New Rig after 6 1/2 years.

[samwil]

So, I need a new rig, after 6 1/2 years of my original PC Specialist purchase. I haven't been in the loop for quite a while, but I understand that SUPER GPU's are now the way to go? I'm looking to stay around the £1,000-£1,500 price mark with justification. Old rig was £1,100 back in late 2012.

Old rig
Case ZALMAN Z11 PLUS BLACK MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570K (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1866MHz X.M.P(2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Storage Drive 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
Processor Cooling Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless Router/HomePlugs 2 x HomePlug 200Mbps - Turn any Electrical Socket into a Network (£38)
USB/Thunderbolt Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
4G Module NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

New rig thus far
Case 750D?
Processor (CPU) Atleast I5 at 3.4Ghz or above?
Motherboard ASUS® ?
Memory (RAM) 16GB of 3000Mhz? its about a tenner from 2666 to 3000.
Graphics Card RTX 2060 SUPER/ 2070 SUPER.
1st Storage Drive 500GB SSD with HDD.
Power Supply Wont be needing to upgrade again for the foreseeable, so whatever is reliable and value.
Processor Cooling I may actually overclock this time.

 

[Durin_VII]

What will you be using it for? I just ordered a PC for very close to the high end of your budget and it was for gaming at 1440p . Would help if you are able to share your requirements, monitor etc

 

[samwil]

Don't have a monitor at the mo, but I've never gamed on 4k, up until recently I've been playing 1080p on a roughly £100 monitor I bought around the same time as the PC, but I play Arma 3, which Is CPU Intensive. I also play most new AAA's that come out, so the new elder scrolls will be on the list. I prefer to game at 3/4 maximum potential at minimum. so High to Very High settings dependent on the options.

Games I play after a brief scan;

Arma 3
Total War
Rust
Fallout and Elder Scrolls when released.
Battlefield and a bit of COD occasionally.

If i'm totally overbudget or under let me know.

But I'd be happy with 1080p at no lower than 60fps across all those games above.

 

[Oussebon]

You have a relatively limited budget, which should open up 1440p and/or high refresh gaming.

Spending a whacking chunk of it on a huge case probably isn'y the best play.

A 2070 super is not the right fit for this budget / monitor range. Even a 2060 Super is probably overkill especially for 1080p.

Investing extra in a beefy CPU cooler and quality components like the case and PSU in order to OC a mid-range CPU is bad value versus just buying a better CPU.

Did you upgrade your Windows licence from your old PC to Win 10? If so you might be able to tie it to your account and use it for the new system, sparing £90 for the hardware.

Potentially something like:

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor i7-9700K (3.6GHz) 12MB Cache

Get Total War: Three Kingdoms & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 UD: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2060 - HDMI, DP - VR Ready!

Get Control & Wolfenstein: Young Blood w/ select GeForce RTX GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 660p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (upto 1500MB/sR | 1000MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
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
PCS FrostFlow 100 V2 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine 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® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Price: £1,352.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z370-pc/k8cRX!XP6v/

On the understanding you'll get a better monitor, something 1080p 144hz or 1440p 60/144hz, with freesync. As there's not much point sinking this kind of cash into a system for gaming if you're bottlenecking your experience with the monitor These kinds of monitors are available from ~£200 or so. Easily doable if you stretch, and/or don't need Windows.

 

[Oussebon]

For a less expensive system:

u've copied the specification, please click here to continue.
Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)

Get 3 Months of XBOX Game Pass for PC w/ select AMD Ryzen CPUs
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X470-PLUS GAMING (DDR4, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2060 - HDMI, DP - VR Ready!

Get Control & Wolfenstein: Young Blood w/ select GeForce RTX GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 660p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (upto 1500MB/sR | 1000MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
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
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KK3-00002]
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® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Price: £1,138.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/SrmdrMwNSX/

 

[samwil]

It seems it's all got rather expensive these days. GPU's of the same classification (not that it means much, but it's not as simple as I thought it would be) are £150 over their original price and CPU's are finicky.
Seems tricky to get good parity with a Intel CPU and a quality GPU that isn't monstrous capability.
I'll keep looking, thankyou for the input, your 2nd rig looks promising, but I'm always hesitant with AMD, the bang for buck ideal just doesn't appeal to me so much, but I might have to make that sacrifice. Don't want to bottleneck my GPU with a poor quality CPU, so maybe even an RTX 2060 will do the job. I'm still meddling with the options so any more ideas are welcome.

 

[Oussebon]

Nvidia have been pushing prices for given tiers up, but performance has improved such that a product's number is effectively the tier above.

e.g. an RTX 2060 is more or less what the -70 GPUs would have been. Which I say as the owner of a GTX 670, a GTX 970, and now an RTX 2060. Which I game at 1440p on.

but I'm always hesitant with AMD, the bang for buck ideal just doesn't appeal to me so much,

Don't fall into this trap. AMD's not about bang for buck any more. It's not low performance, and it's not poor quality. We're a long, long way past Faildozer.

AMD's CPUs are now competing heavily against Intel for performance. This is why my 2nd, cheaper spec had an AMD R5 in it rather than an Intel i5. The R5 is just a better option at this price level. i5 is a bit of a dodo now tbh.

Intel will doubtless respond to the challenge posed by the R5 3600, and maybe land a knockout blow with their next releases, but the onus is very much on Intel to try to prove its got a valid alternative.

