Parts / Build advice for a pal

Shlippery

Hey PCB+U

Friend of mine is looking to build his first PC soon, looking for advice from yourselves as ye've usually a good eye for mixing and matching the latest and greatest.

We'd thrown the following together back in March as a potential starting point. Obviously few changes since then, new cards, new cpus yadaa yadaa, price fluctuations.

What would ye chop and change and reckon there'd be anything better for less?

He's good for monitor/peripherals, windows we can source / use for free.


i'd say it's for 1080p max, nothing too intensive, Fifas, Football Manager, maybe cold war or any other shooters, but not looking to push 4k 1440p or create a monster machine.

CPU

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor £137.99

CPU Cooler

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler £28.80

[I feel the cooler can be scrapped if a spire comes with the CPU - not sure as i've not built a Ryzen machine before, Hyper 212 was one of the original recommended ones back in the day, so that's probably why it's here.]

Motherboard

ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard £70.98

Memory

Corsair Vengeance LPX 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory £36.78
Storage

ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive £66.99
Video Card

XFX Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS XXX ED Video Card £175.40

Case

Phanteks Eclipse P400 ATX Mid Tower Case £74.99
Power Supply
EVGA BR 600 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply £53.90

What do ye reckon, RX 580 still solid for 1080p or would there be something better suited? would be interested to hear in other cpu/mobo paiirngs too.

It's not urgent, but i'm thinking he might be able to nab deals on storage/ram with prime day & maybe AMD prices will fluctuate before Zen 3 on Nov 5th

Squidgy Black

Would recommend the 1660 super over the RX580, amazon.de have a couple for around €220-230 which is a decent jump in performance for only 40 quid or so and you're not buying 4 year old tech. Wraith spire cooler that comes with the 2600x should be more than fine too especially if you're not gonna overclock it so would recommend removing the hyper 212 and using the savings to upgrade the gpu.

Hyzepher

If what you've listed is what you already have then there's not much you need to change for 1080p gaming. More RAM is probably a must and maybe more storage.

The 580 is good enough for the games you listed but if you have a hole burning in your pocket I'd upgrade the GPU before the mb/cpu - after the RAM/storage. BUt really a new GPU is not necessary. Maybe keep an eye open ove the next few months as prices are going to get lower in both 2nd hand market and when new stock is more readily available

Shlippery

Hyzepher wrote: »

If what you've listed is what you already have then there's not much you need to change for 1080p gaming. More RAM is probably a must and maybe more storage.

The 580 is good enough for the games you listed but if you have a hole burning in your pocket I'd upgrade the GPU before the mb/cpu - after the RAM/storage. BUt really a new GPU is not necessary. Maybe keep an eye open ove the next few months as prices are going to get lower in both 2nd hand market and when new stock is more readily available

Sorry maybe my original post wasn't clear - my own pc is fine and unrelated to this!

It's a list my friend put together for himself ages ago, which I thought would have been grand at the time, (start of lockdown essentially..) but he never pulled the trigger on and now he's decided to revisit it this month so said i'd get some advice! Right now there are zero parts purchased!

I'd say the 1660s might be a good shout alright, I'd picked the 580 at the time, as I had an RX480 back in the day and it was rock solid for 1080, but things have changed since then.

Hyzepher

What's his budget

Shlippery

No mad budget really, i'd say in around the £650~ the original one was at. But any less would be a bonus. Again, not hoping to push the extremes, just getting him started with a first build!

Hyzepher

A little more than £650 but most of the parts should last a long time. The CPU and GPU can be switched out when prices drop over the next few months and you could possible get Ryzen 5 3800 / 2070 Super

Personally I think he should wait a month and there might be huge bargains to be had second hand or Black Friday but this system will play everything you've listed with the flexibility to upgrade

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3300X 3.8 GHz Quad-Core Processor (£114.99 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition 42 CFM CPU Cooler (£29.99 @ AWD-IT)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M AORUS ELITE Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£102.26 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£57.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£66.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB TUF GAMING OC Video Card (£238.97 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P400A ATX Mid Tower Case (£64.95 @ AWD-IT)
Power Supply: KOLINK ENCLAVE 700 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£73.99 @ AWD-IT)
Total: £750.11
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-10-14 21:04 BST+0100

Homelander

You could just buy this, configured with Ryzen 3600, 16GB ram, 512Gb SSD and GTX1660 Super it comes to just over £650, excellent price.

https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-mb520-argb-ryzen-7-2700x-nvidia-gtx-1660-super-16gb-ram-desktop-gaming-pc.html

Hyzepher

They do great bundles.

