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Cheap rig - Initial Feedback

Lee989

Hi Guys.

 

Been trying to put together a build for the past 2 days and my eyes are glazing over. So much research to do on stuff I don't yet understand. I thought i'd just post up where I am at to get some initial feedback and get some questions answered. I don't want to waste anyone's time at this stage so feel free to respond with broad advice. I can always come back again when i've got a more finalised plan to share.

 

Budget?! £700 - £800 (United Kingdom)

Much higher and I may never get around to doing it. Cheaper it is, the easier it would be to justify spending the money.

 

Why am I doing this?

I don't own a PC, my daily driver is a 2013 macbook I use for work but it's terrible for any games I've tried to run on it (it struggles just powering my external monitors!). So I'd like a cheapish PC to stick on the side of my desk for a bit of light gaming when i'm bored of work.

 

What does it need to do?

Currently I have 1 purpose. To run Civ 5 with some DLC's and maybe Civ 6 and Age of Empires 4 when it comes out. Strategy / Sim styles games tend to be my go to. Other than that I have no idea, Rocket League looks fun...?

 

Honestly, i'm not a gamer. I haven't played a game on a PC in 15 years and I touch my PS4 once a quarter to watch it updating. This build is either going to open up a world of gaming to me, or it'll gather dust in the corner.

 

I may also use it to run some VM's, or some other basic tasks to free up my main workhorse, but to start with it will be switched on to play a game then turned off again.

 

I have no intention at this stage of overclocking, watercooling or doing anything too fancy. Buy the parts, stick them in the tin and forget about it.

 

What have I got already?.. Nothing! I'm not even sure I have a spare plug socket. Might need to go buy a power strip...

I do have a spare HDMI or mDP port on my secondary/ternary DELL P2415Q monitor which i'm planning to hook it up too (just swap input sources when I want to use it). No idea if it's a good monitor, but I probably don't need a 144hz 4k beast for sim games. I also need a keyboard & mouse but i'll see what funds are left at the end, I may just start with a cheap £30 combo set off amazon.

 

Get on with your build already!

 

Notes & Questions:

  • I chose the Q300L case because of height restrictions (can be used horizontally like a htpc) and avoiding ITX tax. I explain more here
  • Motherboard was just picked due to popularly and is >£20 more than many others. Wondering if I can save some cash here?
  • I went for a 256gb nvme for Windows/Apps and a 1TB HDD for game installs. Seems cheaper than a 1TB ssd (my first thought) but maybe I picked cheap/bad drives?
  • Some kind of Wi-Fi card is a must as I have no wired connection.
  • 2 fans to use as front intakes. I just picked the most popular 140mm under £10, no idea if they any good.
  • GPU I think has really bad cooling, so I expect that will need changing.

 

I expect there's some cost saving that could be done here either to get a better cpu/gpu combo, or to just bring the price down for the sake of making it an easier purchase.

 

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The build looks good! I'd probably go for a 1660 or 1660 super in stead of that 590, mostly because they're faster and I have seldom heard something positive about the 590. You could save a bit by getting some cheaper RAM (3000-3200MHz) though I wouldn't if this is within budget. 

You should check how many fan headers you have on that motherboard though. Arctic sells some fans which I quite like that you can hook up together. They're also cheaper.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/68WfrH/arctic-p12-pwm-pst-563-cfm-120-mm-fan-acfan00120a

 

PSU tier list // Motherboard tier list // Community Standards 

My System:

Spoiler

AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Gigabyte RTX 3060TI Gaming OC ProFractal Design Meshify C TG, 2x8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V 3200MHz, MSI B450 Gaming Plus MaxSamsung 850 EVO 512GB, 2TB WD BlueCorsair RM850x, LG 27GL83A-B

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I like the direction you were going with it but I would not buy a cheap case with known terrible thermals and then slap another 20 pounds worth of high end fans in it. Get a different case instead with better airflow is my recommendation.

 

For reference: Gamer's Nexus Cooler master Q500L video on Youtube. Different size but same problematic frontpanel on the 300.

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/334934-unofficial-ltt-beginners-guide/ (by Minibois) and a few things that will make our community interaction more pleasent:
1. FOLLOW your own topics                                                                                2.Try to QUOTE people so we can read through things easier
3.Use
PCPARTPICKER.COM - easy and most importantly approved here        4.Mark your topics SOLVED if they are                                
Don't change a running system

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@boggy77 Thanks for the revision. That certainly seems better. The GPU was a big concern, not really sure how I missed that Powercolor one! There is headroom in the budget (assuming I don't change my case - see below) for a 1660 @ £200 but maybe thats overkill for my use.

