Request for help info on getting a new PC (UK)

[Leper Messiah]

(hopefully posting this in right place!)

I've been scrimping and saving every spare bit of cash since my last PC was bought in 2012, It's starting to show it's age so I'm thinking of getting a new PC and have £1500 to spare. What's the info on best value mid range stuff in that price bracket? Please bear in mind I want to get a pre built system. I don't want VR quite yet but within 6 months will prolly dive in so VR ready system is preferred.

I'd like a mobo as future proof as possible, not all that bothered with overclocking just want a stock fast processor.
Likewise not bothered with Ray tracing yet, would rather a (future) VR capable rig.
SSD for boot drive and large HDD for game storage? I read somewhere (and subsequently forgot where) there's a new faster SSD interface out?
Not sure if 16gb memory is future proof should I go for 32gb?
What's the standard monitor/VR connection now? (currently using DVI still), has it all gone HDMI? do GPUS still come with dual output? Because I have a separate monitor in front of a steering rig for driving sims and a desktop monitor for everything else I do, so I need dual outputs (and VR will need that of course!)

Also apart from overclockers.co.uk and Alienware I'm not sure where else to look for pre built PCs, who's a recommended builder?

I'm so far out of the loop of PC tech since I last looked into it (as I say 2012!) I'm a bit clueless so any advice will be appreciated.

 

[Morbad]

My advice would not to go too overboard with future proofing, as you can easily wind up making counter productive decisions that give you a slower system over the long run.

That said, at this juncture, I'd recommend an AM4 board (a decent B450 will be fine, no need to spend extra on an X570 unless you have something specific in mind that would require it) and a Ryzen 3600 or 3700X, depending on how many cores you think you need. You'll be able to upgrade to 12 or 16-core parts later, if you think you need to before replacing the platform.

GPU wise, a decent non-reference 5700 XT is going to be the best price/performance ratio at the lower high-end. Make sure you research the models, as there are some bad non-reference ones out there, even if the majority are significantly better than reference.

Do not put your games on a mechanical HDD. Some people will say this is fine, but 'fine' is subjective and almost certainly both subjectively and objectively worse than running your games off an SSD. NAND flash is dirt cheap now. You can add a mechanical HDD for things like storage or video recording, but programs, including games, should be run from the SSD. The interface you are referring to is likely M.2, which supports SATA as well as PCI-E (which can be either AHCI or NVMe, though AHCI PCI-E M.2 drives were very short lived and SATA or NVMe are the relevant protocols today). PCI-E NVMe M.2 drives will slot right on to your motherboard and they can be significantly faster than SATA SSDs. However, the performance in practical use is already so far past the point of diminishing retuns that you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. That said, the cost differential is no longer huge either, so there is very little reason not to get an NVMe M.2 drive.

16GiB of system memory is enough for gaming and general use today, but given how cheap memory is now (and how volatile DRAM prices can be), 32GiB may be the wiser decision. If pairing with a Ryzen 3000 series part, you'll probably want at least DDR4-3200, but more than 4000 is senseless. Err on the side of affordable, rather than fancy.

DisplayPort and HDMI are standard for monitors. HDMI for VR HMDs. Most GPUs come with several display outputs, with the higher-end parts tending to have multiple DP and HDMI connectors. Often there is also a DVI-D connector, but these are starting to be phased out.

I am not particularly well versed in UK etailers. Scan.co.uk is about the only one I'm vaguely familiar with.

 

[kilvenny]

I have used Scan. For my last rig I used Vibox. I have trouble with my hands, so I wanted something prebuilt, but with flexibility to have better components where it matters. They (and other companies, do a pre build to a recipe, so you know the combination will work. I overspecified m/b, psu, processor and cooling which is the core of a system. I have added memory, larger disks and gpu since then. But my system has run faultlessly for 5 years. The problem with buying off the shelf is the economies most vendors make in the psu and cooling which bites you when you upgrade. Its kind of a half way house between an off the shelf build and building it yourself.

 

[avow555]

Am4 cpu is a no brainer just now.
Elite Dangerous has virtually no impact running from a HDD although you really must boot from an SSD these days.
Gfx will be the biggest expense so if your going prebuilt have a chat with the vendor.
16Gb memory is fine.

Will you be buying a monitor?

I have used Mesh Computers in the past and found them very good.
My last 2 PCs were home built (just more fun).

 

[Morbad]

Elite Dangerous has virtually no impact running from a HDD although you really must boot from an SSD these days.

While playing ED, you'll notice if ED isn't on an SSD far more than you will if Windows isn't booted from one.

ED is pretty light on I/O, but it's still accesses the drive frequently (essentially every instance transition and while loading certain assets between such transitions) and is constantly writing logs to the same drive. If it's possible to put it on an SSD, I haven't seen any good arguments not to do so.

For a new build on this budget, I'd expect it to have at least a 1TB SSD...plenty of space for games.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

All that ☝

Overclocking nowadays seems to not be worth the time and money you put into it. Back in the days where you could buy a 300 MHz CPU and easily overclock it to 450+ MHz it was (nerdy) fun and a great way to save money.

