Tips/Advice for a Home Office and Light Gaming PC

P

Piemaster

Member
Comments welcome on all aspects of the below

Uses - Home office, some light coding and gaming (but nothing too FPS demanding, I'm mainly into stuff like Rimworld, Civ VI, XCOM)
Budget - Max £1000
Monitors - 2 x 24" 60Hz, usually used at 1920x1080

Thoughts - Not 100% fixed on any of the below. No reason especially that I am going with AMD over Intel other than that I have always used AMD before and historically they have a reputation of being slightly better value. 32GB RAM seems like overkill, but it seems very cheap at the moment at only £36 to go from 16GB to 32GB, so maybe it's worth it to save an upgrade later? I have spent a bit of time with the graphics cards on userbenchmark.com and the RTX 4060 seems to be thought of as the best value card in that price range. It is a significant upgrade over the RX 580 I currently use (which has always been able to run everything I wanted it to but obviously also looking to the future). I haven't included a second HD as I already have a 4TB SATA drive that I can add to store all my music, photos and other stuff like that if needed. Motherboard, PSU and Processor I am the most clueless about so if any of these are unsuitable or there is an obviously better choice within budget then let me know

Thanks in advance!.


Case
PCS PRISM-X ARGB MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 5500 Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.2GHz/19MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE A520M K V2: Micro-ATX, AM4, USB 3.2, 6GB/s
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4060 - HDMI, DP, LHR
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (3500 MB/R, 3100 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W CV SERIES™ CV-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 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)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6E AX210 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 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 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
Microsoft® Edge
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 9 to 12 working days
Price: £918.00 including VAT and Delivery
 
Rain in July

Rain in July

Member
I know 32gb ram isn't much more expensive but if you're looking to save money, 16 would be enough with this build.
 
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P

Piemaster

Member
Yes, you definitely have a point there, in fact it is something I considered as I was putting it together. I guess I was just quite surprised with how little it costs to upgrade to 32GB when only a couple of years ago that was an expensive upgrade. I may well end up cutting it from the final spec.
 
P

Piemaster

Member
I just checked - March 2019 so 4.5 years

That's why I'm doing this exercise to see whether it is worth upgrading vs buying a new PC. My graphics card has failed, so I need to buy a new one anyway. I also want to get an SSD, now those have come down to a reasonable price for a high level of storage and I want to upgrade my RAM as I only have 8GB at present.

So I could buy all of those, and it will definitely be much cheaper, but they will still be running off a motherboard, PSU and processor etc that, while not completely end of life, are out of warranty and within a couple of years will be in 'could fail at any time' territory. Or I could start from scratch, get a new PC with all the upgrades I want anyway, and then still have my current one which I could just run off the on-board graphics card as a second PC for non-gaming office stuff, or just have as a spare, or give it to a family member etc. I am trying to figure out what new PC would be my 'optimal build' and how much that would cost, so I can measure the pros and cons of spending that extra money vs throwing some money at the one I already have.

"Entry level system" is probably a misleading phrase in this case, because "entry" implies it is supposed to lead somewhere. Not everybody needs a high-performance system and can happily go through their lives on a series of "entry level" ones.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Piemaster said:
I just checked - March 2019 so 4.5 years

That's why I'm doing this exercise to see whether it is worth upgrading vs buying a new PC. My graphics card has failed, so I need to buy a new one anyway. I also want to get an SSD, now those have come down to a reasonable price for a high level of storage and I want to upgrade my RAM as I only have 8GB at present.

So I could buy all of those, and it will definitely be much cheaper, but they will still be running off a motherboard, PSU and processor etc that, while not completely end of life, are out of warranty and within a couple of years will be in 'could fail at any time' territory. Or I could start from scratch, get a new PC with all the upgrades I want anyway, and then still have my current one which I could just run off the on-board graphics card as a second PC for non-gaming office stuff, or just have as a spare, or give it to a family member etc. I am trying to figure out what new PC would be my 'optimal build' and how much that would cost, so I can measure the pros and cons of spending that extra money vs throwing some money at the one I already have.

"Entry level system" is probably a misleading phrase in this case, because "entry" implies it is supposed to lead somewhere. Not everybody needs a high-performance system and can happily go through their lives on a series of "entry level" ones.
Click to expand...
If you can post your current specs, we may be able to suggest a far better upgrade path.

When I say entry level, you may not realise but a system at this level is a really poor experience, only spending a fraction more leads to astronomically better experience throughout. 1080p is really a very poor resolution by todays standards and generally best avoided. Generally the people who say it's fine are people who don't realise what's possible with todays hardware.

Depending on your budget for the upgrades and your current setup, we may be able to factor in 1440p capable upgrades plus a monitor for the same price as a very entry level low experience.

But it's not just the experience but the lifetime of the PC, a well designed spec will easily last 7 - 10 years, if it's only lasting 5, it's because either it's compromising on the platform, or it's being retired prematurely.
 
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