PC Build Advise - £2,000 (including Peripherals)

Saul Johnson

Saul Johnson

Saul Johnson

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Joined
24 Apr 2020
Posts
6
Hi Guys,

I am brand new to PC gaming, never owned a gaming PC before, but I am looking at building one myself.

I am looking to play titles such as the new Cyberpunk 2077, as well as Far Cry 5, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and any Assassins Creed game.

My budget is £2,000, but I am willing to go slightly over due to me needing to buy peripherals as well. I also want to include a 144hz monitor in the budget if possible.

I was working on this myself, but a friend told me that the more expensive gear doesn't necessarily mean better performance, it depends what you pair your parts with and how they work together... and at that point he lost me and I decided I needed to come and ask the experts!

I would just like the most "bang for my buck" and would like a PC I can use comfortable with most titles, for the next 3/4 years without having to upgrade much.

Any help would be greatly appreciated :)
 
Great :)

Now do you want a bit of RGB lighting parts and a window case to show it off? Or a quiet non-windowed case and not much if any RGB? :p

Does the budget also need keyboard, mouse and speakers or headset too?

EDIT: Do you need WiFi built-in too, or will you be wired to your router/internet?
 
Thanks for your quick responses!

I am not too fussed with RGB (looks amazing), but if it means I can upgrade other things in the PC and save money not having RGB then I'd prefer to do that :).

I don't mind the case itself coming with RGB and being windowed though, but just no extra RGB fans etc haha.

The budget does need to include a keyboard and mouse. I have speakers and a headset though :).

I will be using an ethernet cable, but if possible I'd like the option to connect to wifi just in case anything happens to the cable etc haha. But if this drastically affects the price then I can easily stick to a wired connection and just make sure I have extra ethernet cables free haha.
 
No worries :p

I'd recommend something like this, would be a fantastic performer with the 3700X, 2070 Super and 16GB of 3600Mhz RAM... The monitor is a great 1080p display with 144Hz refresh rate and G-Sync compatible for your Nvidia GPU.

Obviously certain parts are completely down to personal preference i.e. keyboard, mouse, case etc... Case you might want to have a browse and either go for the black one or the NZXT H510i for example. Your choice!

You'll notice some parts are out of stock currently likely due to COVID-19 (NVME drive, monitor and mouse). But there isn't too many great alternatives either at a similar price point for the performance they give. You could try look for stock on another site obviously and some parts may be cheaper, but OcUK do give a great service so maybe ask when they plan to get stock. :)

Despite it being under budget, you could if you really wanted too trim the cost further... The motherboard you could drop to a MSI B450 Tomawhawk Max (saves £110) but the Gigabyte has the newer X570 chipset which has 2x full speed M.2 and PCIe 4.0 slots so more future-proof than the B450 board. The VRMs are also much better quality on it. RAM you could trim another £60 and get the Crucial Ballistix 3200MHz kit - difference being speed 3200 vs 3600MHz, some games do benefit a bit more from 3600, and I'm a slight brand snob and like things to match... :D

Food for thought anyway! Personally I like to match parts/brands together and spend the extra few quid for the slightly better performance and aesthetics, especially if it comes just in budget already! ;)

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,908.74 (includes shipping: £0.00)
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Amazing! Thank you for your help Sparx! I will take a look through the list after work and come back to you if I have any further questions :). I also like the idea of matching gear haha! :)
 
Saul Johnson said:
I am not too fussed with RGB (looks amazing), but if it means I can upgrade other things in the PC and save money not having RGB then I'd prefer to do that :).
Click to expand...
RGB typically stands for Ridiculously Grossly Bloated prices.

Just as an example price of that ridiculously expensive only basic 2x8GB amount Corsair gets guaranteedly future proof 2x16GB memory:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/patr...dual-channel-kit-pvs432g320c6k-my-106-pa.html
And two ranks per DIMM should easily compensate for 3600Mhz vs 3200MHz difference in gaming...


