PC Recommendation

[KennyP]

Budget (including currency): £2000

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Football Manager, Roblox, Fornite

Other details: Looking for a new PC that will run football manager with lots of leagues loaded and something for the kids to play around with in Roblox and Fortnite. Have been looking at CyberPowerPC prebuilds which include a 9800x3D and a 9070 XT for £1999. Would appreciate any help/recommendations for something that will last with upgrade routes. Support Desk Manager by trade, but not up to scratch on latest gaming equipment.

Cheers

 

[Why_Me]

This board down below supports PCIe 5.0 for the gpu as do these new RX 90XX cards.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£364.68 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler  (£29.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: *MSI PRO B850-P WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£177.59 @ Clove Technology) 
Memory: *Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£85.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: *Silicon Power UD90 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£88.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: *Gigabyte GAMING OC Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB Video Card  (£679.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Case: *Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case  (£49.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Power Supply: *MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£104.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £1582.21
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-04-10 21:15 BST+0100

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/windows-11-free-or-cheap 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Monitor: *AOC Q27G4X 27.0" 2560 x 1440 180 Hz Monitor  (£156.94 @ CCL Computers) 
Total: £156.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-04-10 21:16 BST+0100

[podkall]

PCPartPicker Part List: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/gh8pWc

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 4.7 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£449.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: *Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£29.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte B650 EAGLE ATX AM5 Motherboard  (£130.00 @ MoreCoCo)
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£91.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: *Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£124.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Video Card: *Sapphire PURE Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB Video Card  (£675.46 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: *Montech AIR 903 MAX ATX Mid Tower Case  (£59.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: *Thermalright TG 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£99.00 @ Computer Orbit)
Total: £1661.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-04-10 21:27 BST+0100

[Ha-Satan]

Unless there's something I don't understand about Football Manager, I think all of these PCs are way overkill for what you're doing. You could get a PC for well under 1000 that would play those games just fine (like an R5 7600 and a 3060).

[podkall]

9 minutes ago, Ha-Satan said:

Unless there's something I don't understand about Football Manager, I think all of these PCs are way overkill for what you're doing. You could get a PC for well under 1000 that would play those games just fine (like an R5 7600 and a 3060).

You're right, but this is good way to have a powerful PC that can last years without need for upgrades if the users aren't demanding, or eventually their kids could be up to try something more demanding than Fortnite.

[Ha-Satan]

48 minutes ago, podkall said:

You're right, but this is good way to have a powerful PC that can last years without need for upgrades if the users aren't demanding, or eventually their kids could be up to try something more demanding than Fortnite.

I get what you're saying, and in the past I would have probably been making a similar recommendation, but over the years I've seen so many people overspend on their PCs that I've changed my approach.

 

If @KennyP or somebody in their household is likely to want to play demanding future games, then yeah, it makes sense to spend more now. But based on their stated use case, they don't need to.

 

It sounds like OP mainly just plays Football Manager, which is historically an undemanding game. The minimum specs for Football Manager 2024 are a Core 2 Duo and GPUs from 2008. So unless something drastically changes with the series, it's highly likely that a lower-mid-range system today will still handle Football Manager just fine well into next decade.

 

The kids play Fortnite and Roblox, and maybe they'll want to play more demanding games in the future...or maybe not. Kids are fickle and change interests quickly. I don't think it's ever a great idea to over-spec a PC because of what a kid *might* do in the future.

 

In general, I just can't get behind recommending an overkill PC because of what somebody "might" do in the future. That's just a good way to waste money in the long term.

 

That said, I'd still recommend getting an AM5 system and a power supply that can support a GPU upgrade.

[podkall]

51 minutes ago, Ha-Satan said:

I get what you're saying, and in the past I would have probably been making a similar recommendation, but over the years I've seen so many people overspend on their PCs that I've changed my approach.

That's fair

 

51 minutes ago, Ha-Satan said:

If @KennyP or somebody in their household is likely to want to play demanding future games, then yeah, it makes sense to spend more now. But based on their stated use case, they don't need to.

 

It sounds like OP mainly just plays Football Manager, which is historically an undemanding game. The minimum specs for Football Manager 2024 are a Core 2 Duo and GPUs from 2008. So unless something drastically changes with the series, it's highly likely that a lower-mid-range system today will still handle Football Manager just fine well into next decade.

Yeah, but you never know what hasn't been said

 

52 minutes ago, Ha-Satan said:

The kids play Fortnite and Roblox, and maybe they'll want to play more demanding games in the future...or maybe not. Kids are fickle and change interests quickly. I don't think it's ever a great idea to over-spec a PC because of what a kid *might* do in the future.

 

In general, I just can't get behind recommending an overkill PC because of what somebody "might" do in the future. That's just a good way to waste money in the long term.

 

That said, I'd still recommend getting an AM5 system and a power supply that can support a GPU upgrade.

So, my take on this is, it's ultimately up on the person that's buying the PC.

 

They can decide whether they need that performance, or how much they want to spend is up to them too.

[KennyP]

Hi Guys,

Thanks both of you for taking the time to reply with a build. Much appreciated. 

Reading further to your posts, I agree with you both. Whilst Football Manager isn't a heavy game in terms of graphics, it is quite intensive with the CPU once you load more leagues and change the DB size. The kids are only 11/9/7, so as they get older, their tastes will change, and I

Again, thank you for replying and spinning something up for me. Gives me a lot to choose from.

 

[KennyP]

Hey guys

 

Thought id post an update just to say I went ahead with the prebuilt 9800X3D and 9070XT. The machine is a beast and runs everything flawlessly. It's also opened my eyes up to just how good PC gaming is! Always been a console cheerleader but fully convinced now that PCMR is the only way.