resolution you're happy with you will be ok for some time. Unless like me and lot of others you just want to upgrade :-)

I think Coffee Lake is LGA1151 but rumoured to need the latest motherboards (300 series) will not not work on a Z270 for example.
Andi.
 
I would look at 1440 p for resolution, still good pixel ensity but easier to drive to higher frame rates. Samsung have an interesting 27" 144Hz VA model on preorder. I've recently bought a Steelseries Rival 310 mouse and a Logitech G810 keyboard, a matter of personal preference but the change was like night and day for FPS games.

I prefer to buy AMD where possible but I would ay go for an Nvidia card atm, the best the budget allows. My MSI Gaming X 1070 is excellent, note that the AMD Vega cards are out very soon.

As for CPU I would go for an AMD R5 1600 or R7 1700 depending if you want 6 or 8 cores and budget and a decent motherboard to allow for upgrades when Zen2 cpus come out. However as Intel's Coffeelake is due out very shortly I'd just hold off and see how they all compare/what that does to pricing.

Faster RAM seems to be more important to AMD systems than Intel but there's lots of info out there on that now or just go for one of the bundles you can get on here to guarantee a good result.

Hope that helps a bit.
 
I would do something like this

Depending on what peripherals you go with you might be able to fit a 1080 ti in there. You could always swap the monitor for a 27" 1440 G-Sync which would free up some more of the budget.


My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £2,123.37
(includes shipping: £22.50)







A couple of alternative 27" screens:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £1,244.68
(includes shipping: £14.70)



​
 
andicole0 said:
Andi.
Click to expand...
Ahh, my blind eyes missed that bit haha :D

CP39XAM_170312_30x30.jpg

1xAMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 1700 3.70GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail £289.99 *

MB69FAS_160695_30x30.jpg

1xAsus Prime X370-Pro AMD X370 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard £146.99 *

MY441CS_114530_30x30.jpg

1xCorsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-21300C16 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2A26 £139.99 *

GX18TGI_159392_30x30.jpg

2xGigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 D5X 8192MB GDDR5X PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N1080WF3OC-8GD) £499.99 *

CA204CS_112422_30x30.jpg

1xCorsair RM Series RMi 1000 '80+ Gold' 1000W Modular Power Supply (CP-9020084-UK) £199.99 *

MO030AO_153718_30x30.jpg

2xAOC G2460PF 24" 1920x1080 TN FREESYNC 144Hz 1ms Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £229.99 *

The case is personal preference but this is what i myself would go for, although it's just a suggestion and you may want to swap things around, mouse and keyboard won't set you back too much so that should bring you to your total neatly, i didn't include storage as i have no idea what you want in terms of storage, but can fiddle with it a bit more if you want me to. you can also remove a 1080 if you just want one, or go for watercooling instead. Like i said, just an idea :)
 
At that budget i would consider getting a 4K screen. You will be able to push 60fps easy with a decent Intel and Nvidia rig on all games maxed out and then when the new Nvidia cards arrive you can upgrade that and start pushing the 70 - 80 fps. Within a couple of years you will be able to achieve 100fps with the latest GPU and youll already have the screen to handle it.

Why buy 1440p now when fast 4K gaming is just round the corner. I game with 4K at 60fps with a 1080ti, if i switch to 1440p the difference in graphics fidelity is night and day.

Get the one 4K screen and then if you really want a second screen for web browsing or TV while gaming buy a half decent cheap 1080p screen.

Oh and can i just take the time here to welcome you to the PC gaming community. Everyone here is really helpful and honest. (some times more honest than needed :) ). You will love PC gaming compared to consoles, it literally is next level.
 
Thank you guys, this is giving me a lot to think about and look at! I think based on prices I may be able to haggle mouse/keyboard as a birthday present, leaving me the budget just for system and monitor. This is slightly high but probably a dream spec - where can I save myself some money or is it worth saving the extra? Thanks all!!

