Custom PC Build Help

[F12DDE]

I'm looking at getting a new custom PC in the next couple of months, and not sure where to start and what's the best bits out nowadays

I last had a custom PC 10 odd years ago (had a OC GTX780 - I think they're in the 3000's now!), which blue screened on me 5/6 years ago, and I haven't had one since as I got a Playstation to play with some mates, and a macbook to do PC bits.

Intel CPUs always used to be the way forwards, but now I'm seeing that AMD are better? - genuinely got no idea as I haven't been keeping up.

Will mainly use it for general browsing/video streaming and gaming, with the occasional bit of work being done on it when needed. I enjoy playing games such as Warzone, older Battlefield titles (BF4/1/5 - we don't speak about 2042), War Thunder and less intensive graphically intensive games such as Football Manager.

I am however wanting to get into Photography, so editing photos on a programme such as Lightroom/Photoshop would be nice

I would say that my budget would be around £2k - although I've got no idea if that's realistic for what my ideal usage is.

Any ideas on where I should start?

Thanks

[grumbledoak]

This online builder will steer you to compatible bits -
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/

You are probably best picking Intel vs AMD first as that will limit motherboard choices. The rest of the bits all plug in to standard holes.

Try the guides -
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/guide/

[mmm-five]

Have you already got monitor(s) you're planning on using with it, or are you including new monitor(s) in your budget?

Either way, what resolution, refresh rate are they? Are they equally suitable for gaming as well as colour reproduction for photo-editing?

If you haven't got any monitor(s), then what resolution/refresh rate are you wishing to game at?

I've got no problem suggesting either an Intel or AMD build at the moment...but would not go for anything less than the current generation 12th Gen Intel (e.g. 12400/12400F - with/without iGPU) or Ryzen 3 AMD (e.g. 5600G/X - with/without iGPU).

Edited by mmm-five on Monday 24th January 19:15

[F12DDE]

grumbledoak said:

This online builder will steer you to compatible bits -
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/

You are probably best picking Intel vs AMD first as that will limit motherboard choices. The rest of the bits all plug in to standard holes.

Try the guides -
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/guide/

Never knew anything like this existed, thank you!

[grumbledoak]

F12DDE said:

Never knew anything like this existed, thank you!

Welcome!

Post the links to your list for suggestions as you go. It's always fun to spend other people's money!

[F12DDE]

mmm-five said:

Have you already got monitor(s) you're planning on using with it, or are you including new monitor(s) in your budget?

Either way, what resolution, refresh rate are they? Are they equally suitable for gaming as well as colour reproduction for photo-editing?

If you haven't got any monitor(s), then what resolution/refresh rate are you wishing to game at?

I've got no problem suggesting either an Intel or AMD build at the moment...but would not go for anything less than the current generation 12th Gen Intel (e.g. 12400/12400F - with/without iGPU) or Ryzen 3 AMD (e.g. 5600G/X - with/without iGPU).

Edited by mmm-five on Monday 24th January 19:15

This is an Amazon link for the monitor I am currently using, I've never had any issues with it whilst on my Playstation, don't know if it would be any good for Photo editing though. 1ms response, 144hz 1440p - Never had a need for a 4k monitor before, so never got one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-VG270UPbmiipx-FreeSy...

Thanks for the advice on the processors also!

[eliot]

I’ve always built my own pc’s and use the above pcpartpicker site - but my last experience of building a decent spec pc resulted in weeks of problems with seemingly incompatible (despite checking all the datasheets) and/or multiple bad components - my supplier ebuyer were extremely good and didn’t really quibble despite sending a cpu and mobo back 2 or 3 times and finally just refunded me and I gave up.

ended up using these guys who almost no different to diy building in terms of cost and everything comes out the door with a full burn in test - so i would use them again.

https://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/

[dalzo]

Pcpartpicker is great , both for compatibility and inspiration on builds.

Another idea would be to follow gpu alert pages as you may be quick enough, I managed to get a 3090 into my basket(although I didn’t buy) and it was about £600 cheaper than what people were trying to re-sell them for.

iirc amd are better for multitasking and intel are just straight up power. I have a 3700x and it has been bang on for everything I’ve ever needed it to do (mostly gaming)

[mmm-five]

You may be able to pick up a pre-built from one of the PC builders (not the corporate sellers like Dell, HP, Lenovo, et al) much quick than customising everything and waiting for parts availability...but if you do go the pre-built way then ensure you know exactly what components are in there as some will give you headlines of a 3070 GPU and 5800X CPU, but have a cheap, non-modular, low-powered PSU that will only just provide enough power (it won't break, but it won't be operating at peak efficiency either, so may be hot & noisy).

