Hi all,
Time has finally come to replace my wife's and my PC, after respectivitely 11 and 14 years of service (with minor upgrades over the years).
We are casual gamers (WoW and various stale co-op AAA titles such as Ghost Recon, Far Cry, etc) and I do some web design as a side gig, so we are not looking for NASA level engines. No competitive FPS, no need for split second 360 no scope combos or whatever kids do these days
The idea is to be able to run whatever recent-ish games we fancy for the next 5 years in mid to high settings without having to worry about upgrading the GPU every release cycle. We have no interest in joining the rat race, nor in upgrading our monitors (specs below).
I do however want to optimise our purchases to last, having components that work together well with no obvious bottleneck - bar the monitors.
I understand that our current machines are very badly optimised, as components don't pair up well at all and are outdated. I am however keeping in mind that despite the lack of optimisation, the machines have lasted much longer than the average appears to be, and that we have not struggled to play anything we fancied until very recently.
My budget is roughly £1500 per machine, as I don't expect anything more expensive to be used to its full potential with our current monitors.
Our current monitors are the following:
- mine: LG 29UM65-P - 75 Hz, 2560*1080. I understand it is badly outdated, but it works flawlessly and I am very attached to the ultrawide resolution. I would be fully satisfied to be able to run recent titles at 75fps in 1080 ultrawide.
- hers: HP E243i - 60Hz, 1920*1200. Recent addition at no cost, and no issues with it, so would take an unreasonable amount of convincing/arguin with her to replace it.
Current specs:
(mine)
- i7-2600K 3.4-3.8 GHz (yes, that old)
- 16 GB DDR3 @1300 MHz
- GTX 1660Ti 6GB
(hers)
- i5-4690K 3.5-3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB DDR5 @ 1300 MHz
- GTX 1050 4GB
Looking at the preconfigured options from PCS, I am leaning toward this build:
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/gXK2ug7Ssc/
I would welcome any thoughts on the above parts choice, and potential alternatives to get the most out of our budget.
Again I understand that neither the CPU or GPU would be pushed to their full potential being limited to 1080p and 60/75Hz, but my reasoning is that aiming for more will last us longer with mid to high settings. I am also happy to be challenged on this outlook if this is not a valid reasoning.
Many thanks in advance!
Robin
Time has finally come to replace my wife's and my PC, after respectivitely 11 and 14 years of service (with minor upgrades over the years).
We are casual gamers (WoW and various stale co-op AAA titles such as Ghost Recon, Far Cry, etc) and I do some web design as a side gig, so we are not looking for NASA level engines. No competitive FPS, no need for split second 360 no scope combos or whatever kids do these days
The idea is to be able to run whatever recent-ish games we fancy for the next 5 years in mid to high settings without having to worry about upgrading the GPU every release cycle. We have no interest in joining the rat race, nor in upgrading our monitors (specs below).
I do however want to optimise our purchases to last, having components that work together well with no obvious bottleneck - bar the monitors.
I understand that our current machines are very badly optimised, as components don't pair up well at all and are outdated. I am however keeping in mind that despite the lack of optimisation, the machines have lasted much longer than the average appears to be, and that we have not struggled to play anything we fancied until very recently.
My budget is roughly £1500 per machine, as I don't expect anything more expensive to be used to its full potential with our current monitors.
Our current monitors are the following:
- mine: LG 29UM65-P - 75 Hz, 2560*1080. I understand it is badly outdated, but it works flawlessly and I am very attached to the ultrawide resolution. I would be fully satisfied to be able to run recent titles at 75fps in 1080 ultrawide.
- hers: HP E243i - 60Hz, 1920*1200. Recent addition at no cost, and no issues with it, so would take an unreasonable amount of convincing/arguin with her to replace it.
Current specs:
(mine)
- i7-2600K 3.4-3.8 GHz (yes, that old)
- 16 GB DDR3 @1300 MHz
- GTX 1660Ti 6GB
(hers)
- i5-4690K 3.5-3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB DDR5 @ 1300 MHz
- GTX 1050 4GB
Looking at the preconfigured options from PCS, I am leaning toward this build:
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/gXK2ug7Ssc/
Case
PCS SPECTRUM II ARGB MID TOWER CASE (PWM)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-5.5GHz/40MB CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5600MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
16GB GIGABYTE RADEON™ RX 7800 XT GAMING OC - 2 x HDMI, 2 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMe SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 200 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)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
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 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (6 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
Price: £1,603.00 including VAT and Delivery
PCS SPECTRUM II ARGB MID TOWER CASE (PWM)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-5.5GHz/40MB CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5600MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
16GB GIGABYTE RADEON™ RX 7800 XT GAMING OC - 2 x HDMI, 2 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMe SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 200 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)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
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 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (6 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
Price: £1,603.00 including VAT and Delivery
I would welcome any thoughts on the above parts choice, and potential alternatives to get the most out of our budget.
Again I understand that neither the CPU or GPU would be pushed to their full potential being limited to 1080p and 60/75Hz, but my reasoning is that aiming for more will last us longer with mid to high settings. I am also happy to be challenged on this outlook if this is not a valid reasoning.
Many thanks in advance!
Robin
