My First Gaming PC

[UltraApollo]

It's finally time for me to join the PC master race. I am pretty much completely new to the world of PC's. Right now I have a fairly new HP Pavilion laptop that I use for school work and other general uses. It is not designed for gaming, so all I've been able to play on it is Minecraft. My girlfriends computer stopped working, and I am now in a position where I can either buy, or start to build a PC for myself. I plan to give her my laptop when I have my new system, so this works in both of our favors. I live in the US and have a budget of 1,500 - 2,000 USD. I hope to be able to stay on the lower end of my budget, but I don't want to make any great sacrifices in performance if it can be helped. I hope to obtain my new system within by the end of May, but I am willing to wait a little longer. I am not strictly set on either pre-built or on building my own. I mainly plan to use my PC for gaming, but I will still need it for school and other general uses. I don't do any video editing or streaming, so that is not something that needs to be considered. I am not in need of any peripherals, but I am looking for some advice, so long as it does not exceed my budget. I have a HP 24m monitor (1920*1080 @60Hz) right now, but I hope to add another in the future. RGB is not a must, but it would be nice. Need Windows OS.

 

Budget (including currency): 1,500-2,000 USD.

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming: R6S, Minecraft, Terraria, Borderlands 2, Valheim, and possibly other games in the future. 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): N/A

 

[YoungBlade]

I was able to configure this system at iBUYPOWER for $1957:

 

Case	iBUYPOWER Slate 5 MR Tempered Glass ARGB Gaming Case
Case Fans	Default Case Fan
Processor	Intel® Core™ i5-11400F Processor (6X 2.60GHz/12MB L3 Cache)
Processor Cooling	DEEPCOOL Gammaxx GT ARGB CPU Cooler
Memory	16 GB [8 GB X2] DDR4-3600 Memory Module - Certified Major Brand Gaming Memory [Free Upgrade to 16GB DDR4-3600 TEAMGROUP T-FORCE DELTA RGB]
Video Card	AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT - 12GB (VR-Ready)
Motherboard	MSI Z590-A PRO, USB 3.2 Ports (1 Type-C, 4 Type-A), M.2 Slot (3)
Power Supply	650 Watt - Standard 80 PLUS Gold - Free Upgrade to 750 Watt - HIGH POWER 80 PLUS Gold
Advanced Cabling Options	Standard Default Cables
Primary Storage	512GB Intel 670p Series M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD -- Read: 3000MB/s; Write: 1600MB/s
Sound Card	3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
Network Card	Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
Operating System	Windows 10 Home - (64-bit)
Keyboard	iBUYPOWER ARES M2 Gaming Keyboard
Mouse	iBUYPOWER ARES M2 Gaming Optical Mouse
Warranty	3 Year Standard Warranty Service
Rush Service	No Rush - Standard Service - Estimated Ship Out in 4 Weeks [ADDITIONAL lead time applied when preorder item(s) selected]

 

The reason I went for the RX 6700 XT is because the 3070 requires an additional 4 weeks lead time. The system does lack storage, but picking up a 2TB HDD later on wouldn't be too expensive. I would've gone with a B560 board, but the configurator doesn't seem to offer anything lower than a Z590. The free upgrades to 3600MHz RAM and a 750W PSU are nice.

 

[medievalcow]

With the graphics card prices and scalpers what they are currently, my suggestion would be to look at prebuilt systems, or check the used market in your area.

I personally have had excellent luck with used parts, and was able to pick up a GTX 980ti for 350 CAD (about 270 USD) about 2 years ago.

My guess is I could probably sell that card for about 500 CAD now, if I wanted to, but replacing it would be nearly impossible without getting ripped off.

Check your local craigslist or used market for GPUs, and pick up at least a GTX 1070 (or RX 5600 if you go AMD). That'll probably be 500 to 600 USD depending on where you are.

Get a case you like the look of and at least a 650 watt power supply (I personally like Corsair, such as the RM650) (about 110 USD)

 

I was an Intel guy for years but my last 4 builds for myself and friends have been AMD systems with Ryzen 5 inside, and based on upgradability, I'd go for a B550 or X570 motherboard that you like the look of (amazon's prices are fairly similar for both of these, about 180 to 200 USD)
Ryzen 5 5600x is about 330 USD

16GB DDR4 3200mhz is about 100 USD (and there's some with RGB too)
PCIe 4.0 1TB nvme storage is about 180

 

Next think about cooling, you can either go AIO or get a cooler you like the look of (some CPUs will come with a cooler so you may not need to think about that)

 

You COULD save yourself some money and go for a B450 motherboard and forget about PCIe 4.0 for now, but you'll really only save yourself about 100 USD.