Gaming PC with £2k - £2.5k Budget

S

SaijoBob

Member
Hi All,

I'm looking for a new PC in the £2,000 - £2,500 range. I last bought from PC Specialist around 5 years ago and have been really happy with the machine, but to make the most of my Xbox Game Pass and have some fun with Forza/MS Flight simulator and VR I think it's about time to update. I'm not too up to date on what a good cost/performance focus is around this budget, but a few priorities would be:

- Quiet (will be located in living room)
- Running on a Dell AW3821DW ultrawide monitor
- I would move over some hard drives from my old machine
- Good to run for 5-7 years with no big upgrades

I'm not going to be extreme gaming so if I come out closer to £2,000 that's great, but would love to know what you would suggest adding/chopping at the low and high end of my range.

Thanks in advance :)

Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO S600 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 12-Core Processor i7-12700F (2.1GHz) 25MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z690-F GAMING WIFI (LGA1700, USB 3.2, PCIe 5.0) - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 4800MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 Ti - HDMI, DP, LHR
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 120 Series RGB High Performance Liquid Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Extra Case Fans
2x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT 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 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 7 working days
Price: £2,348.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z690-ddr5-pc/5q7uJV3AY3/
 
MrWilson

MrWilson

Godlike
Case
FRACTAL DEFINE 7 BLACK QUIET MID-TOWER CASE A much better 'quiet case'. I have this case so I can personally recommend it. More budget quiet cases tend to suffer from poor airflow to keep noise levels down.
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 12-Core Processor i7-12700K (3.6GHz) 25MB Cache Argument to drop down to the 12600k, but the extra grunt from the cores should help in flight sims and VR. This will knock off a little over £100, and should be less impactful at the resolution that you're playing at. Most CPU bottlenecks in gaming happen at 1080p, you're going to be limited by your GPU at most higher resolutions, although there are exceptions.
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING Z690-PLUS WIFI D4 (LGA1700, USB 3.2, PCIe 5.0) - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (4 x 8GB) DDR5 is still in its infancy, and it's going to take a little while before it eclipses DDR4 for gaming, especially at the speeds PCS offers. 3200mhz will suit you nicely going forward and is much cheaper than going for DDR5 RAM.
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 Ti - HDMI, DP, LHR
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W) Readjusted storage for a speedy gen 4 drive for OS and programs, with a slightly more budget friendly secondary drive. Nothing wrong with the Samsung drives, but the Intel offers near identical performance while being slightly cheaper.
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR | 2500MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET Hefty PSU to support future upgrades. You should be able to get 5-7 years out of this build, but you will likely want a GPU upgrade in that period to keep playing the latest titles.
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair iCUE H115i RGB PRO XT Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler The Intel CPUs are very hot, so require good cooling to keep them running optimally.
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT 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 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 7 working days
Price: £2,383.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z690-pc/JgVhvFwB6N/
 
S

SaijoBob

Member
This is just the sort of advice I was looking for, thank you!

I was looking at the Fractal Meshify 2 and wondering if that would be a good case, as it would look a little less intimidating in the lounge. Will check out some reviews of the different cases and see what works.
 
MrWilson

MrWilson

Godlike
The Meshify 2 is an excellent case and you would do well with that pick. It won't be as quiet as the Define 7 but it also won't be blasting off like a jet engine either!
 
MrWilson

MrWilson

Godlike
Both of the Fractal cases come with 3 fans, then you'll have 2 more fans with the cooler. Adding additional fans on top of this might give slightly better temps but could come with the offset of additional noise. I would say 5 fans would be plenty for a gaming PC, but ultimately it's your purchase and your decision.
 
AgentCooper

AgentCooper

At Least I Have Chicken
Moderator
MrWilson said:
Both of the Fractal cases come with 3 fans, then you'll have 2 more fans with the cooler. Adding additional fans on top of this might give slightly better temps but could come with the offset of additional noise. I would say 5 fans would be plenty for a gaming PC, but ultimately it's your purchase and your decision.
Click to expand...
Agreed. And having too many fans can actually have a negative effect on airflow and cooling. We build PCs, not drones 😆
 
D

DarTon

Well-known member
If you are running the Dell AW3821DW (I have one), it might be worth considering the 3080. The 3840x1600 res is about 24% more pixels than the normal 3440x1440. It's still about 26% less than 4K though. It's marginal. The 3070 Ti is probably good enough.

To keep costs down, one option might be to buy the GPU from a third party. A Gigabyte 3080 costs around £900 (vs. the £852 you are paying for the 3070 Ti). Of course you do need to fit it yourself and PCS won't be providing a warranty for that.
 
S

SaijoBob

Member
DarTon said:
If you are running the Dell AW3821DW (I have one), it might be worth considering the 3080. The 3840x1600 res is about 24% more pixels than the normal 3440x1440. It's still about 26% less than 4K though. It's marginal. The 3070 Ti is probably good enough.

To keep costs down, one option might be to buy the GPU from a third party. A Gigabyte 3080 costs around £900 (vs. the £852 you are paying for the 3070 Ti). Of course you do need to fit it yourself and PCS won't be providing a warranty for that.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I'll have a look into the differences between the two cards and that option.
 
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