New Gaming PC - New to Custom Builds

[MarkoA]

Good afternoon all,

It's time for me to upgrade my good old PC which has served me well. Previously I have always purchased pre-builds but I think it's time to try a custom build.

I have a max budget of £4000. I have 2 HP v24i monitors - basic but have done well.

If you need any more info let me know. Any help much appreciated.

 

[sck451]

What's the PC for? What kind of games?

You should definitely upgrade those displays. What kind of thing would you go for? The obvious solution is a QD-OLED ultra wide; you could use your existing displays as well if you wanted to...

 

[Scoped Badger]

Good afternoon all,

It's time for me to upgrade my good old PC which has served me well. Previously I have always purchased pre-builds but I think it's time to try a custom build.

I have a max budget of £4000. I have 2 HP v24i monitors - basic but have done well.

If you need any more info let me know. Any help much appreciated.

Hi Marko

If you could give this thread a read:

Please read before posting:- Collaboration of Helpful Hints

NB: These forums are not an official support channel. None of us work for PCS, we're all either customers or techies who just like to help out where possible. For any official support, you need to contact PCS directly either through your PCS account, or via the contact details on the main...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

and get back to us with the missing information, that'll allow everyone to give you more informed advice. The more information you can give, the better.

Thanks!

 

[MarkoA]

What's the PC for? What kind of games?

You should definitely upgrade those displays. What kind of thing would you go for? The obvious solution is a QD-OLED ultra wide; you could use your existing displays as well if you wanted to...

Hi Marko

If you could give this thread a read:

Please read before posting:- Collaboration of Helpful Hints

NB: These forums are not an official support channel. None of us work for PCS, we're all either customers or techies who just like to help out where possible. For any official support, you need to contact PCS directly either through your PCS account, or via the contact details on the main...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

and get back to us with the missing information, that'll allow everyone to give you more informed advice. The more information you can give, the better.

Thanks!

I'm happy for any recommendations on displays. If it is ultra-wide however I need to be able to split screen as I do use them for work. 2 monitors would likely work best for me.

Monitor - 2 HP v24i monitors at 60Hz. Not sure of budget for this as I'm not familiar with monitors.
Uses - Mainly gaming, I want to play some higher-ish games like Cyberpunk 2077 without my CPU melting. Also want something that will likely be future proof an not need upgrading anytime soon.
Max Budget - £4,000 + VAT

I've gone through the custom build and put something together. I've left monitors blank as this area I don't know enough about.

ase
PCS PRISM TG BLACK ARGB MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 24-Core Processor i9-14900K (Up to 6.0GHz) 36MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING Z790-PLUS WIFI (LGA1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E)
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP
Graphics Card Support Bracket
NONE (BRACKET INCLUDED AS STANDARD ON 4070 Ti / RX 7700 XT AND ABOVE)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB CORSAIR FORCE MP600 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 4950 MB/R, 4000 MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
4TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H115i ELITE CAPELLIX XT RGB High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 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
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (6 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Price: £3,521.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z790-ddr5-pc/gctBedNG3r/

 

[SpyderTracks]

Monitor - 2 HP v24i monitors at 60Hz. Not sure of budget for this as I'm not familiar with monitors.

Budget is not reliant on anything, it’s just what you have available for the purchase, it doesn’t matter on not knowing about monitors. But at this level you’re looking around £750 upwards of £2000

Any monitor you can split program windows so effectively have 2 screens, or if you do actually have say a laptop on the side you need to connect, then you can do picture by picture where the monitor has 2 separate inputs.
A super wide may be more effective as that is 2 x 1440p across

 

[sck451]

There's no point in getting a £4000 gaming PC and hooking it up to two 24-inch 1080p 60Hz monitors. You could spend £1300 and get precisely the same experience because the monitor is the bottleneck.

I would strongly urge you to get an ultrawide, ideally the MSI MPG 341CQPX at just under £1000, and an outrageously good monitor. You would actually have very similar screen space to the two existing displays, but in one display and much higher quality. You could still use your existing displays, say to the side for email? For gaming, ultrawide is an amazing experience.

Then I'd also go in a different direction with the PC. There's no point in getting the 14900K: it's hot, prone to failure, inefficient and outperformed by the cheaper, cooler and more upgradable 7800X3D from AMD. So I'd base a system around that instead.

I'd look at a system like this one:

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS 2 ARGB GAMING CASE (BLACK) Much better case than the Prism
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5) The best gaming CPU
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6) Not an exciting motherboard, but all you need for this system
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP The best graphics card there is
Graphics Card Support Bracket
NONE (BRACKET INCLUDED AS STANDARD ON 4070 Ti / RX 7700 XT AND ABOVE)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW) Boot drive
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SOLIDIGM P41+ GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 4125MB/sR, 3325MB/sW) Games drive (no need for a hard drive for a gaming system - you could make this 4TB if you wanted indulgence!)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET The minimum I'd recommend for this system: the 1200W would be ideal
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H100i ELITE CAPELLIX XT RGB High Performance CPU Cooler Plenty for the 7800X3D
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 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
Google Chrome™
Cable Management
3 x PCS 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management
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 - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Price: £3,149.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/vUS3GURW8P/

 

[MarkoA]

There's no point in getting a £4000 gaming PC and hooking it up to two 24-inch 1080p 60Hz monitors. You could spend £1300 and get precisely the same experience because the monitor is the bottleneck.

I would strongly urge you to get an ultrawide, ideally the MSI MPG 341CQPX at just under £1000, and an outrageously good monitor. You would actually have very similar screen space to the two existing displays, but in one display and much higher quality. You could still use your existing displays, say to the side for email? For gaming, ultrawide is an amazing experience.

Then I'd also go in a different direction with the PC. There's no point in getting the 14900K: it's hot, prone to failure, inefficient and outperformed by the cheaper, cooler and more upgradable 7800X3D from AMD. So I'd base a system around that instead.

I'd look at a system like this one:

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS 2 ARGB GAMING CASE (BLACK) Much better case than the Prism
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5) The best gaming CPU
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6) Not an exciting motherboard, but all you need for this system
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP The best graphics card there is
Graphics Card Support Bracket
NONE (BRACKET INCLUDED AS STANDARD ON 4070 Ti / RX 7700 XT AND ABOVE)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW) Boot drive
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SOLIDIGM P41+ GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 4125MB/sR, 3325MB/sW) Games drive (no need for a hard drive for a gaming system - you could make this 4TB if you wanted indulgence!)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET The minimum I'd recommend for this system: the 1200W would be ideal
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H100i ELITE CAPELLIX XT RGB High Performance CPU Cooler Plenty for the 7800X3D
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 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
Google Chrome™
Cable Management
3 x PCS 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management
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 - Approximately 3 to 5 working days
Price: £3,149.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/vUS3GURW8P/

Thank you very much for the advice, it is much appreciated!

Does this setup have sufficient ports multiple monitors? I will probably keep one of my exisiting monitors for non-gaming uses and work.

 

[sck451]

Thank you very much for the advice, it is much appreciated!

Does this setup have sufficient ports multiple monitors? I will probably keep one of my exisiting monitors for non-gaming uses and work.

Four normally on a 4090, so yes.