PC build recommendation

[AwkwardSausage]

Hi guys,

Looking to get a gaming PC now before the costs become insane, but I'm clueless, and I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction.

Please let us know what your intentions are:
(1) You are building your own PC, or will have someone doing this for you – Yes, open to this
(2) You want OCUK to build your custom PC – Yes, open to this
(3) You want an off-the-shelf PC – Yes, open to this

I’m not fussed whether it’s a custom OCUK build or a prebuilt. I’ll go with whichever gives the best performance for the money.

Purchase Timeframe – ASAP. Ideally within the next few weeks, and within two months at the latest. I’m happy to pick up a Black Friday / Christmas deal if there’s a good one.
Budget – £1,200–£1,500 for the PC itself. Peripherals and monitor on top (see below).
Usage – Mainly gaming at 1440p, including:

• Red Dead Redemption 2
• The Witcher
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection
• God of War
• GTA 6

I also want to play newer AAA releases at high settings and high frame rates at 1440p. Apart from gaming, it’s just email and office work (Microsoft Office, browsing)

Preferences – No strong brand loyalty, AMD or Intel / Nvidia or AMD GPU, whichever gives the best value. I would also like room to upgrade later.
Current Hardware – None, this is a completely new setup.
Peripherals – Just a monitor, will use an Xbox controller for gaming.

• 1440p gaming monitor

Special Needs/Requirements (inc Wi-Fi) – Must have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in.
Recommendations or bundle deals welcome.
Please let me know if you need any more information to help with the recommendations, and thank you in advance!

 

[Gray2233]

Do you have at the least a basic keyboard and mouse or will they be required?

Using a gamepad for the games you've listed wont be a problem, but for setup and general computer use ideally you will want access to them even if it's just something you spent a fiver on in Poundland.

What you're looking for is a tall order right now for £1500 unfortunately, it's doable but rough.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 9600X Six Core 5.40GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-02677) = GBP158.99
• 1 x Kolink Citadel Mesh Micro-ATX Case - Black (SKU: CA-051-KK) = GBP34.99
• 1 x KIOXIA EXCERIA G3 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe 5.0 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-KIO-07152) = GBP269.99
• 1 x V-Color (1+1) Manta XSky RGB EXPO 16GB (1x16GB) DDR5 C30 6000MHz Single Channel Kit - Black (SKU: MEM-VCR-08335) = GBP218.99
• 1 x Seasonic Core BC-750 750W ATX 3.1 PCIe 5.1 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (SKU: POW-SSC-07507) = GBP59.95
• 1 x Asrock Radeon RX 9070 GRE Steel Legend Dark 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ASR-08282) = GBP599.99
• 1 x Gigabyte B850M GAMING X WIFI6E (Socket AM5) DDR5 Micro ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-GIG-03861) = GBP154.99
• 1 x Thermalright Assassin Spirit 120 V2 CPU Air Cooler (SKU: COO-TLR-03263) = GBP17.99

Total: GBP1528.87 (includes delivery: GBP12.99)​

The above takes into consideration current stock availability and pricing, as this forum is funded and operated by OCUK we can't recommend competitors.

This is with 1x16gb DDR5 DIMM, I'm specifying it on the basis of you buying another down the road. You'd be running in single channel mode which will result in performance loss, furthermore RAM pricing and availability are becoming worse on an almost daily basis, as such I would heavily recommend spending another £200 to get a 2x16gb set out of the gate.

You could save money dropping down to a 1tb NvME but frankly modern games can take up a ton of space so I'd not suggest it.

Do not buy retail W11 as it'll eat massively into your budget, either find an OEM key for £10-20, run without activation which should only cause minor functionality loss, or run an activation script which is a bit of a grey area.

I will forewarn that prices are skyrocketing and stock availability is decreasing, particularly with RAM and GPU's. If you're really wanting to build a system for yourself I'd consider buying the memory and possibly GPU ASAP.

Even outside of spending another £200 on RAM, it's very much a case of a little more money would go a long way in terms of case/cooling and a better PSU. Unfortunately you're not really in a position to spend another few weeks or couple of months saving, you'll potentially be fully priced out by that point.

I'm also assuming you plan on spending money on a 1440P monitor separately to the above.

 

[Tetras]

Usage – Mainly gaming at 1440p, including:

• Red Dead Redemption 2
• The Witcher
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection
• God of War
• GTA 6

I also want to play newer AAA releases at high settings and high frame rates at 1440p. Apart from gaming, it’s just email and office work (Microsoft Office, browsing)

I'd really try and find an extra £200-£300, if you can. £1500 just isn't the budget it once was. You don't want to be making compromises already when the above is your goal.

 

[tamzzy]

Budget – £1,200–£1,500 for the PC itself. Peripherals and monitor on top (see below).

What is your total budget including peripherals?

 

[Quartz]

Looking to get a gaming PC now before the costs become insane, but I'm clueless, and I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction.

This is discussed here:

You can scrub through but I think the bit you want is at about 2:24:00

 

[Quartz]

I posted a review of the Citadel Mesh here. TLDR it's a very impressive case for not much money.