New Gaming Build - First Timer

Pac1Man

Hi all. I'm about to take the leap into PC gaming after being a console player. It feels like I have I stepped out of the vault for the first time and have been met with hundreds of side quests, i.e. overwhelming!

My aim is to build something to stand the test of time somewhat, with scope to upgrade in the future. As a general guide, I would like to target 1440p 60fps or even have the option to run at 1080p with an even higher framerate if that's feasible.

My budget is 2k all in. It may be possible to reach my goals for less but I would be willing to go up to 2k if it was the 'sensible' thing to do in terms of future proofing.

Any help would be great. Even just a shove in the right direction would be a big help!


1. What is your budget? €2000

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming

If gaming which games? Solitaire Everything really. Upcoming Forza, strategy games, FPSs etc.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? I will need everything.

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Probably not yet. Maybe a few years down the line when I am more knowledgeable.

8. How can you pay? Credit Card

9. When are you purchasing? Anytime. Willing to wait if advised though.

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Hopefully building it myself.

Billy86

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£191.47 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock - Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming K4 ATX AM4 Motherboard (£99.84 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£119.68 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£59.97 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£70.95 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Founder Edition Video Card (£582.50 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Corsair - 100R ATX Mid Tower Case (£39.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£83.97 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (£83.70 @ Aria PC)
Monitor: AOC - AG271QX 27.0" 2560x1440 144Hz Monitor (£419.92 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1751.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-10 15:03 BST+0100

= €1,980

You'd actually achieve a lot more than you had planned for that budget and that system could handle 4K very well - either if you have a 4K TV that you just want to use it occasionally for, or if you spend an extra £100 on a 42.5" 4K monitor (apparently less than 32" defeats the purpose and that's the lowest cost one I could find above 32"). Other peripherals would put you over budget but only just slightly - no keyboard/monitor included since I don't have much of a breeze about them, as far as headsets go I've been extremely happy with this one that I got the other week - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01EAF3AK2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

TerrorFirmer

For a 144hz system I would chose either the i7-7700 or the hex-core i7-7800X and get a cheaper GTX1080 non-ti, but for 4K 60hz the Ryzen is OK with the 1080ti.

144hz really needs i7 to shine, otherwise the 1080Ti would be fairly hard limited by the Ryzen 1600.

Mickeroo

I assume the two hard drives are a mistake though and you meant one of those to be an SSD

Pac1Man

Thanks all for the input and to Billy for getting the ball rolling.

Am I overkilling it at that spec? I won't be going 4K as I think a 27" screen is in the sweet spot, therefore making the 4K visual advantages negligible.

Also Terror, you mentioned an i7 is preferable for 1440p. I see these are a bit more expensive than the listed Ryzen. Factoring in the mouse and keyboard, I'll be further over budget.

Is my budget large enough to hit 1440p, 60fps.

Excuse my ignorance, I'm probably missing something here.

Grahamer666

I run an i5-7500 on a 1440p/165hz IPS monitor. It runs like a dream. You don't need an i7.

BloodBath

You don't need a 1080ti or a 7700k. Are they preferable for maximising gaming performance. Sure but you don't need to be at a stable 144fps. Anything over 100 is fine imo. A Ryzen 1600 + 1070 or 1080 is more than good enough for 1440p/144hz with averages over 100fps in most cases.

You can get a good mechanical keyboard + mouse combo for around €100. You don't have to pay for windows 10 upfront. You can download and install it and it will work fine and legally without payment.

Mickeroo

A gtx1070 is fine for 1440p 60fps, though I'm not sure what their availability is like due to the mining shenanigans.

Billy86

BloodBath wrote: »

You don't need a 1080ti or a 7700k. Are they preferable for maximising gaming performance. Sure but you don't need to be at a stable 144fps. Anything over 100 is fine imo. A Ryzen 1600 + 1070 or 1080 is more than good enough for 1440p/144hz with averages over 100fps in most cases.

You can get a good mechanical keyboard + mouse combo for around €100. You don't have to pay for windows 10 upfront. You can download and install it and it will work fine and legally without payment.

Didn't know a 1070 would do but good to know - I went with 1080 TI though because it's just £60 more than the lowest cost normal 1080 on PCPP. 1070 might save a good bit though, would be tricky but there's got to be 1-2 a decent price can be got on despite the mining.

