Temp card

[Tetras]

I mean, the crux of this thread is an outlay of £105 (on something that you could easily resell later and get most of that back). If that's a life-changing amount of money for you, I'd suggest that perhaps it's not the time to be buying a gaming PC at all. It really shouldn't be a huge decision.

There are also some absolutely terrible suggestions in this thread, like not spending £105 for a GTX 1080 that'd give you a perfectly decent gaming experience and still play just about anything at a reasonable framerate with some upscaling, but rather just use the integrated graphics which have all the power of a mouldy potato and will struggle to run 15 year old titles acceptably. Or downgrade everything in your build, going from a 9800X3D to a 7600 as if they're even remotely comparable, all so that you can have the awesome power of a 9060 XT (a card about twice as fast as a GTX 1080 for more than triple the outlay). You're far better off getting the base of your system sorted first time around. It's FAR more hassle and faff to go about upgrading your CPU/motherboard later compared to your graphics card. Buying a CPU that's already low-end for the platform along with the crappiest old B650 motherboard you can find is a terrible idea if you actually plan to keep this build for a good length of time (and there's really no reason that shouldn't be your plan). There's nothing wrong with budget builds IF that's what you want, but I doubt you'd be considering a 9800X3D in the first place if you wanted a budget build. Skimping on the bones of your system will only lead to unhappiness later if it's not what you want.

As for worrying about things not working, everything comes with a warranty and right to return. Just don't go buying parts months apart to make that more difficult. Buy the thing, build it, test it (you don't even need the graphics card for that part) and then you have returns windows and peace of mind.

As somebody who made both of the "absolutely terrible suggestions", I will elaborate on my logic

I don't think the crux of the thread is the £100, I think the crux of the thread is ALL the monies.

RE: the part about the low-end CPU with the crappiest B650 motherboard. I do take your point, but we see it a lot in the build section where somebody gets the latest high-end parts (like 9800X3D and 14900K) just 'cos that's what they think you need for gaming. The parts I suggested are perfectly fine for a decent 1440p build for the next 2-3 years, which if the OP is uncomfortable with their overall spend (that's my impression), then why not?

That board really isn't that bad either, it'll take an upgrade to a 9800X3D (or whatever else in the future).

The integrated graphics suggestion was in response to the OP saying they just want to make sure everything works before buying anything else expensive.

 

[ShiWarrior]

have you got those parts OP, or nothing yet ?

reason I ask, is because we can help you build a system with your budget better

/then ill move thread to the correct section

 

[SuperElectric]

Hi thanks for the replies, dont want to tweak my system too much as its not just for playing games as i will be multitasking as well and running other software.just want to build the system and make sure its reliable before spending £600-£800 more(in my mind the build might not work and i might have to recoup the cost and so the £600-£800 gpu is not necessary to make sure the build works first), so spending £100 for a temp card and then as a backup is not to bad in terms of cost.

You don't need 64GB ram just for multitasking? That's approx £100 you could save.

Also the 9800X3D is a waste of money (I have one). Drop down to the 9700X, still eight core Zen5. That's another £130 saved.

Still get the cheap second hand card if you want, that's actually a good idea. It's miserable being on integrated graphics, can't play anything. Whenever you make up your mind on the next GPU, you'll only make a relatively small loss in absolute terms on a 1080 or 2070, £20-£40 max.

 

[sastusbulbas]

Sorry but I have to say the 9800X3D is simply not doing anything to justify it's cost until you get to GPU"s like the 5080 or 5090.

You only have to look at the CPU/GPU scaling benchmark articles from the likes of Hardware unboxed and others to see you get little in return.

Unless you can show a majority of your most played games at your normal play settings hitting a 25%+ improvement, so far it has been single digit frame rate improvements for the majority of Steam titles.

It's the same with memory, if your not continually having major issues where you have maxed out 32gb and it has impacted your life or work. Then you don't need 64gb and most likely never will.

850w is all you need for a 9700x with a 9070xt. If you don't need 8 cores and 16 threads, nothing wrong with a 7600x.

Hell, if you don't play the latest AAA titles you don't really need more than a 9060xt.

9070xt is more than likely overkill for me as I play a lot of old nonsense like Warframe, World Of Tanks, Unturned, Command and Conquer and such nonsense, last fancy game I got was Red dead Redemption I think.

Nothing wrong with lowering the spec of the CPU, memory or GPU, and they can always be upgraded later if needed.

This time next year I bet more will be using Gen 5 NVMe, we will have a better X3D CPU for AM5, and better GPU's with more memory.

So if you only have around £100 budget for a used GPU, get a 9700x and 32gb of DDR5 with a 9060xt 16gb or 5060ti 16gb.

Upgrade again next year.