First budget gaming build - feedback/advice please?
Posted by FreSchDude@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 17 comments
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Tq8V6B
G'day lads, I'm helping someone in finland with her first gaming PC build, and after ripping my hair out looking at benchmarks and reviews, I came up with this.
Prices on the pcpartpicker site were manually entered, and are in Euro. They're more rough guidelines (except for the GPU) and grabbed from sites like verkkokauppa.com.
Feedback would be appreciated.
Country: Finland
Budget: \~1200 eur
Use case: Gaming @ 1080p, heaviest titles are flight simulators and LOTR return to moria. Besides that, titles like sims and resident evil.
Peripherals not needed.
Note: The GPU selected is on discount for a few days, which is why I selected it. If the price went up (usual price is around 400eur) then I'd go with the B580. Vram has me a bit nervous though, heard much about 8gb being insufficient for the near future.
According_Spare7788@reddit
Not bad. It'll work as is. Couple of things i would tweak though is a slightly better cooler, like a Thermalright peerless assassin 120. That cooler u have will work, but it's not particularly good and will be a bit louder.
Also, i think you can consider moving to a smaller form factor, like a mATX case and motherboard. It'll save her a lot more space (like physically in the room).
As for VRAM, i personally would go for the 16GB option. 8GB isn't horrendously bad at the moment, but it's definitely heading that direction. If you tweak some of the settings to work around it, but it's gonna be more and more of a limiting factor once with future games.
FreSchDude@reddit (OP)
The problem is we kinda lack the budget for a decent 16gb card, the 580 is the only proper choice and it's a big downgrade in performance. Appreciate the pointer on the CPU cooler, I have no experience when it comes to that.
According_Spare7788@reddit
I see. Well, if that's the case, the 9060 xt 8GB is a decent enough choice. You could always upgrade it a few years later as well.
FreSchDude@reddit (OP)
Yeah. We put more thought into the CPU for future proofing, as am5 is better than the dead end lga slot for the ultra 5. GPU is a drop in replacement so as long as the PSU can handle it not much thought is required, except for case clearance I guess.
According_Spare7788@reddit
Understood. It's a good plan. AM5 will live on for at least Zen 6 when i that comes out, possibility even Zen 7.
A bit of a shame about the ram though. It's stupid expensive right now, so probably why you went with ddr5 5200 16GB. You'll want to try finding an exact same kit down the line if you want to expand that to 32GB or risk running 2 sets of different speeds. Previously i would have recommended going for ddr5 6000 cl30, but that's like $450 for a 32GB kit rn....bonkers.
FreSchDude@reddit (OP)
Did some searching and found a set of Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 5600 MHz CL36 for 10 euro more. Only 400mt faster, is it worth it? It's on discount right now, original price 310 euro.
According_Spare7788@reddit
Sure. At that price, might as well go for the faster ram.
FreSchDude@reddit (OP)
updated the pcpartpicker list with the changes you suggested. many thanks!
FreSchDude@reddit (OP)
Yeah, my eyes fell out looking at the prices, they were still at least 1.5x the normal price even after recent drops. Nasty stuff.
According_Spare7788@reddit
If it's significantly cheaper in your area, i'd even recommend dropping to a ryzen 7000 cpu, like a 7500f or 7600x. It's really not that much slower for this kind of system, and especially if she does plan on upgrading eventually on AM5. Maybe put the price difference into a 32GB kit if that's possible, or slightly faster ram.
FreSchDude@reddit (OP)
We got the 9600x for a decent discount, which is why we went for it. The price was usually around 30 euro higher. On top of that, going to a 7000 gen saves us 10 euro. I had weighed the option and the performance increase was worth it for that price for me.
According_Spare7788@reddit
I see. At 10 euros, yeah, go for the 9600x.
FreSchDude@reddit (OP)
Spoke with my friend and she agreed that she was looking at a mATX case anyways, so we swapped the motherboard for a PRIME B650M-A WIFI II. The store she's getting it from will update the bios to support the CPU for her for free. We'll look for a proper cooler since the component is relatively cheap and should be easily swappable without much cost increase.
According_Spare7788@reddit
You can look at the Lian Li A3. Lovely mATX case. The wood grain models are very nice looking in my opinion. Another option i like is the Deepcool CH260.
FreSchDude@reddit (OP)
She picked the LianLi V100 mini.
Tall_Apricot_9842@reddit
seems good, unless you are running cyberpunk on max graphics, its probably not worth the price increase for 16gb. people are snobs
FreSchDude@reddit (OP)
tbh I'm unsure what the VRAM is even good for. Checked benchmarks and seems like the low vram didn't cause any problems on any of the tested games, which were 1440p ultra settings as well. Got a consistent 20ish FPS higher with the 9060XT than the B580.