How's this for a gaming PC?

I've been out of the loop with regard to PCs for a few years now, so any advice on whether this is a good spec would be much appreciated. I'll be using it for a bit of everything, but the main focus will be gaming. I'm interested in performance, future-proofing and making sure I have adequate cooling (my current PC has had the side panel off for years and still can't really cope with weather above 25°). There are also a few bits I'll be bringing over from the old PC (peripherals, more RAM, hard drives - the SSD here is mainly for Windows, really). Absolute maximum budget is £1,000, but I'd obviously be happy to save money as well if you think I've gone beyond what's necessary anywhere.

Thanks!


Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 452 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Six Core Processor i5-8500 (3.0GHz) 9MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z370-P: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON UV500 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 320MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on DVD
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price £951.00 including VAT and delivery

Can anyone help with this? I really would appreciate some expertise. Looking at other similar builds, I'm also wondering whether the power supply is adequate.

How weird, I remembered replying to this topic.. maybe bad wifi ate my post

What I remember saying was:

I'll be bringing over from the old PC (peripherals, more RAM, hard drives

Click to expand...

What ram, exactly, do you have? if your PC is more than a couple of years old there's a fair chance it has DDR3 RAM, which won't be compatible. However, 8gb is a perfectly respectable starting point. The HDDs and the peripherals ought to be fine.

You're spending quite a lot on a Z370 motherboard without making use of the features it offers. Also the GTX 1060 6gb is close to £100 (?!) more than the 6gb version, and that's just not worth it.

The case isn't great for keeping components cool. If you're keen to have a quiet case then the Fractal R5 would be the way to go.

That SSD is small and slow, and a bit of a waste of space.

Are you sure you need a DVD drive?


Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Six Core Processor i5-8500 (3.0GHz) 9MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF H310M-PLUS GAMING: Micro-ATX, DDR4, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
NOT REQUIRED
1[SUP]st[/SUP] M.2 SSD Drive
250GB WD Black™ M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3000MB/s R | 1600MB/s W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days
Quantity
1

Price £851.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-home-office-pc-ii/Q!q0rgA33R/

Thanks, Oussebon, that's very helpful.

What ram, exactly, do you have? if your PC is more than a couple of years old there's a fair chance it has DDR3 RAM, which won't be compatible. However, 8gb is a perfectly respectable starting point.

Click to expand...

You're right - I realised after my original post that my existing RAM is DDR3, but as you say, 8gb should do for now and I can always get more later.

You're spending quite a lot on a Z370 motherboard without making use of the features it offers.

Click to expand...

I seem to recall the research I had done suggested that Z370 was the way to go for future-proofing - is that not the case?

Also the GTX 1060 6gb is close to £100 (?!) more than the 6gb version, and that's just not worth it.

Click to expand...

Again, this was based on research that indicated that the only purpose of the 3gb version was if you really, really couldn't afford the 6gb one and didn't mind replacing it in a year or two. I initially had the 3gb one selected until my need for a new monitor evaporated and I had a bit of extra cash to play with.

The case isn't great for keeping components cool. If you're keen to have a quiet case then the Fractal R5 would be the way to go.

Click to expand...

Very good tip, thanks.

That SSD is small and slow, and a bit of a waste of space.

Click to expand...

Good to know - I've never had an SSD, so it would still be an improvement, but slow doesn't sound good.

Are you sure you need a DVD drive?

Click to expand...

Non-negotiable, I'm afraid!

I take it from your suggested spec that I'm definitely better off with a 550W power supply rather than 450W?

I seem to recall the research I had done suggested that Z370 was the way to go for future-proofing - is that not the case?

Click to expand...

Not really. I mean, what's futureproof about it? The Z370s don't support any more CPUs than the lower end mobos. And even if they did, by the time you want to upgrade your CPU you'll be looking at future gen stuff that needs new motherboards and probably DDR5 RAM too. It supports faster RAM, but you're not buying that. It supports M.2 SSDs, but so do the cheaper boards. It supports overclocking but you're buying a locked CPU, and you're also lacking other things you'd need for overclocking, which at this budget level it would be highly questionable to buy. it supports Crossfire, but you're not buying multiple AMD GPUs, your PSU wouldn't support crossfire in the future, multi GPU setups are very niche anyway and sometimes poorly supported by games. And if you bought a Z370 capable of supporting SLI, the GTX 1060 doesn't itself support SLI anyway (plus the other caveats about crossfire apply) The Z370P doesn't even have any more sata ports than the cheapo mobos. It has 4 slots for the RAM, but that doesn't matter because if you're buying 1x8gb you'll never use more than 2 slots for gaming (16gb being more than futureproof).

So the same setup with a Z370P would be £48 more, for which you get 1 more M.2 slot. https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z370-pc/K7b7AGCxUb/ That's a lot to pay for an M.2 slot.

And some PCIe expansion slots you're not going to use.

You could go for a Z370P motherboard and 3000Mhz RAM ofc, so you are at least using something the H310s don't support (they do support upto 2666MHz RAM, even if PCS don't sell it with that, however.

But that's another £40. So you're just shy of £100 for a 2nd M.2 slot and faster RAM which in most titles gives no benefit. Though if you're a die-hard WoW player, or certain other titles, then it might make sense. But even then probably not.

If you were going to spend £100 more on something for 'futureproofing', buy an i7 8700. Since the higher frequencies would make more of a difference in most games that cared about CPU/RAM anyway, and the extra threads might futureproof for GPU upgrades in 4-5 years time.

Again, this was based on research that indicated that the only purpose of the 3gb version was if you really, really couldn't afford the 6gb one and didn't mind replacing it in a year or two. I initially had the 3gb one selected until my need for a new monitor evaporated and I had a bit of extra cash to play with.

Click to expand...

I couldn't disagree with that more strongly. The GTX 1060 3gb is only ~10-15% behind the 1060 6gb in performance:


So if you buy a GTX 1060 6gb, it won't actually last you very much longer beyond a GTX 1060 3gb before it stats to struggle with performance. Games generally don't suffer that much of a performance hit even where the VRAM is inadequate, and you can manage texture settings. This is why the GTX 960 2gb and 4gb performed identically almost across the board, and the RX 480 4gb and 8gb likewise with any differences really being down to the 8gb one having faster clocked memory.

If a GTX 1060 6gb was £30 more than a 3gb, then sure. But at the configurator pricing a GTX 1060 3gb is about £214, while a 6gb is £296. Which is a huge sum of money and you are far better off saving the difference to put towards your next GPU upgrade.

If you have your heart set on a GTX 1060 6gb, you should order the system without a GPU and buy and install your own for ~£245. And that's £50 saved towards a future GPU upgrade

I take it from your suggested spec that I'm definitely better off with a 550W power supply rather than 450W?

Click to expand...

It could open up more future GPU upgrade options. Given the modest cost difference I'd say 550W, yeah.

As a small note, the M.2 slot on the H310M-PLUS is PCIe 2.0 x4, so you'd probably get 1500MB/s rather than 3000MB/s read speed. But IOPS wouldn't be affected, write speed would be fine, and it still trounces any Sata SSD, or even slower NVMe SSDs like the SX6000. Though you could stick to an SX6000 which is still faster than Sata SSDs and £25 cheaper still. Gaming performance would be unaffected and either would run laps around a UV500.

That's immensely helpful; thanks for such detailed explanations. Looks like I can save myself some money and maybe splash out on the i7-8700!