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £2,900.92
(includes shipping: £23.10)



​
 
IRSHunter said:
Ahh, my blind eyes missed that bit haha :D

CP39XAM_170312_30x30.jpg

1xAMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 1700 3.70GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail £289.99 *

MB69FAS_160695_30x30.jpg

1xAsus Prime X370-Pro AMD X370 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard £146.99 *

MY441CS_114530_30x30.jpg

1xCorsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-21300C16 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2A26 £139.99 *

GX18TGI_159392_30x30.jpg

2xGigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 D5X 8192MB GDDR5X PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N1080WF3OC-8GD) £499.99 *

CA204CS_112422_30x30.jpg

1xCorsair RM Series RMi 1000 '80+ Gold' 1000W Modular Power Supply (CP-9020084-UK) £199.99 *

MO030AO_153718_30x30.jpg

2xAOC G2460PF 24" 1920x1080 TN FREESYNC 144Hz 1ms Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £229.99 *

The case is personal preference but this is what i myself would go for, although it's just a suggestion and you may want to swap things around, mouse and keyboard won't set you back too much so that should bring you to your total neatly, i didn't include storage as i have no idea what you want in terms of storage, but can fiddle with it a bit more if you want me to. you can also remove a 1080 if you just want one, or go for watercooling instead. Like i said, just an idea :)
Click to expand...


That is pretty poor for a budget like this. Why would you go for 2 x GTX 1080's and then pair it with 2 x 1080p Freesync screens ? Makes no sense. The psu is also more than needed.
 
Mr Frodo said:
Thank you guys, this is giving me a lot to think about and look at! I think based on prices I may be able to haggle mouse/keyboard as a birthday present, leaving me the budget just for system and monitor. This is slightly high but probably a dream spec - where can I save myself some money or is it worth saving the extra? Thanks all!!

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £2,900.92
(includes shipping: £23.10)



​
Click to expand...

You could swap out the cpu for the R5 1600. Not much difference if just gaming.

A B350 board such as the one in my build will save you another £100 or so.

For a single gpu a 550W psu is enough.

Get a cheaper case and cooler ? The Cryorig H5 Universal is a nice air cooler for £40 odd quid. The Enthoo Evolv doesn't have great airflow from what i have seen as the front panel is pretty restrictive.
 
Can save £50 alone sourcing the 500GB 850 EVO elsewhere, too. It's just too expensive again at OcUK after a nice offer that's ended.

Lately there's a ton of comments from recent 1600 purchasers, many are only able to get 3.7/3.8. It could be bad luck, or more likely, that AMD held back the worst 1600 bins till a few months after release. So a 1600X can make more sense especially now, as the "just buy a 1600 and overclock it" is not a sure thing anymore. Of course, the 1600 comes with a cooler already so saves money if really needed.
 
Danny75 said:
Lately there's a ton of comments from recent 1600 purchasers, many are only able to get 3.7/3.8. It could be bad luck, or more likely, that AMD held back the worst 1600 bins till a few months after release. So a 1600X can make more sense especially now, as the "just buy a 1600 and overclock it" is not a sure thing anymore. Of course, the 1600 comes with a cooler already so saves money if really needed.
Click to expand...
Agreed, i'm in two minds when speccing the 1600/X - usually depends on budget but have started limiting guaranteed clock to 3.7GHz too with standard 1600. Fortunately, as you will know, the supplied Wraith can handle this with ease - which sometimes tips the balance if they're on a tight budget.
 
lee32uk said:
You don't need more than 550W for a single gpu. Also the efficiency difference is so tiny it isn't worth bothering about.
Click to expand...
What about ocing? What about the life of the capacitors? What about a second gpu a couple of years down the line? I have a 850Wax corsair that has run faultlessly over the last 7 years on single and duel GPUs where there is heavy ocing involved and has never skipped a beat.

I'm not saying a 550W won't but for an extra 30 or 40 quid it's certainly worth it
 
azazl187 said:
What about ocing? What about the life of the capacitors? What about a second gpu a couple of years down the line? I have a 850Wax corsair that has run faultlessly over the last 7 years on single and duel GPUs where there is heavy ocing involved and has never skipped a beat.

I'm not saying a 550W won't but for an extra 30 or 40 quid it's certainly worth it
Click to expand...

You can still overclock with a 550W psu. Most high end psu's have at least 7 years warranty which is more than enough for most people. If the op is planning on 1440p then a single 1080 ti is more than enough. A single gpu setup is less hassle and works with every game unlike SLI.
 
lee32uk said:
You can still overclock with a 550W psu. Most high end psu's have at least 7 years warranty which is more than enough for most people. If the op is planning on 1440p then a single 1080 ti is more than enough. A single gpu setup is less hassle and works with every game unlike SLI.
Click to expand...
I completely agree with you. I am just trying to offer a different route that may yield better future potential for a small amount extra.
 
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