Pre-built PC for £1k-1.5K

[GoogalyMoogaly]

I've got a friend that's look for a new PC. He wants a prebuilt, mostly for gaming.
I think he's playing at around 1440p, which I think is a tough ask.
What are the best options for something that will perform well now but also last as long as possible?

I'm thinking it's probably better to go with an AMD CPU in the 5700X or 7600/7700 range? Is there much option in the 250K+ range as I doubt he'll be upgrading the CPU so "dead platform" isn't an issue?
GPU I'm thinking 12-16GB is the minimum to go for? So that mean most likely a 16GB 5060Ti or 9060XT unless there's a cheap option with a 5070. I think 9070 is unlikely at this price point?
I feel like 32GB RAM is where he should be aiming if he plans to keep the PC for any time, am I asking too much at this price point?
I think 1TB SSD is standard at this price point and I don't see many options.
CPU cooler, I'm thinking take whatever but it's a bonus if it's something better than stock.
PSUs, most prebuilts seem vague on this but I guess you take what you can get.

He'd also want WiFi.

This seems tricky at anything but the top end of the price range. Am I aiming too high? Am I overspeccing anything at this price point?

 

[Tetras]

This seems tricky at anything but the top end of the price range. Am I aiming too high? Am I overspeccing anything at this price point?

Budget builds have been badly hit by the high SSD/RAM prices and the whopping price hikes for 16GB entry-level cards.

A £1K build is a 1080p, DDR4 spec, like a Ryzen 5600 and a 5060, with 16GB of RAM

£1K5 is a lot more doable, OCUK have a couple of PCs with AM5 CPUs, 32GB of RAM and a 9060 XT or 5060 Ti 16GB.

 

[mickyflinn]

These are the 2 that's in budget which meets your requirements either a 7700 cpu with a 9060xt or 7500f with 5060ti , both gpus are 16gb and will do 1440p, memory is 32gb.

Purchased the mach 2 system for my son for Xmas and very pleased with it while being £400 cheaper at the time. The pyrite system looks tempting with a stronger CPU so it's a toss up Nvidia or AMD.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-gaming-mach-2-ryzen-7500f-rtx-5060-ti-pre-built-gaming-pc-fs-pb15-ep.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-gaming-pyrite-ryzen-7-7700-radeon-rx-9060-xt-pre-built-gaming-pc-fs-pb13-ep.html

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

These are the 2 that's in budget which meets your requirements either a 7700 cpu with a 9060xt or 7500f with 5060ti , both gpus are 16gb and will do 1440p, memory is 32gb.

Purchased the mach 2 system for my son for Xmas and very pleased with it while being £400 cheaper at the time. The pyrite system looks tempting with a stronger CPU so it's a toss up Nvidia or AMD.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-gaming-mach-2-ryzen-7500f-rtx-5060-ti-pre-built-gaming-pc-fs-pb15-ep.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-gaming-pyrite-ryzen-7-7700-radeon-rx-9060-xt-pre-built-gaming-pc-fs-pb13-ep.html

Those are actually the 2 I initially suggested to him. They both come with bronze PSUs, is that a concern these days?

Also, is the 5060Ti better enough than the 9060XT to justify the drop down in CPU?

 

[Tetras]

Is there much option in the 250K+ range as I doubt he'll be upgrading the CPU so "dead platform" isn't an issue?

There's one available near the budget, but it loses 16GB of RAM and 8GB of VRAM from the graphics.

Admittedly the 250K is an enormously better multithreading CPU than a 7500F and decently ahead of the 8-core 7700, but the difference in games is minimal and not worth the loss of half the RAM/VRAM.

I feel like 32GB RAM is where he should be aiming if he plans to keep the PC for any time, am I asking too much at this price point?

I wouldn't get 16GB myself. From what we know, RAM won't be coming down for at least a year, maybe two and it'll be the first thing they complain about

unless there's a cheap option with a 5070. I think 9070 is unlikely at this price point?

Looks like 1700+ for a 5070.

The new 9070 GRE is an interesting card, but currently priced nearly £500 and barely less than a 9070. Not integrated in pre-builds yet.

A 9060 XT 16GB or 5060 Ti 16GB are capable cards at 1440p, but worth pointing out that despite the big budget it doesn't go very far anymore (..to avoid disappointment).

 

[tamzzy]

Also, is the 5060Ti better enough than the 9060XT to justify the drop down in CPU?

it depends. and as always, the devil is in the detail

1) if your friend uses the pc for AI stuff, or tied to the nvidia ecosystem (CUDA, NVENC etc)
2) the rasterisation performance of the 9060xt and 5060ti are roughly equal. the 5060ti is slightly faster but not meaningfully so
3) the ray tracing performance of the 5060ti is 10-20% better than the 9060xt, and more (20-30%) if using path tracing
4) for upscalers (ie DLSS/FSR) nvidia still hold the advantage of better image quality and more game support
5) nvidia e-peen

is all the above worth the drop from the 7700 to the 7500f?
it depends on the use case...but for the vast majority of gamers it probably wouldn't matter too much
i would hazard a guess that the 7700 would provide more stable framerates though, because more cpu cores and higher cpu boost frequency
if this were my pc, i would not hesitate to get the 7700/9060xt over the 7500f/5060ti combo