BloodBath

You would get more than 60fps with a good after market 1070 and an overclock. Tweak some settings and you would be closer to 100fps. You can lower some settings and lose very little visual fidelity for decent fps gains in most games these days.

A 1080 or that 1080ti FE would be a better choice for sure and you have the budget for it. I'd opt for that 1080ti as the price is great. I'd down the clocks and voltage a bit to improve the thermals and noise levels though.

You would still get over 100fps in most games maxed out then.

Billy86

For reference, looks like the best price on a 1070 is £390 vs a 1080 at £509 vs a 1080 TI at £622 (the £582 one has since sold out)

1070 - https://www.novatech.co.uk/products/palit-geforce-gtx-1070-gamerock-8gb-gddr5-graphics-card/ne51070t15p2-1041g.html#utm_source=affiliatewindow&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=PCPartPicker
1080 - https://www.novatech.co.uk/products/asus-geforce-gtx-1080-turbo-8gb-gddr5x-graphics-card/turbo-gtx1080-8g.html#utm_source=affiliatewindow&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=PCPartPicker
1080 TI - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XT3983Y/?tag=pcp0f-21

+ €4 for the 1070 or 1080 TI since Parcel Motel would be needed.

K.O.Kiki

Damn, even 980 Ti prices are rising - they were at €300 last month, now you'd be hard pressed to find one under €400! (roughly same performance as 1070)

Billy86

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Damn, even 980 Ti prices are rising - they were at €300 last month, now you'd be hard pressed to find one under €400! (roughly same performance as 1070)

I actually noticed the same on some 970s too. I think I've seen a good few coming out in August but I'm starting to wonder if they're going to actually make any GPUs ever again at this rate (or how much they're enjoying the hiked prices from a starved market).

Joshua J

If I thought I'd be able to get a resonably priced replacement I'd sell my RX480 but the markets crazy.

K.O.Kiki

Billy86 wrote: »

I actually noticed the same on some 970s too. I think I've seen a good few coming out in August but I'm starting to wonder if they're going to actually make any GPUs ever again at this rate (or how much they're enjoying the hiked prices from a starved market).

AFAIK the other problem is that production can't ramp-up for 2 months, so the AIBs are figuring out whether the market will hold steady, or crash; i.e. they need to decide NOW how many GPUs to take delivery of in September/October.

Pac1Man

What do ye think of the following? Adding in the keyboard and mouse should see me around the 2k mark.

Please point out the areas where I fukd up or what you would do differently.:p


CPU: Intel - Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£172.97 @ Amazon UK)

Motherboard: MSI - H270 TOMAHAWK ARCTIC ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£94.18 @ Amazon UK)

Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£119.68 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£135.72 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£55.80 @ Aria PC)

Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card (£419.98 @ Ebuyer)

Case: NZXT - S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£62.39 @ Aria PC)

Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£83.97 @ Amazon UK)

Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit

Monitor: AOC - AG271QX 27.0" 2560x1440 144Hz Monitor (£419.92 @ Ebuyer)

Total: £1564.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-10 21:14 BST+0100

Lu Tze

Pac1Man wrote: »

What do ye think of the following? Adding in the keyboard and mouse should see me around the 2k mark.

Please point out the areas where I fukd up or what you would do differently.:p


CPU: Intel - Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£172.97 @ Amazon UK)

Motherboard: MSI - H270 TOMAHAWK ARCTIC ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£94.18 @ Amazon UK)

Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£119.68 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£135.72 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£55.80 @ Aria PC)

Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card (£419.98 @ Ebuyer)

Case: NZXT - S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£62.39 @ Aria PC)

Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£83.97 @ Amazon UK)

Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit

Monitor: AOC - AG271QX 27.0" 2560x1440 144Hz Monitor (£419.92 @ Ebuyer)

Total: £1564.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-10 21:14 BST+0100

Ebuyer don't ship to ireland

Pac1Man

Damn!

Billy86

Lu Tze wrote: »

Ebuyer don't ship to ireland

Parcel Motel will do it for €3.95 per item. I would say to avoid Aria though, nearly used them once but they were robbing b*stards for delivery - I think they tried charging £20ish just for a case within the UK (and as best I know don't deliver to Ireland so it would be €7.95 extra from Parcel Motel as cases are oversized for their lockers and require home delivery).

