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My eldest son likes gaming, and we were thinking of getting a PC to help with home schooling anyway. I’m thinking that it would be good to get something that he can build himself, and which has the potential to add different components over the years, but which is also reasonably functional for initial use, possible?
Try asking on the overclockers forum. When I was building a gaming pc with my youngest, they were Very helpful for validating build specs. My son is very happy indeed with his computer!
Ryzen 5 3600 + this board and then at least 8gb, preferably 16gn of RAM and the meatiest Nvidia graphics card you can afford:
I got this case - deceptively simple. Really nice to build with and just really well thought out.
Thanks for the tips, does this look ok?
3600 etc above is a good shout.
I'd use PC Partpicker as it will help with compatibility and price checks.
ATX case and mobo will provide the most flexibility for future upgrades and plenty of space to work around in the case.
If it's too big, plenty of mATX or ITX cases about as well.
@palmer77 - yes that's a nice bundle although I'd save the pennies on the CPU and stick with the Ryzen 5 3600 and put the extra toward a bigger m.2 drive and/or graphics card. The 3600 is a fine fine CPU.
Wait a month for the new B550 boards to come out (june 16th), pair one of them with a Ryzen 5 3600 and you'll be set for the cpu/mobo for a few years.
Those msi boards and be quite case are dire. Wouldn't recommend them to anyone.
I would shop around different stores for components.
what kind of budget are you looking at?
It's also worth noting that a decent case can be reused over and over.
To that end I run a corsair carbide, the current version of what I have is fairly pricey though
But compared to my previous version it's really well thought out in terms of filters and would appear to come with a pwm fan header built in - which if he's into gaming LED lighting shiznit will come in handy.
We've just gone via a local shop for this for one of ours.
He has that Carbide case, a good/bigger Corsair PSU and a couple of good but quiet fans. The shop suggested getting this right now - as a good base for everything else.
We've got Asus 450m mother board and Ryzen 5 3600, GTx1650, and due to a delay in supply they generously doubled the Ram to 32gb of Corsair summary or other. We've a 512mb ssd an I'm about to work out how to add his old 1tb laptop spinny drive for storage.
The shop have been superb, great service, supplied a wedge of paperwork and boxes after the build.
All came to just under £870 which I struggled to beat online, plus they built it and handed it over all set up.
https://m.facebook.com/ComputerDivision/?locale2=en_GB
Cases are very much personal preference. I've found cooler master elite cases to be good if you just want 'a case' for about £30 or £40.
Although as above I bought an expensive lian-li case about 12 years ago, it's quite big as you can fit about 12 drives in it and 2 power supplies if your running 2 or 3 graphics cards.
It should probably last a lifetime really.
Cases are very much personal preference, though. I prefer something without a side window so I'm not tempted to buy loads of silly LED fans and colour coded cables and stuff.
Also I generally favour gigabyte motherboards these days, Asus, whilst good kit, have a shocking reputation for returns and repairs if something goes wrong.
Gigabyte have a UK based warranty /returns place.
MSI used to have a bad reputation for motherboard's being ruined when doing bios updates. I dunno whether that's improved though.
Mothorboard
- Asus
- Gigabyte
Case
- Antec
- Aerocool
- Bitfenix
- Cooler Master
- Corsair
- Lian Li
- Thermaltake
NZXT make some decent looking cases too, but I've never used one.
I've recently built a system into a Fractal case. Really nice case to build into. I went for one without a window but they can be had with windows or tempered glass side panels.
ATX is hilariously oversized for typical components these days. Don’t go bigger than MicroATX unless you have very specialist needs.
https://www.logicalincrements.com/ is good for showing roughly what you should be looking at for a given budget.
I would takes Jolmes' advice if you are looking at something future proof, present chips are the last to be supported on current boards
AMD is releasing two new low-tier CPUs at the end of May (the R3 3100 and R3 3300X).
Due to their specifications and pricing, it’s very likely that one or both of them will be added to our main chart—but not immediately.
The Good
The R3 3100, slated to cost about $100, will be in the performance neighborhood of the R5 2600.The R3 3300X, slated to cost about $120, is closer to the R5 3600.
Neither chip will feature an iGPU, and both will be 4-core/8-thread processors.
