Hey chaps,
I'm looking to get a gaming PC, something like an i7, a 2070 Super or 2080 Super and a pretty standard build from there.
I've built PCs back in the 90s and early 2000s, so know my way around a motherboard 🙂
What I don't know is whether it's worth building my own, getting something pre-built off the shelf or getting a custom build from someone like Scan's 3XS.
Budget of around £1500.
Anyone got any suggestions?
Cheers!
Ricks
Can I ask why Intel not AMD?
Genuine question!
Looking at the benchmarks the Ryzen 7 and 9 get really good multi-threaded ratings, but are about 10% off the pace for gaming. Pretty much the only reason. I've got other machines for work, this is solely for gaming - so I don't want to compromise for the budget 🙂
AMD are currently pretty hot in terms of processors, I'd build it yourself if you can as it usually comes in cheaper than buying a pre-built one, so you can either up the spec or save some cash.
What resolution are you wanting to game in, 1080/1440/4k?
What sort of games are you playing? Minecraft/Racing Sims/RPGs/FPS?
Right now you're probably better going AMD, price per performance just blows Intel out of the water. With the savings you make on the CPU, you can leak it to other parts and get better ones.
Custom build will generally be cheaper than off the shelf, especially if you can already build a comp. Easier than lego in some cases, everything is colour coded or labeled.
EDIT - quick look on ukpcpartpicker and it gives these two builds
Intel and AMD
What resolution are you wanting to game in, 1080/1440/4k?
1440 at 144hz
What sort of games are you playing? Minecraft/Racing Sims/RPGs/FPS?
FPS and RPGs - so a mix of high frame rate and high quality visuals 🙂
I've just taken delivery of a £1,200 spec built through Overclockers, mainly for sim racing and my biggest requirement was to deliver at 1440p 144hz.
Went Ryzen 7 3700x which, as you say, is rated lower in benchmarks but frankly I doubt I would notice any difference if I'd gone with Intel, and cost wise was significantly cheaper.
Paired up with a 2070 Super and 16GB RAM, it's a beast!! Can run Project Cars 2 and Raceroom at highest settings and it's smooth as anything.
This was the base spec, all I changed was the CPU (though I see the price has gone up a little now if you do the CPU upgrade)
CCL and overclockers UK do system configutators on line that you can configure fairly well and they'll build it for a fee, I got one built for my nan.. Would have bought the parts myself as I like building them, but due to time and logistics constraints, went with a custom pre built, if I remember CCL charge about £25 to build plus postage.
I'd defiantly go at least custom rather than off the shelf as you can chose pretty much what you want according to budget. Off the shelf stuff usually has stuff you don't really want and might lack what you do want, so you can use your budget more wisely.
If you have the time and inclination then just buy all the bits and build it yourself.
Certainly between 2005 and 2015, it was practically impossible to connect a component up incorrectly and you would save a fortune on build fees.
Took ~2 weeks in run up to Xmas to get two systems up and running back in 2015 iirc, one still fine now with graphics card upgrade and still need to troubleshoot why my one won't boot... Not so fussed as I game far less now, happy with a short fix of Rocket League these days, back then I could spend hours a day on car racing simulations.
It's easy to get out of the loop about what components give best bang for the buck, these days I've no real idea because I spend far more time cycling indoors or out, rather than sitting at pc desk.
This is a good forum
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/forums/new-to-pc-gaming-upgrade-advice.172/
Plenty of people offering advice and for any given budget you probably won't need to create a new thread, as there's loads of 'what's the best spec' for a gaming pc for £800, £1000 etc posts.
Although they do tend to suggest over priced motherboards... If you're not going to overcock the ram or the CPU, you really don't need a fancy motherboard..
I built my own gaming pc for the 1st time in 20yrs, bought a motherboard, processor and fan bundle as they were cheapest, it came pre tested and built up, the just bought the rest from wherever had best prices.
It was fairly straightforward to build, most plugs can’t be put in wrong places.
Paired up with a 2070 Super and 16GB RAM, it’s a beast!! Can run Project Cars 2 and Raceroom at highest settings and it’s smooth as anything.
Go VR. See how that works out. I was playing IL-2 Sturmovik in multiplayer in VR this morning on an 8600k/2979/32gb build and it was dropping to 40ish fps, but it was still epic!
DIY for sure. Half the fun in a new PC is building it yourself! 😂
Seriously though... Everyone’s needs and requirements are different, if you build it yourself you can apportion the budget to the bits and pieces that make the most difference to you, that said, £1500 is a lot of dosh for a 1440 gaming machine!
I made a very useful 1080HD gaming machine last year for £300, using an HP i7-4700 workstation with 16GB memory and a 1060-6GB graphics card... Played COD twice on it then realised I didn’t have the time any more after it didn’t even get turned on in over 3 months, so sold it on! 😂
that said, £1500 is a lot of dosh for a 1440 gaming machine!
Yep! Looking at options, not least pcpartspec I should be able to hit a GTX 2080 Super and 32GB DDR5.
After experiencing 144hz I'm now after a good FPS
I think now is a bad time to be buying a gaming PC.
GPUs are overpriced and the next Nvidia range is due very soon with apparently a decent jump in performance.
AMD budget CPUs are great right now, 3600 for £145 is fine for gaming, anything more expensive is probably worth waiting for Zen3, due mid year. Intel is overpriced compared to AMD so hard to justify.
Ram and SSDs are probably worth buying now, no sign of Coronavirus effects yet and due to automation apparently not a big risk, but prices have been stable for a while.
18 months ago I built my current gaming PC (using PCPartPicker helped a lot). Honestly though I wish I hadn't bothered.
It all connected up easily enough but was very unstable (and not overclocked at the time), couldn't even complete the Windows 10 install without it blue screening. I suspected the RAM, CPU or motherboard but I didn't have spares of them to try (tried with different RAM DIMM configs but that didn't help). If I'd bought the complete system I could have just warrantied it but I hadn't and given I wasn't sure what the faulty part was I couldn't easily just return them.
In the end I took it to a local PC repair shop, who despite me offering to pay, gave it a go for free with different RAM and had the same issue (they didn't have a CPU they could try with).
I ended up taking a chance and sending back the motherboard as faulty, only that then got denied as they claimed the socket pins were bent (they weren't when I took it apart and boxed it but I had no way of proving it). So they offered to try and repair it for £90 but with no guarantee it would work (or that the original issue would be addressed). So I ended up just coughing up another £200 for a new motherboard - which solved the original issues and the PC has been faultless since.
I realise my experience isn't typical but I ended up spending more than I originally saved through building myself and had warranty hassles for 3-4 weeks. If you saved say £250+ building it yourself it would be worth the risk (for me) but you typically only save £50-100, not worth the risk of the extra hassle for me for that amount.
Well, I built my own PC.
AMD 3700X
Sapphire 5700 xt Nitro+
MSI carbon b450
Corsair Vengeance 3600mhz 16GB
1TB NVME
AIO liquid cooler.
Just in the process of switching the fans over for some bequiet silent fans.
Running at around 35 degrees idle, 70 max under load
Getting 80fps on Metro Exodus on ultra settings. 100fps on Doom maxxed out.
Pretty pleased with it, and really enjoyed the build. Took about 3 hours in total, just taking time and then making all the cables super clean and tidy.
