Help with a fairly decent gaming rig =)

[kylrob]

Hello everyone. Needing some help with getting myself a nice, quick performing pc. Doesn't need to play AAA games in 4k at 60+ fps. Just needs to play games well and not deteriorate in a month, lol.
It's it worth sticking with Intel or going for a similar spec AMD? Also going with Radeon instead of Nvidia just to get more 'bang for buck'?
Looking at £1000 tops, but under would be appreciated. Is it worth getting 16gb RAM these days or is 8gb still sufficient? I'd like a pretty decent SSD to get a boost to load times (that's one thing I hate, how slow my laptop is now).
Is it best to keep your operating system on a separate HDD/SSD? Or an you keep everything on one? I'd like it to be fairly quiet and cool too. Not sure about the cooler side of things either whether a liquid system is overkill or not.
Maybe some room for future upgrades? More RAM, CPU or GPU in the later future so a decent mobo?

I'd like to see what you guys could come up with for me being a newbie to this.

Many thanks!

 

[Oussebon]

You're not going to get a custom liquid system capable of playing games for £1000.

It's it worth sticking with Intel or going for a similar spec AMD?

Intel, as for gaming that's where the performance per £ is at your budget level (i5 8400)

Also going with Radeon instead of Nvidia just to get more 'bang for buck'?

Nvidia, as AMD GPUs are more expensive.

AMD has been stuck with the "budget, not performance" label for a long time, but the current state of play is a lot more complicated than that.

Is it worth getting 16gb RAM these days or is 8gb still sufficient?

8gb is fine, especially if the motherboard has room for adding more in the future. Though depending on budget there's nothing inappropriate about getting 16gb now.

Is it best to keep your operating system on a separate HDD/SSD? Or an you keep everything on one?

There aren't any real merits to buying an SSD just for the OS. The normal thing is to put your OS, programs, and favourite games on the SSD, and documents plus games you can't fit onto the SSD onto the HDD. Note that with Steam games you can swap these between drives with a few button clicks within the steam client. So when you complete your runthrough of Game A, you can swap it over to the HDD and move Game B to the SSD ready for starting your playthrough of that.

For your budget and given what you've said, take a look at the Engima Elite:
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/configure-review/237/


Case
CORSAIR SPEC-04 MID TOWER GAMING CASE - BLACK/RED
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Six Core Processor i5-8400 (2.8GHz) 9MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z370-P: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB WD Black™ M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 2050MB/s R | 700MB/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
Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
50cm Red LED Strip
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 DVD & Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
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 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £999.00 including VAT and delivery

It has a fixed spec and fixed £999 price, but the spec would come to about £1130 manually configured. The i5 8400 and GTX 1060 6gb should do very well in modern games, with the CPU capable of feeding a GPU upgrade or two. Also has 16gb RAM and an SSD.

 

[Oussebon]

A manually configured spec might be something like:

Case
GAME MAX FALCON BLACK GAMING CASE (RGB LED)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Six Core Processor i5-8400 (2.8GHz) 9MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z370-P: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2800MB/R, 1100MB/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
PCS FrostFlow 100 Series High Performance 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 DVD & Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
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 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £975.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z370-pc/U4HjT9VaFm/

Better case, faster RAM, somewhat better SSD.

But a 10-15% weaker GPU and 8gb RAM only. Plus the better SSD won't make a huge difference to loading times, and will make no difference at all to your framerate in games. Most games also won't care very much at all about having faster RAM. They'll care far more than you have a weaker GPU.

But it's an option.