The Bad
So what’s the catch? The motherboard chipset is the catch. Like all third-generation Ryzen CPUs, these new CPUs can require a BIOS update to be compatible with all B450, X470, and older AM4 boards. And AMD is planning to end support for those older boards from 4th-gen Ryzen onwards.That means that the only currently available motherboards that are both compatible with the new CPUs and will also be compatible with upcoming AMD releases are the high-end X570 boards for $150+. Recommending one of these new R3 CPUs with an X570 motherboard doesn’t currently make logical sense for the tiers where we would be considering adding the new processors.
Now, you may be thinking that we should still recommend using one of those older motherboards with one of these new CPUs if the builder is on a tight budget and isn’t planning to upgrade their CPU in the future. Well, by being just a little bit patient, you can have your cake and eat it, too; a new group of B550 motherboards are planned to release in mid-to-late June, with prices down closer to $100. As such, we will be waiting until then to consider adding the new chips to our chart.
The Ugly
In closing, it is worth underscoring that AMD won’t be supporting those older boards for any more future generations of Ryzen—meaning that it would currently be unwise to build with an X470 or B450 motherboard if the decision to build with that board is contingent on being able to upgrade to some hypothetical Ryzen 4000 or newer option later on.
http://blog.logicalincrements.com/2020/05/r3-3100-r3-3300x-pre-update/
As per above, wait a month and spec up on the aforementioned site then plug the bits into https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ for best prices.
not sure if the newer GPU's are any smaller but my vega64 is massive and needs a decent sized case as do decent CPU coolers although i've gone stock cooler on my new CPU as wont be overclocking it.
upgraded to this at the start of the year
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-b450-tomahawk-max-socket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33t-ms.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-ryzen-7-3700x-eight-core-4.4ghz-socket-am4-processor-retail-cp-3b7-am.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team-group-8pack-edition-16gb-2x8gb-ddr4-pc4-28800c16-3600mhz-dual-channel-kit-black-my-08q-tg.html
the prices are all more than what i paid now though.
also got a 1TB M2 drive(sabrent rocket which seemed to get a lot of good reviews at a decent price)
all put into a coolermaster case that i've had for over 10 years.
should last me a good few years before needing to upgrade again.
I would takes Jolmes’ advice if you are looking at something future proof, present chips are the last to be supported on current boards
may apply to lower end stuff but i've found that by getting higher end CPU's that by the time you need to upgrade it you have skipped complete generations and would be looking at a new board and memory anyway.
ATX is hilariously oversized for typical components these days. Don’t go bigger than MicroATX unless you have very specialist needs.
Careful, look for 'midi' ATX cases rather than micro ATX, micro ATX cases can be hard to work with in regards to PSUs and cable routing, and graphics card clearance.
may apply to lower end stuff but i’ve found that by getting higher end CPU’s that by the time you need to upgrade it you have skipped complete generations and would be looking at a new board and memory anyway.
Who said anything about high end? If you buy the present generation of boards (barring the top chipsets) with any processor it will be obsolete by the next upgrade. That's just bad economics. By comparison, if you wait a month for the next gen cheap boards you have a few years worth of upgrades ahead of you.
Who said anything about high end? If you buy the present generation of boards (barring the top chipsets) with any processor it will be obsolete by the next upgrade. That’s just bad economics. By comparison, if you wait a month for the next gen cheap boards you have a few years worth of upgrades ahead of you.
Maybe, but equally we're talking £200 CPU's and £70 motherboards.
Is it worth spending £170 on a X570* board now, if all you need is a B450? When in however many years when you want to upgrade it a hypothetical B650 will be less than the £100 price difference?
Also X570 boards have built in fans to cool the chipsets. Odds of those fans outlasting the obsolescence of the system?
And....... if on the other hand we weren't talking about £200-£300 processors, and instead say 3200G or 3300X sort of budgets then that leaves a huge amount of headroom to buy a higher end 3000series processor in a few years if you need or want it.
*Ok we're talking B550, but I doubt it'll be as cheap as B450 boards are now.
That's exactly what I'm saying OMFG THIS PLACE!
Sorry, it's been a long day.
Buy a B550 with a Ryzen3 next month. Future proof. Probably what I'll end up with.
Who said anything about high end? If you buy the present generation of boards (barring the top chipsets) with any processor it will be obsolete by the next upgrade. That’s just bad economics. By comparison, if you wait a month for the next gen cheap boards you have a few years worth of upgrades ahead of you.
i said higher end not high end, there is a differance and the op mentioned the 3700X which is towards the higher end, well possibley high of middle now as it was 5/6 months ago when i was looking into what to get. anyway i've always got CPU's in that range and its always worked out that by the time its needed upgrading the memory does as well. i expect that the 3700X will easily last for a good few years (think its usually a good 4/5 years between upgrades for me) when we'll be going to DDR5 anyway.
can normally get a decent price for the old stuff as well.
