Budget work / gaming desktop questions

Swarbs

Member
New PC - mainly work and budget gaming

Hi all

As the title says, I am looking to replace my old (2014 vintage) PC with one which is primarily used as a work PC, but with the ability to run some games without breaking the bank. Not particularly heavy load games (XCom2 WOTC, Total War Attila, ideally Doom Eternal and Wolfenstein Youngblood) and I don't need to run them at max specs, 1080p is usually more than enough.

Would appreciate any comments on the balance, anywhere I'm wasting money / bottlenecking performance. Price is £673 which is a bit over budget, but can't see anywhere to save without risking a bottleneck in performance. I have a storage HDD from an old PC which I will use for documents, pictures etc, so the SSD is just for the OS and games.

Case
PCS 6003B BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i3 Quad Core Processor i3-8100 (3.60GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 UD: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Get an AORUS M3 Gaming Mouse w/ select GIGABYTE Motherboards!
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB AMD RADEON™ RX 580 - HDMI, 3 x DP - DX® 12
Up to 2 Games FREE w/ select RADEON RX GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
500GB SEAGATE BARRACUDA 2.5" SSD, (upto 560MB/sR | 535MB/sW)
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
INTEL STANDARD 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
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days

Cheers!

Swarbs
 

Swarbs

Member
Bump! Anyone have any thoughts / advice? I'm now considering a Ryzen alternative with the same price, only difference would be processor and mobo. Seems like the Ryzen is much faster than the i3 (according to cpubenchmark.net), am I missing something or is it obviously superior as priced the same?

Case
PCS 6003B BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six Core CPU (3.4GHz-3.9GHz/19MB CACHE/AM4)
Tom Clancy's The Division 2 FREE w/ select AMD Ryzen CPUs!
Motherboard
Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE: DDR4, USB 3.1 - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB AMD RADEON™ RX 580 - HDMI, 3 x DP - DX® 12
Up to 2 Games FREE w/ select RADEON RX GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
500GB SEAGATE BARRACUDA 2.5" SSD, (upto 560MB/sR | 535MB/sW)
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
STANDARD AMD 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
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
 

Swarbs

Member
Also ancillary question, is it worth paying the extra for the better motherboard? I don't plan on making any significant upgrades in future, so would I be just as well off with the ASUS PRIME A320M-K for the Ryzen build? It's over £50 cheaper, but will it bottleneck any of the components as a result?
 

Swarbs

Member
Hi all

Hoping you can help me out, I work from home and my 4.5 year old PCS machine is close to giving up the ghost. Looking to build a new machine on a fairly strict budget (originally £500 but now looking like closer to £600) but also want it to be fit for purpose.

The build will mainly be used for working across two screens and multiple web pages, spreadsheets and documents, but with the occasional (or more regular ;) ) bout of gaming. Nothing too heavy, XCom 2, TW: Attila, and in future Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein Youngblood and the like. Will ideally achieve 1080p for those games, don't need much more.

The basic build I have at the moment is:

Ryzen 5 2600 (3.4-3.9Ghz)
8GB Corsair DDR4 2400Mhz (1x8GB)
8GB Radeon RX 580
240GB Adata SSD
Corsair 550W Power Supply
Windows 10 (self install)

£592 with A320M-K mobo, £648 with B450

I plan to add in an existing HDD as a storage drive. My budget is quite strict, was hoping to keep it sub £500, but I think the CPU and GPU are worth the bit extra over the next cheapest options and offer best value in this price range.

I have three main questions:

1. Am I right, is the extra money for the CPU and GPU worth it over other budget options? I'd like the system to be functional for the next few years, is there anywhere I could save without noticeable performance / longevity drop? Or conversely anywhere I could get a significant boost without spending much more.
2. Will the A320M-K bottleneck or limit the system at all? I don't need to overclock, not sure if there's anything else to consider? I know the B450 is superior, but is it £58 worth of superior with that system?
3. Is it worth spending the extra £16 to get 2 x 4GB RAM instead of 1 x 8GB? Again, I know the two sticks is superior to the one, but will it be noticeably superior?

Any advice and guidance appreciated and +repped!

Swarbs
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
1) Yes. From a bang for buck point of view, cheaper CPUs and GPUs lose a lot of performance for relatively little savings.

2) It probably won't affect CPU performance much. But you're losing quite a lot in the way of features and expansion options. It's tough as the B450 does seem to have a bigger price jump right now.

