Budget of about £1600. Looking to purchase this build...

ArkVulcan

Member
Hi everyone,

I've been looking to upgrade my PC for a while. I have set a budget of about £1600. I'm not too experienced in the art of custom PC building, so I'd like your advice on this build before I commit to a purchase. Thanks.

I'm not looking for anything too flashy. Just want a PC build that gives me a good headroom for upgrading in the future and want to be able to run games at a good rate like Jedi Survivor (which my current PC can't run) and Oblivion Remastered (which seems to have issues even with high end PCs these days) alongside the games I normally play such as Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Tomb Raider and so on.

Case
CORSAIR 3500X ARGB TEMPERED GLASS MID-TOWER (PCS)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core CPU (4.2GHz-5.0GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B850-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, M.2 PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5200MHz CL40 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
16GB GIGABYTE RADEON™ RX 7600 XT GAMING OC - 2 x HDMI, 2 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P41+ GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR, 1625MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 6500MB/sW)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CX SERIES™ CX-650 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR NAUTILUS 240 RS ARGB 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
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe 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
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
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 6 to 8 working days
Price: £1,571.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/d3jgVbmsef/
 
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SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
My current PC is one I built back in 2019/20. Quite low budget. Currently using an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 with an NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti.
what motherboard?

It may make a lot more sense just to upgrade that one rather than replace it, you’d almost certainly get significantly more performance from it than a system costing £1600 (basic 1080p system would cost £1700
 

ArkVulcan

Member
Thanks. I'll keep this in mind. Out of curiosity, I'd still like to know if the configured build I posted earlier is decent, good or great? Just to have a general idea for the future. Thanks again.
 

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Thanks. I'll keep this in mind. Out of curiosity, I'd still like to know if the configured build I posted earlier is decent, good or great? Just to have a general idea for the future. Thanks again.
It's not terrible, but the primary SSD is too slow (should be the fastest in the build), and the PSU is too low a power capacity/tier/spec to allow for even minor GPU upgrades.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Thanks. I'll keep this in mind. Out of curiosity, I'd still like to know if the configured build I posted earlier is decent, good or great? Just to have a general idea for the future. Thanks again.
This always means “thanks but I don’t believe you, I want shiny”

Its true though, rather than an inferior 1080p lacking room to grow you could beef your current system to a really capable 1440p or even ultra wide and absolutely transform your experience

 

ArkVulcan

Member
It's not terrible, but the primary SSD is too slow (should be the fastest in the build), and the PSU is too low a power capacity/tier/spec to allow for even minor GPU upgrades.
So would you say a 1TB SSD or maybe 2TB as a primary would be far better than 512GB. And the PSU being 850W? Personally I think 1000W is overkill, but as I mentioned before, I'm new to this and definitely no expert, which is why I'm looking for opinions and recommendations.
 

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
So would you say a 1TB SSD or maybe 2TB as a primary would be far better than 512GB. And the PSU being 850W? Personally I think 1000W is overkill, but as I mentioned before, I'm new to this and definitely no expert, which is why I'm looking for opinions and recommendations.
512GB would be fine, if PCS hadn’t stopped offering any fast ones…but the 1TB ones are only about 20% more expensive, so that’s probably why.

So a primary 1TB SSD of c.7000MB/s speed, and a secondary 2TB one of c.4000MB/s speed.

For the PSU, there are 3 things to consider/differentiate between:
  • TIER (its intended usage):
    • CX = budget/basic/office builds, cheaper/fewer components, basic always on fan
    • RM = enthusiast/gaming builds, higher quality components & more power control components for smoother power delivery, better fan & profiles
    • HX = top-tier enthusiast/gaming builds, higher quality components & more power control components for smoother power delivery, better fan & profiles, better efficiency
    • AX = professional/overclocking/money-no-object builds; digital control, highest quality components, built-in monitoring components
  • SPEC:
    • ATX2: older generation, lower power per rail, /cable, less protections for transient GPU power spikes
    • ATX3: latest generation, higher power per rail/cable, higher/better protections for transient GPU power spikes
  • POWER:
    • 250w to 2000w as required to provide for current & future power requirements - but a PC will only use the power it needs, so a 2000w PSU will still use the same 250w as a 750w PSU when the PC requires 250w
 
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