AdviceAdvice on building my first PC
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AdviceAdvice on building my first PCPosted:

Scotchbiker
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Hi all

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Looking to build a gaming pc.
Will mostly be using keyboard mouse.
Don't want to spend much more than £1000-£1200.
Will need operating system.
I had a go at a parts list and would appreciate anyone looking over it to see if it's compatible. Any suggestions/recommendations would be appreciated.

Said parts list [Minimum post requirement for links]

Many thanks
#2. Posted:
21
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Scotchbiker wrote Any suggestions/recommendations would be appreciated.

Yeah, don't buy that please.

Forums/t=7787031/how-to-ask-for-b...dvice.html

What exactly will you use the system for? If gaming only, what kind of games?
What monitor(s) will you be using with this system?
#3. Posted:
Scotchbiker
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Mostly RPG games like Skyrim, kingdom come deliverance and the like. But I occasionally play FPS games aswell.

As for monitors, I have a 32" tv with a hdmi connection.
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I would absolutely be buying a decent monitor with the system then, rather than using a TV which I'm guessing is 1080p?

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£163.98 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (£99.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory (£83.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Sabrent Rocket Q 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£109.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB MECH OC Video Card (£361.40 @ Alza)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P400A ATX Mid Tower Case (£56.41 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£73.99 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Samsung LC27JG50QQNZA 27.0" 2560x1440 144 Hz Monitor (£259.63 @ Senetic)
Total: £1208.86

20 quid cheaper than the system you were looking at, but I've included a 1440p144Hz monitor and a significantly better GPU- seriously, it's not even close.

R5 3600 would be my choice over the R7 2700x since it will perform better in games, and the 3600 even manages to just about tie the 2700x in heavily multithreaded workloads as well.

Definitely no need to spend anywhere near 300 quid on a motherboard with this budget and a sub £200 CPU. Grab a B450 Tomahawk MAX and call it a day.

16GB RAM is a no brainer of course. You'll get 3200MHz for £75, but the extra 5-10 quid for 3600MHz is worth it if you can manage.

Definitely don't buy that Kolink PSUcase, it's a low quality piece of trash. Phanteks P400A is a significantly better quality case for not even that much more money. There are other options if you don't like the P400A though.

RX 5700XT is kind of a no brainer for this budget to be honest. RX 570 definitely makes no sense with your budget, far too low end.

As for monitor, like I said, included a nice 1440p144Hz monitor here for you, which will pair very nicely with an RX 5700XT, but I'd personally try to spend the extra 40 quid for this instead;
uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/2Gm32...-mag271cqr
since it has Freesync support, whereas the Samsung monitor does not. I do have the Samsung monitor though, and it's fantastic despite not having Freesync lol.
Alternatively, you could get a decent 24" 1080p144Hz monitor with a VA panel for £140.


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Scotchbiker
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Thanks very much for the help.

I figured a new monitor would be worth it. Mine's very old and not really built for this. With regards to the monitor I'm not really sure what freesync is, so not sure if it's worth bothering with.


With the storage, I've heard having a separate ssd for booting is a good idea, I see that the only storage there is an ssd, is it worth having a separate boot disc or does it not matter if all the storage is ssd?

Also sorry to add this later, however I notice that there is no wireless networking capabilities. A complete afterthought for me, but is it easy enough to add a networking chip/usb adapter or is it best to have it built into the motherboard?


Thanks again for the help.
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Scotchbiker wrote I figured a new monitor would be worth it. Mine's very old and not really built for this. With regards to the monitor I'm not really sure what freesync is, so not sure if it's worth bothering with.

It's definitely a nice feature to have. Since it's only a 40 quid difference for a Freesync monitor, I'd pay that extra, but it's really up to you. If you'd rather save the money, the monitor without Freesync is absolutely fine.
Like I said though, I have that Samsung monitor which doesn't have Freesync, and it's a great monitor regardless. Only reason I got it though, as that an equivalent monitor with Freesync was £100+ more expensive at the time.

Scotchbiker wrote With the storage, I've heard having a separate ssd for booting is a good idea, I see that the only storage there is an ssd, is it worth having a separate boot disc or does it not matter if all the storage is ssd?

I think you've misunderstood whoever told you this. I imagine they just meant you want an SSD for your OS, at least. You don't need an entirely separate drive by any means, just partition the 1TB SSD as you like. If you need/want more storage, then add a 7200RPM HDD in the capacity you require.

Scotchbiker wrote Also sorry to add this later, however I notice that there is no wireless networking capabilities. A complete afterthought for me, but is it easy enough to add a networking chip/usb adapter or is it best to have it built into the motherboard?

You'll get a PCIe Wi-Fi add-in card for £20-30 easily. It would be beneficial to get a motherboard with Wi-Fi onboard, as opposed to using a PCIe slot, but if you can't get a decent mobo with Wi-Fi, then yeah adding a PCIe card is easy and heap enough.
This is pretty much the same board as the B450 Tomahawk, but has built-in Wi-Fi;
uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/t797Y...-carbon-ac
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Thanks for the help.

I've got the parts and built it. All runs, installed Windows 10. I didn't connect to the internet during installation to avoid making a windows account. Got to desktop and when I connect to the internet and windows starts updating, I loose my screen, no signal output. Any ideas how to sort it? I'm on my fourth windows install attempt.
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Adam
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I would assume that's Windows pulling a dodgy driver from an update when it connects to the internet. I done a quick Google and you can stop these drivers from installing by doing a bit of Registry Tweaking

If you don't fancy doing that, I'd recommend downloading the Graphics Card Driver and putting it onto a USB if you have time. Depending on how much time you have from connecting to the internet and your black screen, you might be able to download that driver in time and install it before Windows Updates can get involved.
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Worked it out!

Thanks for the help, tried installing amd's drivers and the same thing happened, I plugged it into a different monitor to see if that would make any difference and it worked, in a dodgy resolution, but working. Definitely gonna go get a new monitor now as clearly my crappy old tv won't work at all. Was hoping it would work at least temporarily until I could save a bit more money for a monitor. Oh well.


Thank you to all who helped me on this journey, I've learned loads and most of all had great fun!
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