Some opinions on a mid range build before I buy

Whizard · 8 Nov 2019 at 15:45

Hi all,

I just signed up because before I went shooting headfirst into buying a build with a bunch of components I wanted to gather any feedback or suggestions on the build i'm proposing in case there is any advice on certain parts which may not be great if people have had personal experiences with them. Any feedback would be massively appreciated, I'm trying to keep it around the £1000 mark and the total cost for this pre-built system is £1030.

I've heard not so great things about the components that CyberPowerPC use in some of their ready builds, however I have chosen each individual component for this build so there should be anything they can skimp on unless they actually deliver the wrong product. Here are the main parts of the build as follows:

CAS: Cyberpower ONYXIA Mid-Tower Black Gaming Case w/ USB 3.0, Front & Side Tempered Glass [-7]

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X - 6-Core 3.80GHz, 4.4GHz Turbo - 32MB L3 Cache Processor, Pro OC Compatible (No On-board Graphics) [+8] (comes with cooler, RYZEN Wraith)

CS_FAN: Maximum Airflow with 3 x 120mm LED Coloured Cooling Fans for your selected case (Red Colour) [+9] (Fans Only (no upgrade))

M2SSD: 256GB (1x256GB) ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD - 2100MB/s Read & 1200MB/s Write [+34] (Single Drive)

HDD: 1TB Seagate BarraCuda SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM Hard Drive (1 Drive)

MEMORY: 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4/3200mhz Dual Channel Memory [+28] (Corsair Vengeance LPX w/Heat Spreader)

MOTHERBOARD: MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX: M-ATX w/ RGB, USB 3.1, SATA3, 1x M.2 [+17]

OS: Windows 10 Home (64-bit Edition)

POWERSUPPLY: Corsair Vengeance Series 650M 650W 80+ Silver Gaming Power Supply

VIDEO: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB - DX12® - VR Ready, HDMI, DVI, DP, 5 Monitor Support [+209] (Single Card)

I think that's really the main bulk aside from things like wireless adapters. What are some thoughts? I thought it seemed like a decent build for £1000 built and delivered. I chose the 3600X over the & 2700X as I want to use it primarily for gaming. I also chose the RX 5700 XT (with dual fans not blower) as I thought for performance to price it worked out the best. On comparisons between that and the RTX 2070 Super it only performed slightly worse and it a lot cheaper.

Thank you for reading this stupidly long post, if you have any notes to add or want to call me out on anything I may have overlooked please do! It's a big purchase and I want to make sure I order the right thing before going ahead

Minibiker · 8 Nov 2019 at 15:51

Welcome

I know it's only around £20 - £30 but for gaming the non X version would perform just aswell, also double check that the Asus B450 board will accept the Ryzen 3000 CPU, most boards don't only MSI Max boards will out the box

Whizard · 8 Nov 2019 at 16:02

Minibiker said:
Welcome

I know it's only around £20 - £30 but for gaming the non X version would perform just aswell, also double check that the Asus B450 board will accept the Ryzen 3000 CPU, most boards don't only MSI Max boards will out the box

Thanks for replying, on this particular site it turns out to be only an £8 difference between to two which is why I ended up just having the X I think.

Thanks for mentioning about the motherboard, after looking into it the Asus was only up to 2nd Gen, have now changed it to an MSI Max which clearly states it supports 3rd. Will update original post too

Minibiker · 8 Nov 2019 at 16:19

Whizard said:
Thanks for replying, on this particular site it turns out to be only an £8 difference between to two which is why I ended up just having the X I think.

Thanks for mentioning about the motherboard, after looking into it the Asus was only up to 2nd Gen, have now changed it to an MSI Max which clearly states it supports 3rd. Will update original post too

Ohhh bargain can't go wrong with the X version for a tiny cost extra.. Corsair PSU'S are great for warranty to

Whizard · 8 Nov 2019 at 16:32

Sounds good! I have a Corsair in my current build and generally turn towards them for PSU's as I've never had a problem.

