Need a new gaming PC

[Dayve]

My current one (i5-2500, GTX 1660 Ti, 16 GB RAM, purchased from PCS) just isn't cutting it anymore, struggling to play the new games I want to play even at low settings, so I was hoping you'd all help me put one together since my hardware knowledge is well and truly out of date to the point that I don't even know what I'm looking at anymore.

I already have THIS monitor, purchased a few months ago in advance. I have all other peripherals, I just need the PC itself. It'll be used solely for gaming, no video editing/streaming or anything like that. Budget is around £1,800. I play a lot of strategy games. I want to play STALKER 2 and a bunch of other games which aren't as demanding as it, so if it can run that then that'll be fine. I don't need to be able to play them with every graphic setting cranked up to maximum, it's good solid frame rate that's important to me - I've been gaming since the early 90's so modern games look out of this world to me even if they're only at medium settings lol.

I realise £1,800 is kind of low-mid for a gaming PC these days (such are the times) but later on in the year or perhaps next year I'll have more money to upgrade the graphics card to one of these fancy new ones that just released.

Thanks in advance, and if any other information is needed before recommending a build then let me know and I will provide it.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hiya, welcome back, and great choice on that monitor, you'll be really impressed with that with some power behind it

This is where I'd land, this is the cheapest I could get, since you're playing strategy games, the CPU is all important, so you've got the best gaming processor available, plus a proper 1440p GPU for actual rasterised performance and with proper VRAM allocation so you'll be able to play future games without issue. The platform is really solid as well, you'd be able to fit up to a 5070TI kind of tier quite happily with the PSU, so upgradability is good, to get it in budget I had to drop the windows license but you can carry your current one over legally, make sure it's signed in with a microsoft account, then you can de-register it from your current build and use it on this one

Case
CORSAIR 3500X ARGB TEMPERED GLASS MID-TOWER (WHITE)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core CPU (Up to 5.2GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz CL36 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
16GB GIGABYTE RADEON™ RX 7800 XT GAMING OC - 2 x HDMI, 2 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB CORSAIR CORE XT MP600 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 5000 MB/R, 4400 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ ATX 3.1, MODULAR, CYBENETICS GOLD
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR H100x RGB ELITE 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
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 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
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 6 to 8 working days
Price: £1,859.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/NpJbH76zrF/

Here's recent benchmarks of the GPU: https://www.techspot.com/review/2734-amd-radeon-7800-xt/

 

[SpyderTracks]

Here's a guide on transferring your windows license:

Transferring digital windows 10 license to new machine

Hi all Quite a few people already have a windows 10 License which they want to transfer over to the new PC. Windows 10 now makes this easy, even if you have an OEM license, you can legitimately turn it into a "digital license" by tying it to your microsoft account, and then transfer it legally...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[Dayve]

Hiya, welcome back, and great choice on that monitor, you'll be really impressed with that with some power behind it

This is where I'd land, this is the cheapest I could get, since you're playing strategy games, the CPU is all important, so you've got the best gaming processor available, plus a proper 1440p GPU for actual rasterised performance and with proper VRAM allocation so you'll be able to play future games without issue. The platform is really solid as well, you'd be able to fit up to a 5070TI kind of tier quite happily with the PSU, so upgradability is good, to get it in budget I had to drop the windows license but you can carry your current one over legally, make sure it's signed in with a microsoft account, then you can de-register it from your current build and use it on this one

Case
CORSAIR 3500X ARGB TEMPERED GLASS MID-TOWER (WHITE)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core CPU (Up to 5.2GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB DDR5 6000MHz CL36 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
16GB GIGABYTE RADEON™ RX 7800 XT GAMING OC - 2 x HDMI, 2 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB CORSAIR CORE XT MP600 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 5000 MB/R, 4400 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ ATX 3.1, MODULAR, CYBENETICS GOLD
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR H100x RGB ELITE 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
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 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
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 6 to 8 working days
Price: £1,859.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/NpJbH76zrF/

Here's recent benchmarks of the GPU: https://www.techspot.com/review/2734-amd-radeon-7800-xt/

View attachment 43486

I'll add Windows 11, I can just about afford it. You don't need to eat EVERY day anyway, that's a myth.

Thanks for taking the time to help me, I really appreciate it. I'll order it Monday morning if anybody else has any suggestions/changes in the meantime.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I'll add Windows 11, I can just about afford it. You don't need to eat EVERY day anyway, that's a myth.

Thanks for taking the time to help me, I really appreciate it. I'll order it Monday morning if anybody else has any suggestions/changes in the meantime.

Good idea to get some other opinions, hopefully someone will have a look over today.

 

[Dayve]

Unless you plan to keep your old system running, buying the Windows licence is a waste of £110. If you have that extra £110, then it'd be better to spend it on beefing up some of the system itself...if it was me, I'd get the 1000w PSU to give more room for upgrades down the road. I'd also spend a bit extra and get the Corsair 280x Titan CPU cooler...it's much newer than the one in the spec above which is good for efficiency etc.

But, beyond that, I wouldn't change anything in the spec Spyder listed

But I don't have Windows 11, I have 10, and they'll be stopping support for it soon won't they? Or will I be able to upgrade it to Windows 11 for free once my machine is suitable, like when they upgraded Windows 7 to 10 for free?

...or I just get the better hardware, transfer my Windows 10 to the new PC and then upgrade to Windows 11 later when I've got more cash. Derp. I see what you mean.

 

[Dayve]

I've decided to just get Windows 11 with it. I'm going to keep my old PC set up under the desk with a smaller monitor. Some days I don't play games at all, just watch stuff on Youtube, or play really old games on an emulator, so on those days I can just run my old PC instead of unnecessary wear and tear on the expensive one I just bought. Secondary reason - I also just simply don't trust Microsoft to let me transfer my Windows to a new PC. I recall a few years ago spending an entire day trying to do something similar (or it might have been that very thing), it wasn't happening, until eventually I exploded on the Microsoft subreddit and got a lifetime ban for... well, I don't want to go in to it.

It'll be fine as long as there are no unforeseen financial surprises between now and April.

 

[Martinr36]

I also just simply don't trust Microsoft to let me transfer my Windows to a new PC. I recall a few years ago spending an entire day trying to do something similar

The W11 on the Berserker started life as W7 on an HP off the shelf PC from PC World