There are a lot of system builders, and I've not tried all of them, so can't really recommend one over the other. But you may want to be going down the self-build route anyway...just check everything fits, and still fits when you put another component in!

I'll not specify any particular brands (except for example sake), just the spec of components I'd suggest:

Component	Suggestion
Case	RGB or non-RGB is personal choice, but ensure the case has plenty of ventilation (i.e. mesh front that you can see all the way through and out the back - if you are going RGB, then either buy a case with the addressable/controllable RGB fans & controllers included, or buy a bare case and get a fan/controller kit yourself - you don't want lots of different fans/controllers/software to confuse everything
CPU	Intel i5 12400/F or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X/G (unless you're planning on doing a fair amount of photo/video editing or plan to play MSFS)
GPU	Nvidia RTX3070 or AMD 6800 for 144hz 1440p gaming (which is what I'm running) - of course I can't guarantee you'll get 144fps in every game on ultra settings, but you can have a look at youtube for an idea of what FPS your specific games will get on various GPUs (Gamers Nexus is good for that), and adjust your settings to balance the performance/quality to your liking.
Motherboard	mid-tier Z660/Z690 (DDR4 version) for the Intel and a mid-tier B550/X570 for the AMD - just make sure the case supports the size of motherboard you want - probably an ATX, so watch out for mini-ITX, mini-ATX, micro-ATX, etc. and vice versa) - the smaller-than-ATX ones just mean you'll likely get less RAM slots, m.3 slots, etc.
RAM	16GB will probably be fine for gaming and light photo-editing, but ensure you get it as 2 x 8GB stick as both CPU work better with dual-channel RAM - and you'll want 3200MHZ DDR4 (DDR5 is not worth it at the moment)
PSU	650W, semi/fully-modular minimum as the 3070 by itself can peak at 350W, and you want some headroom for the CPU and efficiency (however, if you're planning on going to 4k in the next year or so, then you may want to go for a 750/850W)
Cooler	standard AMD cooler is fine for the 5600/5600G - but there's no harm in fitting something better such as one of the Noctua tower air coolers
Boot Drive	very fast 500GB m.2 SSD (something in the 5000mbps range, such as a Samsung 980 Pro or Seagate Firecuda 520) for super-speedy boots and quick OS operations, and somewhere to keep your apps (not games) - keeping games elsewhere will mean you won't have to reinstall all the games again if you need to rebuild your OS drive
Games Drive	you may want a single, slower 1TB+ m.2 SSD (1500-3000mbps, such as an Intel 670p or Samsung 970 Evo) or SATA SSD (500mbps) for you games installations - the SATA one is much slower, and no cheaper, but the motherboard choice will dictate whether you have space for 1 or 2 m.2 drives
Storage Drive	again, depends on how much 'slow' storage you need for photo editing, video, music, etc. - I'd suggest at least 2TB SATA HDD, but you can always leave this off and pick up a large USB-connected external storage solution afterwards
Networking	depending on the motherboard, you may or may not need an extra card for wi-fi/bluetooth - not expensive, but you'll want something with at least wifi 6 and bluetooth 5 (such as the Intel AX200)
CD_DVD_Blu-Ray	internal ones will really limit your case options, so I'd recommend an external slim/full-size desktop one

[Alias218]

Although you don't really need a new monitor, I would suggest an ultrawide (3440x1440) as the extra screen space would be great for your photo editing. Even more so a curved ultrawide. I have a 100Hz 3440x1440 MSI monitor and it's glorious. A couple of my friends have the Gigabyte equivalent that is 144Hz - I hated the stand on the Gigabyte so went for the lower refresh and the nicer, metal stand of the MSI. Silly I know.

MSI: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-34-optix-mag342...

Gigabyte: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/34-gigabyte-g34wqc...

[F12DDE]

eliot said:

I’ve always built my own pc’s and use the above pcpartpicker site - but my last experience of building a decent spec pc resulted in weeks of problems with seemingly incompatible (despite checking all the datasheets) and/or multiple bad components - my supplier ebuyer were extremely good and didn’t really quibble despite sending a cpu and mobo back 2 or 3 times and finally just refunded me and I gave up.

ended up using these guys who almost no different to diy building in terms of cost and everything comes out the door with a full burn in test - so i would use them again.

https://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/

Had a look on their website and they seem to have some nice prebuilt systems that you can still customise, and also read that you can send the tower back to them to do upgrades when you want to and they'll install it, which is quite handy to know

Thank you for the recommendation!