Consider some other things. The noise is important to some. Also, buy something that you can upgrade. I used to build all my PCs. Then I went Apple for 10 years, and going back to PC I thought I'd be smart buying an Asus GR8II, since it had good specs and a decent price, but it has left me with no chance of upgrading the GPU. The same goes for most gaming laptops, and even some desktops from the large manufacturers.

SSD is MUCH faster than a HDD. Primarily because of access times being practically zero, which has a huge impact whenever the PC loads a lot of small files. Be aware, as Morbad said, that some motherboards only support sata speed through NVMe. I bought a very fast NVMe SSD only to learn that it wasn't running that much faster in my mobo, because that only supports sata.

I run games from SSD. The impact is more noticeable with some games than others, but you'd be surprised to see how much some games and other software uses the drive very often when running, and a HDD is a major bottleneck in some cases.

 

[avow555]

While playing ED, you'll notice if ED isn't on an SSD far more than you will if Windows isn't booted from one.

ED is pretty light on I/O, but it's still accesses the drive frequently (essentially every instance transition and while loading certain assets between such transitions) and is constantly writing logs to the same drive. If it's possible to put it on an SSD, I haven't seen any good arguments not to do so.

For a new build on this budget, I'd expect it to have at least a 1TB SSD...plenty of space for games.

I have 2 machines on my workbench just now one running Elite from SSD and the other a HDD.
The difference is negligible.
However try loading DCS world or similar and there is a very noticable difference.

For todays build you should be looking at an SSD boot as big as you can afford and preferably run your main titles from.
For bulk storage it makes sense to have a HDD although a lot of games will happily run from this just like they always did before SSDs, lol.

 

[Chris Simon]

I can attest.
Happy user of Ryzen 3600 and 5700XT GPU.
I reached deeper into my pocket and bought the X570 board from ASUS (STRIX Gaming-E) and a new M.2 1TB SSD (While buying the new board, I decided to make use of the new PCIe 4.0 capability) But it is in no way necessary for just gaming.

When I bought the R5 3600 in July, I was planning on upgrading to better one, once they're available, but I found out I really don't need to, so I'm keeping this setup until something new and flashy comes out. (Like RDNA2 GPUs - maybe 5900XT?)

 

[Leper Messiah]

Cheers for the info lads. So the AMD stuff is back up to snuff, back in the day they really gave Intel and Nvidia a sore nose, but I'd read recently (by "recently" that's anytime in the last 5 years ) that some games have issues with AMD (especially GPU drivers) is this all in the past now?

 

[Chris Simon]

Cheers for the info lads. So the AMD stuff is back up to snuff, back in the day they really gave Intel and Nvidia a sore nose, but I'd read recently (by "recently" that's anytime in the last 5 years ) that some games have issues with AMD (especially GPU drivers) is this all in the past now?

Pretty much. AMD GPUs tend to have problems with newly released drivers (like this new one from yesterday) so it's a good practice to wait a couple weeks before updating, but that is true for nVidia as well and these days even more than AMD, from what I've read.
But as far as hardware goes, AMD is, indeed, up to snuff once again.

If you want to be really thorough in your research before buying, look up some tech youtubers like Gamers Nexus or Harware Unboxed on youtube and watch some reviews. There's a lot of new stuff, this year and it can be confusing.
And although the 5700 series of AMD GPUs is pretty great, there were some specific AIB cards that were... let's say suboptimal. Like XFX Thicc II, for example. Not an AMD's fault but it can shine a bad light on their products.
With CPU, you pretty much can't choose wrong with AMD if you go for anything from R5 3600 up. It's just the question of how much money you want to spend. If you choose 3600, 3700 or 3800 models, you don't even have to pay too much for the motherboard - most older B450 or X470 motherboards will work fine (you will have to update BIOS on some of them, though, so that is also something worth looking into prior to buying). The new X570 boards are a bit overkill for these lower-end CPUs, but if you want to future-proof a little and have some extra munies, they're a safe bet. There are no B550 boards, yet, but maybe if you're willing to wait a couple of months, there will be and they're going to be a much better "bang for buck" option.

 

[Jezzah]

I have nothing terribly useful to add here, me essentially being a bystander in the thread. However it does warm my heart to see AMD pulling up their socks and matching nvidia once again. Always good for the pricing aspects of hardware.

 

[avow555]

While playing ED, you'll notice if ED isn't on an SSD far more than you will if Windows isn't booted from one.

ED is pretty light on I/O, but it's still accesses the drive frequently (essentially every instance transition and while loading certain assets between such transitions) and is constantly writing logs to the same drive. If it's possible to put it on an SSD, I haven't seen any good arguments not to do so.

For a new build on this budget, I'd expect it to have at least a 1TB SSD...plenty of space for games.

I have 2 machines on my workbench just now one running Elite from SSD and the other a HDD.
The difference is negligible.
However try loading DCS world or similar and there is a very noticable difference.

