Upgrading Finally.

Fat Bob

Fat Bob

Fat Bob

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Joined
27 Aug 2009
Posts
14
I was hoping to get some assistance in the ever-evolving world of upgrades. Many years ago, I used to get all the latest stuff, but due to circumstance, the last time I got a new PC was about 11 years ago. The choice seems astronomical now and quite frankly a little bewildering. I've read this forum for many years, enjoying peoples builds and enthusiastic arguments but now I seek some help for myself.

I am not a huge gamer anymore, I still play the big stuff like GTA V, RDR2, Far Cry series (on console, I struggle opening email with this PC) etc but I am not hardcore or online, I do however want the best for my money hopefully. Sometimes when I am fantasy building, I have excessive everything and RGB lighting etc but the truth is, it will be by my knees and no-one can see it! So I don't mind the build being basic black looking. A few things I'd like to lean towards is a fast PC, lots of storage, a decent monitor hopefully 27", I sit in a small recess, so I can't go massive.

I have to buy everything at this point as it's all so knackered with time, so I need a decent KB and mouse too.

The TL;DR is decent PC, with good compatible parts, as high in spec as I can go with a budget of about £2000 to include a good monitor to stop me squinting. Aesthetics aren't imperative as it's going under the desk, but I also dont want it to look like it's from a car boot. And a KB and mouse, I don't mind colours on that!

There was also some bloke from Finland that seemed to know his onions, so if he could chip in, I'd be very grateful and to anyone else (forgot your name sorry).

Thank you.
 
Heres my idea.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,999.79 (includes shipping: £0.00)
​

A solid 1440p gaming rig with a chunk of rgb for you but not everything rgb.
3GB storage.

You could always use 2 of the st120 fans to replace the slower fans on the scythe cooler for potential better cooling but at higher noise.
 
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Thanks for that dfour, much appreciated and how's that for bang on the money! I had actually chose that monitor, but the rest is new to me. I don't dislike any of it. 2TB of HDD for fifty quid, imagine that in 95!
 
Fat Bob said:
about £2000 to include a good monitor to stop me squinting


And a KB and mouse, I don't mind colours on that!
Click to expand...
Do you have good room illumination, or prefer more dimly lit room?
That affects to what type of LCD panel/monitor gives good looking image.

Contrast/black level is in general weak point of IPS panels and especially that LG's "Nano-IPS" has crappy contrast from like 15 years ago and hence bad black.
AU Oprtronic's panel using MSI G273QF would have far better nearly 50% higher contrast and equally fast response times.
MSI OPTIX 27" G273QF 2560x1440 IPS 165Hz 1ms FreeSync/G-Sync Widescreen LED Backlit Gaming Monitor= £258.95
(stand is weak point with only tilt adjustment)


Do you have experience only from normal membrane/rubber dome keyboard?
Those have initial resistance to overcome before key starts going down and press is registered only during bottoming.

In that case many "mechanical" switches might cause issues with vastly different behaviour/feel.
They all have lightest resistance in start of the travel and key press is registered half way of travel down or sooner.
Meaning light linear (force curve) switches can be prone to accidental presses/need consccious stressing to avoid those.
So called non-linear switch would be the surest choise for easy adjusting.
 
Hello EsaT - I normally use the PC in a low-lit room, I currently have a very cheap AOC monitor which is awful to look at and I've never managed to calibrate it to look anything like normal. Same with the keyboard and mouse. I have very low end stuff and most things would be an improvment. I know that keyboards have their own hobbyists now but I am quite simple in tastes. I do quite like a clacky feel rather than silent. I understand what you mean about resistance though, I am fairly good at adjusting. Thanks for your input and the monitor is a good choice too.
 
Fat Bob said:
Hello EsaT - I normally use the PC in a low-lit room
Click to expand...
Then that LG is big no go.
VA with its way highest contrast of LCDs would be ideal for dark rooms...
But 99% of them have really slow dark shade response times (known as VA "black smear") compared to IPS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34bqY7CToHg&t=318s
So that MSI with its 1300:1 contrast would be good compromise. (LG struggling to reach 800:1)

Advance of monitor tech has been pretty much stagnant for 15 years with no actual tech fixing faults of always compromised in something LCDs available.


Also what kind upgrades to PC you would be ready to do during years?
If you want long usage life without changing CPU, 8 core is then starting level.
While 6 core wouldn't be much any bottleneck in huge majority of existing games, that's going to change in coming years.
Consoles have 8 core (16 thread) CPU to give game developers incentive to find ways to use/new things to do with higher core counts.
Also web browser, voice chat etc on background demand their own CPU time, which should better come from different core than ones running game.

