Potential new PC upgrade, opinions

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BigTom

Member
Hi, been looking at upgrading my PC for the past year. I've currently got a GeForce 660, so it's kinda old. I don't know loads about PC's. But does this look ok without any bottlenecking. Any advice or suggestions welcome. Thank you!

Monitor - Current monitor (OLD) -HP 1920 x 1080 60Hz. I will be upgrading this to a 4K one. Budget of £400 - £600
Uses - Mainly gaming and day to day use. (Internet browsing & streaming Spotify, Netflix etc)
Budget - Maximum £3500ish

Case
CORSAIR iCUE 5000X RGB MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6) (Space for future storage expansion)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB) (Optimal speed for the Ryzen 7000)
Graphics Card
16GB ASUS TUF GEFORCE RTX 4080 OC EDITION - HDMI, DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W) (OS Boot Drive)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP600 PRO NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6850 MB/W) (Games)
1st Storage Drive
1TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW) (Photos and other bits)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (Space for future upgrades)
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Power Cable
Braided Power Supply Cables
CORSAIR Premium Individually Sleeved PSU Cable Kit Pro (40 Series) - Black
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE LCD XT RGB CPU Cooler (Maybe this is too overkill? Would a 240mm AIO would be sufficient)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Extra Case Fans
4 x Corsair AF120 RGB ELITE PWM Fan + Controller Kit (Wasen't too sure on this one, maybe less fans?)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
Norton 360 inc. Game Optimizer - Free 90 Day License
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)
Delivery
SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 2PM)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days


Price: £3,521.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/aV2mwbdgef/
 
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sck451

sck451

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
I'd save a few hundred quid, myself. You should then put those towards your monitor and get something really good like the Samsung G8 or the Alienware AW3423DWF.

Case
CORSAIR iCUE 5000X RGB MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
16GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4080 - HDMI, DP, LHR No point to the Asus overclocked one: a couple of percentage points of performance for £300
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W) Overkill: I'd choose a P44 Pro 500GB as a more reasonable boot drive option
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP600 PRO NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6850 MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE I'd have thought this is a safer bet than a cheapish SSD
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Braided Power Supply Cables
CORSAIR Premium Individually Sleeved PSU Cable Kit Pro (40 Series) - Black
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE LCD XT RGB CPU Cooler Utterly absurd for the very efficient 7800X3D, but I presume you want this for the looks, not because you need its cooling performance
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Extra Case Fans
4 x Corsair AF120 RGB ELITE PWM Fan + Controller Kit Also unnecessary, just aesthetic
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)
Delivery
SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 2PM)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Price: £3,231.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/Rm3QKFZVH6/
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
BigTom said:
Seen the price of the Samsung aha. Best get saving again.
Click to expand...
Remember, Black Friday is on the Horizon, there will undoubtedly be some pretty stiff offers as they're about to announce a host of new OLED monitors at CES in January and they'll want to clear as many stocks as possible.
 
B

BigTom

Member
SpyderTracks said:
Remember, Black Friday is on the Horizon, there will undoubtedly be some pretty stiff offers as they're about to announce a host of new OLED monitors at CES in January and they'll want to clear as many stocks as possible.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the heads up! I think 32" will be too big for me, is there any 27" you would recommend? Looking at ordering the PC in the next week, do PCs do anything for Black Friday?
 
sck451

sck451

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
My maths was £600 (your budget) + £300 (saved) is around the price of the Alienware...
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
BigTom said:
Thanks for the heads up! I think 32" will be too big for me, is there any 27" you would recommend? Looking at ordering the PC in the next week, do PCs do anything for Black Friday?
Click to expand...
PCS don't do offers really except on pre builts, but it's only like £20 or so, they're already rock bottom prices.
 
B

BigTom

Member
sck451 said:
I'd save a few hundred quid, myself. You should then put those towards your monitor and get something really good like the Samsung G8 or the Alienware AW3423DWF.

