Fasauceome

Idle temps don't matter. No point taking the risk to repaste if load temps are OK.
 
If GPU usage isn't maxed it's usually that the CPU can't feed it fast enough.

your gpu temps are fine.

It probably has more to do with the relationship between the software and age of the hardware. More than likely the game is expecting more cpu/ram/drive speed than you actually have and is resulting in hitches. while the game can run at 120fps in specific instances , not every aspect of the game can operate quickly on older hardware so the machine will have to play catch up every now and then.

Likely clogged up. I'd replace this. 
 
 
Obviously do the basics. Verify mounting pressure, fresh paste, etc.. Personally I'd just ditch that thing, those MSI branded Alpatek models have been proven to be crap. The pump is also in the radiator making top mounting the rad a bad idea.

Oh yeah, almost forgot RTX 3050 exist 😅
I always thought that RTX 3060 is the lowest tier
RTX 3050 should be good enough for budget without breaking the PSU
 

on second thoughts @Trembletop this made me remember that the A380 sparkle is on a deal at amazon currently (only $100 USD for the card). it is in the US but amazon is quite good with shipping and it's also a new card. Though the 3050 6gb does perform better than this by quite a margin

8700 should be perfectly competent for a low profile 1650 or 6400
 
I think even a 3050 6gb low profile could work, 1080p right? 3050 6gb is only about 1.5x better than a 1650
which one out of these workstations is it? if it's the smallest one you won't be able to put in a dgpu

You should put an anxiety warning to the title.

Yo! I’m moving soon and getting rid of bulky stuff. Time to say goodbye to my trusty TV PC, thought you lot might appreciate it
 


 
Used it for browsing and light gaming in the living room. Used spare parts and a free Lenovo office pc from gumtree lol, was mostly a fun project to put together 😄
 
 

 
The case is an ikea tub with slightly leaning sides. The motherboard I ripped out of the office pc sits snugly about half way up, resting on the walls.
 
Used a soldering iron to make the holes in the box, then widened some holes with a scalpel and patience
 
I put a low profile noctua cooler on the cpu, and with it there was juuuust enough space to squeeze in my old gtx960 on top of it, with enough space for both to get airflow.
 


 
Here’s my airflow theory, I dunno I’m not an air scientist, but I think it makes sense. The thing never overheated while using it at least 🙂
 
Everything gets the fresh air it needs and dumps it out the back side or front corner, with the thin case fan helping out around the cramped cables.
 
 

 
Under the motherboard is a boot ssd, and two 1TB hard drives in raid 1 for funsies. Also, there are two laser modules I got for another project I never finished, so put them into this build. They fire the laser into a fibre cable that I superglued to the front and around the bottom border, so when the pc is on it glows.
 
That’s it really. Was fun to make, has served me well, and was made out of junk i had lying around. Thanks to everyone on this and other forums who helped me get into hardware, couldn’t do janky stuff without ya 😄

You can only update it, to actually interact with the bios you need a CPU and graphics output

You won't.
 
The motherboard you get could be older stock loaded with the first-ever version. Or maybe you'll get a fairly recent one that's loaded with a BIOS new enough to support your processor out of the box. It's luck of the draw.
 
14th gen has been out for a while, so if you buy from a big seller that moves a decent amount of product, your chances of getting one that works without an update are pretty good.
 
That motherboard in particular supports flashing the BIOS without installing a supported CPU at all, so if your 14th gen CPU doesn't work you'll just have to follow that process. (No need to beg, borrow, or steal the cheapest 12th gen CPU you can get your hands on just to update the board.)