[F12DDE]

dalzo said:

Pcpartpicker is great , both for compatibility and inspiration on builds.

Another idea would be to follow gpu alert pages as you may be quick enough, I managed to get a 3090 into my basket(although I didn’t buy) and it was about £600 cheaper than what people were trying to re-sell them for.

iirc amd are better for multitasking and intel are just straight up power. I have a 3700x and it has been bang on for everything I’ve ever needed it to do (mostly gaming)

This is what I done for my PS5, followed a page on twitter for stock alerts, so could be useful if I build myself.

May go for a prebuilt system that I can customise as mentioned above, as saves me some hassle on putting things together wrong / getting angry / throwing it at the wall once I've had enough!

Thank you for advice!

[F12DDE]

mmm-five said:

You may be able to pick up a pre-built from one of the PC builders (not the corporate sellers like Dell, HP, Lenovo, et al) much quick than customising everything and waiting for parts availability...but if you do go the pre-built way then ensure you know exactly what components are in there as some will give you headlines of a 3070 GPU and 5800X CPU, but have a cheap, non-modular, low-powered PSU that will only just provide enough power (it won't break, but it won't be operating at peak efficiency either, so may be hot & noisy).

There are a lot of system builders, and I've not tried all of them, so can't really recommend one over the other. But you may want to be going down the self-build route anyway...just check everything fits, and still fits when you put another component in!

I'll not specify any particular brands (except for example sake), just the spec of components I'd suggest:

Component	Suggestion
Case	RGB or non-RGB is personal choice, but ensure the case has plenty of ventilation (i.e. mesh front that you can see all the way through and out the back - if you are going RGB, then either buy a case with the addressable/controllable RGB fans & controllers included, or buy a bare case and get a fan/controller kit yourself - you don't want lots of different fans/controllers/software to confuse everything
CPU	Intel i5 12400/F or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X/G (unless you're planning on doing a fair amount of photo/video editing or plan to play MSFS)
GPU	Nvidia RTX3070 or AMD 6800 for 144hz 1440p gaming (which is what I'm running) - of course I can't guarantee you'll get 144fps in every game on ultra settings, but you can have a look at youtube for an idea of what FPS your specific games will get on various GPUs (Gamers Nexus is good for that), and adjust your settings to balance the performance/quality to your liking.
Motherboard	mid-tier Z660/Z690 (DDR4 version) for the Intel and a mid-tier B550/X570 for the AMD - just make sure the case supports the size of motherboard you want - probably an ATX, so watch out for mini-ITX, mini-ATX, micro-ATX, etc. and vice versa) - the smaller-than-ATX ones just mean you'll likely get less RAM slots, m.3 slots, etc.
RAM	16GB will probably be fine for gaming and light photo-editing, but ensure you get it as 2 x 8GB stick as both CPU work better with dual-channel RAM - and you'll want 3200MHZ DDR4 (DDR5 is not worth it at the moment)
PSU	650W, semi/fully-modular minimum as the 3070 by itself can peak at 350W, and you want some headroom for the CPU and efficiency (however, if you're planning on going to 4k in the next year or so, then you may want to go for a 750/850W)
Cooler	standard AMD cooler is fine for the 5600/5600G - but there's no harm in fitting something better such as one of the Noctua tower air coolers
Boot Drive	very fast 500GB m.2 SSD (something in the 5000mbps range, such as a Samsung 980 Pro or Seagate Firecuda 520) for super-speedy boots and quick OS operations, and somewhere to keep your apps (not games) - keeping games elsewhere will mean you won't have to reinstall all the games again if you need to rebuild your OS drive
Games Drive	you may want a single, slower 1TB+ m.2 SSD (1500-3000mbps, such as an Intel 670p or Samsung 970 Evo) or SATA SSD (500mbps) for you games installations - the SATA one is much slower, and no cheaper, but the motherboard choice will dictate whether you have space for 1 or 2 m.2 drives
Storage Drive	again, depends on how much 'slow' storage you need for photo editing, video, music, etc. - I'd suggest at least 2TB SATA HDD, but you can always leave this off and pick up a large USB-connected external storage solution afterwards
Networking	depending on the motherboard, you may or may not need an extra card for wi-fi/bluetooth - not expensive, but you'll want something with at least wifi 6 and bluetooth 5 (such as the Intel AX200)
CD_DVD_Blu-Ray	internal ones will really limit your case options, so I'd recommend an external slim/full-size desktop one

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to write this out, Its really helpful for myself, and potentially anyone else in the same boat as myself who is looking at a custom PC!