Slight hyjack, we have £800 budget for a PC tower for gaming PC for 13 year old son, any recommendations?
Look at logical increments, see what's at your price point then buy it.
@bigfoot I wasnt talking about higher end though, with a new wave of chips coming out it doesn't make sense to look at a 7 when there will be an equivalent 5 within a couple of months.
Oh and on cases, avoid Antec if you want good parts availability.
Slight hyjack, we have £800 budget for a PC tower for gaming PC for 13 year old son, any recommendations?
At that price point you'll get more bang for your buck going AMD
Slight hyjack, we have £800 budget for a PC tower for gaming PC for 13 year old son, any recommendations?
Worth having a look at Lenovo's "Education" store - 10% off the normal prices, and if you sign up for their newsletter you'll get sent a 10% discount voucher almost immediately - put the two together and there are some decent deals to be had . . . and order via QuidCo to maybe get some cashback too.
That’s exactly what I’m saying OMFG THIS PLACE!
I wasn't agreeing with you!
Odds of B550 being the same price as b450 are slim, it'll be fractionally less than x570. And unless you have pci-e 4.0 parts, its not going to offer an advantage.
Dunno what the OPs budget is, but for homework and gaming I would have assumed he was looking at cheaper processors and mid/high end graphics cards. In which case a b450 will save some cash, and in 2-3 years you could buy a 3950x if you really wanted to have 29 of the 32 threads idle whilst playing games.
OTOH the b550 boards released by OEMs are just b450 with the pci-e 4.0 switched on. In which case they may well end up runing hot anyway with a high end processor and in which case obsolescence isnt a worry as the board will cook itself at some point.
I wasn’t agreeing with you!
Odds of B550 being the same price as b450 are slim, it’ll be fractionally less than x570.
Based on what exactly? Nobody else seems to think this will be the case, B's are just the trickle down of the X's. That's like saying an XT or SLX 12 speed would have cost the same as an XTR because it has as many gears. And I never suggested buying an X series anyway, I was agreeing that spending that much would be daft.
Dunno what the OPs budget is, but for homework and gaming I would have assumed he was looking at cheaper processors and mid/high end graphics cards. In which case a b450 will save some cash, and in 2-3 years you could buy a 3950x if you really wanted to have 29 of the 32 threads idle whilst playing games.
*facepalm*
I'll quote that article again shall I?
In closing, it is worth underscoring that AMD won’t be supporting those older boards for any more future generations of Ryzen—meaning that it would currently be unwise to build with an X470 or B450 motherboard if the decision to build with that board is contingent on being able to upgrade to some hypothetical Ryzen 4000 or newer option later on.
Worth having a look at Lenovo’s “Education” store – 10% off the normal prices, and if you sign up for their newsletter you’ll get sent a 10% discount voucher almost immediately – put the two together and there are some decent deals to be had . . . and order via QuidCo to maybe get some cashback too.
Normally I'd have disagreed but if you can get a T540 at 10% off it's already worth it.
and in 2-3 years you could buy a 3950x if you really wanted to have 29 of the 32 threads idle whilst playing games
current AAA games are faster on 8 core chips. the 3950X is the fastest AMD consumer chip for gaming. spreading the work load over many cores means the processor can run higher clocks.
That is pretty crap TBH. graphics card is poor, ram is poor and PSU is dire. case looks pants for air flow as well.
It's about the right price though if you look at logical increments. I'll be honest and say I never looked at the PSU though.
WHOA! Yeah okay, I agree, never realised it was a small form factor PSU. I wouldn't have been overly worried about RAM though, it's so far under budget it's not really worth worrying about. And yes that case is pants. I consider myself thoroughly told.
Buy a case with a window from one of the brands listed above of which your son likes the look off.
I have a Corsair mid tower and it’s easy to work on.
It’s about the right price though if you look at logical increments
it isn't really. I'd build one myself. Start with a case (phanteks P300) ryzen 2600 and b450 tomahawk and go from there. Graphics card prices suck at the moment there is a big gap between £170-£280 in terms of segmentation. 16gb of 3200mhz ram can be bought pretty cheaply though (cl 16-18-18-36) and a decent PSU can be had for arounf £60. The big choice comes down to what graphics card you buy. For hard drives a 500gb SSD for the OS and a 2TB HDD for the games would be the minimum.
