I ordered the following system for £2,350 on April 19th.
Case
CORSAIR 4000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12 Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.8GHz/70MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0) - 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
1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
2nd M.2 SSD Drive
1TB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR | 2500MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling
Corsair H115i RGB PRO XT Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
Operating System
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Production and Delivery
Ordered 19th April, received 29th April, so just 7 working days. No charges were made for the modifications to the order. Hugely impressive. DPD delivered promptly. I do feel the packaging was on the weak side but the PC was intact. This is my fourth custom PC, but first from PCS, and in all the other purchases the boxes for MB and GPU were provided. With PCS everything was rammed tightly into a small white box that doesn’t really close. Bit cheap.
Inside the machine
The Corsair 4000D Airflow is the smallest case I’ve ever chosen so it felt a bit of risk. I’d originally selected a 5000D Airflow but forum advice argued the 4000 would be just as good. The advice was correct. There just isn’t any need for a bigger case for builds with no SATA drives.
Setup and technical support
The machine booted at first attempt with no issues and, once Win and Nvidia had done their updates, I was ready to go.
I’ve had one minor issue with the GPU/Display. I use a multi-display setup, and the primary display was intermittently showing up as a “Nvidia Digital Display” rather than a “Dell XXX”. On boot I would get the one beep/three beep POST with the VGA light coming on. I found the PCS email support was rather wooden in the sense that told me to try new DP cables, change the monitor, reseat the GPU, all despite the fact that I’d already told them I’d done this This was followed by the 'clean install' response and if that didn’t work RMA the GPU. At this point, I phoned and their approach was far better. They agreed a clean install was pointless and also agreed that trying a driver rollback using DDU was better than jumping to an RMA. This cured the issue.
Build choices
I can heartily recommend the 4000D Airflow with the Corsair H115i cooler. Temperatures are really good even at stress and acoustics great with those ML fans. The case only comes with 2x120mm fans and I was going to add a third but I haven’t bothered.
With regard to the CPU, I originally selected the 5800X but wanted a front USB-C header and the ideal MB for the 5800X, the TUF X570, doesn’t have one. So I’d chosen the Strix X570-F. When the price differential between 5800X and 5900X dropped to £90 I switched to make better use of the MB. Well it’s a monster for productivity apps but I feel I probably could have stuck with the 5800X since that’s also very nimble and for games I can’t imagine any difference.
The GPU was a Zotac 3070 Twin edge OC White. I feel the 3070 was the correct choice for the type of games I play (mainly Total War). I tend to use a 4k monitor with 60Hz refresh or 1440p with 120Hz refresh. I’m surprised that a high settings with a few fairly downward minor tweaks, I’m getting fps at those levels. Obviously, the 3070 can’t support 60fps at 4k on Ultra settings on TW, but it seems neither can the 3080Ti, so going higher just wouldn’t have helped.
PCS don’t explicitly tell people that the 3600MHz RAM is CL18. To be fair, I knew it was CL18 and still paid the extra £38 which was silly on my part. I did overclock it to CL16 just to see and it was fine, but I think 3200MHz is a better buy if you aren’t going to OC. The choice of a Samsung 980 Pro as my main drive is fantastic. It’s just so fast vs. my prior 850 Evo. It’s the thing I most notice during the day. Everything is instant.
Overall, I’m very happy with the build but I think if I had my time again I would stay with the 5800X, move back to 3200Mhz RAM, and probably source my own Win 10 Pro, saving at least £150 total.
Price
PCS pricing was competitive vs. two other custom builders I’ve used. At the time of purchase, the next cheapest equivalent build was £2,600. Albeit this came with an EVGA XC3 card, which is probably worth £50+ over the Zotac. Taking that into account, PCS was 6-8% cheaper. I do feel some of their price competitiveness is reflected in the weaker packaging and technical support but I'd buy from them again.
In terms of absolute cost, this is the most expensive custom build I've bought of the four I've now had since 2004. My last custom build in 2015 (i-4790K, Maximum VII Ranger, Geforce GTX 980, 16GB DRR 2133 Ram, 500GB EVO 850 SDD and 1TB HDD) was just £1750 for comparison. I think you need to add 10% for weaker Sterling since 2015 but there is no doubt this build is poorer value. That’s a sad reflection of where we are with prices and GPUs most clearly. PCS charged me £639 for the 3070 card, so perhaps £150 more than in a more normal environment. That’s clearly expensive but now I’ve been somehow able to sell my 6 year old 980 (boxed) for £175, I can mentally see that more as closer to £475-500 which emotionally feels somewhat better. Strange times.
Thanks to the forum for advice and views and apologies about the length of this post.
