PC Upgrade Advice Request ~500 to 800 Quid, No GPU, No Monitor, No Case Required

AndyT

AndyT

AndyT

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Aix-en-Provence
Hi All,

My PC has bricked itself, so I'm in need of a rapid replacement, but am completely out of the loop when it comes to PC parts.

I last upgraded about around 2017, when the Ryzen 1600X came out. My last PC was based around Ryzen 1600X, 16GB RAM, with an NVIDIA 1070 GTX.

I have a full sized, relatively high end case, which I'm happy to keep. I'm OK with a full ATX mobo.

I'm also happy to keep the 1070 for now, with a view to upgrading later (so would like to take this potential GPU upgrade into account when speccing the power supply).

I don't care at all if the GPU bottlenecks the CPU in games for now, I just want the base setup to decent enough for 5-ish years, and with enough power to feed a high-mid end GPU in a year or so.

I'll probably play some games in the near future (maybe the next Battlefield when it comes out), and I had the old PC connected to the Meta Quest for HL Alyx etc.

The PC will be used for some light gaming at 1440, everyday office use and running some engineering software (no specific requirements on this aspect).

I would be very grateful for some advice on this. I have no strong feelings about any particular brand of any component, but I would like to try to avoid the Fisher Price multi-coloured LED vibe, and have no desire to water cool anything.

I would basically be looking for:

  • Mobo
  • CPU+fan
  • Ram (32GB+)
  • Power Supply
  • Decent Sized SSD

Many thanks to those who may respond!

Cheers
 
AndyT said:
  • Mobo
  • CPU+fan
  • Ram (32GB+)
  • Power Supply
  • Decent Sized SSD
Click to expand...
AM5 will be more popular, so just to suggest something else at the bottom-end of your budget, if you see a good deal:

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £511.90 (includes delivery: £7.99)​
 
Intel Core i5-12600KF 3.70GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail
CP-69Y-IN
£210 (incl. VAT)
£180 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Asus Prime B760-Plus D4 (LGA 1700) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
MB-6KF-AS
£122 (incl. VAT)
£115 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Phanteks AMP GH 750W 80PLUS Gold ATX Power Supply Modular - Black
POW-PHK-02517
£85 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Arctic Freezer 36 120m Black CPU Cooler - 2x 120mm
COO-ARC-02420
£30 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Cheers buddy! Very helpful, and that all actually looks pretty reasonably priced. Seems like GPUs are by far the least affordable components these days!
 
AndyT said:
Seems like GPUs are by far the least affordable components these days!
Click to expand...
They're not too bad, it depends what kind of upgrade you want. E.g. a 6750 XT is available for £300 and according to TPU's GPU database is around twice the speed of your 1070.
 
I'm going other way and going slightly over budget
you can drop to a b650 tuf gaming wifi for £165 and save a bit, but the b650e-e is a stonking board(i have it) and that's the cheapest I've ever seen it. Seeing as you using for work too by sound the added inclusion of the digital led error code may come in useful
but a 7700 cpu in there as 8 cores may be beneficial for work...wasn't that long ago you could have paid a little more for a 7800X3d but that's jumped £100 to 400 now. I think the 7700 bit overpriced at mo, would rather of put the 7800x3d in there, but currrent prices dictate comes with a cpu cooler but otherwise the arctic a36 freezer above is more than enough and quiet
32 gb 6000C30 ddr5 g skill neo expo ram prob as good as you're going to get
2tb ssd..you could pay around £135ish and then you'll get a faster drive with better endurance, or save cash and stick with 1tb
850W tuf mobo on offer..10 year warranty and should cater for any upper mid card you care to throw at it

as a guide, at work I use a 14700k, 32gb ddr5 5600c40 and a 4060ti driving 2 dual 4k 43" screens, runnig 3 trading platforms, multiple spreadshhets with big macro's, bloomberg and reuters news service , and outlook and internal chat service etc
At home b650e-e as above, 32gb 6000c30, 7800x3d, 2tb sn850x with a 3070ti

my work pc freezes, crashes, fails to boot up from sleep and basically is a pile of ***p...
my pc at home, though primarily a gaming cpu, still runs everything fine and I have no issues at all
I think one of the things at work is the basic mobo and crappy psu that's used in the thing...the fans like a hairdryer on my leg it gives off so much heat...why i went more high end...I'd pay more for overkill mobo with ott vrm requirement, that'll give you a clean even power to your cpu/components..t