Definitely. Any memtest fail is unacceptable and means the machine won't work right.

cancel all of these, they're not great value
For the best value try this 
PCPartPicker Part List
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£39.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Motherboard: MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£149.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£108.78 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: ADATA Legend 800 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£101.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Video Card: XFX Speedster QICK 319 Core Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB Video Card  (£459.98 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Case: Montech AIR 903 MAX ATX Mid Tower Case  (£59.99 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  (£97.97 @ MoreCoCo) 
Custom: 7500F (£110.00)
Total: £1126.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-21 21:31 BST+0100
(you can also swap the 7500F for a 7700 for better blender performance and an iGPU as well as slightly better gaming performance and still be in budget or swap it for a 7800X3D which is an AMAZING gaming CPU and is as good as blender as the 7700 and should still fit in budget)
 
For intel and nvidia (this build should be quite a bit better at blender)
PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: Intel Core i7-14700 2.1 GHz 20-Core Processor  (£384.98 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£39.00 @ Computer Orbit) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO B760-P DDR4 II ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  (£119.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  (£62.54 @ CCL Computers) 
Storage: ADATA Legend 800 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£101.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Video Card: XFX Speedster QICK 319 Core Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB Video Card  (£459.98 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Case: Montech AIR 903 MAX ATX Mid Tower Case  (£59.99 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  (£97.97 @ MoreCoCo) 
Total: £1326.44
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-21 21:29 BST+0100
what resolution are you playing at?

I once mounted a fan in drive cage by wedging craft foam in the space between the fan's side and the cage's wall, best thing? the foam also acts as vibration noise silencer 🤣
Zip tie will also work
VHB tape will also work
3d printing a bracket might work too
 
The cage itself might be removable by disassembling the case and then drilling out some rivets holding the cage in place.

I went on PCPartPicker's price history and saw no records for the Vertex GX 1000 or 1200, so this may just not be an item that was ever sold in the US.
 
Consider these
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/PJvqqs/seasonic-1000fx-white-1000-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-ssr-1000fx-white

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kDvD4D/corsair-rm1000x-shift-1000-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-side-interface-atx-power-supply-cp-9020275-na

It’s from 3 years ago, the white version probably just didn’t sell well and usually those secondary product variants get cut pretty quick. Most people were probably buying the normal black variant. It’s not uncommon for that to happen to any pc product with different color variants these days.
 
I would recommend basically anything superflower offers in the same spec, they’ve got a bunch of 80+ gold, 1000w+ white psus. 
I would get a leadex 7 XG https://www.newegg.com/super-flower-leadex-vii-xg-1000w-1000-w/p/1HU-024C-00059?

yes, should be fine. What CPU are you using? Can't imagine it's pulling more than 100 watts.

Can confirm living in the northwest (hemispherically) I'm not a geography major but I think that includes North America. Thank you all for the answers!

Nah, you basically said it already that if the CPU is not near throttling, lower temps won't help. Max of 76C is also a pretty nice and low operating temp in general.

I would not use the 1x2400. Ryzen is very sensitive to ram speeds, and a Ryzen 5 1600AF should be accompanied by 2x DDR4 2800 or higher

Yes, I think that would be a fine choice. 
 
Do you already have the 1x8GB and 1x16GB? What speed are they? 

I agree but I couldn't find the same model in a lower wattage. If you do, and it's cheaper, it's a good choice

You most likely wont need to do anything software wise.

This might be the best one in your budget
https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-1727169858-fuente-de-poder-cougar-x2-750w-80-bronze-color-negro-_JM#position=5&search_layout=grid&type=item&tracking_id=ac20b368-63c0-43b6-bf01-e1cbae1c2a39
 
I often use this site as a reference for PSU quality because it's a good comprehensive spot for the info
https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/
That cougar unit falls in tier C and everything else I can find on Mercado Libre looks like tier F and lower, or too old to be on the tier list. It might be worth it to bump up your budget
https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-1422586285-fuente-de-alimentacion-asus-tuf-750w-gaming-bronze-80-plus-_JM?searchVariation=182522475341#searchVariation=182522475341&position=20&search_layout=grid&type=item&tracking_id=fa6783a8-b712-4d71-9ce9-b540c4692ac0

I looked up this teardown video

I see one 2.5 inch hard drive slot and one M.2 slot

You mean by buying a splitter?  No, dont do that.