3) If you're pinching pennies as much as possible, I'm going to go with no here. Buying a Ryzen CPU with single channel 'slow' DDR4 is generally seen as a big no-no. But so is buying it with dual channel slow RAM. So whatever you buy you'll eventually want to upgrade to 16gb (2x8gb) fast RAM. And probably in the not too distant future. In which case just keep the £16 back towards that.

What case are you buying the system in?
 

Swarbs

Member
1) Yes. From a bang for buck point of view, cheaper CPUs and GPUs lose a lot of performance for relatively little savings.

2) It probably won't affect CPU performance much. But you're losing quite a lot in the way of features and expansion options. It's tough as the B450 does seem to have a bigger price jump right now.

3) If you're pinching pennies as much as possible, I'm going to go with no here. Buying a Ryzen CPU with single channel 'slow' DDR4 is generally seen as a big no-no. But so is buying it with dual channel slow RAM. So whatever you buy you'll eventually want to upgrade to 16gb (2x8gb) fast RAM. And probably in the not too distant future. In which case just keep the £16 back towards that.

What case are you buying the system in?

Thanks for your help.

For 2) which features will I lose? I probably won't look to upgrade or expand in the next two or three years, and by then even the B450 might be out of date with the latest CPU and GPU. When I looked to upgrade my current system in 2017 the general consensus was that I would need to replace the mobo anyway so the best option would be a brand new system.

For 3) what would you class as 'slow' and 'fast' RAM? I've just had a look and noticed that 2 x 4Gb of 2666 DDR4 is only £5 more expensive than 2 x 4Gb of 2400 DDR4. Would that be a wise investment or would it still bottleneck the Ryzen? The next option up for speed is 2 x 8Gb of 2933 DDR4, but that's an extra £80. Will that provide a noticeable improvement in performance? Most reviews I read implied 8Gb was plenty for most applications and games.

Haven't decided on the case, was probably going to go for the cheapest PCS 6003B. It sits under the desk and I'm not bothered about the appearance, and I read the A320M-K can only support one case fan, so only one fan slot wouldn't be the end of the world. Any advice on case choice?
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
USB 3.1 Gen 2, better onboard sound, 2nd M.2 slot, 2 Sata ports.

You might feel none of those really apply to you, and I was of a similar view with my mobo purchase in 2012. I decided to get the one with 8 sata ports anyway because why not, and ended up populating them all at the end of last year. I'd totally forgotten the sata ports had played any part in my purchasing decision too. Until I filled them and went 'oh yeah, that's what the point of that was'. :)

I'm not 100% on the B450, but it's worth consideration at least.


For 3) what would you class as 'slow' and 'fast' RAM? I've just had a look and noticed that 2 x 4Gb of 2666 DDR4 is only £5 more expensive than 2 x 4Gb of 2400 DDR4. Would that be a wise investment or would it still bottleneck the Ryzen? The next option up for speed is 2 x 8Gb of 2933 DDR4, but that's an extra £80. Will that provide a noticeable improvement in performance? Most reviews I read implied 8Gb was plenty for most applications and games.
In Ryzen the architecture apparently benefits even more than Intel's CPUs from RAM frequency. So I gather. But for Intel or Ryzen, I'd define slow RAM as anything under 2933MHz/3000MHz. Even Intel can benefit a lot from faster RAM in some titles.

Some games will benefit from more than 8gb RAM. Techspot did an updated article on this recently: https://www.techspot.com/article/1770-how-much-ram-pc-gaming/
I'm totally with you that 8gb is fine for now, and that if on a tight budget buying 16gb 2933MHz RAM isn't ideal especially if it means having to cheap out on other components. Also, RAM prices are expected to fall at least a bit over this year.

Anecdotally, gaming + a lot of browser tabs can use a lot of RAM, and 8gb can make alt-tabbing between them less responsive (so I have it on good authority anyway)

So if not buying 16gb of the good stuff, spend the minimum (1x8gb 2400MHz) until you can replace down the line.

The argument in favour of getting 16gb 2933MHz RAM outright is that it's all you'll ever need and you get the performance boost from the start, plus it's probably still a bit cheaper than replacing in the long run. To present both sides.

Haven't decided on the case, was probably going to go for the cheapest PCS 6003B. It sits under the desk and I'm not bothered about the appearance, and I read the A320M-K can only support one case fan, so only one fan slot wouldn't be the end of the world. Any advice on case choice?
Case fans aren't about the motherboard as they can just be connected to the PSU. Connecting them to mobo fan headers are for PWM fans which at this budget level isn't something that's worth looking into.

