A new rig for a gamer that’s been abstinent for the last few years

AlexAUT · February 23, 2019

Hi,
now I’ve typed this it turned out quite long, so sorry for that!

While still at high school, I used to build my own PCs and gamed a lot. However, when I’ve studying a couple of years ago while working besides it, I just had no more time for it anymore and pretty much stopped gaming completely. Now that things relaxed a little, I just felt the urge to start again, but my old rig just didn’t cut it anymore. While I’ve always been a pc gamer, I’ve recently decided to buy a game console for the first time in my life for the occasional 2-3h gaming per week on my 4k TV. However, I now regret going that route for various reasons and plan to build a new rig and get rid of that ps4 pro. Unfortunately, I quickly noticed that I’ve been out of the loop for too long and have a hard picking which CPU/GPU to get, so I hoped that maybe the community here could help me out?

So basically, I would like to build it completely from scratch and not reuse any components from old old rig. However, I’ve got SSDs, a headset, a mouse, a keyboard and my windows license that I plan to reuse, so what I need is

a case
a CPU
a GPU
RAM
3 monitors
PSU
cooling equipment

As for my workload, I would like to use it for my daily work and university stuff as well as the occasional gaming session. My work does not include anything computationally intensive, as that will be done on the work/university servers, mostly writing my theses or papers or some programming. However, I usually use 3 monitors and I’d like to stick with that. I’m really used to have the thing I’m working on my middle monitor, some sort of documentation on the to the left and google/stackexchange to the right. So far I’ve been using 24” 1080p displays and I’m fine with those. For gaming, I’d like to use my 55” 4k TV basically playing game like witcher 3 using a controller from the couch. It does not have to be on ultra, medium-high is fine.

So back in the day, I would have started with the GPU and chose the rest to fit that. I’ve tried looking into the current stuff, but I’m not quite sure which one to get. My conclusion would that I would need at least an RTX2070 to be gaming on 4k natively with reasonable settings. I don’t know if it makes sense to go with 1440p or 1080p instead and just rely on upscaling (as I think the ps4 pro does?). I occasionally watch gaming streams from twitch/youtube on that tv and they are only 1080p and I don’t mind that too much. I’m not sure if going 4k would be worth it or if upscaling from 1440p to 4k even makes sense. Due to the layout of my apartment, I’m about 4 meters away from the tv.

I’m reasonably certain I can pick the other components myself once I’ve decided on a gpu, however any suggestions on the other components, especially the CPU, are also highly appreciated, but I’m really indecisive on the gpu.

I’m based in Austria and a plan to spend somewhere around 1000€-1500€ on it.

Thanks for reading so far

Regards,
Alex

Firewrath9 · February 23, 2019

4k is useless. 1080p 144hz, then 1440p 144hz, depending on budget.

if you are in austria, can you use a list w/ parts from germany, becuase those are really close

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	€152.90 @ Mindfactory
Motherboard	Gigabyte - B450 AORUS PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard	€99.99 @ Amazon Deutschland
Memory	Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	€111.99 @ Amazon Deutschland
Video Card	Gigabyte - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB WINDFORCE Video Card	€516.71 @ Alza
Case	Phanteks - Eclipse P350X (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case	€69.90 @ Caseking
Power Supply	Cooler Master - MasterWatt 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply	€59.97 @ Amazon Deutschland
Monitor	AOC - G2460PF 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor	€219.90 @ Caseking
Monitor	AOC - E2470SWHE 23.6" 1920x1080 60 Hz Monitor	€94.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
Monitor	AOC - E2470SWHE 23.6" 1920x1080 60 Hz Monitor	€94.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€1421.16
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-23 01:50 CET+0100

has a case (it has RGB & TG)

has a CPU (excellent for its price, comes with a decent stock cooler)

has a GPU (should get 120+ FPS at max settings 1080p, 200+ if you turn some of them down)

RAM (Nice looking, and 3000mhz)

3 monitors (2 1080p 60hz, for productivity, and a main freesync 144hz one for gaming)

PSU ( a good 80+ bronze unit ~85% efficenty @ 230-240V (you can get 90% for 20-30 more))

Cooling equipment (I think the case comes with 2 fans, the cpu has a good stock one, and the gpu's is perfectly adequate)

Kensei7 · February 23, 2019

I'm currently build a PC myself and have been doing some research and looking around.

(these are all usd to euro calculations so if there's any differences with the markets in Europe vs US sorry)

- Case: it seems that a large majority (or a vocal majority) of this community seems to favor the fractal meshify c and in fact that is what I've decided on. I've also looked at the Phanteks Enthoo M which has an external bay (if you need it for DVD/Blu-Ray). This is generally going to be the most flexible thing in the build if you're not super hardcore into temperatures etc. The 2 cases I suggested are about 90€

-CPU: If you're mainly aiming to game and the work station you need doesn't extend to video editing or other intensive programs I'd go with the i5 9600k at 240€, however I've heard arguments to go up to the i7 8700k for future proofing at 340€, but you should be fine with an i5 9600k

-GPU: the 20 series of graphics cards (e.g. rtx 2060, rtx 2070) are a bit over priced, but if that's all you have access to that should be fine. The GTX 1660Ti also recently released and people claim it is one of the best budget GPUs available. It hasn't been around long enough for me to make any judgements, but if you're not looking for cutting edge it's not a bad choice. gtx 1660Ti is ~260€, rtx 2060 ~320€, rtx 2070 is 440€. I wouldn't go higher than a 2070 as that would probably break your budget. If you can pick up a 1080 or 1080ti for a reasonable price on the second hand market I'd recommend going with that over the 2070.

-RAM: 8x2GB is pretty much the standard nowadays at about 90€. There's very little difference between the mHz for your purposes so go with any number as long as it's DDR4. Alternatively go here https://downloadmoreram.com/

-PSU: Don't buy it off the black market or china. Minimum I'd go with is 550 watt, but I'd recommend going 650 or 750 if you ever decide to OC. I'd also go with either full or semi modular (it's worth it for the cable management). ~50€-100€

-CPU Cooler: If you don't want anything fancy a noctua 120mm fan will work just fine. ~50€

If you go

CPU: fractal meshify c
GPU: rtx 2070

RAM: 8x2GB

PSU: 750 Semi modular

CPU Cooler: Noctua 120mm cooler

it'll be ~980€, leaving you about 500€ for monitors.

Monitor: if you're not planning on gaming on these 1080p 60hz is fine for 3 work/browse the web monitors. I wouldn't worry about panels, TN is pretty common, but not that great and IPS is great, but fairly pricey.