I want to future proof a little bit with my budget, I've heard reports that these components work a little better together at 1440p rather than 1080p but I don't know much about that. In any case gaming is heading to higher resolutions anyway so my thought process is they would be good components when I decide to upgrade my monitor

Minibiker · 8 Nov 2019 at 16:37

Whizard said:
Sounds good! I have a Corsair in my current build and generally turn towards them for PSU's as I've never had a problem.

I want to future proof a little bit with my budget, I've heard reports that these components work a little better together at 1440p rather than 1080p but I don't know much about that. In any case gaming is heading to higher resolutions anyway so my thought process is they would be good components when I decide to upgrade my monitor

Yeah for your budget of around £1000 I'd definitely have the 5700XT in there and a nice size SSD... You could save a fair bit by not buying Windows OS and using the Creation tool from the Microsoft website, then get a Activation code for cheap.

Whizard · 8 Nov 2019 at 20:01

Minibiker said:
Yeah for your budget of around £1000 I'd definitely have the 5700XT in there and a nice size SSD... You could save a fair bit by not buying Windows OS and using the Creation tool from the Microsoft website, then get a Activation code for cheap.

Great! I've stuck a 256SSD in there mainly just for the OS, so that should be enough space with some left over? Maybe a small game that I play regularly too like LoL.

The 5700XT definitely seemed like the best option at that price point.

I didn't think about that, how would I go about that? Loading that onto a USB then booting from that on the initial startup?

Minibiker · 8 Nov 2019 at 22:11

Whizard said:
Great! I've stuck a 256SSD in there mainly just for the OS, so that should be enough space with some left over? Maybe a small game that I play regularly too like LoL.

The 5700XT definitely seemed like the best option at that price point.

I didn't think about that, how would I go about that? Loading that onto a USB then booting from that on the initial startup?

256gb will be good for the OS and a few games.. I have a 120gb SSD with 4 games and OS, it just depends on the size of the games you want to put on it...

With the creation tool it's a simple setup, I do it with all my builds... Basically get yourself a blank USB, download creation tool from Microsoft, fire up your PC with the USB inserted and then go through the steps of the Windows setup ie Language, version etc

(assuming you have another PC or Laptop you can access to download the file)

EsaT · 9 Nov 2019 at 12:13

Whizard said:
I want to future proof a little bit with my budget, I've heard reports that these components work a little better together at 1440p rather than 1080p but I don't know much about that. In any case gaming is heading to higher resolutions anyway so my thought process is they would be good components when I decide to upgrade my monitor

For the budget there ain't much of that future proofing.

Gaming is heading toward big CPU power use increase with next-gen consoles coming in a year with basically underclocked 3700X.
And that motherboard is really super low end board meant for market scam PCs with wimpy and weakly cooled CPU VRM.
Could see it running hot already with fully loaded six core and 8 core would likely push it at least near thermal throttling.
So not much of future proofness there with very questionable ability to power 8 cores needed for heavier games of the next-gen console era.

Also no current graphics card is good for future proofing.
Next-gen consoles will bring raytracing to mainstream, which is something what Navis lacks.
And RTXes take huge performance penalty from actual use of that hyped raytracing and have no better future proofness for price.
So would expect current graphics cards to start looking really dated in around year and half.

And Microsoft just wants you to pay ludicrous amount for making yourself unpaid alpha tester for their "We know this code is untested crap full of bugs, but we'll push it out anyway and fix problems later" patches:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/23/microsoft_windows_10_crisis/
And that train wreck on auto repeat has just kept going on.

Also feels like there's some money wasted on bling bling and posibly to useless hype.
Like LED fans being typically very overpriced compared to price you can get good normal fans.
Equally have ther feeling that NMVe drive is overpriced with marketing hype.

Half TB SSD can be had for sub £60 and that price PC should that, so you can install more than latest Modern Warfare into it besides OS...
Doesn't even really matter if it's NVMe or SATA, main thing is that it's SSD instead of HDD:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nvme+ssd+hdd