 

@GER_T4IGA This seems like quite a polarising case. Some really hate it and i've seen that video posted as proof lots of times. But then people that like it and have used it do rate it decent enough and point out the GN review is a different case and the PSU placement makes a big difference...

I'm not against changing the case of course. I did just take another look and i've found 2 alternatives (albeit much more expensive):

  • Themaltake Level 20 VT is a decent looking but would need at least 1 additional fan. Still not the best airflow according to a GN review but too my newb eyes the temps seem reasonable (I don't plan on watching it do torture tests for fun after all).
  • NZXT H400i will just about fit in the space I have if I overhang the desk an inch. Comes with 3 fans pre-installed so if I can get it at a good price (without the blue strip preferably) I could make that work.

 

Looks like I wasn't as far off as I thought though. Making a decision on the case is probably my job for this evening... 

 

 

Edit: Looking more into mini towers there may be more choice than I thought. The In Win 301 case height is quite low too. Guess i'll have to open them all up and check the heights. Maybe a vertical PC will work if I can find the right tower case...

Edited by Lee989
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I like the general build of boggy77.

 

Like he did there, be sure to have a SSD for your storage. I also play Civ 5 and Cities Skylines and they have a really long loading time with HDD.

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1 minute ago, RodrigoRS said:

I like the general build of boggy77.

 

Like he did there, be sure to have a SSD for your storage. I also play Civ 5 and Cities Skylines and they have a really long loading time with HDD.

Great feedback @RodrigoRS. I definitely think the larger single nvme for everything will be better. I've got 32TB free space on my NAS for general storage so I shouldn't have to much non-app/non-game clutter taking up space such as videos/photos/docs/e.c.t.

 

Heard Linus mention Cities Skylines on a couple of videos and thought it looked interesting. I'll have to check it out when I'm all setup!

I'm really happy with the build @boggy77 put up for me. Just need to make my decision on the case then I should be pretty much there.

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Hi, again!

 

Would you like to downgrade your cpu for ~15% to get a +30% upgrade in your gpu?

 

I was looking through the system and the cpu is way better than the gpu. The last one will bottleneck your processor.

 

This may not be such a big deal because, in general, the games you okay are more taxing on the cpu than the gpu.

But, if you want a more balanced build, where the cpu and gpu are from the same tier, I'll leave a suggestion.

First of all, you can pick a RTX 2060 or a RX 5700, the cheaper you can get. They are almost the same (actually, the 5700 is ~5% better than the 2060). So, buy whichever is cheaper.

 

The beauty of this is that because AM4 socket is supported until Ryzen 4xxx included, it will be more expensive in the future to upgrade a gpu than a cpu. So, in 2021, you can buy a Ryzen 4xxx to replace the R5 2600x (still a great cpu btw) without touching anything else and, a few years later, you can replace the gpu.

 

If you want to see it yourself, check this webpage https://pc-builds.com/calculator/

Is really useful to avoid pairing cpu and gpu from different tiers.

 

Good luck and sorry for the long post.

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Thanks @RodrigoRS . I did see some people say the 3600 isn't balanced against the 5x0 GPUs, but then I also knew sim games were often CPU hungry especially in late game turns. I'll be honest I don't understand this enough to make an educated decision so i'm very much reliant on the forum for info.

Your build would probably mean sticking to the Q300L case as I don't think I could justify going above £800 for what i'm using it for. So I guess I have to make the decision between a better case or a more balanced build... I hate making decisions ?

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I currently hava an R5 2600x and an RTX 2060 (couldn't find a RX 5700 in my country =( ) and all the games works fine. Nevertheless, is your choise to make because, for the kind of games you wanna play, the weaker gpu should not be THAT big of a deal. But, if you wanna play some other games, you may have to downgrade a bit graphics.

 

In the end it all comes to what do you wanna buy after to upgrade: A gpu or a cpu.

 

Good luck and enjoy whatever you buy.

 

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PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£175.98 @ Aria PC) 
Motherboard: MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£119.99 @ Box Limited) 
Memory: Patriot Viper 4 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (£50.81 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: TCSunBow X3 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£80.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX VEGA 56 8 GB Red Dragon Video Card  (£259.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Case: Zalman S2 ATX Mid Tower Case  (£31.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  (£62.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £782.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-06 01:28 GMT+0000

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Heatsink: Gelid Phantom Black GPU: Palit RTX 3060 Ti Dual RAM: Corsair DDR4 2x8GB 3000Mhz mobo: Asus X570-P case: Fractal Design Define C PSU: Superflower Leadex Gold 650W

 

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