Wouldn't recommend getting a 270 board and 3000mhz RAM on a CPU you can't overclock though, you would get better performance (plus the ability to overclock which would make it perform as a 1600X) probably for the same price/a little less from a Ryzen 1600/350 motherboard with the same RAM unless I am missing something?

Also PCPP don't always keep up great with stock; unfortunately that GTX 1070 is sold out.



EDIT: Being honest I would tell the OP to try waiting it out for a few weeks, there are a lot of "not yet released" 1070s at reasonable prices... it might even be worth ordering one of them around at £350 when they pop up and picking up the rest of the parts when Amazon confirm it being readied for delivery. 1070s and 1080s avoided getting hit by the GPU mining rush for a good while, but it looks like in the absence of 480/580s and 1060 6GB models for so long it has hit them in a big way over the last week or two. Reason I say that is that I would be worried when they come back into stock they could be gone in days or even hours again.

Grahamer666

Amazon have that monitor for the same price. I got the IPS model from them a few weeks ago.

Pac1Man

Billy86 wrote: »

EDIT: Being honest I would tell the OP to try waiting it out for a few weeks, there are a lot of "not yet released" 1070s at reasonable prices... it might even be worth ordering one of them around at £350 when they pop up and picking up the rest of the parts when Amazon confirm it being readied for delivery. 1070s and 1080s avoided getting hit by the GPU mining rush for a good while, but it looks like in the absence of 480/580s and 1060 6GB models for so long it has hit them in a big way over the last week or two. Reason I say that is that I would be worried when they come back into stock they could be gone in days or even hours again.

I don't mind waiting for the best deal. I was completely unaware of mining until I started looking to buy. Just my luck!

BloodBath

I think getting an i5 over a Ryzen 1600 is madness. Especially a non overclockable version. 4 cores / 4 threads vs 6 cores / 12 threads. There is no contest. Better upgrade path with Ryzen as well.

The RX Vega is out at the end of this month as well op. Could be worth checking out and might be got for a reasonable price before all the miners snap them up. You could go for a freesync monitor then as well.

TerrorFirmer

Fully agree with the above. While I wouldn't call it total madness, Ryzen is the better option really for longevity and overall value.

Pac1Man

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Fully agree with the above. While I wouldn't call it total madness, Ryzen is the better option really for longevity and overall value.

So if I swapped the i5 for a Ryzen 1600 and compatible motherboard, would that be a decent setup?

Grahamer666

You'll have no problem with most games at High settings getting around 100FPS at 1440p

Pac1Man

That's a lot better than I was expecting! Should see me right for a few years so.

Now to wait it out for the GPU prices to become reasonable.

Billy86

Pac1Man wrote: »

That's a lot better than I was expecting! Should see me right for a few years so.

Now to wait it out for the GPU prices to become reasonable.

You're also as well to make a list of items you want and check them quite regularly on Amazon / pcpartpicker.com / skinflint.co.uk (make sure to set the filter to UK on PCPP; Germany is also a good one and usually less than €10 for deliverty), even just on bathroom breaks etc - they're great for short term sales on components. I've got 16GB 3200mhz for £105 off them before, and 8GB 2133mhz at £26, have seen some great prices on GPUs (especially 'yet to be released' ones), motherboards up to 25% off etc etc... if you get a bit lucky it could pay for the difference in a 1080 vs a 1070 (if they're at normal prices)!

Grahamer666

Pac1Man wrote: »

That's a lot better than I was expecting! Should see me right for a few years so.

Now to wait it out for the GPU prices to become reasonable.

To give you an example. I'm playing The Witcher 3 at the moment at High Settings (Not Ultra). I'm running an i5-7500 with an Asus GTX 1070 Dual Fan 8gb OC edition on the IPS version of the monitor you're looking at and am getting 110fps. The monitor has Gsync though but i don't think that will effect it. I may be corrected on that though.