I quite like the idea mentioned above, where I customise a prebuilt system so I don't have to faff about doing things wrong myself, I also found another website called PC Specialist, which looks quite good where you can put all your own bits in and they build it for you.

I'll be checking back to this post when it does come to the time to order to make sure I know what I'm getting, and if it's good enough for my needs!

[F12DDE]

Alias218 said:

Although you don't really need a new monitor, I would suggest an ultrawide (3440x1440) as the extra screen space would be great for your photo editing. Even more so a curved ultrawide. I have a 100Hz 3440x1440 MSI monitor and it's glorious. A couple of my friends have the Gigabyte equivalent that is 144Hz - I hated the stand on the Gigabyte so went for the lower refresh and the nicer, metal stand of the MSI. Silly I know.

MSI: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-34-optix-mag342...

Gigabyte: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/34-gigabyte-g34wqc...

I have seen these wide monitors when in tech shops before, and never been sure on them for my uses to be honest! When watching something on Youtube or Netflix for example, does the picture not get stretched out on the screen, making it look weird, or does it come up at a normal display ratio with black bars on either side?

I understand that they would be good for photo editing as you say, as more room to see etc, but I never been sure on them for normal browsing/gaming use? I also assume that the PC would have to be more powerful to run a screen like this in comparison to a monitor like I have now.

I may be wrong as I've never used one, would be interested to hear how you've been getting on with it for general use?

[mmm-five]

F12DDE said:

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to write this out, Its really helpful for myself, and potentially anyone else in the same boat as myself who is looking at a custom PC!

I quite like the idea mentioned above, where I customise a prebuilt system so I don't have to faff about doing things wrong myself, I also found another website called PC Specialist, which looks quite good where you can put all your own bits in and they build it for you.

I'll be checking back to this post when it does come to the time to order to make sure I know what I'm getting, and if it's good enough for my needs!

It's PC Specialist that I got mine from...but I didn't want to be seen as recommending one builder over another, as I've only got experience of the one builder.

They do have a support forum (staffed by volunteers)...which offers suggestions and tips for what will/will not work, or what simply isn't good VFM.

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/

If you build something on the configuration tool, you can then post it (with the link to the config, your uses and monitor specs) asking if there's anything that's unbalanced...e.g. too low a PSU for a CPU/GPU combo, or even too much of something where they think you can save money.

[Alias218]

F12DDE said:

I have seen these wide monitors when in tech shops before, and never been sure on them for my uses to be honest! When watching something on Youtube or Netflix for example, does the picture not get stretched out on the screen, making it look weird, or does it come up at a normal display ratio with black bars on either side?

I understand that they would be good for photo editing as you say, as more room to see etc, but I never been sure on them for normal browsing/gaming use? I also assume that the PC would have to be more powerful to run a screen like this in comparison to a monitor like I have now.

I may be wrong as I've never used one, would be interested to hear how you've been getting on with it for general use?

I’ve not tried Netflix, but with YouTube for instance you simply get more white space at either side - the same for any website in fact (Netflix too, I’m willing to bet). The real benefit comes from being able to pull up two apps side by side (web browser, MS Office, Photoshop etc.).

In games, most of the time your field of view is enhanced. Only one game I’ve come across so far has locked the aspect ratio resulting in black bars due to it being an e-sports game and the developers not wanting to confer any advantage to those with ultrawides.


Your 2560x1440 is 3.7 million pixels. A 3440x1440 ultrawide is 4.9 million pixels. A 4K is 8.3 million pixels. In terms of the PC required to run it, mine is a AMD 2700X couple to a GTX1080 - a few years old - and it has no trouble. I made the mistake of buying a 4K monitor last time and that was a struggle. Seeing as you’re buying new with some of the latest hardware, you’ll have no trouble.

[speedchick]

I got my shiny new one from PC Specialist. Its probably over specced for what I need, but my hubby is a gamer and he helped pick the bits. The conflict thing they do is good as it told us we had the wrong power for the board. I also ordered an Nvidia card, which was out of stock, so went fir the Radeon one, by the time they got to building, that one went out of stock and I got the original one instead (apparently the nvidia was better!).

Can't fault them, helpful, kept me updated at all times, only issue I had was that I ordered it I October and it didn't go to build stage till beginning of Dec. But then I guess they had a lot of Christmas pressies ordered. Build stage to delivery was less than a week!