But I'd still go with B550 at a minimum and ensure PSU is as future proof as possible, especially with the high power modern cards.

Homelander

Yeah, there are options in that build to go with B550M if needed.

However, I don't think B550M or a more powerful PSU are necessary. "future proof" gets thrown around a lot but what does it really mean? By the time a Ryzen 3600 or 3700X is obsolete and in need of upgrading, an upgrade to any CPU supported by B550 won't fix that problem.

Same with the PSU. A "mid-range" gamer is incredibly unlikely to suddenly buy a power hungry monster £800 card, but rather tip along upgrade to upgrade with affordable, mid-range cards, like 90% of the gamer base.

There is a reason chipsets like H81, A320M, H310M or whatever are by far the most popular. 90% of people don't need anything more, and never will.

I mean, personally, I'm a major PC enthusiast but my own motherboard is a £70 B450M because it does exactly what I need it to - X570, B550M, or whatever, would be a waste of money in my case.

In fact an A320M w/NVME would've done me personally, but at the time I bought only the B450M was in stock.

From what the OP's said, I really don't see any reason why a high-end PSU or B550M chipset would be needed.

Shlippery

Homelander wrote: »

You could just buy this, configured with Ryzen 3600, 16GB ram, 512Gb SSD and GTX1660 Super it comes to just over £650, excellent price.

https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-mb520-argb-ryzen-7-2700x-nvidia-gtx-1660-super-16gb-ram-desktop-gaming-pc.html

God, that's cracking value. No idea how they get away with it that cheap for a pre built?

Will get him to bump the psu up to a bronze anyways, I always assumed would be the minimum for peace of mind...but on the other hand, I don't think my mate's pushing anything to the extremes just yet.

Homelander

Yeah it's great value. I bought that exact PC myself as a backup/occasional work PC....it's only been used once in the past 2 months, and even then it was a friend using it to play Apex Legends!

It will also come with Win10 installed even if you don't pay for a license, as they install it to test. It works forever in trial mode, with just a tiny watermark in the corner of the screen.

Hyzepher

Homelander wrote: »

Yeah, there are options in that build to go with B550M if needed.

However, I don't think B550M or a more powerful PSU are necessary. "future proof" gets thrown around a lot but what does it really mean? By the time a Ryzen 3600 or 3700X is obsolete and in need of upgrading, an upgrade to any CPU supported by B550 won't fix that problem.

Same with the PSU. A "mid-range" gamer is incredibly unlikely to suddenly buy a power hungry monster £800 card, but rather tip along upgrade to upgrade with affordable, mid-range cards, like 90% of the gamer base.

There is a reason chipsets like H81, A320M, H310M or whatever are by far the most popular. 90% of people don't need anything more, and never will.

I mean, personally, I'm a major PC enthusiast but my own motherboard is a £70 B450M because it does exactly what I need it to - X570, B550M, or whatever, would be a waste of money in my case.

In fact, an A320M w/NVME would've done me personally, but at the time I bought only the B450M was in stock.

From what the OP's said, I really don't see any reason why a high-end PSU or B550M chipset would be needed.

Probably.

The way I build my PC is to max out components from 1 or 2 generations previous so getting a mobo or PSU that can withstand the higher end components on the current generation makes it easy to drop in a high-end CPU without the expense of a new board/PSU

For example, if I was to get an R5 3600 then I'd like to upgrade to a 2nd hand R9 in a few years that would perform better than an entry-level Zen3 or 4

Spending a few extra € now helps down the road

But if you normally rebuild from scratch at the current generation then this obviously would work out as well