Pac1Man

Billy86 wrote: »

You're also as well to make a list of items you want and check them quite regularly on Amazon / pcpartpicker.com / skinflint.co.uk (make sure to set the filter to UK on PCPP; Germany is also a good one and usually less than €10 for deliverty), even just on bathroom breaks etc - they're great for short term sales on components. I've got 16GB 3200mhz for £105 off them before, and 8GB 2133mhz at £26, have seen some great prices on GPUs (especially 'yet to be released' ones), motherboards up to 25% off etc etc... if you get a bit lucky it could pay for the difference in a 1080 vs a 1070 (if they're at normal prices)!

Will do.

You mention the 1080. As a general rule of thumb, if I ended up with a 1080, would that mean overclocking the CPU and adding a cooler?


Thanks for all the help guys. From my one day of learning, it seems like the big decisions are made with the CPU and GPU. The rest is whatever works best with those components.

Billy86

Pac1Man wrote: »

Will do.

You mention the 1080. As a general rule of thumb, if I ended up with a 1080, would that mean overclocking the CPU and adding a cooler?


Thanks for all the help guys. From my one day of learning, it seems like the big decisions are made with the CPU and GPU. The rest is whatever works best with those components.

Nah, a 1080 is just the next step up from a 1070 - you can overclock both if you wish, though there would be no need to at this point as both are high, high end card (probably the 2nd and 3rd most powerful GPUs you can get behind the 1080 TI) and either will come with their own fans.

And yeah, it's really all about the CPU & GPU. 16GB RAM has you set so it's straight forward (though 8 does on lower budget builds), and an SSD will help everything on the computer generally run really quickly (won't improve FPS but has a nice benefit for games like Witcher/Fallout that have lots of loading screens). A Gold+ PSU means it is highly energy efficient and modular means there are way, way less wires to deal with (make it easier, and also looks better in the case if you go for one with a window)

So it's relatively straight forward on your budget otherwise: 16GB 3000mhz ram (tends to be the best value before a jump to 3200mhz)... gold and modular PSU... an SSD (480GB+ preferrably though 240GB will also do fine) with 1-2TB HDD for storage (7200RPM, 64MB cache - Toshiba, Seagate Barracuda and WD Blue are the most popular)... whatever case you prefer (some posters can let you know which are best for cable and heat management, though in Ireland heat management isn't too much of a concern).

A '350' series motherboard will do you fine if you go for Ryzen, what each can offer varies a lot but that's mainly to do with inputs. At the end of the day, the performance you'll get off any 350 motherboard will be extremely similar.

A 1600 seems to be able to do fine for the CPU, while a 1070 or 1080 is likely your best bet on the GPU depending on the value you can get for either/savings you can make on other components.

Pac1Man

Excellent breakdown. Cheers.

Billy86

Bit of a plunge in cryptocurrency so if the new stocks come in reasonably soon you might well be in a good spot - http://coinmarketcap.com/

With all of those GPUs that are used solely for mining and a good few smaller/solo likely to drop out if that dip continues the second hand market might be flooded too, which will help even more. Could mean a good number of 580 8GBs going for reasonable prices for those on 1050 TIs, 960s, still clinging in there on 750 TIs and 660s, etc.

BloodBath

There are a few caveats when ordering the other parts.

Ryzen likes high memory speeds. A lot of programs and games will show good performance gains with high speeds. 3000-3600 is recommended but only the samsung b-die stuff will go to 3200+. I think they may have added support for more since though. Check what the board you order supports. Try find one with support for that corsair lpx stuff as its a good price for 3000mhz ddr4.

The boards will have some differences. Mainly the sound processor, how many sata ports, m.2 support, memory support and VRM's (capacity and cooling for higher power deliver to the cpu for overclocking)

2TB drives comes in 1 platter, 2 platter and 3 platter variants as well. Ideally you want single platter drives with 2 read heads. The more platters and read heads you have means more moving parts, higher noise and heat and higher failure rates. Trying to find out which ones are which is a pain in the arse though.

If you want to overclock the Ryzen to or near 4Ghz you will probably need a better cooler as well. Nothing crazy. Even something like a 212 evo should do the trick. A Noctua NH D14 if you want to go crazy. It's worth doing as it will improve your max frame rates in games that like high IPC over high core count which is most of them atm.

You can get a rough 10% boost from cpu overclock, another 10%+ from high memory speeds and around another 10% from a gpu overclock. 30% improved frame rates with all 3 overclocked.