And some PC games can cause utilization of pretty high number of cores.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/dkac5j/i_knew_star_citizen_utilizes_multicore_well/
(just disabling SMT would make most cores have no idle time)


RGB again stands often for Ridiculously Grossly Bloated overpricing.
For example neare top performance fans could be gotten for £6 to save budget for where you get actual performance/usage value.
Arctic Cooling P12 PWM PST Black Fan - 120mm= £5.95
 
dfour said:
1 x MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset ATX Motherboard= £159.95


1 x WD Blue SN550 1TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T2B0C)= £89.99

1 x Scythe SCMG-5PCGH Mugen 5 "PCGH Edition" CPU Cooler= £46.99
Click to expand...
While easily enough for 65W TDP that board has garbage for money VRM.
https://www.kitguru.net/components/...0-vrm-temperature-analysis-luke-deep-dive/11/
X570 Tomahawk is pretty much only good X570 board of MSI.
MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk WiFi (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 ATX Motherboard= £179.99

Though B550 boards area completely fine for normal users with PCIe v4 for GPU.
MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard= £119.99
MSI MPG B550 Gaming Edge WiFi (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard= £139.99


For as long as discount lasts, Crucial P5 is the way best 1TB NVMe choise.
Crucial P5 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £74.99


And besides being overkill for basic six core, Mugen 5 has also possible performance issue from Intel optimized convex base making mediocre contact with Ryzen's convex heatspreader.
Flat based Alpenfohn Brocken 3 is surer choise for Ryzens:
Alpenfohn Brocken 3 CPU Cooler - 140mm= £42.95
Though height is issue for some cases.
 
So if longevity was paramount what would I be looking at with 8 core that matched the other items? I find my ignorance of newer components a little frustrating, as I change items, I then find them incompatible with the others.
 
Fat Bob said:
So if longevity was paramount what would I be looking at with 8 core that matched the other items? I find my ignorance of newer components a little frustrating, as I change items, I then find them incompatible with the others.
Click to expand...
Yes 8 cores would theoretically give you longevity.
 
Fat Bob said:
So if longevity was paramount what would I be looking at with 8 core that matched the other items? I find my ignorance of newer components a little frustrating, as I change items, I then find them incompatible with the others.
Click to expand...

Ryzen 5800X with one of the B550 boards @EsaT mentioned.
 
So on given advice, how is that shaping up?

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £2,073.57 (includes shipping: £20.82)​
​
 
Fat Bob said:
So on given advice, how is that shaping up?

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £2,073.57 (includes shipping: £20.82)
​
Click to expand...

If you're happy with that yeah. The only thing that bothers me is the HDD. I'd go for an SSD for less moving parts and faster read/write.
 
Fat Bob said:
So on given advice, how is that shaping up?

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £2,073.57 (includes shipping: £20.82)
​
Click to expand...
Cooler wont fit in the case either change cooler or case.

Alternative case.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lian-li-lancool-ii-mesh-rgb-midi-tower-case-black-ca-78d-ll.html

Not the best motherboard others have sugested better .
 
I've changed the case to your suggested, I posted the old motherboard before I changed it to the B550 and edited, is it still the wrong one? The edited one is the MSI MPG B550 Gaming Edge.
 
Cadder said:
If you're happy with that yeah. The only thing that bothers me is the HDD. I'd go for an SSD for less moving parts and faster read/write.
Click to expand...

Any recommendations for an SSD?, I don't need masses of space, but whilst I'm shopping, I might as well do it as right as I can.
 
While 1TB Crucial P5 is now better priced than DRAMless consumer level WD Blue SN550, for some reason 2TB version costs same as 2TB PCIe v4 drives.
And 2TB SN550 isn't as well priced per TB.
WD Blue SN550 2TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS200T2B0C)= £199.99

So second 1TB Crucial P5 would be the way cheapest way to get 2TB of fast strorage.
And if running out of space later you could still add third NVMe using PCIe slot adapter.
Akasa M.2 SSD to PCIe Adapter Card= £13.99



SATA SSDs just aren't nowadays enough cheaper, if purpose is having space for games.
While most games are just crappily coded, in well coded games NVMe(/PCIe) drives load lot faster than SATA drives:
https://www.realhardwarereviews.com/silicon-power-us70-1tb-review/11/
Consoles are basically aiming to have games load at such speeds.
 
So I am the point of purchase and this is my revised build. I've added a second P5 for storage. I was going to add some small things like paste etc, but I presume everything has the required cables etc.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £2,102.73 (includes shipping: £28.02)​
​
 
Fat Bob said:
So I am the point of purchase and this is my revised build. I've added a second P5 for storage. I was going to add some small things like paste etc, but I presume everything has the required cables etc.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £2,102.73 (includes shipping: £28.02)
​
Click to expand...

All looks good after that.
 
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I think micky had a dodgy link. The Phantek PSU is fully modular.

Some spare paste and cleaner is good to have.
 
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