Build Advice Mid-range Gaming Build Advice

IanC1972

Honorable
Mar 1, 2017
6
2
10,515
Hi, I'd appreciate a sense check and any recommendations for the following build.

Location: UK
Budget: £1500 (draft spec below is slightly over which I can live with, but not looking to go any higher).
Usage: Gaming at 1440p (mixed genre, e.g. Elden Ring, Forza Horizon 5, but not usually FPS), video editing, productivity
Additional: I'm looking to replace an 8-9 year old non-gaming PC, so no parts to be re-used. I'm not planning to overclock. Depending on how the market and game demands go, it's possible I'll look in say 1.5-2 years to replace the GPU, so have been aiming to spec this for DDR5 and minimise the need to upgrade other parts at the same time. No peripherals needed at present. Currently have dual 1080p monitors, aiming to replace those with dual 1440p in a couple of months, but I'll do the PC build first.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K 3.5 GHz 14-Core Processor (£312.99 @ Technextday)
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK620 68.99 CFM CPU Cooler (£53.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790 UD AX ATX LGA1700 Motherboard (£237.48 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston FURY Beast RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory (£154.99 @ MoreCoCo)
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£198.48 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: PowerColor Fighter Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB Video Card (£373.55 @ Box Limited)
Case: Fractal Design Pop Air ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair RM750x (2021) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£112.81 @ Box Limited)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Home Retail - USB 64-bit
Total: £1534.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-01-27 11:48 GMT+0000
 
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Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador
Hi, I'd appreciate a sense check and any recommendations for the following build.

Location: UK
Budget: £1500 (draft spec below is slightly over which I can live with, but not looking to go any higher).
Usage: Gaming at 1440p (mixed genre, e.g. Elden Ring, Forza Horizon 5, but not usually FPS), video editing, productivity
Additional: I'm looking to replace an 8-9 year old non-gaming PC, so no parts to be re-used. I'm not planning to overclock. Depending on how the market and game demands go, it's possible I'll look in say 1.5-2 years to replace the GPU, so have been aiming to spec this for DDR5 and minimise the need to upgrade other parts at the same time. No peripherals needed at present. Currently have dual 1080p monitors, aiming to replace those with dual 1440p in a couple of months, but I'll do the PC build first.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K 3.5 GHz 14-Core Processor (£312.99 @ Technextday)
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK620 68.99 CFM CPU Cooler (£53.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790 UD AX ATX LGA1700 Motherboard (£237.48 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston FURY Beast RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory (£154.99 @ MoreCoCo)
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£198.48 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: PowerColor Fighter Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB Video Card (£373.55 @ Box Limited)
Case: Fractal Design Pop Air ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair RM750x (2021) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£112.81 @ Box Limited)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Home Retail - USB 64-bit
Total: £1534.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-01-27 11:48 GMT+0000
The 850 watt version of the power supply is just 1 buck more so why not.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product...-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020200-na

EDIT just clicked on the link it says 139 at Amazon and out of stock.
 
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logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
I would probably choose the 13500, over the 13600k, as well. At 1440p, and a midrange GPU, you are never going to see a difference, unless there is a particular game that is crazy CPU heavy. What you will notice is spending a bit less on the platform, and using the savings for a better GPU.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-13500 2.5 GHz 14-Core Processor (£241.99 @ Technextday)
CPU Cooler: Deepcool AK620 68.99 CFM CPU Cooler (£53.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B760 GAMING X AX ATX LGA1700 Motherboard (£190.99 @ MoreCoCo)
Memory: Kingston FURY Beast RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory (£154.99 @ MoreCoCo)
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£179.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GAMING OC Radeon RX 6800 16 GB Video Card (£513.59 @ Newegg UK)
Case: Fractal Design Pop Air ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (2021) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£113.55 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Home Retail - USB 64-bit
Total: £1539.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-01-27 12:50 GMT+0000
 
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IanC1972

Honorable
Mar 1, 2017
6
2
10,515
Thanks for the input. In fact the RM850x appears to be in stock even cheaper with eBuyer, so I'll probably take that - I originally drafted the spec outside PCPartPicker based on prices at on a few regular sites which all charge £20-25 more than the RM750x. I think 750W would be ample at the moment, but the 850W give more headroom for the future if there's not price difference.

Re. CPU I've been back and forth between the i5-13500 and i13600K. Fully onboard that the i-13500 would be more than sufficient for this build. However current thinking was to pay a bit more now for the CPU, higher speed RAM, SSD, etc. to make it more feasible to potentially upgrade GPU in future without having to make any other changes.

I'd welcome the views/instincts of regular upgraders about how likely this spec would be to support dropping in a 2024 or 2025 mid-range GPU without it becoming e.g. CPU limited?
 
Reasonable suggestions above.
If budget permits, buy the stronger option.
If you do not, you will be second guessing yourself for a long time.

My one added suggestion is to reconsider the monitor options.
Consider buying a single larger 4k monitor for the long haul.
Keep the two current monitors as side monitors.
 
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IanC1972

Honorable
Mar 1, 2017
6
2
10,515
Reasonable suggestions above.
If budget permits, buy the stronger option.
If you do not, you will be second guessing yourself for a long time.

My one added suggestion is to reconsider the monitor options.
Consider buying a single larger 4k monitor for the long haul.
Keep the two current monitors as side monitors.
Thanks, I haven't started fully researching monitor options yet but available space will limit me to either two 27" monitors or a single large/double width one. 1440p would be a good improvement to what I currently have, but I'll of course consider all the options more fully when I come to that.
 
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Thanks, I haven't started fully researching monitor options yet but available space will limit me to either two 27" monitors or a single large/double width one. 1440p would be a good improvement to what I currently have, but I'll of course consider all the options more fully when I come to that.
A single 4k monitor can always run at 1440P.
The advantage of a single monitor is more flexibility in sizing and positioning windows with no edge bars.
Also, even two identical part numbers can have differing color quality.

As to space, does you workplace have the possibility of wall mounting?
A photo might help.
 

IanC1972

Honorable
Mar 1, 2017
6
2
10,515
A single 4k monitor can always run at 1440P.
The advantage of a single monitor is more flexibility in sizing and positioning windows with no edge bars.
Also, even two identical part numbers can have differing color quality.

As to space, does you workplace have the possibility of wall mounting?
A photo might help.
My current space has the desk in front of a window, wall one side and bookcase on the other, so pretty constrained. That said, it's hopefully not permanent as we're currently house-hunting (just haven't found exactly what we're looking for yet), one of several reasons for deferring buying monitors and looking at the PC build first.
 

letmepicyou

Honorable
Mar 5, 2019
230
39
10,620
If this is your budget, I recommend scrapping DDR5 and going with a decent set of DDR4 (the performance difference you'll see between low latency DDR4 and high latency DDR5 is pretty minuscule - you have to spend a LOT on DDR5 to really make a difference) and getting a faster video card.

For the same amount of money, DDR4 and, say, an RTX 3080, will ABSOLUTELY get better frame rates (especially at 4k) than DDR5 and the 6700.
 
My current space has the desk in front of a window, wall one side and bookcase on the other, so pretty constrained. That said, it's hopefully not permanent as we're currently house-hunting (just haven't found exactly what we're looking for yet), one of several reasons for deferring buying monitors and looking at the PC build first.
I agree, defer on the monitor until you know what your space will be like.
If you can, go and see some of the candidate monitors in person.
 
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