PC to built gradually

[chronobird]

Hi everyone, I realize a lot of people will be squinting at the title of this post, trust me I am extremely self aware in regards to how impractical this is, however the way my budgeting would work out. Ill try to explain and bare with me and tell me if it is an impossible idea. I also apologise if by the end of this post you feel like I've wasted your time with pure idiotic non-understanding of how stuff works haha. And apologies if any part sounds rude, its not intended. Thank you in advance.

 

Since im an impatient person and would love to replace my current rig which is probably around 10 years old now, I thought I'd be able to buy a MB, CPU(with accompanying cooler i suppose), PSU if needed(current one is 650W) and case to mount them on and make use of my current HDD, Video card and RAM while I slowly finish off the build and replace them with the suggested ones(screenshot below for reference). If that would be impossible I'd love to know why(purely informitory, I'm not trying to be rude, and if you explaining would be too much of a hassle telling me so would be perfectly understandable, everyone has stuff to do) Of course prices change, better hardware comes out in rapid succession, i would like however to have a starting build recomendation, which i can then bump or research if anything better has popped up in terms of remaining parts(or to be fair I would also be content to finish it off even if its 5 months later and better options have come out since I am aiming for something that would last me the next 5 years at least, i hope thats a realistic expectation, I've been away from the PC building scene for years now).

 

 

1. Budget & Location

I'm aiming for a budget of £1,200 that could be bumped to 1,500 which would only just mean a later possible finish of the build. I am located in England.

 

2. Aim

I would love for the rig to be VR ready as that is something I'd be looking to go in to. If the budget doesnt allow for that then a high-end gaming rig(Cyberpunk is coming out and I imagine it will be heavy on the required specs) would be ideal and if it can also handle some semi-professional( really dont know how to specify otherwise) 3D work and graphic design that would be a great plus for when I finally go back to making use of that student deb... I mean GD degree.

 

Didn't know where to put this so I'll leave it here. I see most machines have a single SSD as the storage solution. I would like to have an HDD there as well, so I would run the OS and games off of the SSD and store all of the garbage I always end up filling my computer with on the HDD. I don't know how viable my current 9 year old HDD will be if it can be reused for this build, but I'm more than okay to replace it anyway.

3. Monitors

I currently have a 27" 4K UHD IPS LED Monitor and will deffinitely be getting a second one in the near future. (pay no mind to the monitor listed in screenshot)

 

4. Peripherals

In terms of peripherals I have everything I need and to be fair I only need the bog-standart in terms of mouse and keyboard anyway, I'm not a pro at any sort of gaming to justify buying fancy gear to myself :D.

 

5. Why are you upgrading?

My machine, as I've shown in reference to my (i assume) insane idea in the opening of this post, is very old and while it can still run games like Jedi: Fallen order on medium settings at around 30ish fps(haven't checked but definitely isnt close to 60) I know it will start to fall off in performance as future games come out. On top of that trying to do any design work currently on it leads to an extremely slow work process and the programs struggling for memory. Another point is VR but as I said if budget doesn't allow it won't be the end of the world for me.

[Tapes]

I just got a new pc and it is currently just a little over 800 is dollars which means it will be cheaper than that in euros. You could also probably get a better cpu and graphics card with the extra money. My pc does use an  amd processor and graphics card. It meets the oculus rift s recommended requirements too. Tell me if you want a pc part picker list

[Roswell]

You'll need to purchase DDR4 RAM right now as the DDR3 sticks you have aren't compatible with current CPUs and motherboards.

 

That said, your 660 is holding you back waaaay more than your processor is. Maybe just replace that until you can afford the rest.

[Mateyyy]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	£154.00 @ Amazon UK
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard	£168.99 @ AWD-IT
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	£69.98 @ Amazon UK
Storage	Sabrent Rocket 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	£119.99 @ Amazon UK
Storage	Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	£51.00 @ Amazon UK
Video Card	EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB BLACK GAMING Video Card	£475.19 @ Amazon UK
Case	Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case	£89.99 @ Currys PC World
Power Supply	Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	£60.97 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£1190.11
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-02-09 23:57 GMT+0000

Since all current-gen platforms use DDR4, you wouldn't be able to reuse your current RAM. You could use your current video card though, for example if you can't get all your parts at once, and putting that hard drive in shouldn't cause any problems either (though considering its age, who knows how much longer it will last).