I'd strongly recommend against the cheap case. Perhaps moreso than any other component. Reason being it keep your components cool, so aids performance and lifespan, and is by fan the biggest pest to upgrade should you find out it doesn't meet a future need (e.g. doesn't fit your GPU upgrade, doesn't cool your GPU upgrade, doesn't fit your CPU cooler upgrade (for when you replace your CPU and mobo), doesn't fit as much storage. And it probably has better dust filters.

The Corsair Spec 04 would be a fair choice, but it has fewer fans pre-installed which for the £9 price difference means it's a false economy.

So that might look something like:

Case
FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six Core CPU (3.4GHz-3.9GHz/19MB CACHE/AM4)
--Tom Clancy's The Division 2 FREE w/ select AMD Ryzen CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME A320M-K: Micro-ATX, AM4, USB 3.0, 6GB/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB AMD RADEON™ RX 580 - HDMI, 3 x DP - DX® 12
--Up to 2 Games FREE w/ select RADEON RX GPUs!
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Storage Drive
240GB ADATA SU650 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 450MB/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
STANDARD AMD 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/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £595.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-pc/ajWSQyq7Vc/
 
Last edited:

Swarbs

Member
Thanks for your reply, great detailed information which has really helped make it clearer :)

Can't honestly see me ever using all the ports on the A320, the sound would be a nice benefit, but probably not worth the extra £50. Shame PCS don't do more budget B450 models or even a B350 as I might have made a smaller jump up.

For the RAM you are probably right - my current system has 8GB of DDR3 1600 (2x4Gb) with AMD FX-8350 and a 2Gb R9 270X and that has always suffered with lots of tabs open and other programs and games. So I might just bite the bullet and go for the 16GB of 2933. Even if it's cheaper to buy good RAM in a year or so, that kind of defeats the point of buying a good new system right now then slowing everything down with too little RAM.

For the case, what about the Cyclone Gaming Case? That one is listed as having three fans as well, not sure if that means slots for fans or preinstalled fans?

Also I notice you have only left the 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT on the spec. Is that because the mobo has built in wifi, or would I need to add a PCI-E card for wifi? And obviously select the silver warranty option just in case.

Cheers
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I'm pretty sure the cost difference between the A320 and B450 was smaller. Prices do vary. Perhaps the baseline of the A320 went down, or the B450 is just more expensive right now.

It's not like the R9 270x sucks. It's still ~GTX 1050 sort of area, so enough to play modern games. You could always get a system without a GPU, recycle your 270x, and see whether GTX 1100 series or Navi offer more bang for buck later in the year GPU wise.

The Cyclone has 3 fans, but it's not just fan count, it's airflow and design. The Cyclone is an OEM case so you won't find reviews of it (unlike the Focus G which is sold not just to companies like PCS but directly to end users and so has loads of reviews). It's better than the cheapest cases as far as I can tell, but I do think the Fractal Focus G is a safer bet as at least you know what you're getting. The Cyclone should be okay, but ultimately I can't tell you what it is.

The build I posted has no wifi so you either need a wifi card (I suggest AC1200) or a USB wifi adapter you can get from anywhere you like.
 

Swarbs

Member
Not sure on the mobo pricing, but if I open your spec and change from the A320 to the B450 the price jumps from £595 to £651 so it seems to be a £56 price difference.

Thanks very much for the advice on the GPU - I assumed a 5 year old GPU would be completely useless nowadays, but it does seem to benchmark around the GTX 1050, albeit around 50% below the RX580. Using an older GPU won't bottleneck the RAM / CPU at all I assume?

The only other consideration there is that I plan to give my old system to my daughter for school work, and don't think the old Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AM3+ mobo has onboard graphics. But I can probably pick up a cheap VGA card or use my old USB / VGA adaptor and save around a couple of hundred quid until the upgrade is necessary.

You're probably right on the Fractal case - no point buying a top end processor and fast RAM just to clog it all up with poor airflow.

For the wifi card, will the AC1200 not be bottlenecked anyway by the modem? I have 15Mbps fibre connection, and the modem is around two metres from my PC (unfortunately across a doorway so a wired connection would be hard to do), so limited potential for interference from other devices. The 867Mbps of the AC1200 seems a bit like overkill to me?
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Personally I would always buy the fastest RAM I could afford. CPU performance is of course of prime importance but ALL data and instructions are fetched from RAM and even though CPUs use efficient pipelining techniques you want the CPU/RAM interface operating as fast as possible.
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
The only other consideration there is that I plan to give my old system to my daughter for school work, and don't think the old Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AM3+ mobo has onboard graphics. But I can probably pick up a cheap VGA card or use my old USB / VGA adaptor and save around a couple of hundred quid until the upgrade is necessary.
These days it's the CPUs that supply (or not) the onboard graphics, not the motherboards, but yes you can pick up a Geforce 710 or similar for £20 or something.

