Total war machine

[Kingofkernow]

Hi, looking to get a machine that would run total war games primarily, but also the likes of Civ, CK3, Dawn of Man and Planet Zoo. My current laptop runs them all fine, just struggles with graphics. Will be my first time build a PC so any advice on what to get would be greatly appreciated. Budget isn't huge at thus stage anywhere between £800-£1000.

 

[dfour]

Total war specs

PC 60 FPS+ Specifications

• Expect 60 FPS+ on campaign map and in a 1v1, 21 units vs 21 units battle, default graphics preset set to “Ultra”, running at 1920×1080
• Operating System: Windows 10 64 Bit
• Processor: Intel® Core™ Intel i7-8700K
• RAM: 8GB
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x MSI B450M Mortar MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 mATX Motherboard= £94.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £229.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan TUF Gaming Alliance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C19 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Blac= £79.99
• 1 x TeamGroup 512GB Vulcan G SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive= £46.99
• 1 x Aerocool Hive V2 Midi Tower, Tempered Glass - Black= £44.95
• 1 x ZOTAC GeForce RTX 2060 Twin Fan 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £329.99
• 1 x Super Flower Leadex III ARGB 650W 80 PLUS Gold Modular Power Supply - Black= £89.99
• 1 x Alpenfohn Brocken ECO Advanced CPU Cooler - 120 mm= £29.99

Total: £959.18 (includes shipping: £12.30)
​

Notes
The 2060 is just a placeholder for a 3060ti (£390) as you cant add one to the build in OC as they are all out of stock.
The rgb psu is chosen only because its a good quality modular unit thats in stock.
3600 ryzen are hard to get hold off. A 5600x would be better but more expensive and require a b550 motherboard as well but do seem to be available to buy from some other places.
Im assuming you dont need wifi.

For a few £££ more a nice m.2 1 tb drive would be better to store all your favorite games and mods,

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x WD Blue SN550 1TB NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T2B0C)= £99.95

Total: £108.65 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

 

[Kingofkernow]

Thank you for the recommendations. I won't be using WiFi, hard wired all the way.

 

[Audigex]

I've got nothing specific to add to the above build other than the fact that I run almost the exact spec dfour mentions (8700K/GTX1080/16GB) and play a lot of Total War, and it's absolotely great: framerates are pretty rock solid I never notice anything more than a very occasional stutter.

The suggested build isn't *quite* identical (CPU slightly better, GPU slightly worse) but as noted, the 3060 is the real choice, the 2060 is just a standin. With the 3600/3060 you're going to get at least a 10% better result than I get, which is plenty.

Prioritise the 3060 over the M.2... it's much cheaper to add a <£100 M.2 later than upgrade a £400 GPU - although if you have £50 in the budget after adding the 3060, go for it