That's sound adviceUnfortunately, it's difficult to improve things whilst lowering the cost. You really want to be spending the maximum of your restricted budget in order to cover yourself for future upgrades. We're certainly hoping that prices will get a bit more sensible come the summer, so if budget really is an issue my advice would be to hold onto your money for now, see if you can add a bit more to the kitty and then come back in a few months
Well if people like @SpyderTracks and @MrWilson are doing it, then it's worth following suit... assuming you're not desperate to purchase.That's sound advice
@ubuysa @AgentCooper Would a lovely mod be able to move their to a pre-existing thread?Heyo, I recently created the spec below and was wondering if I could improve it or save money in any way. I'm going to be using it for 1080p gaming, deciding between a 75Hz monitor to save money or just going with a 144Hz. Let me know if I can improve this and potentially save some money . Should I go for a 3600 or a 10400f? This is the 3600 build.
Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERBOX TD500 MESH ARGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 SUPER - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
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 240 Series RGB High Performance Liquid Cooler (AMD)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
Wireless Network Card
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
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
TIMED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND - MON-FRI (BEFORE 2PM)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 14 to 16 working days
Price: £1,158.00 including VAT and Delivery
As has already been highlighted, Intel is a bad choice currently so I'd stick with the AMD build personally! If you're purely looking to save money. The Case can be swapped in for the cheaper and just as RGBey Lian Li 215 which is still a great case, the 3600 will be fine with the stock cooler and you could get rid of the thermal paste too. That alone would save £70. But I'd recommend investing some of that back into an RM850 PSU which will give you a more comfortable running PC and more upgradability options down the line (as you have a larger overhead for more powerful tech).Heyo, I recently created the spec below and was wondering if I could improve it or save money in any way. I'm going to be using it for 1080p gaming, deciding between a 75Hz monitor to save money or just going with a 144Hz. Let me know if I can improve this and potentially save some money . Should I go for a 3600 or a 10400f? This is the 3600 build.
Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERBOX TD500 MESH ARGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 SUPER - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
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 240 Series RGB High Performance Liquid Cooler (AMD)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
Wireless Network Card
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
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
TIMED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND - MON-FRI (BEFORE 2PM)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 14 to 16 working days
Price: £1,158.00 including VAT and Delivery
Thank you! I'll look into all of these.As has already been highlighted, Intel is a bad choice currently so I'd stick with the AMD build personally! If you're purely looking to save money. The Case can be swapped in for the cheaper and just as RGBey Lian Li 215 which is still a great case, the 3600 will be fine with the stock cooler and you could get rid of the thermal paste too. That alone would save £70. But I'd recommend investing some of that back into an RM850 PSU which will give you a more comfortable running PC and more upgradability options down the line (as you have a larger overhead for more powerful tech).
The 1660 Super is a currently great card and will comfortably run most games on a 75hz monitor with most games on 1080p high (Check out this review for benchmarks). However, if you were to lower your settings somewhat I'm sure you could get 144hz from a lot of games too. 144hz is a fantastic experience (I've heard) and once people switch they can't go back so I'd recommend going for a 144hz monitor for the games than can take advantage of it.
It might not keep up with all the releases for the next 5 years at super high graphics but it'll do a fairly comptient job for the next few years at which point an upgrade to a 1440p 144hz experience would be a great choice. You could use that saved money to go for a 2060 which would last longer and ofc give you a better experience, but the one that PCS has currently would take you over your (assuming) £1,150 budget by about £100.
When it comes to monitors, there's two we normally suggest for 1080p 144hz which are the MSI Optix G241 and the AOC 24G2U. Both can currently be found £200 online.
@SpyderTracks OP did put forward a build above which I then made some recommended changes to. The price for theirs was £1,158 and they wanted to make it cheaper so I managed to get it down to £1,093. Spec is below.Until you get the platform right there’s no point looking at storage, if you post your proposed build then we can advise.
For the budget I think the storage solution is decent, you could upgrade to a 1TB SSD if you plan to play especially large file games (GTA, COD, Warzone etc) , although that does raise the price back to £1,137. If you don't, the 512GB should be enough for Windows, programs and some smaller games. And a 2TB HDD is only £13 more for double the storage and 4X the cache and something I'd recommend considering (which you could also put your larger file games on, although load times will be slower)Until you get the platform right there’s no point looking at storage, if you post your proposed build then we can advise.
apologies to OP, I should really take the time to read through the history.