Sparx said:
Click to expand...
Too expensive for small size mediaval resolution TN when £40 more gets major step up in gaming immersion 27" 2560x1440 VA.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aoc-...een-led-backlit-gaming-monitor-mo-057-ao.html
 
@EsaT not a bad shout, just edited my post as I thought it was the 1080p version so mentioned PPI. I did think about 27" 1440p but for a first time system, 144Hz and G-Sync you're pushing that GPU much harder and might not reap the benefits to reach high FPS... But 1440p is a beautiful resolution to have over 1080p, I moved to 1440p last year and will never go back to 1080p.

But most definitely you pay for RGB and aesthetics... The alternative if you trimmed parts down would be something like the below. I used the bigger monitor EsaT suggested though, then dropped case to a decent quality Phanteks P300 (-£50), RAM to a 3200MHz kit (-£60), B450 mobo (-£110) and 1TB SSD instead of NVME (-£50). Mix and match how you please!

Personally I have OCD for investing in older tech, so would want the latest X570 mobo and a decent NVME drive than an older SSD. But real world you wouldn't notice much performance difference between them. It's your money and your choice ultimately. ;) The monitor is probably a good shout still by EsaT and I think you'd like 1440p for how crisp and good quality it is on a VA panel.

EDIT: Changed the case to a cheaper one too as alternative ideas

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,700.64 (includes shipping: £15.90)
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Last edited:
Hmmm food for thought for sure. If I was wanting to go purely performance based (on the 2560x1440 144Hz monitor you suggested above), and wanting to run games on high/ultra settings, whilst guaranteeing not to drop below 60fps, would this be possible on my budget? I am happy to spend £2,000 if it guarantees great performance and reliability when gaming on new releases etc (such as cyberpunk for example). Or would the budget need to be increased for that?

Thanks again for all your help guys, very much appreciated.
 
For 1440p you'll still get 60fps+ on a 2070 Super - it's more if you could reach the 140fps+ region to benefit from the 144Hz refresh rate and G-Sync.

Tbh next step up is a 2080 Super and it's most definitely not worth it for a 5-10% FPS gain.

I'd stick with the 2070S and 1440p still you'll enjoy it. :)
 
Ok that makes sense :) I will stick with the 2070S then!

Just a question about the 2 lists you have created for me (thanks by the way!), what would be the performance differences between the 1st and 2nd? I know the second is cheaper, but I just wanted to know exactly the impacts of both lists on performance, because if there is a noticeable difference I think I'd stick with the 1st list and just change the monitor if that's the case :)
 
MSI B450 Tomahawk is perfect for only 8 core Ryzen if you don't intend to ugprade CPU.
Though with working case cooling it would do also decently well with 12/16 cores. (games don't cause AVX level load)


There's zero sense to buy any more expensive card than 2070 Super.
And even that doesn't have great performance per price compared to Radeon 5700 XT.
Nvidia has focused last years into pumping user butts... err prices with worser and worser performance and future proofness for price.
Next Xbox will have fully 2080 Super level GPU in raw power and with tight optimizations it likely performs better.
Especially in raytracing which causes major performance hit for RTX cards with up to 30% or in worst case 50% framerate penalty.
 
Hey @Saul Johnson sorry I totally forgot about your thread! :p

If you haven’t already made a purchase, I think overall this would be your best bang for buck performance wise, without wasting too much on aesthetics or new features you’ll likely not use. :)

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,738.78 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​
 
No peripherals, but still money left over for that.

The Asus monitor is out of stock at the moment. I would look for a Pixio PX7 Prime as it should be cheaper, and is still IPS (See video below).

You can use the Ryzen Dram calculator to bump the ram up to 3200 or higher depending on how well it overclocks. Another vid linked below for that.

The 5700XT is better from a price/performance view over the 2070S. Not quite as fast depending on the game, but saves £100. Still a solid gpu for 1440p.

MSI board has wifi.

Extra fan is for the rear of the case. The rear pre-installed fan can then be moved to the front so that you have 2 intake fans.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,695.61 (includes shipping: £20.82)​
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Pixio PX7:


Ram overclocking guide:

 
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