PC SPECIALIST Vortex Fusion Extreme II

Hi, excuse the long winded question but I really need some help to decide.

I can pick up the above PC using my staff discount at PC World for £1,250 I think this is a decent price for an i7-8700 and RTX 2070 BUT I'm worried that the other parts used, SSD/Cooler/Mobo/etc aren't going to be great and was basically wondering if any one had one of these things and knew that makers were used?

Alternatively, I've priced up a PC via PC SPECIALISTS website which has the same spec, except an RTX 2060 instead of the 2070 BUT uses all the best manufacturers for the ram/ssd/cooler/mobo etc.

Case
COOLERMASTER MASTERBOX MB600L CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor i7-8700 (3.2GHz) 12MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z370-P II: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2060 - HDMI, DP, DVI - VR Ready!
Get Battlefield V -OR- Anthem with select NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
250GB Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
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
CoolerMaster Hyper 212X (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler


I don't really know what to do, I'll mostly be playing on a 1080p monitor with freesync (LG 23MP68VQ) so I know a 2070 is kinda overkill but seems a waste to not get one given it works out at the same price, providing the other parts don't cripple the system.

Any advice would be greatly accepted!

Thanks.

Going by the pictures (notwithstanding that PC World's product listings aren't guaranteed to be accurate, no offence :S)

Cooler is a PCS Frostslow 100, which is actually okay. Especially for a 65W TDP locked CPU.
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...rdware-Reviews&p=397278&viewfull=1#post397278

Motherboard is MATX and has 2 DIMMs so from PCS's stable that will be the H310M-A, which is not brilliant

SSD will almost certainly be an SU800. Seems unlikely to be an SX6000 or better as else they'd be able to say "PCIe SSD". SU800 is okay. It's a Sata SSD in M.2 but the mobo's M.2 port is half speed so it'd bottleneck any modern NVMe drive anyway.

Case seems to be the MB600L with a single fan.

The Vortex Fusion Extreme II at £1250 seems like a solid deal in that the CPU is fine, the cheap parts won't hurt gaming performance really, and it's got a 2070.

There are alternatives. For £1299 PCS have this deal (discounted price):
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/configure-review/298/
The R7, overclocked, with faster RAM should end up fairly close to an 8700 non-k with slow RAM. Plus more upgrade options from AM4.
RTX 2060 rather than 70, but the performance difference isn't all that huge, both are way more than enough for 1080p gaming, and the build sports a better quality PSU, mobo, SSD, CPU cooler, and a case with more features.

Oussebon said:

Going by the pictures (notwithstanding that PC World's product listings aren't guaranteed to be accurate, no offence :S)

Cooler is a PCS Frostslow 100, which is actually okay. Especially for a 65W TDP locked CPU.
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...rdware-Reviews&p=397278&viewfull=1#post397278

Motherboard is MATX and has 2 DIMMs so from PCS's stable that will be the H310M-A, which is not brilliant

SSD will almost certainly be an SU800. Seems unlikely to be an SX6000 or better as else they'd be able to say "PCIe SSD". SU800 is okay. It's a Sata SSD in M.2 but the mobo's M.2 port is half speed so it'd bottleneck any modern NVMe drive anyway.

Case seems to be the MB600L with a single fan.

The Vortex Fusion Extreme II at £1250 seems like a solid deal in that the CPU is fine, the cheap parts won't hurt gaming performance really, and it's got a 2070.

There are alternatives. For £1299 PCS have this deal (discounted price):
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/configure-review/298/
The R7, overclocked, with faster RAM should end up fairly close to an 8700 non-k with slow RAM. Plus more upgrade options from AM4.
RTX 2060 rather than 70, but the performance difference isn't all that huge, both are way more than enough for 1080p gaming, and the build sports a better quality PSU, mobo, SSD, CPU cooler, and a case with more features.

Click to expand...

I never notice that deal before and it looks really solid, like you say the 2700x isn't a million miles off the 8700 anyway and the overclock should make up most of the difference. Also love the fact it's sporting an M.2 drive rather than a bog standard SSD. Sorry for the stupid question but does it say what it's overclocked to? Also I've never used a water cooler before, does it need more maintenance than a normal heatsink/fan?

Questions aside, I think that'll be the one I go for. Many thanks!

Upto 4.1GHz on all cores (says on the CPU bit of the configurator). Actually the overclocking of Ryzen can sometimes reduce performance for some tasks depending how it's been done, but worst case scenario you can just remove the overclock. It's not like you're paying extra for it.

Also I've never used a water cooler before, does it need more maintenance than a normal heatsink/fan?

Click to expand...

It's a sealed unit, so no maintenance required beyond what's needed for an air cooler. i.e. dust the fans and radiator from time to time, as you'd also dust the inside of the PC generally.