Any obvious blunders?

[jwb5463]

Case
FRACTAL DEFINE S BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Six Core CPU (3.6GHz-4.25GHz/19MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE: DDR4, USB 3.1 - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2933MHz ~ (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2070 - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
NOT REQUIRED
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3200MB/W)

The Division 2 FREE with select SAMSUNG NVMe SSDs!
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
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
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 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 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,167.00 including VAT and Delivery


System is for work (machine learning) and some gaming. If there's anywhere I could save some money to put towards a 2080 that would be a help.
Monitor is EG 27" 1440P/144Hz freesync, mainly for driving/flight sim type games - I never play FPS.
GPU is probably overkill for these games, but is needed for the work side of things.

So... any suggestions? Is the PSU worth upgrading? Motherboard a good choice? (I'll add my own HDD for bulk storage)
Not sure why the ASUS GPU is so much more expensive, but are all the other manufacturers much of a muchness? I guess you just get whatever PCS have on the shelf at the time, but is it worth requesting a particular make?

Any other things I should consider?

TIA

--
Bill

 

[steaky360]

Hi Bill,

I don't think you can request a specific make from PCS, it will end up being whatever they have on the shelf as far as I'm aware (unless the configurator has a specific option).

Whats your budget? I'm guessing its around the £1100-£1200 mark given the above specification? <-- It helps to understand this such that the folk here can give better advice / tweaks to your config if needed.

 

[jwb5463]

I'm trying to keep it below £1250.
I can't see any option to specify the card, but I was wondering if there were any strong opinions for our against any manufacturer. That way if I contact PCS and they say "we're using ABC at the moment, but we've got a box of XYZ coming in next week" I can decide whether to wait...

 

[steaky360]

From what I've seen in the past PCS tended to use Palit for their graphics cards (Its been a while since I got a rig so not sure who's current!), but ultimately whoever they supply from/via you'll be covered by the same warranty/support so I woluldn't expect you to have any problems.

 

[Oussebon]

PCS use Palit or Zotac for Nvidia cards.

Both are fine as brands.

It's not like pre-Toshiba OCZ and certain lines of their SSDs for instance - they're not duff

You can always order a system without a GPU and source your own to fit yourself, if you can find a model you prefer at a price that you're happy with. PCS's warranty allows for that.

Not sure why the ASUS GPU is so much more expensive, but are all the other manufacturers much of a muchness?

The 'Asus Tax' is a known thing. The cooling solutions on the GPUs are decent, but not even close to being worth those prices; (plus there's a known issue where they make little cash register noises whenever you buy one *cough*). An Asus 2070 costs ~£150 more than a 'regular' 2070, and only £80 less than an RTX 2080. Performance will be very similar.

I'd probably suggest going with the TXm PSU as it's more efficient, better quality, and modular.

The mobo is fine but you could consider the X470 Ultra Gaming, which has quite a few additional features (USB 3.1 Gen 2 type C, more upmarket onboard sound, and more).

The spec overall looks fine, and seems a fair pairing for the monitor.