 

The Ryzen 3600 should handle gaming as well as 3D editing and other work you might need it to do, with its 6C/12T configuration. The TUF X570-PLUS should also allow future upgradability to up to a current-gen 16 core 3950X, and maybe even the upcoming Ryzen 4000 series.

While the 2070 Super is a great card for even the most demanding AAA titles out there, 4K is still really demanding so you probably still will have to drop a few settings to maintain 60FPS in the latest games if you want to run at native res. If you can stretch your budget further, you could potentially go for a 2080 Super instead, or perhaps (if you're not in a hurry) wait for Nvidia's new Ampere cards to launch and pick one of those up (assuming they will be worthwhile).

 

[chronobird]

On 2/10/2020 at 12:07 AM, Mateyyy said:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	£154.00 @ Amazon UK
Motherboard	Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard	£168.99 @ AWD-IT
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	£69.98 @ Amazon UK
Storage	Sabrent Rocket 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	£119.99 @ Amazon UK
Storage	Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	£51.00 @ Amazon UK
Video Card	EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB BLACK GAMING Video Card	£475.19 @ Amazon UK
Case	Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case	£89.99 @ Currys PC World
Power Supply	Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	£60.97 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£1190.11
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-02-09 23:57 GMT+0000

Since all current-gen platforms use DDR4, you wouldn't be able to reuse your current RAM. You could use your current video card though, for example if you can't get all your parts at once, and putting that hard drive in shouldn't cause any problems either (though considering its age, who knows how much longer it will last).

 

The Ryzen 3600 should handle gaming as well as 3D editing and other work you might need it to do, with its 6C/12T configuration. The TUF X570-PLUS should also allow future upgradability to up to a current-gen 16 core 3950X, and maybe even the upcoming Ryzen 4000 series.

While the 2070 Super is a great card for even the most demanding AAA titles out there, 4K is still really demanding so you probably still will have to drop a few settings to maintain 60FPS in the latest games if you want to run at native res. If you can stretch your budget further, you could potentially go for a 2080 Super instead, or perhaps (if you're not in a hurry) wait for Nvidia's new Ampere cards to launch and pick one of those up (assuming they will be worthwhile).

 

Thank you for the reply. If I include the better Ryzen you mentioned as well as the 2080 Super is the power supply still going to be enough, and would I need to get a separate cooler, I know stock cooler can sometimes not perform as well as they need to? Also would getting the 2080 first allow me to use it on my current rig?

[chronobird]

On 2/10/2020 at 12:01 AM, Vitamanic said:

You'll need to purchase DDR4 RAM right now as the DDR3 sticks you have aren't compatible with current CPUs and motherboards.

 

That said, your 660 is holding you back waaaay more than your processor is. Maybe just replace that until you can afford the rest.

Yeah I assume as much, and had actually looked at getting a new one before I decided to just post here for help with an entire new build. I will most likely get the 2080 Super as mentioned in Mateyy's post and use it with this rig while savign up for the rest of the parts. Unless somebody else has a different opinion on a better config. I'm not in a hurry so will wait for some more replies here.

[Mateyyy]

26 minutes ago, chronobird said:

Thank you for the reply. If I include the better Ryzen you mentioned as well as the 2080 Super is the power supply still going to be enough, and would I need to get a separate cooler, I know stock cooler can sometimes not perform as well as they need to? Also would getting the 2080 first allow me to use it on my current rig?

Yes, 550W will be enough even for a 3950X and 2080 Super. If anything, you could go for a RM550x, which is slightly higher quality overall, but either way you'll be covered.

 

The box cooler will be fine as long as you don't overclock or don't care about noise too much. If you want to go with an aftermarket cooler, I would suggest going with air, as opposed to an AIO, as they are more reliable, less expensive and can perform similarly or even better. My picks would be the Dark Rock 4 or NH-U12S chromax.black (or regular NH-U14S if you don't care about the looks), or a Dark Rock Pro 4 or NH-D15 if you plan on overclocking too.

 

The 2080S will work in your current system (as long as you've got an adequate PSU), it's just that it will be bottlenecked quite significantly by the i5.

[chronobird]

3 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

Yes, 550W will be enough even for a 3950X and 2080 Super. If anything, you could go for a RM550x, which is slightly higher quality overall, but either way you'll be covered.

 

The box cooler will be fine as long as you don't overclock or don't care about noise too much. If you want to go with an aftermarket cooler, I would suggest going with air, as opposed to an AIO, as they are more reliable, less expensive and can perform similarly or even better. My picks would be the Dark Rock 4 or NH-U12S chromax.black (or regular NH-U14S if you don't care about the looks), or a Dark Rock Pro 4 or NH-D15 if you plan on overclocking too.