My basket at OcUK:
 
Asus TUF Gaming 850W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
CA-060-AS
£130 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Asus ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard
MB-6JW-AS
£280 (incl. VAT)
£240 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo EXPO 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - B
MEM-GSK-01360
£140 (incl. VAT)
£120 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
AMD Ryzen 7 7700 Eight Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail
CP-3DV-AM
£315 (incl. VAT)
£279 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Craig_d1 said:
I'm going other way and going slightly over budget
you can drop to a b650 tuf gaming wifi for £165 and save a bit, but the b650e-e is a stonking board(i have it) and that's the cheapest I've ever seen it. Seeing as you using for work too by sound the added inclusion of the digital led error code may come in useful
but a 7700 cpu in there as 8 cores may be beneficial for work...wasn't that long ago you could have paid a little more for a 7800X3d but that's jumped £100 to 400 now. I think the 7700 bit overpriced at mo, would rather of put the 7800x3d in there, but currrent prices dictate comes with a cpu cooler but otherwise the arctic a36 freezer above is more than enough and quiet
32 gb 6000C30 ddr5 g skill neo expo ram prob as good as you're going to get
2tb ssd..you could pay around £135ish and then you'll get a faster drive with better endurance, or save cash and stick with 1tb
850W tuf mobo on offer..10 year warranty and should cater for any upper mid card you care to throw at it

as a guide, at work I use a 14700k, 32gb ddr5 5600c40 and a 4060ti driving 2 dual 4k 43" screens, runnig 3 trading platforms, multiple spreadshhets with big macro's, bloomberg and reuters news service , and outlook and internal chat service etc
At home b650e-e as above, 32gb 6000c30, 7800x3d, 2tb sn850x with a 3070ti

my work pc freezes, crashes, fails to boot up from sleep and basically is a pile of ***p...
my pc at home, though primarily a gaming cpu, still runs everything fine and I have no issues at all
I think one of the things at work is the basic mobo and crappy psu that's used in the thing...the fans like a hairdryer on my leg it gives off so much heat...why i went more high end...I'd pay more for overkill mobo with ott vrm requirement, that'll give you a clean even power to your cpu/components..t

My basket at OcUK:
Click to expand...
Very nice cheers! Looks good to me. I will probably go with Ryzen as I was very happy with the Ryzen 1600X. Point taken on the mobo and PSU. I've always tended to go higher end for mobos in the past and would be happy to get rid of the ancient and probably very slow WiFi dongle sticking out of my current machine. It'll be nice to have dismountable PSU cables too.

It's not much of a saving, but is there likely to be any noticeable difference between the two RAM modules for everyday use?
Thanks again
 
Asus TUF Gaming 850W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply
CA-060-AS
£130 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Asus ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard
MB-6JW-AS
£280 (incl. VAT)
£240 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo EXPO 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - B
MEM-GSK-01360
£140 (incl. VAT)
£120 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
AMD Ryzen 7 7700 Eight Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail
CP-3DV-AM
£315 (incl. VAT)
£279 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
AndyT said:
Very nice cheers! Looks good to me. I will probably go with Ryzen as I was very happy with the Ryzen 1600X. Point taken on the mobo and PSU. I've always tended to go higher end for mobos in the past and would be happy to get rid of the ancient and probably very slow WiFi dongle sticking out of my current machine. It'll be nice to have dismountable PSU cables too.

