New Spec - Opinions

[Callum Leonard]

Hi Guys Looking for opinions on this spec, was originally on a lower budget but won some good money at the horse racing. Speaking to friends i've been recommended the i7-9700k over Ryzen. Budget is fairly topped at 1.8k but open to advice on improvements / anything you have spotted! Much appreciated in advance.

Case
CORSAIR CRYSTAL SERIES 460X RGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor i7-9700K (3.6GHz) 12MB Cache
Get Just Cause 4, PUBG & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs, WIFI - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2070 - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
Get BFV OR Anthem OR Metro: Exodus with select NVIDIA 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 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
2x 50cm Blue 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
WIRELESS 802.11 AC1900 1,300Mbps/5GHz, 600Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
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
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Insurance
Simplesurance Purchase Protection inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

 

[keirow]

The build looks pretty good, but couple of items stand out to me.
You have selected a Wi-Fi card, but your motherboard already has Wi-Fi, so that could save £49 unless you really need two Wi-Fi channels.
While you have five fans on the case for cooling, you only have the stock cooler on the processor which may struggle if pushed hard, so I would look at maybe the CoolerMaster Hyper 212X (£29) to beef up the cooling.
The ssd you have chosen is relatively slow, the 500gb WD black has twice the read write speeds for £32 more if you can stretch to it.
In total the changes would cost you £12 if you remove the Wi-Fi card.

 

[Callum Leonard]

Cheers for the tip, i kind of washed over the fact the motherboard had wifi.

ill apply the above changes as im not going to lose sleep over £12.

 

[Oussebon]

What is the PC being used for?

If gaming, what monitor are you pairing the system with? (resolution and refresh rate)

Intel may not be the best choice here, nor might any of the rest of the system, but it's impossible to say without knowing the above

 

[Callum Leonard]

Hi,

Gaming is the main use.

Currently have 2 monitors i have 4K UHD 60HZ Monitor and a 1080 165HZ Monitor. Both 1 M/S response time.

My thought process is ill be mainly using my asus 165hz one but the 4k one for offline games such as witcher (if possible)

Let me know if im on the right path or not.

 

[Oussebon]

A 2070 isn't ideal for 4k gaming. Much preferable would be a 2080 (or 2080 ti but likely outside of the budget range).

I'd suggest an AMD Ryzen CPU instead, essentially because you're getting much of the same performance but for a much, much lower price, such that you can afford a better GPU. Moreover, the AM4 motherboards will have more upgrade options.

e.g.


Case
CORSAIR CRYSTAL SERIES 460X RGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.25GHz/19MB CACHE/AM4)
---Tom Clancy's The Division 2 FREE w/ select AMD Ryzen CPUs!
Motherboard
Gigabyte X470 AORUS Ultra Gaming: ATX, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2933MHz ~ (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
---Get BFV AND Anthem AND Metro: Exodus with select NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs!
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE
1[SUP]st[/SUP] M.2 SSD Drive
500GB WD Black™ SN750 M.2 NVMe SSD (up to 3470MB/s R | 2600MB/s W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100x Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
2x 50cm RGB LED Strip
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11 AC1200 867Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
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 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,767.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-pc/UMDM!X234J/


You may have been told that Intel is better for gaming than AMD. All I can say to that is that 'better' is an extremely dangerous word because it ignores budget and context. A system with an R5 2600x and a GTX 2080 is almost always going to outperform a system with a 9700k and 2070 in gaming.

 

[Callum Leonard]

would it be worth upgrading to the 7th gen Ryzen ? or is it worth waiting till the next generation come out in summer for a CPU ?

My main focus is really frames / performance and a system i dont have to update for a while at least.

would the 9700k / 2080 be a better combo if i can fork out the extra funds ?


Appreciate the honest feedback, not trying to be difficult just want the PC to be exactly what i envision

 

[Oussebon]

The R5 2600x and R7 2700x are the same generation, they're just different prices / core counts. The R7 2700x is ~£150 more than the R5 2600x, gaming performance will be very similar, so it's not worth it for the R7 in my book.

As you say, Zen 2 (Ryzen 3000 series) CPUs are coming out later this year, probably in the summer. You certainly could wait, but if - of the sake of argument - they hit the shelves in August that could be a fairly long wait.

It's worth noting that a system based on an R5 2600x is so much cheaper than an Intel system with a 9700k that the savings alone would very likely pay for an upgrade to a Zen 2 CPU.

My main focus is really frames / performance and a system i dont have to update for a while at least.


would the 9700k / 2080 be a better combo if i can fork out the extra funds ?

I'm going to say no, for these reasons:
- You could buy an R5 2600x + GTX 2080 ti system for a similar price to an i7 9700k + 2080 system
- If you want to spend the money on a system because you can harness the performance today, that's 1 thing - but spending over the odds in a bid to 'futureproof' is often wasting money. Newer, cheaper, more powerful hardware with new technologies will come out all the time and render what you buy obsolete by the time you need the performance (if you don't need it today).
- the performance difference really isn't that big most of the time between R5 and i7 anyway.

 

[Oussebon]

I think your best options are R5 CPU + best GPU you are willing to spend the £ on. A 2080 ti is overkill at 1080p but will be very nice at 4k.

Or if you decide you do want to blow the budget, consider this "Review" system.
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/configure-review/296/

Review systems are on this page https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/reviews/ and are promotional offers - fixed specs at a discounted price.

The last time I did the maths the Vortex Ultima R had about a £250 discount, giving ~£2.5k hardware for £2.25k. This is the spec:


Case
CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES™ 500D SE CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor i7-9700K (3.6GHz) 12MB Cache
---Get Just Cause 4, PUBG & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs, WIFI - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
---Get BFV AND Anthem AND Metro: Exodus with select NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs!
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
1[SUP]st[/SUP] M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 760p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (upto 3230MB/sR | 1625MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100x Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
2x 50cm RGB LED Strip
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 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price £2,249.00 including VAT and Delivery

The discount means it's not much more than an R5 / 2080 ti system would be, while netting you the i7. The case is a higher end model, and also has USB type C at the front, which lets you use the USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C header offered by the mobo (Z370E)

But obviously that's blowing your budget. And an R5 + 2080 system is already going to be an excellent performer.