New and First Time Build Gaming PC

[Dr_Turkeltin]

Was hoping for some advice and thoughts on this build? New to this.
It will be for gaming and specifically the Total War Series. I’d like to keep it around the price range it’s currently at. Additionally a monitor between £200-300 to go along with the set up. Any suggestions on changes or tweaks is welcome please.

Also worth noting that I intend to add a additional 256gb SSD I already own to the build, is it worth using two SSD’s and no HDD’s? Thanks.

Fractal Design Focus G Case.
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.6GHz/70MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X570-PLUS GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0, CrossFireX) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2060 SUPER - HDMI, DP - VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
NOT REQUIRED
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 520 GEN 4 PCIe NVMe (up to 5000MB/R, 4400MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H80i V2 Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
50cm White LED Strip
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
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 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Google Chrome™
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 13 to 15 working days
Price: £1,748.00 including VAT and Delivery

 

[Grinty]

Thought I'd point this review build out: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/configure-review/348/

Downsides:
- Can't customise the internals
- RAM is slower
- SSD is slower and smaller
- Would need an external DVD drive if you need one
- Wi-Fi card isn't as good as the one you've got

Upsides:
- Better GPU
- 2TB HDD (not as fast as an SSD but good for bulk storage)
- 750W PSU
- Suspect the cooler is better for both cooling and noise thanks to the bigger radiator, but I don't have data to back that up
- Saving the best till last, it's just under £250 cheaper than your build thanks to the discount PCS have put on it, so you can add that towards your monitor budget and get a really nice one!

To answer your question about drives - the main advantage of HDDs is the low price per GB, so they're good for bulk storage. If you can fit everything you want in your 1.25TB of SSD storage then there's almost certainly no reason to buy an HDD*.

* (gratuitous technical detail) if you had a workload that involve writing enormous amounts of data to disk then an HDD might be a better choice. If I'm reading the spec right then you can max out a 1TB Firecuda's endurance in just under four minutes (writing 1.8TB of data at 4400MB/s), but to put that in context you'll pass the 5 year operating lifetime specification first unless you're writing more than 30GB of data (roughly the size of a modern AAA game install) per month.

 

[Dr_Turkeltin]

Hey,
Thanks for pointing for this build out I’m actually learning more towards it now. Could you recommend any monitors to go along with the build?