Case
CORSAIR iCUE 5000X RGB MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
16GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4080 - HDMI, DP, LHR No point to the Asus overclocked one: a couple of percentage points of performance for £300
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W) Overkill: I'd choose a P44 Pro 500GB as a more reasonable boot drive option
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP600 PRO NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6850 MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE I'd have thought this is a safer bet than a cheapish SSD
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Braided Power Supply Cables
CORSAIR Premium Individually Sleeved PSU Cable Kit Pro (40 Series) - Black
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE LCD XT RGB CPU Cooler Utterly absurd for the very efficient 7800X3D, but I presume you want this for the looks, not because you need its cooling performance
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Extra Case Fans
4 x Corsair AF120 RGB ELITE PWM Fan + Controller Kit Also unnecessary, just aesthetic
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)
Delivery
SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 2PM)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Price: £3,231.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/Rm3QKFZVH6/
Click to expand...
Do you think I'd benefit with going with the ASUS TUF GAMING X670E-PLUS WIFI instead? With it supporting PCIe 5.0? But it only supports 2 SSD slots.
 
sck451

sck451

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
BigTom said:
Do you think I'd benefit with going with the ASUS TUF GAMING X670E-PLUS WIFI instead? With it supporting PCIe 5.0? But it only supports 2 SSD slots.
Click to expand...
Awesome board. Won't offer you much more than the B650 for your purposes, but it's undoubtedly great.

It has four M.2 slots, though. If the PCS website says two, it's wrong.
 
B

BigTom

Member
sck451 said:
Awesome board. Won't offer you much more than the B650 for your purposes, but it's undoubtedly great.

It has four M.2 slots, though. If the PCS website says two, it's wrong.
Click to expand...
Thank you! I may take that leap just for a bit of future proof.

Yeah must be a error on PCS side then. When trying to add another m.2 it says "You have chosen 3 x M.2 SSD drives, however the motherboard you have selected can only support 2 x M.2 SSD drive(s)"

Sorry to sound daft, which storage drive would you put your program files on?

Thanks again!
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
BigTom said:
Thank you! I may take that leap just for a bit of future proof.

Yeah must be a error on PCS side then. When trying to add another m.2 it says "You have chosen 3 x M.2 SSD drives, however the motherboard you have selected can only support 2 x M.2 SSD drive(s)"

Sorry to sound daft, which storage drive would you put your program files on?

Thanks again!
Click to expand...
Generally, you'd have a minimum of 500Gb dedicated for the OS and programs. This wants to be a fast NVME, preferably PCIe 4, cost wise there's not much in stepping up in most cases.

Then a secondary drive dedicated for games, these days absolute minimum is really 1Tb, but even that is restrictive with quite a few new games being 150Gb and upwards. You want a fast NVME PCIe 4 drive for this if possible, but a good PCIe 3 drive is still better if you need to save budget.

Then you want a dedicated storage drive, this is for documents, or photos or movies or general things like that. These don't benefit from SSD speeds, so a 7200rpm HDD is best for this purpose. The added benefit of an HDD for storage is that an HDD fails sector by sector, so you have quite a lot of warning usually when the drive is starting to fail, would usually take months from when you start getting symptoms to the drive fully failing, so you have time to get a replacement and copy the data off. With an SSD though, they are working one second, the next the whole drive is dead and you can't recover anything from an SSD.
 
B

BigTom

Member
SpyderTracks said:
Generally, you'd have a minimum of 500Gb dedicated for the OS and programs. This wants to be a fast NVME, preferably PCIe 4, cost wise there's not much in stepping up in most cases.

Then a secondary drive dedicated for games, these days absolute minimum is really 1Tb, but even that is restrictive with quite a few new games being 150Gb and upwards. You want a fast NVME PCIe 4 drive for this if possible, but a good PCIe 3 drive is still better if you need to save budget.