Pac1Man

Hi all, just resurrecting this thread again as I am planning to purchase within the next couple of weeks. I still have a bit of a dilemma though and it mostly revolves around the resolution I will be playing at.

I originally mentioned that I was targeting 1440p with high-ish FPS (Ryzen 5 with a GTX 1080). My thinking was that I could scale the res back as my hardware ages while still keeping the high frames. Further research tells me that displaying 1080p on a 1440p display is a no-no, meaning that if I were to target 1440p initially I would be 'stuck' in the high end bracket of PC gaming and would need to update my hardware accordingly. I am a newbie so my logic may be skewed here.

Alternatively, I could choose a 24" 1080p 144Hz monitor (sitting two feet from the screen) and maybe couple it with the new Vega 56 card depending on reviews which should allow me to game at a more consistently high level for a longer amount of time while saving a few bob in the process.

What are your thoughts? Do you think I would regret not going for 1440p straight out of the gate?

TerrorFirmer

1440p 60hz and 1080p 144hz are equally as demanding, the latter actually more so in many cases as you need a very good CPU as well as GPU to drive the framerate as high as possible and make the most out of that monitor.

Ryzen 5 and a GTX1070/80 or the Vega equivalent will be fine for 1440p ultra for a considerable time without any upgrade needed. CPU is not that important on a 60hz monitor as long as it's an i5/Ryzen 5 or above.

Mickeroo

I've had no issue displaying 1080p on a 1440p display for what it's worth. Can barely tell the difference if I'm honest.

Pac1Man

Mickeroo wrote: »

I've had no issue displaying 1080p on a 1440p display for what it's worth. Can barely tell the difference if I'm honest.

Is that on a 27"?

Some of the prices make me weep!

Mickeroo

Pac1Man wrote: »

Is that on a 27"?

Some of the prices make me weep!

Yeah, one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-S2716DG-27-Inch-LED-Gaming/dp/B016QR3NR2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1502191423&sr=8-3&keywords=dell+g-sync

I got mine B-Grade from Overclockers so didn't pay full whack.

Pac1Man

I was actually wondering where to buy the monitor so OC seems like the place. Amazon don't seem to post to Ireland on a few of the monitors I'd be interested in.

I think I'll go 1440p then. TerrorFirmer I never knew the lower res was just as intensive @144hz so that basically makes up my mind.

Posting on the phone at the minute so I'll throw up a final parts list later on to see what yee think before signing my life away!

Pac1Man

So here is my proposed build. I will double-check the RAM compatibility beforehand as I know there are a few issues at the moment. I'll add another €200 for peripherals and an OS. This will not be overclocked to begin with.

What do you think? Price will vary slightly depending on who I buy from.

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£178.95 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard (£96.98 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£144.95 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£134.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£80.99 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Video Card (£549.98 @ Novatech)
Case: Cooler Master - MasterBox 5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£84.98 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: AOC - AG271QX 27.0" 2560x1440 144Hz Monitor (£379.99 @ Amazon UK)

Total: £1711.80

Grahamer666

Do you really need a 1080? For a first build i'd personally go for something less expensive. Not my money though. :pac:

Pac1Man

Grahamer666 wrote: »

Do you really need a 1080? For a first build i'd personally go for something less expensive. Not my money though. :pac:

I don't know!

Grahamer666

If you can afford it then just go for it. I'm probably just being jealous. Haha

K.O.Kiki

Grahamer666 wrote: »

Do you really need a 1080? For a first build i'd personally go for something less expensive. Not my money though. :pac:

TBF, with GTX 1070 still around €490 (they were as low as €340 at one point! :mad:) you might as well spend the extra few bob & get a cheap GTX 1080; the gulf in performance between the cards is massive too.

BloodBath

Vega 56 is supposed to beat the 1070, costs less and can be paired with a cheaper FreeSync monitor. Worth waiting to see at least. Only a couple of weeks away.

The monitor you picked has adaptive sync which will only work with AMD cards.

Pac1Man

BloodBath wrote: »

Vega 56 is supposed to beat the 1070, costs less and can be paired with a cheaper FreeSync monitor. Worth waiting to see at least. Only a couple of weeks away.

The monitor you picked has adaptive sync which will only work with AMD cards.

Right you are. It will be interesting to see if those leaks remain true. It could save me a sum on a 1080 too.