Please Check these specs are compatible (adding my own GTX 970)

[Thatkidyk]

Case
PCS 6003B BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.6GHz/35MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE B550 GAMING X V2 : DDR4, USB 3.2 - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
1st Storage Drive
256GB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (500MB/R, 400MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CV SERIES™ CV-650 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 80 Series High Performance CPU Cooler (AMD)
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 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
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 [KK3-00002]
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
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 - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Price: £773.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/g2fKvcFasn/

P.S I will be adding my own gpu an EVGA GeForce GTX 970, hoping this build will allow me to play and upgrade in the later years. Thank you

 

[MrWilson]

Added some changes on the assumption that this is going to be a 1080p gaming system with room for upgrades. Can be altered depending on use case and budget.

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window) The case you have chosen is very budget, with poor airflow and will cook your components, severely compromising their shelf life. The Focus G is the cheapest I would recommend, if you want something more refined the Corsair 4000D Airflow is a really good bet.
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.6GHz/35MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS WiFi (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready! I wouldn't recommend the lower end Gigabyte boards on offer. The TUF has everything you should need, plus the Wifi Card and BT built in. If you're only using Ethernet there is a non-wifi option available too.
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB) 3200mhz is the sweet spot for Ryzen CPUs. Any slower than that and you will see performance drops, especially at 1080p gaming.
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3000MB/sR | 1600MB/sW) Upped this to an m.2 SSD. It's a newer format that's much faster.
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET Higher end PSU that will also support a GPU upgrade down the road.
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler Black Edition A very reliable air cooler. If you're only gaming the stock cooler that comes with the 5600x will do the job, but if you want to spend a little extra on cooling this is the direction that I would take.
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
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] Windows 11 is still having some wrinkles ironed out. I would recommend staying on Windows 10 until they're sorted, and then
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 (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 - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Price: £948.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/d7QYUE83WS/

 

[Thatkidyk]

Thank you! Yes this will be for 1080p gaming, I really like your suggestions however it seriously pushes the budget I had in mind of around 800£. However, if this is a low expectation should I make the extra push for a higher budget if it will really help it survive in the long run as well as keeping it a balanced and well working system ? And lol yh the case was so ghetto Tyty

 

[MrWilson]

Thank you! Yes this will be for 1080p gaming, I really like your suggestions however it seriously pushes the budget I had in mind of around 800£. However, if this is a low expectation should I make the extra push for a higher budget if it will really help it survive in the long run as well as keeping it a balanced and well working system ? And lol yh the case was so ghetto Tyty

So for just gaming as I mentioned you can drop the cooler as the stock cooler will do the job nicely. I wouldn't really want to cut back anywhere else though. You might save £10-20 on certain components but it'll make the build less well rounded and you'll likely end up spending more in the long term.

 

[Thatkidyk]

So for just gaming as I mentioned you can drop the cooler as the stock cooler will do the job nicely. I wouldn't really want to cut back anywhere else though. You might save £10-20 on certain components but it'll make the build less well rounded and you'll likely end up spending more in the long term.

Really appreciate it! Just one more thing, in your opinion how long do you think my 970 will last inside ? It’s got a solid rep for an old card but I know it will bottleneck the cpu to some degree, I hope that’s the right terminology? I enjoy games such as Tarkov and Rust if that helps put it in perspective. Again thank you for the help I literally had no idea how well the build will do!

 

[MrWilson]

Really appreciate it! Just one more thing, in your opinion how long do you think my 970 will last inside ? It’s got a solid rep for an old card but I know it will bottleneck the cpu to some degree, I hope that’s the right terminology? I enjoy games such as Tarkov and Rust if that helps put it in perspective. Again thank you for the help I literally had no idea how well the build will do!

So the 970 is a fairly old card at this point, it came out in September 2014, but for your uses it should be ok. The GPU market is still insane, so I wouldn't look at a newer GPU until the madness dies down, but yes, the 970 is probably going to be the bottleneck for your system.