Graphics card prices suck at the moment there is a big gap between £170-£280 in terms of segmentation
There are quite a few cards at this price bracket, 1660ti, 1660 supers, 5600xt. Loads of really good 1080p cards which will handle 1440p on good gfx/fps
The only things that suck right now is getting your hands on a sfx psu without going overkill on the power/cost, especially as there has been a huge issue with the SF-Corsair, loads of reports on reddit of them blowing up, I think corsair have finally admitted it and put out a recall for certain batches
Been impressed with my asrock phantom gaming b365 mb. Generally i just get the cheapest and while this wasn't especially pricy, has a lot of extras.
Just put a pcie ssd in too. Won't be bothering with sata types anymore. Another upvoat for the 1660 super, and i wouldnt waste money on higher than an i5 if you go intel.
As for cases, they are just a box, go with what looks nice (says the guy with a lian li).
*facepalm*
I’ll quote that article again shall I?
Quote away
if the decision to build with that board is contingent on being able to upgrade to some hypothetical Ryzen 4000 or newer option later on.
How many generations away are we from a mainstream processor that will actually beat the best 3000 ones? I.e. would you buy a 5xxx/6xxx/7xxx or a second hand 3950x?
If 550 boards are as cheap as 450 then it makes sense, if they're £50 more (i.e. RRP rather than discounted) then buy faster ram/cpu/gpu and buy a b550 board in the future when you need it. Otherwise there's every likelyhood your better board might just die before you actually upgrade to use any of it's features. Or if you dont feel the itch to upgrade frequently b550 might be obsolete too by the time you want to upgrade.
. I’m thinking that it would be good to get something that he can build himself, and which has the potential to add different components over the years
That's what I'm looking at and basing my answer on.
500gb/1tb ssd for gaming should be more than enough unless you are installing multiple AAA games. Adding more SSD memory is very easy to do in the future.
Just to add about future proofing, I’m playing on a i5-7600(not overclockablr version) and a 1070 at 1440p with solid 60fps on most games-other than ubisofta shitshow games. The only game that has made me consider upgrading my pc is m&B bannerlord, which is a cpu hog.
The days of a pc being outdated within 2 years or less are long over.
Potential parts to upgrade could be storage or quieter fans or rgb lighting all which are safe and easy to do but require some level of commitment, perfect for a kid.
I was under the impression that the age of the i5s is now over, and i7s are finally worth it.
I would never recommend Intel personally, those links were created by the team behind pcpartpicker.
In other news, AMD are going to support the new chips on their b450/x470 boards. So unless you need the features on z570 board, you're better off getting the cheaper b450 boards right now.
source - https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/gmp45o/the_zen_3_architecture_is_coming_to_amd_x470_and/
In other news, AMD are going to support the new chips on their b450/x470 boards. So unless you need the features on z570 board, you’re better off getting the cheaper b450 boards right now.
Dammit, I wanted to post that 🤣
Wonder if they'll unlock pci-e 4.0 again.
Well that's obviously good news that they changed their minds, not sure how well supported beta firmware will be or when it will be available but nonetheless that changes things.
We will develop and enable our motherboard partners with the code to support “Zen 3”-based processors in select beta BIOSes for AMD B450 and X470 motherboards.
These optional BIOS updates will disable support for many existing AMD Ryzen™ Desktop Processor models to make the necessary ROM space available.
The select beta BIOSes will enable a one-way upgrade path for AMD Ryzen Processors with “Zen 3,” coming later this year. Flashing back to an older BIOS version will not be supported.
To reduce the potential for confusion, our intent is to offer BIOS download only to verified customers of 400 Series motherboards who have purchased a new desktop processor with “Zen 3” inside. This will help us ensure that customers have a bootable processor on-hand after the BIOS flash, minimizing the risk a user could get caught in a no-boot situation.
Timing and availability of the BIOS updates will vary and may not immediately coincide with the availability of the first “Zen 3”-based processors.
This is the final pathway AMD can enable for 400 Series motherboards to add new CPU support. CPU releases beyond “Zen 3” will require a newer motherboard.
AMD continues to recommend that customers choose an AMD 500 Series motherboard for the best performance and features with our new CPUs.