[mmm-five]

speedchick said:

I got my shiny new one from PC Specialist. Its probably over specced for what I need, but my hubby is a gamer and he helped pick the bits. The conflict thing they do is good as it told us we had the wrong power for the board. I also ordered an Nvidia card, which was out of stock, so went fir the Radeon one, by the time they got to building, that one went out of stock and I got the original one instead (apparently the nvidia was better!).

Can't fault them, helpful, kept me updated at all times, only issue I had was that I ordered it I October and it didn't go to build stage till beginning of Dec. But then I guess they had a lot of Christmas pressies ordered. Build stage to delivery was less than a week!

Mine was initially configured in August 2020, and before it went to build the new GPUs came out, quickly followed by the Zen 3 CPUs...so I changed all again.

Even then, my original RTX3080 and 5600X option was flipped to a RTX3070 and 5800X in order to guarantee a Christmas delivery, as I needed proof of delivery before year end to claim on our company's WFH expenses offer or I'd loose the £1000 offered (was for desk, chair, monitor, etc.).

At the time there were lots of waiting lists, pre-orders, and such, but despite being told there was plenty for my build, there was always one item OOS that was holding it up.

Did treat myself to a Herman Miller Mirra 2 chair though - and glad I did as I'm spending 10 hours a day in if for work (and a fair bit more for gaming outside of work hours).

Ended up with:

• Corsair iCue 220T Airflow (went for a small case for space reasons, but could easily have had the 465X or 5000D)
• Asus RoG Strix X570-F
• AMD Ryzen 3 5800X
• Zotac RTX3070 (now swapped for a RTX3080Ti FE)
• 32GB Corsair Vengeance 3600MHz RAM (non-RGB as it stops you being able top mount the AIO)
• 1TB Samsung 980 Pro m.2 SSD (since added a few more m.2 via an 4-slot Asus Hyper-X add-in-card)
• 2TB Sabrent Rocket Q m.2 SSD
• 4TB Seagate Ironwolf pro HDD
• Corsair H100i RGB Platinum AIO
• Corsair 1000RMx PSU (was originally on the 750w, then the 850w, but they kept going out of stock)
• Intel AX200 wi-fi/bluetooth add-in-card
• Corsair K75 RGB gaming keyboard
• Corsair Commander Pro to control both fan speed as well as RGB

Just waiting for a nice 32" 4k monitor to take my fancy and I'll be done - no space for an ultrawide, otherwise I'd already have something like a Odyssey G9...and whilst I have nothing against curved monitors, I don't like heavily-curved monitors.

Edited by mmm-five on Wednesday 26th January 13:28

[loudlashadjuster]

mmm-five said:

• Corsair iCue 220T Airflow (went for a small case for space reasons, but could easily have had the 465X or 5000D)
• Asus RoG Strix X570-F
• AMD Ryzen 3 5800X
• Zotac RTX3070 (now swapped for a RTX3080Ti FE)
• 32GB Corsair Vengeance 3600MHz RAM (non-RGB as it stops you being able top mount the AIO)
• 1TB Samsung 980 Pro m.2 SSD (since added a few more m.2 via an 4-slot Asus Hyper-X add-in-card)
• 2TB Sabrent Rocket Q m.2 SSD
• 4TB Seagate Ironwolf pro HDD
• Corsair H100i RGB Platinum AIO
• Corsair 1000RMx PSU (was originally on the 750w, then the 850w, but they kept going out of stock)
• Intel AX200 wi-fi/bluetooth add-in-card
• Corsair K75 RGB gaming keyboard
• Corsair Commander Pro to control both fan speed as well as RGB

Very similar to my spec, and at about the same time. I wanted a 5600X but had to go for a 5800X because they were actually available. Held off buying a 3070 at launch because of crazy prices until it became obvious they weren't going down in price (hah!) so plumped for the first i could get my hands on in March, also a Zotac. It's earned its keep mining away though, just wish I'd bought in November when I ordered the rest of the kit.

Rest is

Gigabyte X570 AORUS ULTRA
Noctua NH-U12S
32GB Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black, PC4-28800 Ryzen optimised
Fractal Design Define 7
660W Fractal Design Ion+ Platinum
2TB Samsung 970 Evo that I already had

Monitor is only a 1920 x 1200 HP, but it is also hooked up to a 40" 4K Panasonic for some games

Has laughed at everything I've thrown at it in the last 13 months.