For todays build you should be looking at an SSD boot as big as you can afford and preferably run your main titles from.
For bulk storage it makes sense to have a HDD although a lot of games will happily run from this just like they always did before SSDs, lol.

 

[Leper Messiah]

cheers once again for the info lads,
2 more questions:

1) Win 10, I remember reading the auto updates is a pain in the buttocks, any advice on getting win 10 setup to be less of a PITA (I want to avoid the obvious pitfalls)?
2) I have a 3tb HDD with loads of steam/origin games on it (I hate uninstalling games and often return to an old game for an hour or so), I'll have no issues plugging it into new mobo I hope, also does anyone know how steam etc like seeing game files on a new system via a HDD from an old system? (it will takes me days to re d/l them all from scratch).

 

[Noddie]

I'd have to say. SSDs for games & Apps as well as Windows. The only thing you should put on a magnetic drive these days is archival media files or backups. However, if you've got older games (which are obviously less IO intensive) than they're fine for that.

Steam does have it's own backup feature - https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8794-yphv-2033 - but I think you can also just create a new library where you old one was and the client will see the files already there and skip downloading them.

If you get a B450 MoBo you can use StoreMi, which attempts to manage this for you by creating a drive out of SSD and HDD that stores frequently used information on the HDD and infrequently used information on the SSD. I've used it on a budget built and it works, but you'd be better off with a large SSD if the budget will run to one.

 

[Leper Messiah]

I'd have to say. SSDs for games & Apps as well as Windows. The only thing you should put on a magnetic drive these days is archival media files or backups. However, if you've got older games (which are obviously less IO intensive) than they're fine for that.

Steam does have it's own backup feature - https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8794-yphv-2033 - but I think you can also just create a new library where you old one was and the client will see the files already there and skip downloading them.

If you get a B450 MoBo you can use StoreMi, which attempts to manage this for you by creating a drive out of SSD and HDD that stores frequently used information on the HDD and infrequently used information on the SSD. I've used it on a budget built and it works, but you'd be better off with a large SSD if the budget will run to one.

Yeah I have a LOT of old legacy games.....win 10 will probably cull that down a tad!

Is it worth having a fast smaller boot SSD 500mb, larger1-2 tb SSD for modern games and use my 3tb existing games HDD in new PC for older stuff? or Just one large SSD.

 

[Soron Silin]

I'm over two years behind the curve, so not able to say much on specific hardware. But I have bought my last two computers from QuietPC. The customisation options are excellent and even though I've got an off-brand 1060 GPU, I've noticed no problems, so it's probably well curated.
It's also whisper quiet - literally, less noise than a quiet conversation. It's 60cm from me and all I can hear is a low hum.

Spoiler: I bought this in October 2017

	Quiet PC Serenity X490 Workstation	£1,609.63	1	£1,609.63
Configured as follows: Jonsbo UMX4 Zone Black Compact Midi Tower Aluminium Case ASUS PRIME X299-A LGA2066 ATX Motherboard Intel Core i7 7800X 3.5GHz 140W 8.25MB 6-core CPU (28 PCIe lanes) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) 2400MHz Memory Kit Noctua NH-U12S Ultra-Quiet Slim CPU Cooler with NF-F12 fan Palit Geforce GTX 1060 Super JetStream 6GB GDDR5 Graphics Card FSP Hydro G 750W Semi-Fanless Modular PSU, 80+ Gold Quiet PC IEC C13 UK Mains Power Cord, 1.8m (Type G) Samsung PM961 256GB Polaris NVMe M.2 SSD (2800/1100) Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 3.5in Hard Disk Drive HDD Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-bit Backup 16GB Pendrive - restores to factory defaults, Win 10 only Quiet PC Free Silver Warranty (2 years labour and parts) 3 Working Days Build Time

I'd certainly go for a larger SSD these days, and probably a larger HDD as well. It's running three monitors and it will run my Oculus Quest over USB 3 or WiFi (ALVR). I haven't dared got around to trying that with Elite yet.

Windows 10 hasn't been a problem on this machine. It's a pain on my laptop. I'll have taken it somewhere and go to shut it down to go home and it will demand to install updates. On a desktop you just let it get on with it. I've told it to schedule updates at 5am so it doesn't interrupt me. If I shut it down before then it will just do them immediately, which is what I want.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Well I have plenty top think about cheers everyone, I now have to monitor the up coming new year sales to get the best deals!

 

[EUS]

Often, the best sales happen in Feb.
But I'm in N.A., and have no idea how retailers operate in the U.K.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Often, the best sales happen in Feb.
But I'm in N.A., and have no idea how retailers operate in the U.K.

We get boxing day and new year sales, although the UK seems to be "going American" with all the black Friday sales. Either way I'll monitor the sites and see if I can get an even better deal in a sale, every penny counts.

 

[Chris Simon]

I agree with EUS - if you missed the BF and are waiting, wait at least until February/March. Although there may be some sales in January, it's sporadic and most of the time they are not even real sales as they count with many people getting money and vouchers for Christmas and spending them right after the new year.