Building a $2,000 1440p Gaming PC

[WildCard999]

For $2,000 you could easily make a build that can play newer games at 1440P and include the monitor... even 21:9 UW.

PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor ($289.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($114.89 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($134.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($99.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB Video Card ($699.99 @ Best Buy)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case ($98.99 @ Walmart)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ B&H)
Monitor: Acer ED7 34.0" 3440x1440 100 Hz Monitor ($382.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $1981.79
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-14 13:51 EDT-0400

 

[mcgge1360]

What a horrible way to spend $2000. Making it pretty, vs performance, is simply never a good idea. Far superior streaming, and gaming performance.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor ($418.95 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: EVGA CLC 280 113.5 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($114.89 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Intel 660p 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($62.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($229.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB BLACK GAMING Video Card ($699.99 @ Amazon)
Case: NZXT H510 ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.98 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($114.99 @ B&H)
Total: $1981.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-13 10:58 EDT-0400

That poor, poor motherboard. You can't just click "everything compatible" and go with the cheapest one. I guarantee you would get VRM throttling with that mobo. Yes you can get better performance for the price, but not like that.

 

[mcgge1360]

For $2,000 you could easily make a build that can play newer games at 1440P and include the monitor... even 21:9 UW.

PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor ($289.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($114.89 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($134.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($99.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB Video Card ($699.99 @ Best Buy)
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case ($98.99 @ Walmart)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ B&H)
Monitor: Acer ED7 34.0" 3440x1440 100 Hz Monitor ($382.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $1981.79
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-14 13:51 EDT-0400

$2000 should really have a motherboard better than that -_-

 

[MbomberDavid]

What a horrible way to spend $2000. Making it pretty, vs performance, is simply never a good idea. Far superior streaming, and gaming performance.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor ($418.95 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: EVGA CLC 280 113.5 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($114.89 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Intel 660p 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($62.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($229.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB BLACK GAMING Video Card ($699.99 @ Amazon)
Case: NZXT H510 ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.98 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($114.99 @ B&H)
Total: $1981.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-13 10:58 EDT-0400

"What a horrible way to spend $2000. Making it pretty, vs perf..." well said

 

[logainofhades]

$2000 should really have a motherboard better than that -_-

You do realize that the B450 Tomahawk max is one of the best AMD boards you can buy right? SLI is dead, and PCI-E 4th gen won't give you FPS, so why spend more than necessary? A B450 with a 2080 super is going to outperform an expensive x570, with a 2070 super. The only reasons I have x570 was I was an early adopter, have an ITX rig, and wanted 2x M.2 slots.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

Even this one has more elements for performance:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor ($289.99 @ B&H)
CPU Cooler: Silverstone PF360-ARGB 94 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard ($248.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3866 Memory ($316.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($84.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card ($699.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox Pro 5 RGB ATX Mid Tower Case ($78.94 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1999.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-17 17:39 EDT-0400

 

[cryoburner]

Even this one has more elements for performance:
...
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3866 Memory ($316.99 @ Newegg)

I don't think it would be worth spending $300+ on that RAM, especially since it will be unlikely to run at its full speed, at least while maintaining a 1:1 fabric clock. A 32GB DDR4-3600 kit at nearly half the cost would perform practically the same in games, and free up $100-$150 to put toward other components.

 

[Giroro]

The case seems fine enough, if one wants relatively clean looks and doesn't need a lot of hard drive bays. Price-wise, there might be better value options, like NZXT's own H510 (non-Elite) in Logain's build above, but $150 is arguably not too unreasonable for a case for a $2000 build. While some may want more 3.5" bays, many systems these days are doing away with mechanical drives entirely. And external drive bays have become something of a rarity among new case designs.

Personally, I would have liked to see them give this case an external drive bay, that could have been placed behind a hidden flip-open panel at the bottom front, where the hard drive cage is. Maybe replace the cage with a combination 5.25"/3.5" bay of some sort. I like the idea of being able to add additional front panel connectivity down the line, which isn't really an option with most newer cases.

The CPU cooler does seem out of place though. It's about $200 more expensive than an aftermarket cooler that I would consider reasonable for a 3600X. It's not a hot running processor, nor does it have a lot of overclocking headroom, so a high-end liquid cooler is not needed. And the little OLED screen on the cooler is probably something best left for higher-end builds where there aren't other components that money could be better put toward.

I'm just saying if all you need is a clean look and not many bays, then you can go with micro ATX or mini ITX in a much smaller case.

 

[mcgge1360]

You do realize that the B450 Tomahawk max is one of the best AMD boards you can buy right? SLI is dead, and PCI-E 4th gen won't give you FPS, so why spend more than necessary? A B450 with a 2080 super is going to outperform an expensive x570, with a 2070 super. The only reasons I have x570 was I was an early adopter, have an ITX rig, and wanted 2x M.2 slots.

You're kidding right? The VRMs on that won't let you go any higher without getting dangerously close to throttleland. I'm not saying get x570 (which I agree Is kinda useless at this point in time), but get something that's actually going to not catch fire with anything higher than a Ryzen 5.

 

[DESOUL]

32GB is arguably fine for a $2000 build, particularly if you plan to keep it around for a number of years. While games might not really need more than 16GB today, that is likely to change eventually, especially if one leaves other software like web browsers open while gaming. The next-generation consoles coming later this year will have more memory than their predecessors, so it's natural to assume that RAM requirements for many PC games will rise as well over the next few years or so. And while you could always buy more RAM down the line, there's the possibility of running into compatibility issues when using RAM modules from separate kits, meaning you might need to replace the existing RAM anyway.

You also end up with a four-rank memory setup by going with 32GB (either with a 2x16GB or 4x8GB kit), which can result in faster memory performance than a two-rank setup. Most modern RAM modules have 8GB per rank, so you generally don't get that with a 16GB kit unless you find some older modules with 4GB per rank. The performance impact on games tends to be small, but it's generally larger than the difference moving from DDR4-3200 to 3600, for example.

You can of course get 32GB of similar-performing RAM for around $60 less than that though, if you don't require overpriced LEDs on the heat spreaders, so there's still money to be saved if one can pass on a bit of bling. It's amazing how companies can sell components for so much more by adding a couple dollar's worth of lights to them. : P

In theory yes, 32gb is going to be future proof, however you might end up like the Ryzen story from 2 years ago, where people bought great PC's on paper and hope that someday games would use multi-threads but it still hasn't come true up to date.

Likely 16gb of ram is going to be enough by the time he needs to change his PC again.