My first build

Elliot T. Otterton · February 28, 2023

Budget (including currency): $US 2,000

Country: United States

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: I am going to be using this computer for Unreal Engine 5 and Unity, and also for games like Valorant and Minecraft.

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.):

This is my first computer other than my laptop, so I don't have any experience with building computers. I am planning on using this computer to design games in Unity or Unreal Engine.

I am hoping to buy within the next two weeks.

Any advice would be appreciated.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CdmjFg

JimTheBeet · February 28, 2023

For unreal/unity and a few low-impact games, you could save a lot of money. If you really want to spend $2k, you can, but you'd be just fine with a worse motherboard, cpu cooler, and ssd. You can save a lot of money with a cheap online windows key (~$20). Otherwise, a pretty decent set up!

Elliot T. Otterton · February 28, 2023

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Elliot T. Otterton · February 28, 2023

9 minutes ago, JimTheBeet said:

For unreal/unity and a few low-impact games, you could save a lot of money. If you really want to spend $2k, you can, but you'd be just fine with a worse motherboard, cpu cooler, and ssd. You can save a lot of money with a cheap online windows key (~$20). Otherwise, a pretty decent set up!

It would be nice to get it cheaper, do you have any recommendations on what ssd / cpu cooler to get? (I'm fine with keeping the current motherboard)

And I definitely am going to do the online windows key.

JimTheBeet · February 28, 2023

1 hour ago, Elliot T. Otterton said:

It would be nice to get it cheaper, do you have any recommendations on what ssd / cpu cooler to get? (I'm fine with keeping the current motherboard)

And I definitely am going to do the online windows key.

As far as coolers go, air is the way to go with a chip like the 5600x. It simply doesn't put out enough heat to throttle even on an in-box cooler. The Thermalright peerless assassin 120 se is a steal ($40), and what I plan on upgrading to soon. You could even forgo this entirely, and use the stock cooler. As far as ssds go, there are a load of cheap and pretty decent ssds nowadays. Things like a silicon power a60 are decently speedy and cheap. It's up to you whether the $20 worth of savings are worth the cost of a less reputable vendor (samsung has had its ssd woes recently, though). You could also save a bit of cash on the cpu by going for a 5600 non-x and on the gpu by going with a 6700xt. These combined would result in a performance loss of maybe 5-7% in games, unlike the previous changes (which won't affect performance meaningfully), but you could save $80. Whatever you choose, happy building!

Elliot T. Otterton · February 28, 2023

29 minutes ago, JimTheBeet said:

As far as coolers go, air is the way to go with a chip like the 5600x. It simply doesn't put out enough heat to throttle even on an in-box cooler. The Thermalright peerless assassin 120 se is a steal ($40), and what I plan on upgrading to soon. You could even forgo this entirely, and use the stock cooler. As far as ssds go, there are a load of cheap and pretty decent ssds nowadays. Things like a silicon power a60 are decently speedy and cheap. It's up to you whether the $20 worth of savings are worth the cost of a less reputable vendor (samsung has had its ssd woes recently, though). You could also save a bit of cash on the cpu by going for a 5600 non-x and on the gpu by going with a 6700xt. These combined would result in a performance loss of maybe 5-7% in games, unlike the previous changes (which won't affect performance meaningfully), but you could save $80. Whatever you choose, happy building!

Thank you so much! just changing the cooler out for the assassin and changing the ssd lowered the cost by almost $100.

and I still have The Windows 10 software on my list.

I am feeling good about where my parts list is at now, and it is a much more reasonable price ($1720 as opposed to $1808)

Old list:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CdmjFg

New list:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HqyMk9