Out of the loop - £1500 to spend on gaming PC (no monitor, case, ssd, peripherals)

md99 · 9 Mar 2024 at 16:15

Hi boys & girls,

I've not upgraded since 2016 - when I buy a PC I buy one to last (current setup, i76700, gtx 1070, 16gb ram, etc) It's served me well but I want something a lot better. £1500 budget, don't need case, monitor or any ofther bits & bobs, just the usual. Here is what I'm toying with but as I said in the thread title, been so long since I upgraded I'm not sure what the best buys are.

1 X Intel Core i7-12700KF 3.60GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail - £289.99
SKU: CP-6A0-IN

1 X Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 PC5-52800C32 6600MHz Dual Channel Kit - £229.99
SKU: MEM-CRS-01224

1 X Asus Prime Z790-P WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £209.99
SKU: MB-6JR-AS

1 X Corsair RMx Series RM850x 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (CP-9020200-UK) - £147.95
SKU: CA-267-CS

1 X Cooler Master Hyper H412R CPU Cooler - 92mm - £29.99
SKU: HS-07T-CM

I've never gone big on mainboards, power supply's or coolers, anything I've ever bought has been fine. The big omission above is the gpu. My preference is something from the 4070 range but on principle I don't think I could fork out the money nVidia wants for them. Its obscene. I have no allegiance so I'm happy to go with a comparable or better AMD gpu either. Any suggestions? If I really really have no choice I'd go nVidia through gritted teeth. I have six hundred quid left over from my budget but I'd go a hundred more. A GPU over seven hundred, not a chance.

This is a pure gaming PC, I want to run everything at max settings or as close as @ 60fps but here is the big trade-off, to ensure I've been able to get the most out of my setups I haven't gone down the 4k (or even 1440p) route. Everything I play will be maxed out on my 1920 x 1200 16:10 monitor so I trade resolution for all the graphical bells & whistles and smooth frame rate for years to come.

Thanks for your time

md99 · 10 Mar 2024 at 10:40

Interesting, thanks for taking the time to research that. I could I guess with the money saved on ram, power supply and mainboard do something daft and go for complete overkill and buy a 7900xt.

md99 · 10 Mar 2024 at 15:11

7900 XT (likely) it is then! As I originally said, my last build was 2016 so by the time this new one is on its knees (approx 2032!) it'll just be a complete new build again instead of doing the relatively sensible thing now and investing in a better mainboard, cpu etc.

md99 · 11 Mar 2024 at 13:25

adrichardson81 said:
Are you carrying over a gen 4 m.2 from your current build? If not, I'd suggest adding a WD SN850x.

Nope. I'll go down that route a little later, five hdd's (12tb) and two ssd's (2tb) I'm currently using so I've not really been too fussed about upgrading them.

Advice taken on board though, cheers.

md99 · 15 Mar 2024 at 21:44

Made a few adjustments to build and budget based upon above recommendations and am going to pull the trigger on this, could some of you cleverer folks give it a once over.....

1 X Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £739.99
SKU: GX-3A7-SP

1 X AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail - £349.99
SKU: CP-3DT-AM

1 X Asus TUF Gaming A620-Pro WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £149.99
SKU: MOT-ASU-01162

1 X Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-51200C32 6400MHz Dual Channel Kit - £134.99
SKU: MEM-CRS-01177

1 X Gigabyte UD850GM PG5 850W 80 PLUS Gold Modular ATX Power Supply - £109.98
SKU: CA-03K-GI

1 X APNX AP1 High Performance 5 Pipe CPU Air Cooler - Black - £34.99
SKU: COO-AER-00613

1 X WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E) - £67.99
SKU: HD-58F-WD

1 X LG 27" 27GR75Q-B 2560x1440 IPS 165Hz 1ms FreeSync/G-Sync Gaming Monitor - £248.99
SKU: MON-LGC-00585

Grand Total: £1,836.91

Should it be good enough to run Pong at max settings? I like my games to look good, really good and run very smoothly but not quite to the point of Digital Foundry obsession. So if there is a different monitor with slightly redder reds or an alternative cpu that'll give my games an extra 2fps boost I'm not really interested!

Thanks again for your time.

md99 · 16 Mar 2024 at 00:14

Wasn't aware of the Gigabyte thing. Can switch to a new Corsair in that case, my current one (500w) must be well over 10 years old and never had a hiccup out if it so I'll just stick with them again.

Same re memory/expo, never heard of it but will switch to that too.

Much appreciated folks, I learn a little every time I upgrade (every 8-10 years!) Will hopefully nail it all down tomorrow and maybe you can cast your eyes over it one last time.

md99 · 16 Mar 2024 at 11:42

Okay, change made to mainboard (again, its something I never really overemphasized - I usually closed my eyes and picked a £100 model in the past and hoped for the best).

The 4080 super, blimey, a grand for a card, maybe for a 4090 but even within the confines of my budget that's a hard one to swallow. And ray tracing isn't a deal clincher for me. Even the seven hundred plus for the 7900xt is a bit ott - but I am coming from a time when the highest-end cards of the time (1080ti) was six hundred quid I think.

I'll cobble together one final shopping list later today based upon all the above and cross my fingers.

md99 · 16 Mar 2024 at 15:42

Right, I'm £350 over budget, I hope there are no major issues with this. Longevity is the main thing here, I don't want to have to upgrade for about five years!

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse 20GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-3A7-SP) = £739.99
1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £349.99
1 x WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E) (SKU: HD-58F-WD) = £68.00
1 x LG 27" 27GR75Q-B 2560x1440 IPS 165Hz 1ms FreeSync/G-Sync Gaming Monitor (SKU: MON-LGC-00585) = £248.98
1 x Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K0-AS) = £170.00
1 x Corsair RMe Series RM850e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply v2 (CP-9020263-UK) (SKU: CA-27N-CS) = £124.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C36 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRS-00996) = £109.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Halo² Black Edition CPU Cooler - 120mm (SKU: HS-090-CM) = £39.95

Total: £1,851.89 (includes delivery: £0.00)