 

[Thatkidyk]

Okay I think I have been sold to the intel i5 12600k in competition to the ryzen 5600x. This is for 1080p gaming atm to spend around 950 hoping to play atm then upgrade the gpu and monitor at a later time? Is this a good switch? If it is will my motherboard support the new ddr5 if I ever made the switch?

New specs:

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 10-Core Processor i5-12600K (3.7GHz) 20MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING Z690-PLUS WIFI D4 (LGA1700, USB 3.2, PCIe 5.0) - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3000MB/sR | 1600MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 100 V3 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
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 10/11 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™
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 9 to 12 working days
Price: £961.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z690-pc/WXBCbdh3fT/

What’s peoples opinion vs the other one??

 

[Ash]

No DDR4 and DDR5 motherboards and memory are not compatible with each other. The notch on in the DIMM slots and on the RAM modules are in different positions, so you can't physically put the wrong one in.

What games are you planning on playing on your 970?

 

[MrWilson]

Okay I think I have been sold to the intel i5 12600k in competition to the ryzen 5600x. This is for 1080p gaming atm to spend around 950 hoping to play atm then upgrade the gpu and monitor at a later time? Is this a good switch? If it is will my motherboard support the new ddr5 if I ever made the switch?

New specs:

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 10-Core Processor i5-12600K (3.7GHz) 20MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING Z690-PLUS WIFI D4 (LGA1700, USB 3.2, PCIe 5.0) - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3000MB/sR | 1600MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 100 V3 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
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 10/11 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™
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 9 to 12 working days
Price: £961.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z690-pc/WXBCbdh3fT/

What’s peoples opinion vs the other one??

It’s certainly an option, but it will end up being a bit more expensive. You’ll need a better cooler than the one currently in there as the Intel CPUs are a lot hotter than their AMD counterparts. Due to the Intel platform being newer they don’t have many cooling options in the budget end that I would recommend and are tried and tested (very little information or reviews about PCS own brand coolers so I don’t tend to recommend them).
You won’t see a performance boost either as your GPU is still going to be the bottleneck.

 

[Thatkidyk]

Rust, Tarkov (on low I imagine) and rising storm 2 I imagine are the games I play that are most demanding for my 970. Also, Should I just forget the ddr5 for now I only thought of it due to the intel processor change on the new spec? What is your opinion on that? Intel 12600k or ryzen 5600x. My intention for this build is to get a solid current day pc (excluding the gpu ofc) and run my 970 until the gpu market sorts itself out am I heading in the right direction?

 

[Thatkidyk]

Okay I understand about the processor thank you ignore what I said about that

 

[Thatkidyk]

Rust, Tarkov (on low I imagine) and rising storm 2 I imagine are the games I play that are most demanding for my 970. Also, Should I just forget the ddr5 for now I only thought of it due to the intel processor change on the new spec? What is your opinion on that? Intel 12600k or ryzen 5600x. My intention for this build is to get a solid current day pc (excluding the gpu ofc) and run my 970 until the gpu market sorts itself out am I heading in the right direction?

Basically I just want a system to play on where I will only have to upgrade the gpu at a later time. Ik it says on a thread that if I want to upgrade in the next 2,3 years then the purchase isn’t right. But this gpu shortage/ market thing is confusing and sounds like a bit of a joke and I have a okayish gpu lying around that will satisfy me for now? Am I making a solid decision?

 

[Ash]

Could you squeeze your budget up to an i7/5800x at all? My only worry would be when you upgrade your GPU in 2/3 years to say a 4000 series or 5000 series RTX card that i5 might bottleneck it. I had an i5 9600k which is now 3 years old and I've just upgraded to an RTX 3080 from a GTX 980 and the bottleneck was horrendous so I had to upgrade my CPU as well, which was quite costly.

As good as the i5s are I personally don't like them for gaming, I think the lower core/thread count means modern games are starting to struggle with them.

 

[MrWilson]

Also, Should I just forget the ddr5 for now I only thought of it due to the intel processor change on the new spec?

Prices for DDR5 are hugely inflated right now and it’s not yet optimised to give much of a performance boost. Price to performance wise DDR4 is the way to go for a little while.

