£1000 To Spend On A New Baby / Is The Apex Pro A Good Purchase?

[Anzelak]

Hi folks,

I've been an avid PC gamer for around 15 years now but I've always been pretty terrible with hardware.

My little old lady [Intel i5-4690K | 8GB Ram | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 | ASRock H97M | Samsung SSD 850 EVO etc.] is starting to have some issues with cutouts and whatnot and it's finally time to stop patching her up and get something new. I'll probably hand her over to my partner when I get my shiny new toy so we can play games together.

My budget is around £1000 and I was brought to this site by the Apex Pro available on this page: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/desktop-pcs/amd-ryzen/

I want something that’s going to be idiot-proof for as long as possible.

While I primarily play grand strategy games like Crusader Kings 2, Imperator Rome, etc. I also dabble in titles like Cities Skyline and Football Manager.

From time to time, I do like to play things that require beefier graphics. The poorly optimised Kenshi is a current favourite and I’m also playing Outer Wilds, Risk of Rain 2 and Sea of Thieves right now.

If it matters, I also use my PC heavily for work (I write for a living / work in marketing). Somewhere down the line, I'd love to go up to three monitors rather than two. More words/tabs/research in one place, etc. I'm alright for the time being with my two oldish monitors but I'd really appreciate recommendations there too for when I have the cash to replace them.

If you have any questions that’ll help you recommend me a setup, please fire away.

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out.

Cheers!

 

[Anzelak]

To avoid wasting the mod OUSSEBON's time, I notice you posted this recently: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-pc/pFttdHke4p/

If your advice for me is the same, please let me know

 

[Oussebon]

Do you need a monitor within the budget?

 

[Anzelak]

No, I don't need a monitor.

But a recommendation for two (or three) would be appreciated

 

[Oussebon]

What's the buidget for those monitors / when are you planning to get them?

I ask so as to try to fit things together in a relatively balanced way.

 

[Anzelak]

No problem. Thanks for taking an interest. Could probably afford £350 max for three monitors I think down the line? Does that seem like a reasonable budget?

 

[Oussebon]

Hmm. It's partly hard to recommend a spec because info on performance for some of those games isn't easily / at all available. So hard to know what sort of GPU is appropriate, or whether they prefer / how much they prefer Nvidia GPUs over AMD ones. An RX 570 will generally be similar or better than a GTX 780, but in some titles (maybe especially any on Unreal engine?) your old 780 might actually perform a bit better.

Your strategy ones will be more than fine on a 570 afaik; it's the other list I'm not sure about.

You could go for a GTX 1660 ti. But it's £140 more, overkill for your strategy games, and you could buy a freesync monitor as part of the system now and still keep it under £1k with the RX 570.

Also if your other system is having problems, you may need to keep money aside in case you need it for replacement parts there. No point playing games with your partner if it keeps cutting out

 

[Oussebon]

Maybe something like:

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.25GHz/19MB CACHE/AM4)

World War Z & Division 2: Gold Edition FREE w/ select AMD Ryzen CPUs!
Motherboard
Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE: DDR4, USB 3.1 - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2933MHz ~ (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
4GB AMD RADEON™ RX 570 - HDMI, 3 x DP - DX® 12

World War Z & Division 2: Gold Edition FREE w/ select AMD Radeon GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB ADATA SX6000 Pro PCIe M.2 2280 (2100 MB/R, 1500 MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Monitor
AOC G2460VQ6 24" LED Gaming Monitor
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Price: £964.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-pc/mf!X3EZh4C/

 

[Oussebon]

Had to post that as 2 separate posts with some juggling because the forums are doing their thing again...

 

[Anzelak]

Thanks so much for this. It's immensely helpful. I'm just looking through it now using the link.

I suspect my existing machine is cutting out because of high/unsafe GPU temp. A good clean & someone more sensible than me applying thermal paste should hopefully sort her out. Alternatively, it could be the PSU on the fritz which shouldn't be too painful to replace.

 

[Oussebon]

Or the motherboard. Or a software/drivers issue. Or a combination e.g. bad GPU driver screwed the fan profile, leading to overheating. Which would be fixable just by DDUing the drivers and doing a clean install, in that kind of scenario.

Desktop GPUs don't often need repastes.

 

[Anzelak]

You would be very useful to have around. Going off topic slightly, how would you normally go about diagnosing what the issue is?

 

[Oussebon]

That might depend under what circumstances the PC was cutting out - what was happening at the time. And by cutting out I take it you mean instant shutdown as if the switch had been flicked at the wall. Also depends if anything changed around this time this started happening. Updates? Was the PC moved?

I'm no expert, but in general terms the first things I'd try would be to check temps, rule out drivers / software, then look at hardware if necessary, checking whatever's laziest and cheapest to check first. Others will have better suggestions, but if it were my PC I'd probably:

Check CPU and GPU temps using something like Realtemp / HWinfo. See if there are any issues.

If temps are fine, DDU the drivers: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/threads/clean-installing-graphics-drivers.59691/ as that's benign at worst, and can fix a multitude of problems.

If that fails, a clean install of Windows, letting Windows handle all driver installations, and install only steam and one game that is provoking the issue (assuming it only happens in games). No mods, steam workshop, addons, etc. Test/play extensively to see if the issue has gone away. If it's still happening, test other games and stress tests like Firestrike. I've seen games with bad installs or even out of date mods/ UI addons cause shutdowns.

If it's still present, potentially try Linux to see if the issue persists under that.

At that point I'd probably start turning my attention to the hardware.

Look at event logs: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/78335-read-shutdown-logs-event-viewer-windows.html

Run memtest overnight https://www.memtest86.com/ (free, other than pennies on the electricity bill ofc)

Run prime95 at least overnight to see if the CPU throws any errors.

Try the GPU in a different PCIe slot.

Check connections / cables from the PSU to make sure nothing is loose, possibly unplugging and replugging each power cable.

Swap GPUs with a friend and see if either of you still get the issue (DDUing drivers ofc...)

These are all cheaper and less hassle than buying a new PSU. And much cheaper than buying a new PSU only to find out that the motherboard and/or CPU was faulty.

 

[Anzelak]

Thanks very much. I'll probably follow this pretty closely and see what I can find.

Yes, I meant cutting out exactly as you've described. It seemed to do it with one game - Outer Wilds - while under stress. I had just updated the GPU drivers. It could honestly be as simple as I'd allowed it to get too dusty, but it put me in the mood to drop some money on a new machine haha. The poor thing doesn't get looked after at all well.

Thanks very much for your time

 

[Oussebon]

Adding to the above, DDU the drivers, and if the problem is still there, DDU them again and try an older driver version or two. Especially if it's only started happening after a recent driver update.

If this is only happening in one game, try some stress tests and benchmarks like Firestrike (free) to see if you can make it happen on occasions other than just this one game.

I'd probably do that before faffing with a clean Windows install, if it were me.

Just to say, we can't provide detailed technical support on non PC Specialist systems - the above is general advice that's all already been posted in various topics, so I'm sure reposting it here is fine, but if you run into major roadblocks down the line people might not be able to go all the way with troubleshooting

 

[Anzelak]

Thanks, I really appreciate the information and you taking the time to write these responses for me. I won't expect in-depth troubleshooting advice (I never expected all this either, but it's very kind of you all the same) .