Intel has been basically stuck on the same architecture since 2015 (Skylake), progressively trying to eke out more frequency and eventually adding more cores in direct response to AMD's earlier Ryzen CPUs. While AMD has already released two more substantial revisions to its Zen CPUs that came out 2017.

The 9700k was the recommendation in my more expensive spec because your needs are quite niche for gaming with a lot of titles that benefit from CPU frequency, which the 9700k wins on just by brute force. Intel had to go back to soldering the IHS to help with temperatures, though...

You may decide spending the extra on a 9700k is the right choice for you, and with your needs it could make sense. But the R5 isn't something to 'settle' for, it's the new i5 tbh.

 

[samwil]

So I haven't ordered yet as was contemplating just saving for a while and purchasing later.

I've just seen the August pc of the month that hits my budget almost perfectly. So potentially financing it.

Can anyone confirm that this is probably the best option? It's a ryzen 7 and rx5700xt for less than 1500.

 

[Oussebon]

Well it depends how much you wanna spend. If you added an RX 5700XT to the build I posted above you'd have pretty similar gaming performance for £1286.

Cheaper case, slower SSD, stock cooler instead of a basic AIO. And of course an R5 3600 instead of an R7 3700X. Although the gaming performance difference between those two CPUs is generally pretty small.

The PC of the month is a good price for the hardware. It's 12-13% more expensive, and is very unlikely to give 12-13% more performance in gaming. But if you want to pay the extra for better features, more upmarket SSD, or if you think you might get some mileage out of the R7 in some scenarios, sure

The RX 5700XT's fan is not quiet:

AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT Review

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is based on AMD's all-new Navi 10 GPU featuring the RDNA architecture. We thoroughly test the card's gaming performance and look at power, heat, noise, overclocking, and clock frequency stability, too, sometimes with surprising results.

www.techpowerup.com

You may not care a jot; just so long as you're aware before buying!

 

[samwil]

After much hesitation (as always) I've made my final build, after some research on YouTube, google and wiki and with some support from the very kind oussebon, here it is.

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 275R TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X470-PLUS GAMING (DDR4, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2070 SUPER - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!

Get Control & Wolfenstein: Young Blood w/ select GeForce RTX GPUs!

1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 660p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (upto 1500MB/sR | 1000MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
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 H60 Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
LED Lighting
50cm RGB LED Strip
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)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Keyboard & Mouse
Corsair K55 RGB Gaming Keyboard
Mouse
Corsair Harpoon RGB Gaming Mouse
Gaming Mouse Pad
Corsair MM300 Gaming Mouse Mat - Medium
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 6 working days

Price: £1,500.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/mWn3kv8ZNS/

Exactly on budget with some personalised features.

Includes a mouse kb and pad and a monitor I have at 1080p but will be investing separately into a 1440p monitor as I'm going to purchase a 2070 super.

The ryzen will be over clocked to approx 3.8Ghz as far as I understand that's perfectly doable with the non X PSU of 3600.

Thought I'd post it here as this is where my minds at now and I'll be purchasing this by the end of august aslong as there are no hiccups.

 

[Oussebon]

I'd have gone with the SX6000 as it's faster for the same price

though if you're not buying for a month almost, that can change

The H60 isn't really worth it. The Noctua cooler is better and a similar price, while the H100x is little more and better than either.

 

[samwil]

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 275R TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X470-PLUS GAMING (DDR4, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2070 SUPER - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!

Get Control & Wolfenstein: Young Blood w/ select GeForce RTX GPUs!

1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB ADATA SX6000 Pro PCIe M.2 2280 (2100 MB/R, 1500 MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
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 H60 Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
LED Lighting
50cm RGB LED Strip
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)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Keyboard & Mouse
Corsair K55 RGB Gaming Keyboard
Mouse
Corsair Harpoon RGB Gaming Mouse
Gaming Mouse Pad
Corsair MM300 Gaming Mouse Mat - Medium
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 6 working days

Price: £1,500.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/xbCME5pgWH/

Updated good spot.

The water cooler is for Arma 3, very cup intensive and based off the following video is lead me to the conclusion that yes the fan assisted cooler is better from noctua for the average user, cpu intensive games like arma 3 would see benefit as the water is more efficient at dissipating heat during erratic loads on a cpu, which arma 3 and other games frequently produce.

Is the video I watched.

Noctua outperforms, but not the vers available on PCS as much and additionally he talks over water cooling following the 7-8 minute mark a bit better.

P.s. its within a month as I'm waiting on an insurance payout due within the next couple of weeks 😂 it's all going on this.

 

[Oussebon]

Noctua outperforms, but not the vers available on PCS

That kind of just means the video's not really relevant The NH-U14S does outperform water coolers as above, and you can look up benchmarks. It generally beats anything upto the H80, which it's about on par with.

They did also literally describe the H60 as "garbage" in that video...

I don't think the comment about water coolers absorbing heat and producing less stark swings in temps is intended to mean that a "garbage" AIO cooler is still always a better option than one of the best single tower/fan air coolers on the market.

Moreover, if you're bothered enough about temps to trying to make these kinds of arguments, go with the H100x, which is a much, much more effective cooler, and little more expensive!

And get a case that has better airflow, like the Meshify C.