If you wanted to get a new GPU as well you could get a 1660 Super, which will smash Rust and Tarkov, but that will set you back an extra £350. Had a quick look at some benchmarks and you’ll get around 30-50% more frames compared to the 970. So it’s definitely an option, but you should be able to manage 60fps with your 970 if you crank settings down a bit.

 

[MrWilson]

Could you squeeze your budget up to an i7/5800x at all? My only worry would be when you upgrade your GPU in 2/3 years to say a 4000 series or 5000 series RTX card that i5 might bottleneck it. I had an i5 9600k which is now 3 years old and I've just upgraded to an RTX 3080 from a GTX 980 and the bottleneck was horrendous so I had to upgrade my CPU as well, which was quite costly.

As good as the i5s are I personally don't like them for gaming, I think the lower core/thread count means modern games are starting to struggle with them.

Moving up to a I7/R7 is a pretty big price hike, and tbh isn’t likely to cause a bottleneck. The 3080 is a monster of a GPU, but the 5600x only bottlenecks it in most titles at 1080p besides something like CSGO where it’s ‘bottlenecked’ at like 400+ fps at 1440p.

If OP is going to get a new GPU in a few years I would expect them to get a new monitor as wel and move up to a higher resolution, where a GPU bottleneck is far more likely.

 

[Ash]

Moving up to a I7/R7 is a pretty big price hike, and tbh isn’t likely to cause a bottleneck. The 3080 is a monster of a GPU, but the 5600x only bottlenecks it in most titles at 1080p besides something like CSGO where it’s ‘bottlenecked’ at like 400+ fps at 1440p.

If OP is going to get a new GPU in a few years I would expect them to get a new monitor as wel and move up to a higher resolution, where a GPU bottleneck is far more likely.

But he won't be getting a 3080 in 2/3 years, he'll be getting something even better, so the bottleneck would be even bigger. The last 2 generations of GPUs have seen big performance leaps from the last, so if he ends up getting something like a RTX 5060 in 3 years imo the bottleneck would be quite big.

 

[Thatkidyk]

But he won't be getting a 3080 in 2/3 years, he'll be getting something even better, so the bottleneck would be even bigger. The last 2 generations of GPUs have seen big performance leaps from the last, so if he ends up getting something like a RTX 5060 in 3 years imo the bottleneck would be quite big.

I understand what your saying, but whether I get the i5 or i7 I’m still going to be held back by my gpu for a while so during that time I’m not getting much value from it, and tbh the last triple A game with amazing graphics I remember getting excited about was the Witcher 3 (hence the 970 lying around) so I’m not exactly itching to play all the brand new games at ultra graphics so is the the cpu jump really worth it? I could do it as long as I know it’s future proof and the warranty is reliable.

 

[Bigfoot]

I understand what your saying, but whether I get the i5 or i7 I’m still going to be held back by my gpu for a while so during that time I’m not getting much value from it, and tbh the last triple A game with amazing graphics I remember getting excited about was the Witcher 3 (hence the 970 lying around) so I’m not exactly itching to play all the brand new games at ultra graphics so is the the cpu jump really worth it? I could do it as long as I know it’s future proof and the warranty is reliable.

Given your budget constraints a move to a 5800x will be a struggle at the moment. It is not just the processor change, but the upgrade to the motherboard and cooling which would mean a £200-£250 increase over a build with the 5600x.

 

[Thatkidyk]

Given your budget constraints a move to a 5800x will be a struggle at the moment. It is not just the processor change, but the upgrade to the motherboard and cooling which would mean a £200-£250 increase over a build with the 5600x.

Yeah, and even still I wouldn’t notice a difference cuz I’m using a really old gpu and yes I will be changing monitor when purchasing a gpu.

 

[Thatkidyk]

AMD Vs Intel

So some of you aren't aware of the reasons why so many people are heading away from Intel to AMD, so thought it would be important to lay that out for people to refer back to. A lot of you will go to cpubenchmark or userbenchmark to find performance metrics for CPU's. These sites are complete...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

Oof I’ve read this now