£2k to spend - please help

ZuParadox

Bronze Level Poster
Hi all

I have about £2,000 to spend and would like a machine that is perfect for gaming (games like GTA) as well as graphic design (on a large scale)

I’m also after a decent 27in monitor (I’m guessing 4K)? - can buy this separately though just need advice on what one.

I know very little about what’s best to get so please help (ideally something I won’t be replacing any time soon)

Oh and if possible is there a white case? My room is all white 😄

Thanks in advance everyone.
 

Grumpywurzel

Bright Spark
If you scroll the the bottom, @Scott has listed several builds at the different price points/Monitor specs.

1440p is the sweet spot for PC gaming, you just need to adjust the builds for your own spec, i.e. the white case -

Excellent Entry level 1440p £1,035* - https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/SeSjRrBJte/
Excellent Mid-Level 1440p £1,199* - https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/mXndDgqCNn/
Excellent High-Level 1440p & VR £1,467* - https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/ADRhFeEEGz/
 

ZuParadox

Bronze Level Poster
Great thanks

btw what’s the difference between a1st Storage Drive & 1st M.2 SSD Drive and how come It has both?

(apologies I am pretty clueless 😄)
 

Babychino yolk

Bronze Level Poster
I use 2tb on normal storage to put my movies and normal stuff and 1 tb of m.2 i store my games and my os on it so they can load faster
 
D

Deleted member 17413

Guest
M.2 is a type of SSD (solid state drive)...they use a different connection to normal SSD or HDD (which are SATA connections)
M.2 is much newer tech, and still developing, with the latest ones using a PCIe 4.0 connection to give speeds that are nearly ten times faster than a standard SSD.

The general recommendation these days is to use a M.2 as the primary drive, so it has the operating system on it and you main programs/games, and then a second drive (most often a HDD) for photos, video and documents as they dont really benefit from that faster read/write ability.
Of course, budget plays a role here.

With a 2K build, it would more or less be expected you would be using a 500Gb or 1TB M.2 drive and then a large HDD for general storage, if you really wanted to you could use a standard SSD as storage but there is only really benefit there if you fill the primary drive and still have more games/programs that would benefit from the speed increase.
 
D

Deleted member 17413

Guest
As to your build aims...what kind of graphical design are we talking?
Are you looking to build something thats going to be doing CAD and photo/video editing type things? Builds for those will have a different focus to gaming, and for 2K, you cant really build a high level one for both...its one or the other or a mediocre one that will kinda do both, but not well.

If gaming is you main focus, also forget 4K, even with the highest spec GPU atm you wont get much more than 60FPS, 1440p is going to be much better, and the monitor will cost you significantly less.

If you are able to give more of an idea about what exactly you want to be able to use it for, and also if the monitor needs to come out of the same budget or if you have a separate budget for it.

There are also new GPU's due out in a few months, so you may find waiting a while now will mean you can get a current top spec GPU at a lower price (if not one of the new ones).
 
Last edited by a moderator:

ZuParadox

Bronze Level Poster
If you are able to give more of an idea about what exactly you want to be able to use it for, and also if the monitor needs to come out of the same budget or if you have a separate budget for it.

Hi and thank you for the detailed replies :)

The graphic design work isn't anything intensive like CAD level - it's mainly stuff i do for print so as long as it runs the adobe suite without any hang-ups like i'm getting on my current machine then i'll be happy.

I will get the monitor separate to the build so its £2k for the build and then i will purchase a monitor separately. I only said about 4K as i would plug the PS4 (PS5 when it comes out) into it as well....


So, in short, i want to get a machine that i won't need to replace anytime soon, can run games like GTA etc comfortably as well as the Adobe Suite....
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
Still need to know the budget for the monitor so that I can suggest a build to match it. They go hand in hand :)
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
The below gets you going for 4k gaming (I wouldn't personally recommend 4k as I think ultrawide is far better, but as it's for the PS4/5 then I've gone for it)

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X Six Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.4GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3200MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
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
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
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 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
TIMED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND - MON-FRI (BEFORE 2PM)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 16 to 18 working days
Price: £1,978.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/VvwVy9Srws/


For a monitor this looks like a good buy...

 

ZuParadox

Bronze Level Poster
That's great - thank you very much Scott

So with that build - IF i was to improve anything in it (ie if i can stretch to another £100/£200) what would you recommend i improve?
The Processor?
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
The next level would be a fair bit more expensive....

Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE H500 ARGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT Eight Core CPU (4.7GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3200MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i RGB PLATINUM Hydro Series High Performance 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
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
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 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
TIMED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND - MON-FRI (BEFORE 2PM)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 16 to 18 working days
Price: £2,327.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/vv7Khd7S!v/
 
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