4K Gaming PC - seamless upgrade path

[kujain]

hi there!

I am helping my 12yr old son build a gaming PC under a budget and was hoping for some tips and advice. Since the budget is small (~$700 excluding 4K monitor) I was considering building a basic gaming PC that performs decently for 2K.

But by end of next year (when 4K gaming becomes more available) I would like to upgrade this PC. What would you recommend as the ideal components to purchase with this budget at this time so the 4K upgrade would require minimum expenditure?

This PC would ideally remain the gaming mainstay for my son for at least 3-4 years and though it may be hard to predict pricing and configuration 3 yrs from now, we can only do our best

Thanks very much!

 

[Zmanrocks]

Intel's new coffeelake CPU's are great and will hopefully be compatible for years to come, if you were to build a gaming PC for future gaming in 4k, you would want to buy things that are really good to haves for gaming in general, then when you decide to upgrade to 4k, you buy whatever the best GPU is for when you decide this (as of now the 1080 TI's are the best) Because the GPU is the most demanding piece of hardware when it comes to 4k Gaming

 

[kujain]

Intel's new coffeelake CPU's are great and will hopefully be compatible for years to come, if you were to build a gaming PC for future gaming in 4k, you would want to buy things that are really good to haves for gaming in general, then when you decide to upgrade to 4k, you buy whatever the best GPU is for when you decide this (as of now the 1080 TI's are the best) Because the GPU is the most demanding piece of hardware when it comes to 4k Gaming

Thanks Zmanrocks!

That was pretty much my thought as well - build the foundation and later upgrade only whats needed for 4K gaming. What CPU/RAM/GC/MB would you recommend at this time within the budget and good for high quality 2K gaming, so at the time of upgrade only the GC (and possibly RAM) might need to be replaced/added?

Thanks!

 

[Zmanrocks]

Intel's new coffeelake CPU's are great and will hopefully be compatible for years to come, if you were to build a gaming PC for future gaming in 4k, you would want to buy things that are really good to haves for gaming in general, then when you decide to upgrade to 4k, you buy whatever the best GPU is for when you decide this (as of now the 1080 TI's are the best) Because the GPU is the most demanding piece of hardware when it comes to 4k Gaming

Thanks Zmanrocks!

That was pretty much my thought as well - build the foundation and later upgrade only whats needed for 4K gaming. What CPU/RAM/GC/MB would you recommend at this time within the budget and good for high quality 2K gaming, so at the time of upgrade only the GC (and possibly RAM) might need to be replaced/added?

Thanks!

The budget for the PC is 700$, right?

 

[kujain]

Intel's new coffeelake CPU's are great and will hopefully be compatible for years to come, if you were to build a gaming PC for future gaming in 4k, you would want to buy things that are really good to haves for gaming in general, then when you decide to upgrade to 4k, you buy whatever the best GPU is for when you decide this (as of now the 1080 TI's are the best) Because the GPU is the most demanding piece of hardware when it comes to 4k Gaming

Thanks Zmanrocks!

That was pretty much my thought as well - build the foundation and later upgrade only whats needed for 4K gaming. What CPU/RAM/GC/MB would you recommend at this time within the budget and good for high quality 2K gaming, so at the time of upgrade only the GC (and possibly RAM) might need to be replaced/added?

Thanks!

The budget for the PC is 700$, right?

Yes!

 

[ohenryy]

Not sure if this is a very reasonable thing, 700$ rig, expecting it to do 4K soon in the future with minor upgrades..
The CPU will bottleneck the VGA even if you have a 1080ti, it will lag...

But, you still can have a decent gaming rig for that money.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/77cPRG
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/77cPRG/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1400 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($144.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($84.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Mini Video Card ($239.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill - FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($9.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $709.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-12-01 01:35 EST-0500

 

[kujain]

Not sure if this is a very reasonable thing, 700$ rig, expecting it to do 4K soon in the future with minor upgrades..
The CPU will bottleneck the VGA even if you have a 1080ti, it will lag...

But, you still can have a decent gaming rig for that money.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/77cPRG
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/77cPRG/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1400 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($144.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($84.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Mini Video Card ($239.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill - FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($9.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $709.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-12-01 01:35 EST-0500

Thanks Ohenryy! This really helps! What would you suggest the upgrade path from this config could be a year from now to prep it for 4K gaming? Of course, new architecture, CPU, GC will be released but the current gen GCs like 1080ti will also become more affordable. Would the upgrade simply require upgrading the CPU, GC and possibly RAM, keeping the rest same?

Thanks!

 

[redfaction95]

Not sure if this is a very reasonable thing, 700$ rig, expecting it to do 4K soon in the future with minor upgrades..
The CPU will bottleneck the VGA even if you have a 1080ti, it will lag...

But, you still can have a decent gaming rig for that money.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/77cPRG
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/77cPRG/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1400 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($144.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($84.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Mini Video Card ($239.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill - FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($9.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $709.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-12-01 01:35 EST-0500

Thanks Ohenryy! This really helps! What would you suggest the upgrade path from this config could be a year from now to prep it for 4K gaming? Of course, new architecture, CPU, GC will be released but the current gen GCs like 1080ti will also become more affordable. Would the upgrade simply require upgrading the CPU, GC and possibly RAM, keeping the rest same?

Thanks!

CPU and GPU upgrade will be required when you want to upgrade it to 4k. If you go Ryzen, make sure that you buy a good motherboard since AMD sticks the the platform much longer, so it is going to be with you for a long long time. Coffelake currently is very expensive and have absolutely overpriced motherboards.