It's not much of a saving, but is there likely to be any noticeable difference between the two RAM modules for everyday use?
Thanks again
Click to expand...
the cheaper package @Tetras put together uses a ddr4 ram setup, whereas the more exoensive side of things, I used the newer DDR5 mobo/ram combo, and I put in 6000C30, which is the sweet spot for amd
going forward, the new intel cpu's being released will be ddr5 as well, so ddr4 is on it's last legs (so to speak)
For gaming the newer faster ddr5 does make a difference compared to the original ddr5 which came out a 4800C46 or so, which really didn't show much of any difference compared to lastes ddr4 as the extra bandwidth of ddr5 was countered by greater latency, and games like low latency. For productivity though, depending on what you do, the greater bandwith of ddr5 can have a big impact. Not sure what you're engineering software entails...
you dealing with large files also?..
the newer x870e and x870 mobo's just release still use the same chipsets as X670e and b650e( the x870E is basically a X670E board whereas the X870 boards are more like B650e boards)..if you're doing large files, and also doing transfering between places the x870e boards normally have 2 usb4 ports allowing 40gbs data transfer..also if dealing with large files, may be worth getting a more durable ssd
 
Last edited:
mickyflinn said:
You could save yourself £100 from @Craig_d1 nice build by changing the motherboard to a Asus TUF Gaming B650-E WIFI and cheaper memory.

Although the GPU primary slot will be pcie4 .
Click to expand...
I suggested the b650 tuf gaming wifi in my original post for £165 as a cheaper alternative to the b650e-e...just seeing as going high end budget, b650e-e is a better board. I'd stil lean to the gaming wifi over the b650-e board out of the 2 tuf boards though, purely as it has a 12+2 60A vrm setup..the b650-e uses same vrm, but they've cut it down to a 8+2 60A setup...I's rather have the 50% bump from 8 to 12 vrm's in the gaming wifi
the b650e-e has a 16+2 70A vrm setup, also has the debug led code display which is very useful for problem solving and 4 m.2 slots as opposed to 3 as well ...populate them all, and you use loose pcie5 on the gpu..drops to pcie4, but seeing as op was lokking at mid upper tier gpu down the line, that's shouldn't impact performance at all as a 4090 doesn't saturate pcie4. also has more usb connections on back and is an 8 layer pcb board(other 2 are 6 layer)
I am overkilling I guess, but if using for work, I'd personally overkill it so to speak..everyone just goes for the cheapest board they can get, and i do get it, but it links all your parts together and provided the power delivery to your cpu
but yes, b650 tuf gaming wifi is still a good board..i put the b650-e as more budget as they cut vrms from the gaming wifi (similar board otherwise, a refresh with cuts to lower price)
 
7800x3d will run on potato vrms so no need to go overboard if it will push the spec overbudget
it's not a 7950x (or a 14900k) that will pull 230-250w at full pelt
 
Last edited:
tamzzy said:
7800x3d will run on potato vrms so no need to go overboard if it will push the spec overbudget
it's not a 7950x (or a 14900k) that will pull 230-250w at full pelt
Click to expand...
not sure if gaming primary function here..also, op wants it for next 5years ish, so possible cpu upgrade down the line..just out of b650-e and b650 gaming wifi, i prefer gaming wifi..there's like £15 diff between the 2
 
tamzzy said:
average is good enough, even the £100-110 asrock b650m hdv/m2 can run a 7950x
www.techspot.com

x56 AMD B650 Motherboard Roundup

We're updating our AMD B650 VRM thermal database for a grand total of 56 motherboards. In addition to testing new popular boards from Asrock, MSI, and Gigabyte,...
www.techspot.com www.techspot.com
Click to expand...
:cry: I get what you mean, but choose a dif board..from link that mobo can run a 7950X but was considered a failure..as bar is red( blue is a pass)and ran at 107degrees..hardly average when it came 50th out of 56 boards
 
Craig_d1 said:
:cry: I get what you mean, but choose a dif board..from link that mobo can run a 7950X but was considered a failure..as bar is red( blue is a pass)and ran at 107degrees..hardly average when it came 50th out of 56 boards
Click to expand...
you're looking at the wrong board mate :)
 
Craig_d1 said:
ahh, got it 84 degrees...still prefer the gaming wifi if going mid range, though the b650-e come 28th out of 56...can't get much more average than that
Click to expand...

yes can spend more for a board with better features, no denying that
all i'm saying is that even a cheap, good quality £100-110 board can handle a 7950x, so more VRM = better is just a bit of e-peen willy waving more than anything tbh
 
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