Then you want a dedicated storage drive, this is for documents, or photos or movies or general things like that. These don't benefit from SSD speeds, so a 7200rpm HDD is best for this purpose. The added benefit of an HDD for storage is that an HDD fails sector by sector, so you have quite a lot of warning usually when the drive is starting to fail, would usually take months from when you start getting symptoms to the drive fully failing, so you have time to get a replacement and copy the data off. With an SSD though, they are working one second, the next the whole drive is dead and you can't recover anything from an SSD.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for your time and replies! I'm a bit behind on all this stuff, the last PC I purchased was 10 years ago. I currently have a 2TB HDD and a external SSD with all my games on. So just wanted to double check on the storage options.

Could you kindly have a glance over this before I order it on Friday and anything you would change. Thanks again! Tom :)

Case
CORSAIR iCUE 5000X RGB MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
16GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4080 - HDMI, DP, LHR
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP600 PRO NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 7000 MB/R, 6850 MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Braided Power Supply Cables
CORSAIR Premium Individually Sleeved PSU Cable Kit Pro (40 Series) - Black
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H150i ELITE LCD XT RGB CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Extra Case Fans
4 x Corsair AF120 RGB ELITE PWM Fan + Controller Kit
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
Norton 360 inc. Game Optimizer - Free 90 Day License
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)
Delivery
SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 2PM)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Price: £3,226.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/DU!!tgXzyx/
 
B

BigTom

Member
RichLan564 said:
Well, as above it's probably too late now as it probably already on a carrier but from the info you have given you are probably over on CPU, certainly over on Motherboard and RAM and under on drives and PSU, you also don't need the MX4 if you have gone with Corsair cooling

As has been said if you had posted the config. link somebody with more experience than me would have made suggestions (the guys on this forum are incredibly helpful and knowledgable if given the correct info) although i think the suggestion from scratch would have been go AMD not Intel, but hey, it's your money!
Click to expand...
Can I ask why you don’t need MX4 paste if you have Corsair cooling? Will the general thermal paste be sufficient?
 
B

BigTom

Member
Scott said:
I would avoid the 64GB of RAM. The AM5 systems need overclocked on the RAM to run at full speed, otherwise the rate halves when going from 2x to 4x.

2x16GB is more than enough RAM for a general purpose system. You're not future proofing anything. It's like buying an 8 seater family wagon over that sporty little drop top when you don't even have a family :unsure:

Is there any reason for the Strix motherboard? I can't imagine what you're getting for the money. Don't get me wrong, I overshot my motherboard requirements quite some way too, but I had my eyes open when I set fire to the money for no reason :LOL:

I would avoid the additional fans too. Even for the aesthetics you're just going to introduce noise with no real benefit.
Click to expand...
Have you heard of any issues with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D running 32GB of 6000MHz of RAM?

I've just read this on a forum -

"It may dump all your boot save and have to retrain making your boot like a first time setup taking ages. You can resolve this by reducing the RAM speed in BIOS until you get a permanent solid boot sequence. Eventually I'd expect AMD to release a patch to fix whatever the problem is and you can go to standard hardware settings. So my advice would be to spend less on your RAM and get 4800's for a more stable boot. I got 6000 and every now and then I have some problems with boot and memory training"

Thanks in advance!
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
BigTom said:
Have you heard of any issues with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D running 32GB of 6000MHz of RAM?

I've just read this on a forum -

"It may dump all your boot save and have to retrain making your boot like a first time setup taking ages. You can resolve this by reducing the RAM speed in BIOS until you get a permanent solid boot sequence. Eventually I'd expect AMD to release a patch to fix whatever the problem is and you can go to standard hardware settings. So my advice would be to spend less on your RAM and get 4800's for a more stable boot. I got 6000 and every now and then I have some problems with boot and memory training"

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
You have to take it in date context, there were known BIOS issues that were fixed around May this year related to EXPO
 
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