Plus it's handy to have a cheap spare GPU around in case another GPU dies and you need to test. The Ryzen CPUs don't have onboard graphics either as you probably know.

Thanks very much for the advice on the GPU - I assumed a 5 year old GPU would be completely useless nowadays, but it does seem to benchmark around the GTX 1050, albeit around 50% below the RX580. Using an older GPU won't bottleneck the RAM / CPU at all I assume?
The strict answer to your question is yes, in gaming an R9 270x would 'bottleneck' the CPU and RAM. But so would an RX 580. And depending on the game and the settings you play it at, so would an RTX 2080 ti. It's normal to be GPU-bound in gaming. An older GPU won't be a problem for general office use.

For the wifi card, will the AC1200 not be bottlenecked anyway by the modem? I have 15Mbps fibre connection, and the modem is around two metres from my PC (unfortunately across a doorway so a wired connection would be hard to do), so limited potential for interference from other devices. The 867Mbps of the AC1200 seems a bit like overkill to me?
The AC1200 is the cheapest card that gives you a choice of 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. For the price difference between the cheapest card, I'd say it's worth having the choice.
 

Swarbs

Member
Personally I would always buy the fastest RAM I could afford. CPU performance is of course of prime importance but ALL data and instructions are fetched from RAM and even though CPUs use efficient pipelining techniques you want the CPU/RAM interface operating as fast as possible.

Thanks, I think that's what I'm leaning towards - if I stick with the old GPU then I can get 16Gb of 2933MHz without breaking the budget.
 

Swarbs

Member
These days it's the CPUs that supply (or not) the onboard graphics, not the motherboards, but yes you can pick up a Geforce 710 or similar for £20 or something.

Plus it's handy to have a cheap spare GPU around in case another GPU dies and you need to test. The Ryzen CPUs don't have onboard graphics either as you probably know.

Ok, the old machine is an AMD FX-8350 so no onboard graphics there either. Will pick up a cheap card, or will look in the attic and see if one of my really old (like 2006 old!) has a graphics card.

The AC1200 is the cheapest card that gives you a choice of 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. For the price difference between the cheapest card, I'd say it's worth having the choice.

Sounds good, with the saving from reusing the old GPU I can definitely afford it. So new spec is:

Case FRACTAL FOCUS G BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Processor (CPU) AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six Core CPU (3.4GHz-3.9GHz/19MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard ASUS® PRIME A320M-K: Micro-ATX, AM4, USB 3.0, 6GB/s
Memory (RAM) 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2933MHz ~ (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
1st Storage Drive 240GB ADATA SU650 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 450MB/W)
Power Supply CORSAIR 650W VS SERIES™ VS-650 POWER SUPPLY
Processor Cooling STANDARD AMD 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 WIRELESS 802.11 AC1200 867Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Price £545.00

Probably going with the 650W supply to give a bit of room for upgrades, and also as the old GPU might be a bit more power hungry (current PC has a 650W supply). It's only an extra tenner, so not much wasted if it's too much power!

Does that look like a good build for my bucks with the 2GB R9 270X transferred in?
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I wouldn't bother with the 650W VS series. 550W is generously more than enough. I generally say that if spending the extra £10 on the 650W VS over the 550W VS, one may as well spend the extra to get the TXm series PSU which is better quality, more efficient, modular, apparently quieter, etc

A 270X wouldn't draw much more than 200W even on Furmark.

It looks fine, including for adding in the old GPU
 

Swarbs

Member
I wouldn't bother with the 650W VS series. 550W is generously more than enough. I generally say that if spending the extra £10 on the 650W VS over the 550W VS, one may as well spend the extra to get the TXm series PSU which is better quality, more efficient, modular, apparently quieter, etc

A 270X wouldn't draw much more than 200W even on Furmark.

It looks fine, including for adding in the old GPU

Sounds good to me, the daughter's old machine is getting my 2005 vintage GeForce 6600 SLI 256MB graphics card, so it might as well be integrated graphics :D

Order placed, here we go!

Thanks again for your help
 
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