Case
CORSAIR 4000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12 Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.8GHz/70MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0) - 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
1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
2nd M.2 SSD Drive
1TB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR | 2500MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling
Corsair H115i RGB PRO XT Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
Operating System
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Production and Delivery
Ordered 19th April, received 29th April, so just 7 working days. No charges were made for the modifications to the order. Hugely impressive. DPD delivered promptly. I do feel the packaging was on the weak side but the PC was intact. This is my fourth custom PC, but first from PCS, and in all the other purchases the boxes for MB and GPU were provided. With PCS everything was rammed tightly into a small white box that doesn’t really close. Bit cheap.
Inside the machine
The Corsair 4000D Airflow is the smallest case I’ve ever chosen so it felt a bit of risk. I’d originally selected a 5000D Airflow but forum advice argued the 4000 would be just as good. The advice was correct. There just isn’t any need for a bigger case for builds with no SATA drives.
Setup and technical support
The machine booted at first attempt with no issues and, once Win and Nvidia had done their updates, I was ready to go.
I’ve had one minor issue with the GPU/Display. I use a multi-display setup, and the primary display was intermittently showing up as a “Nvidia Digital Display” rather than a “Dell XXX”. On boot I would get the one beep/three beep POST with the VGA light coming on. I found the PCS email support was rather wooden in the sense that told me to try new DP cables, change the monitor, reseat the GPU, all despite the fact that I’d already told them I’d done this This was followed by the 'clean install' response and if that didn’t work RMA the GPU. At this point, I phoned and their approach was far better. They agreed a clean install was pointless and also agreed that trying a driver rollback using DDU was better than jumping to an RMA. This cured the issue.
Build choices
I can heartily recommend the 4000D Airflow with the Corsair H115i cooler. Temperatures are really good even at stress and acoustics great with those ML fans. The case only comes with 2x120mm fans and I was going to add a third but I haven’t bothered.
With regard to the CPU, I originally selected the 5800X but wanted a front USB-C header and the ideal MB for the 5800X, the TUF X570, doesn’t have one. So I’d chosen the Strix X570-F. When the price differential between 5800X and 5900X dropped to £90 I switched to make better use of the MB. Well it’s a monster for productivity apps but I feel I probably could have stuck with the 5800X since that’s also very nimble and for games I can’t imagine any difference.
The GPU was a Zotac 3070 Twin edge OC White. I feel the 3070 was the correct choice for the type of games I play (mainly Total War). I tend to use a 4k monitor with 60Hz refresh or 1440p with 120Hz refresh. I’m surprised that a high settings with a few fairly downward minor tweaks, I’m getting fps at those levels. Obviously, the 3070 can’t support 60fps at 4k on Ultra settings on TW, but it seems neither can the 3080Ti, so going higher just wouldn’t have helped.
PCS don’t explicitly tell people that the 3600MHz RAM is CL18. To be fair, I knew it was CL18 and still paid the extra £38 which was silly on my part. I did overclock it to CL16 just to see and it was fine, but I think 3200MHz is a better buy if you aren’t going to OC. The choice of a Samsung 980 Pro as my main drive is fantastic. It’s just so fast vs. my prior 850 Evo. It’s the thing I most notice during the day. Everything is instant.
Overall, I’m very happy with the build but I think if I had my time again I would stay with the 5800X, move back to 3200Mhz RAM, and probably source my own Win 10 Pro, saving at least £150 total.
Price
PCS pricing was competitive vs. two other custom builders I’ve used. At the time of purchase, the next cheapest equivalent build was £2,600. Albeit this came with an EVGA XC3 card, which is probably worth £50+ over the Zotac. Taking that into account, PCS was 6-8% cheaper. I do feel some of their price competitiveness is reflected in the weaker packaging and technical support but I'd buy from them again.
In terms of absolute cost, this is the most expensive custom build I've bought of the four I've now had since 2004. My last custom build in 2015 (i-4790K, Maximum VII Ranger, Geforce GTX 980, 16GB DRR 2133 Ram, 500GB EVO 850 SDD and 1TB HDD) was just £1750 for comparison. I think you need to add 10% for weaker Sterling since 2015 but there is no doubt this build is poorer value. That’s a sad reflection of where we are with prices and GPUs most clearly. PCS charged me £639 for the 3070 card, so perhaps £150 more than in a more normal environment. That’s clearly expensive but now I’ve been somehow able to sell my 6 year old 980 (boxed) for £175, I can mentally see that more as closer to £475-500 which emotionally feels somewhat better. Strange times.
Thanks to the forum for advice and views and apologies about the length of this post.
