New build help please

Jack1991

Jack1991

Jack1991

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10 Dec 2014
Posts
334
Hi everyone,

i currently have the following rig:

i5 6600k
16GB Corsair vengeance memory
Strix GTX 1070
800w super flower platinum psu

My mrs has recently got into gaming and has stolen the spot in my office so I plan on buying myself a new PC as the above system is now struggling with my 1440p monitor.

I am looking for suggestions on a new rig, it needs to have longevity and I will reuse my power supply from old PC and the 1070 to keep costs down for now as she’s only playing stardew valley and I think integrated should be fine.

I have been out of keeping tabs on the market for a while so need advice.

budget is in or around £1500-£1800 including a new GPU.

thanks in advance.
 
So you're pulling the PSU and gpu out of your current rig - take it you already have a spare psu to pop in the old pc for your Mrs to use?

Are you selling the 1070 if you also need a new gpu?
 
GreatAuk said:
So you're pulling the PSU and gpu out of your current rig - take it you already have a spare psu to pop in the old pc for your Mrs to use?

Are you selling the 1070 if you also need a new gpu?
Click to expand...

I have a replacement psu to put in the rig for her and I plan on building my new PC in 2 phases, phase 1 is everything without the GPU making use of my old one.

phase 2 is buying a new GPU and giving her the 1070 (which is adequate for 1080p on her games)
 
If you're potentially happy to wait then one thing to note is that it could be worth waiting until the end of the summer before buying a gpu, as it's possible that the next gen will be available then... However, if buying this gen I might go with something like this on the AMD side:
My basket at OcUK:
Total: £1,645.24 (includes delivery: £12.30)








​

If you want to use Ray tracing much then Nvidia would be a better option. I'd wonder about an Intel (just as another option) / nvidia build like this:
My basket at OcUK:

Total: £1,525.19 (includes delivery: £12.30)​









​

Note that depending on what framerate you're happy with, could drop down to a RTX 3070 or RX 6700 and still get very decent framerates at 1440p.

Easy to add another nvme drive to either build if more storage needed in future, or if you prefer to have games and OS on separate drives.

Upgrading to the next level of CPU (5900x or i7 12700k) would be in budget too, not sure the difference in performance would be that noticeable in gaming though.
 
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Thank you so much for taking the time to reply.

I’ll definitely be doing it in 2 phases.

build now and gpu later.

which of these 2 builds has better potential in terms of longevity ?

I don’t want to upgrade again any time soon.
 
Jack1991 said:
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply.

I’ll definitely be doing it in 2 phases.

build now and gpu later.

which of these 2 builds has better potential in terms of longevity ?

I don’t want to upgrade again any time soon.
Click to expand...
No problem :). Hopefully if I've made any questionable choices someone else will pop in to offer their 2p as well!

Hard to say about longevity really... At the end of the day both the AMD and Intel options above are modern platforms and those CPUs should be perfectly capable of running AAA games well for years to come (unless technology changes massively in some way we don't yet know about...).

I guess I might say the Intel platform has the potential for better longevity. It is a slightly newer platform, and the Z690 motherboards tends to have more m.2 ports (eg the Intel mobo above has four, while the amd mobo has two), which could be quite an advantage if you end up wanting to add several more drives in the future - just much neater than fiddling with a 2.5" SSD, and faster. It supports pcie 5.0 on the x16 spot too, although I'm not sure that will really matter too much in the near future.

Edit:

You can get DDR5 motherboards for the Intel 12000 series too, which is of course more modern, but given the current price difference and with limitations on the memory controllers this generation I'm not sure a DDR5 configuration would really last any longer than a DDR4 one.

if wanting to avoid the need for an upgrade for as long as possible I guess I would probably go for an i7 12700k rather than the 12600K, as the extra cores will probably let it keep running things smoothly a bit longer. Would use an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280mm or 360mm AIO to cool it.

Looking ahead I'd guess that the first thing to need replacing would either be the AIO (6 year warranty), or PSU (guess it's already 6 years old? Might guesstimate another 6 years out of it). By that time it will likely be worth doing another full upgrade though.

Edit 2: noticed that with the AIO, the 6800 xt I chose would be right up against it in that case - a longer case would be more comfortable, eg: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phanteks-eclipse-p400-air-midi-tower-drgb-case-black-ca-09g-pt.html
Depends on the exact length of the gpu you go for whether you'd want more length or not.
 
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Really appreciate you taking the time to put it together, I think I’ll pull the trigger on the intel build today / tomorrow unless someone tells me we can do something else with the cash.

i7 makes sense also.
 
The kit I linked is C16 as opposed to the list further up showing C18.

Then again, you could get caught up in a cycle of getting the next fastest frequency or next lowest latency.
 
Tbf I would go for the Crucial Ballistix C16 3600mhz kit for that minor price increase, only put the Kingston stuff in the build because the Ballistix stuff seems to have been out of stock every time I've looked recently, so not sure if it might be a rather long lead time. If it was in stock or wouldn't have to wait too long I'd probably go for that.

Although I suppose thinking again, could argue that especially for the Intel build the extra cost over a 3200mhz kit isn't worth it, as it will probably only increase performance by a few %, and that money spent elsewhere would get you more... Maybe the better value option would be a bit standard kit like this: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...-3200mhz-dual-channel-kit-grey-my-0aj-tg.html

Could go either way really.
 
Ok so it transpires the mrs has thrown out the spare psu when we moved 2months ago…..

also need a psu to go with this rig.

many recommendations ?

will pull the trigger today.

thank you all for the help
 
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