PC Building Thread

[BFTD]

There's bound to be a thread for folk to ask for recommendations on the best value and/or performance parts for building/adding to PCs, but I couldn't find it, soz. Let me know where it is and I'll close this one.

The wean's birthday is coming up, and just about the only thing he's expressed interest in since Christmas (other than fecking Roblox cards) was an Oculus Rift, so we've gone halfers on one with some of his other relatives. I figured that his ancient Q6600/Crossfire 5770 PC wouldn't be up to the task, so I thought he could have my main PC until I upgraded, but it turns out that isn't up to scratch either. So, the wean's getting a new PC, the jammy b*****d.

I'm totally out of the loop with regard to current PC standards, so I'd appreciate some pointers on what parts hit the sweet spot with regard to price/performance. We've probably got between £500-£1,000 to spend on it. It looks like the Geforce 1060 is the best value video card in our price range, and 16GB is the standard for RAM at the moment, although the prices seem to have doubled since the last PC I built. I'm clueless on the best value CPU to buy at the moment, and could really use advice regarding a quality, stable motherboard that would cope with upgrades in a few years' time. I've also got no idea how important RAM speed is to a PC's performance these days; obviously faster would be better, but will there be much of a noticeable difference in actual use? We ought to be able to re-use the rest of his existing PC, although I might need to check the power rating of the PSU he's using just now.

Any help greatly appreciated.

[Gaz]

Look into AMD Ryzen CPUs. Great performance at a great price.

Cryptomining has really had an effect on the prices of GPUs in particular.

Have you looked at PC Part Picker? It lets you select what you want and makes sure that there are no conflicts.

[supermik]

If you are in Alloa then take a look at https://www.isilicon.co.uk/

They are based in Whins Rd and they can make pc’s to order for games playing.

[Lord Snooty]

Check out Carey Holzman on Youtube. He's an American guy who builds PCs for a living.  Knows his stuff.  Here is a link to a 2016 video. You may find more recent ones but it is a good guide.

Carey Holzman

[BFTD]

Thanks folks. I'm leaning towards these parts at the moment:

• MSI X370 Gaming Plus - you can pick them up for about £70 at the moment, they seem like they do everything the kid would need without going overboard, and seem to perform OK in the tests I've seen. The X370 chipset also provides 6 onboard USB 3 ports, and the kid will need a few of them for Oculus Rift, and other stuff.
• AMD Ryzen 5 1600X - looks like AMD have the edge in the mid-range CPU category again, and this one gives the best value at around £145. It ought to give enough performance for what the wean needs now, and I can always bung in a Ryzen 7 in a couple of years, if necessary.
• 16GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM - whichever's cheapest; they seem to change daily. Apparently the faster RAM speeds don't make a massive difference to performance. RAM prices are mental just now; it's going to set us back about £150 for a pair of the cheaper 8GB sticks.
• Geforce GTX 1060 3GB - just a cheapie generic that hasn't picked up many bad reviews. This Palit one seems alright at £180.
• Oh, and he wants a purple case too, despite the old one being perfectly OK. Kids. His first choice wasn't big enough, but he's happy enough with this one.

That PC Part Picker looks useful; gives you an estimate of power usage too, like a site I used to use years ago. I can't say I've ever been in the position where a decent 450W PSU wasn't enough to cope with what I'm putting in, but maybe it's more useful to Hellbhoy, judging by his new thread  

[BFTD]

That's it all ordered, although I swapped over the Ryzen 5 1600X for a plain Ryzen 5 1600; the latter comes with the (apparently decent) AMD Wraith cooler that would probably cost an extra £30 or so, and can easily be overclocked to run at similar speeds, from what I've read. If I was going to spend the extra £30, I'd have been as well spending it on the 2600/2600X, considering it comes with the cooler too, but the 1600 will do everything the kid needs for now.

Now I just need to find the money to replace my old Radeon 7870 with one of these Geforce 1060 doohickeys  

[Homer Thompson]

Anyone got any advice on buying an FX8350 Black edition versus a Ryzen 7?

Looking at building a PC for Mr X jnr for Christmas and these are the two CPU options. The Ryzen 7 is about £80 more expensive but it will also mean spending another £70ish on DDR4 RAM. Trying to work out if its worth spending the extra or not.

Already pretty much decided on a second hand RX480 for the GFX card

ETA - turns out I can get a low end Ryzen 5 for pretty much the same price as the FX8350, so the whole lot would be around £70 more. Tempted just to go for that

[Homer Thompson]

1 hour ago, Mr X said:

Anyone got any advice on buying an FX8350 Black edition versus a Ryzen 7?

Looking at building a PC for Mr X jnr for Christmas and these are the two CPU options. The Ryzen 7 is about £80 more expensive but it will also mean spending another £70ish on DDR4 RAM. Trying to work out if its worth spending the extra or not.

Already pretty much decided on a second hand RX480 for the GFX card

ETA - turns out I can get a low end Ryzen 5 for pretty much the same price as the FX8350, so the whole lot would be around £70 more. Tempted just to go for that

Thanks for everyones help  Belated greeny though for BFTD on the part picker recommendation. Sourced a few things cheaper and checked the compatibility.

This is what Ive gone for

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/andycqos/saved/#view=Ktmjyc

I'll pick up the RX480 off ebay, hopefully for £140 or less.

Mr X Jnr will now have a better PC than me