 

The 2080S will work in your current system (as long as you've got an adequate PSU), it's just that it will be bottlenecked quite significantly by the i5.

Awesome. If you aren't too bothered what would this rig change if it used an Intel CPU, and which one would fit in the budget in place of the Ryzen. Would there be much difference in terms of performance. Ive always had Intel CPUs in my machines, I wouldn't say im a fanboy or anything but I just have never had an AMD PC before.

[Mateyyy]

7 hours ago, chronobird said:

Awesome. If you aren't too bothered what would this rig change if it used an Intel CPU, and which one would fit in the budget in place of the Ryzen. Would there be much difference in terms of performance. Ive always had Intel CPUs in my machines, I wouldn't say im a fanboy or anything but I just have never had an AMD PC before.

Probably the 6C/6T 9600K would be the closest in terms of pricing but it's really quite a bad purchase at the moment, since it's already starting to struggle in CPU intensive titles because of its lack of hyperthreading, whereas the Ryzen 3600 has 6C/12T.

If you really want to go with Intel, my suggestion would be waiting for their 10th gen chips to come out. If they will match the leaks we've seen, the i5 should be a 6C/12T part, just like the 3600, so it should definitely be a better purchase than the current-gen i5, if the price is right of course.

[chronobird]

15 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

Probably the 6C/6T 9600K would be the closest in terms of pricing but it's really quite a bad purchase at the moment, since it's already starting to struggle in CPU intensive titles because of its lack of hyperthreading, whereas the Ryzen 3600 has 6C/12T.

If you really want to go with Intel, my suggestion would be waiting for their 10th gen chips to come out. If they will match the leaks we've seen, the i5 should be a 6C/12T part, just like the 3600, so it should definitely be a better purchase than the current-gen i5, if the price is right of course.

So I just had a look to see how much more the price would go up if I go with a 3950X and 2080 Super and I was surprised as I didn't expect it to be as high as it was haha. So if I go for the middleground with a 3900X and not upgrade to a 2080 would you consider that good? Waiting for Intel to come out with the 10th gen would be a possibility however the prices will most likely be steep, i assume at least.

[Mateyyy]

8 hours ago, chronobird said:

So I just had a look to see how much more the price would go up if I go with a 3950X and 2080 Super and I was surprised as I didn't expect it to be as high as it was haha. So if I go for the middleground with a 3900X and not upgrade to a 2080 would you consider that good? Waiting for Intel to come out with the 10th gen would be a possibility however the prices will most likely be steep, i assume at least.

Either that or you could go for a 3700X and 2080S. 8C/16T is still plenty for any task you'd throw at it, and the 3700X is closer in price to the 3600 rather than to the 3900X. But either way it'd be a great performing rig.

[chronobird]

12 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

Either that or you could go for a 3700X and 2080S. 8C/16T is still plenty for any task you'd throw at it, and the 3700X is closer in price to the 3600 rather than to the 3900X. But either way it'd be a great performing rig.

Great man you've been a great help. Would you mind if I private message you in the near future if i come across anything instead of making a whole other thread?

[Mateyyy]

27 minutes ago, chronobird said:

Great man you've been a great help. Would you mind if I private message you in the near future if i come across anything instead of making a whole other thread?

Glad to help man, no problem.

[BobbyPdue]

On 2/11/2020 at 9:50 PM, Mateyyy said:

Yes, 550W will be enough even for a 3950X and 2080 Super.

550w is just enough for a 3950x and a 2080 super, but why spend $800 on a GPU and $750 on a CPU and then cheap out on a power supply?  Most lower power power supplies aren't built as well as higher wattage ones.  I would get at least a 750w 80+ gold power supply.  They aren't much more expensive, but will run cooler and more efficiently than a power supply that's being run at 98% of its max power all the time. 

[Mateyyy]

49 minutes ago, BobbyPdue said:

550w is just enough for a 3950x and a 2080 super, but why spend $800 on a GPU and $750 on a CPU and then cheap out on a power supply?  Most lower power power supplies aren't built as well as higher wattage ones.  I would get at least a 750w 80+ gold power supply.  They aren't much more expensive, but will run cooler and more efficiently than a power supply that's being run at 98% of its max power all the time. 

3950X and 2080 Super won't max out a 550W PSU, unless both are heavily overclocked. An RM550x should be more than capable to power those components, and that's not even the highest-end 550W power supply out there.