Gaming PC (£2,000 range) - looking for advice

E

Elhan

Bronze Level Poster
Hi

I am looking to upgrade my existing PC as it's getting on in its years now. I generally play a variety of games, ranging from MMOs to 4x/simulation to some action games, and also use it for office work for home working purposes, so I am looking to get something that is reasonably powerful with some staying power, preferably without much need to upgrade it for the next 3 years or so. My budget is in the £2,000 range for the tower, but I'm a little bit flexible if a specific upgrade would make a big difference. Existing monitor is this.

This is the spec I've come up with - any suggestions would be very welcome:

Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE H500 ARGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.6GHz/35MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® STRIX B550-F GAMING (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 - HDMI, DP
1st Storage Drive
1TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CoolerMaster MasterLiquid Lite 120 High Performance Liquid Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 PORT (1 x TYPE A, 1 x TYPE C) USB 3.1 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB 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
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Subject to stock availability on pre-order products
Price: £1,915.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/!vMVSTunEW/
 
jamiephillips909

jamiephillips909

Godlike
Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE H500 ARGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.6GHz/35MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® STRIX B550-F GAMING (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 - HDMI, DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB CORSAIR MP400 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 3480 MB/R, 3000 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CoolerMaster MasterLiquid Lite 240 High Performance Liquid Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 PORT (1 x TYPE A, 1 x TYPE C) USB 3.1 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB 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
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Subject to stock availability on pre-order products
Price: £1,995.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/tnMBENGNSn/
 
jamiephillips909

jamiephillips909

Godlike
Changed your storage from a ssd and added in a 2nd m.2 drive so your 500gb is for operating system and 2nd m.2 for games and files :) upped psu to 850rmx for future upgrades and upped cooling to a 240mm aio as u still had some budget left
 
AgentCooper

AgentCooper

At Least I Have Chicken
Moderator
I’m in agreement with @SpyderTracks on this one, it’s a solid build 👍

What kinds of sim games do you play and how heavily? There could potentially be an argument for looking at more cores and memory...

If you’re a big simmer, this is what I’d be looking at, the eight core CPU would also afford you some future proofing. It’s a little over budget but it’d be a beast! 🙂

Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE H500 ARGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.7GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X570-PLUS GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0, CrossFireX) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 - HDMI, DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i ELITE CAPELLIX RGB 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)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 PORT (1 x TYPE A, 1 x TYPE C) USB 3.1 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB 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
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Subject to stock availability on pre-order products
Price: £2,238.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/eurBT!nTF4/
 
jamiephillips909

jamiephillips909

Godlike
AgentCooper said:
I’m in agreement with @SpyderTracks on this one, it’s a solid build 👍

What kinds of sim games do you play and how heavily? There could potentially be an argument for looking at more cores and memory...

If you’re a big simmer, this is what I’d be looking at, the eight core CPU would also afford you some future proofing. It’s a little over budget but it’d be a beast! 🙂

Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE H500 ARGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.7GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X570-PLUS GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0, CrossFireX) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 - HDMI, DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i ELITE CAPELLIX RGB 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)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 PORT (1 x TYPE A, 1 x TYPE C) USB 3.1 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB 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
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Subject to stock availability on pre-order products
Price: £2,238.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/eurBT!nTF4/
Click to expand...
I would personally go for this if your budget would allow :) as its a much better system
 
E

Elhan

Bronze Level Poster
AgentCooper said:
I’m in agreement with @SpyderTracks on this one, it’s a solid build 👍

What kinds of sim games do you play and how heavily? There could potentially be an argument for looking at more cores and memory...

If you’re a big simmer, this is what I’d be looking at, the eight core CPU would also afford you some future proofing. It’s a little over budget but it’d be a beast! 🙂

Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE H500 ARGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.7GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X570-PLUS GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0, CrossFireX) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 - HDMI, DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i ELITE CAPELLIX RGB 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)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 PORT (1 x TYPE A, 1 x TYPE C) USB 3.1 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB 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
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Subject to stock availability on pre-order products
Price: £2,238.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/eurBT!nTF4/
Click to expand...
Not really a big simmer, I tend to play games like Cities Skylines or Two Point Hospital from time to time. Age of Wonders 3 and the like when it comes to 4x. It's usually MMOs, turn-based RPGs and action RPGs (e.g. MHW) I play the most.

But yes that price would be within my budget. I'm not really trying to penny clinch so much as avoid shelling too much out on components I'd never make full use of.
 
AgentCooper

AgentCooper

At Least I Have Chicken
Moderator
Elhan said:
Not really a big simmer, I tend to play games like Cities Skylines or Two Point Hospital from time to time. Age of Wonders 3 and the like when it comes to 4x. It's usually MMOs, turn-based RPGs and action RPGs (e.g. MHW) I play the most.

But yes that price would be within my budget. I'm not really trying to penny clinch so much as avoid shelling too much out on components I'd never make full use of.
Click to expand...
In that case if you liked with the spec I made up, you could drop the RAM back down to 16GB and you’d be sorted.

You’re in for a treat, I have the same monitor with a 3070, it’s so good! 🙂
 
JUNI0R

JUNI0R

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Late to the thread but query about RAM usage, do you play heavily modded Cities Skylines at all? I seem to remember @Citrus_9 saying that it can be a bit of a RAM hog (seem to remember 24GB being mentioned) and it's one of the reasons he went for 32GB in his system. Just wondering if the same might apply here
 
Citrus_9

Citrus_9

Expert
JUNI0R said:
Late to the thread but query about RAM usage, do you play heavily modded Cities Skylines at all? I seem to remember @Citrus_9 saying that it can be a bit of a RAM hog (seem to remember 24GB being mentioned) and it's one of the reasons he went for 32GB in his system. Just wondering if the same might apply here
Click to expand...
Edit: added a big chunk of info.

Good point. I can confirm that currently moded Cities Skylines taking 18-20GB RAM, personally for me. I don't know exactly how many mods and assets I have, but definitely a bit over one hundred. It's taking between 2 and 2.5 minutes to load the game (mainly due to relatively old game which isn't well balanced, furthermore, it has been built without overseeing that it will get so popular and become heavily moded). Ram requirements for a Vanilla (base) game isn't high, especially graphics card. But, depending on chosen map and added mods, it can get quite heavy on Ram. I play on 81 tiles, and when city reaches high population, also with DLCs, especially Industries DLC and Real Time mod, the game gets heavier on CPU too, as the game requires more computation (more citizens, more businesses, logistics, more cars on roads etc interacting). 5600X with 25 tiles should be ok, but 5800X can definitely bring some advantage, especially on 1080p (knowing that 1080p is heavier on CPU while 1440p is more on GPU) and if using 81 Tiles mod.

Some professional Cities Skylines gamers who also stream hours every day, use 5900X, 64GB Ram and 3080 or whatever is matching their monitors. But that's just because it's their work machine which is used to get regular income.
 
Last edited:
E

Elhan

Bronze Level Poster
JUNI0R said:
Late to the thread but query about RAM usage, do you play heavily modded Cities Skylines at all? I seem to remember @Citrus_9 saying that it can be a bit of a RAM hog (seem to remember 24GB being mentioned) and it's one of the reasons he went for 32GB in his system. Just wondering if the same might apply here
Click to expand...
Not at present but since I may do it later down the line, whether with that game or another, it does make me lean towards 32 gigs. I wasn't aware of how heavy the RAM usage could be.
 
E

Elhan

Bronze Level Poster
Hi - just coming back while this is in production (I went with the spec AgentCooper recommended) with a couple of questions.

With regards to the cooling, I've been reading that the 5000 series in general but especially the 5800x can get quite hot, into the 90s. I've checked reviews for the case I've picked, which appear to be positive on the whole for 5800x setups, particularly with regard to airflow, but given that this can't fit the H115i, my question is will the H100i Elite capellix suffice? Anyone got experience with this set up?

Also, as a separate question, I've been reading up on the durability of the SSDs. The Samsung 980 Pro (the primary M.2) drive comes to 300 TBW for 500gb (double this for 1TB), and the secondary SSD (I modified this from the original spec) for the 2TB Corsair MP 400 comes to 400 TBW. In practice I do most of my work via a virtual environment, rather than writing it onto my own disks, and I mainly use the PC for gaming (the 2TB SSD will be used for most games), and storing some docs like images, PDFs etc., but not in any huge volumes. I was reading this to get an appreciation of what the TBW figures mean in practice - by the looks of it these disks should be plenty durable for the uses I'll be putting them to? Any thoughts on this? Also is there any particular downside to putting an MMO on the main SSD? From what I remember when I used a broadband dongle for one briefly, they don't actually download that much data on a daily basis. I have a separate 2TB Seagate HDD on it for files I plan on accessing very rarely.

Any answers would be much appreciated.
 
B

Bigfoot

Grand Master
The Intel 670p 2TB has a write endurance of 740 TBW, which is almost double that of the Corsair equivalent. On the other hand the 2TB Samsung 980 Pro will give you 1200TBW for a price.
 
AgentCooper

AgentCooper

At Least I Have Chicken
Moderator
Elhan said:
Hi - just coming back while this is in production (I went with the spec AgentCooper recommended) with a couple of questions.

With regards to the cooling, I've been reading that the 5000 series in general but especially the 5800x can get quite hot, into the 90s. I've checked reviews for the case I've picked, which appear to be positive on the whole for 5800x setups, particularly with regard to airflow, but given that this can't fit the H115i, my question is will the H100i Elite capellix suffice? Anyone got experience with this set up?
Click to expand...
I think our old pal @jamiephillips909 has a 5800X with a H100i and his house hasn’t burned down yet. The H100i is still a mega premium model, it just sports a slightly smaller radiator 🙂👍
 
jamiephillips909

jamiephillips909

Godlike
AgentCooper said:
I think our old pal @jamiephillips909 has a 5800X with a H100i and his house hasn’t burned down yet. The H100i is still a mega premium model, it just sports a slightly smaller radiator 🙂👍
Click to expand...
I have a H115i and its going to save me a heating bill in winter !!!! I do think the h100i will suffice tho I know of someone who air cools it with a noctua ( he will be getting a H100i ) as a replacement for the air cooler as its not enough and his case wont fit a h115i
As long as you dont dip below the h100i in terms of aio cooler you should be fine can imagine the coolmaster would do the job but would be very loud !
 
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