Vortex Alpha - Thoughts

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inlandempire

Bronze Level Poster
Hello everyone!

After buying my desktop pc from pcspecialist in 2011, I think I'm finally overdue for an upgrade.
I saw the black friday offer for the Vortex Alpha with the following specs, do you think that the motherboard could be a bottleneck because it's a fairly basic one? Also the 256 gb ssd is not the best, how difficult would it be to replace it with a bigger one that i would buy separately?
Case
CORSAIR CRYSTAL SERIES 460X RGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor i7-9700K (3.6GHz) 12MB Cache
FREE Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 UD: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2070 - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
Get Battlefield V with select NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs!
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
256GB INTEL® 760p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (upto 3210MB/sR | 1315MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 120 Series High Performance Liquid Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
2x 50cm RGB LED Strip
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
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 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,414.00 including VAT and Delivery

Thanks a lot!
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
No. Motherboards aren't bottlenecks.

They don't affect gaming performance.

Where benchmarks do show different performance this is because some motherboards automatically overclock the CPU or do things like fiddle with boost clock duration in order to give higher scores when people publish benchmarks without checking if the motherboard has fiddled with the CPU. If you're happy running the CPU out of spec, which is what those boards are doing, then just OC it yourself. (I've no idea whether the Z390 UD has any of these tricks turned on by default or not, btw)

It's a Z390 motherboard. This is the highest tier of consumer motherboard, above Z370, B360, and H310. It supports overclocking, fast RAM, etc. It might be one of the least expensive Z390s, but it's still Z390.

As one of the less expensive it doesn't have some of the bells and whistles the most expensive Z390s do, like SLI support. But that's okay, the RTX 2070 doesn't support SLI either, and even if it did SLI is often the wrong play...). It doesn't have USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C. But considering that the spec has a £200+ discount over the same spec manually configured, is USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C worth £250+ to you? (£200 for losing the discount, £50 for a more expensive mobo) How many devices requiring 10gbps USB do you have? :)

My take on this spec is that it's a very solid spec, and you're not really going to beat it for gaming for £1500 (or £1414 without the OS).

As for the SSD, it should be easy to replace. I can't remember where the M.2 slot on the mobo is, but worst case scenario you'd need to pop the GPU out to get at it. Otherwise it's just one screw holding it in place. The Intel 760p is actually 'okay' as an NMVe SSD. It's not as fast as a 970 Evo. But it's a good deal faster than Sata SSDs. The main criticism is that it has not been cheap enough to compete with the faster NVMe SSDs, though that's not directly relevant to a pre-set spec like this, only custom builds.
 
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T

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
I'll leave comments on the spec to others, but swapping the drive is easy enough in most cases (though I read on here that some of the motherboards have them obstructed under GPU's or even on the underside of the motherboard.

You could, of course, also just put in a HDD for most files, leaving just your most-used files and OS on the SSD.

As long as you have a way to connect both SSD's though, cloning isn't a terribly difficult thing to do - I know a lot of folks here use and like Macrium Reflect which is free and can do this.

Of course, depending on what's on the current one, it may be faster and easier to simply do a fresh reinstall.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I'll say this just to cover all bases, but the i7 2600(k_) is still a capable gaming CPU and will handle most modern titles well. You could just upgrade the GPU in the existing system since that's where most of your upgrade is coming from anyway.

PCS do similarish deals to the Vortex every now and then (Define X1, Ultima X01 to name a couple) so if you wanted to not spend ~£1000 you'd have that option and probably still be able to pick up a deal in the future along similar lines, in due course.
 
I

inlandempire

Bronze Level Poster
Oussebon said:
I'll say this just to cover all bases, but the i7 2600(k_) is still a capable gaming CPU and will handle most modern titles well. You could just upgrade the GPU in the existing system since that's where most of your upgrade is coming from anyway.

PCS do similarish deals to the Vortex every now and then (Define X1, Ultima X01 to name a couple) so if you wanted to not spend ~£1000 you'd have that option and probably still be able to pick up a deal in the future along similar lines, in due course.
Click to expand...


Yes I had thought about that, but I really wanted a fresh system after so many years :)
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
inlandempire said:
Yes I had thought about that, but I really wanted a fresh system after so many years :)
Click to expand...

Oh, man, I’m about a year off before ordering a full new system, there’s nothing that beats it, new babies, weddings, all of them don’t have a patch on a new system!
 
I

inlandempire

Bronze Level Poster
Can you please help me decide on a gsync monitor?
I’m very in doubt between a 23/24 inch 1080p and a 27 inch 1440p.
I play lots of overwatch and shooters/action mainly.
I feel that the rtx 2070 would be wasted on a 1080p screen?
Budget is around 500 pounds, very max 600.
Thanks
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I would say 1440p 144hz/165hz gsync, since the 1080p gsync ones are often little less expensive, so you might as well get more pixels for your £ :)

The Dell S2716DG is popular on these forums and is available from ~£450.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I don't usually read Rtings. Having had a quick glance at the picture quality exception, I think most people who own one on this forum and have bought it on the advice of others here who already had one would disagree that "The Dell S2716DG has a disappointing picture quality. The poor contrast ratio and terrible black uniformity ruin dark room performance, as most dark content looks washed out and blacks tend to look gray"

I quite like this site for monitor reviews as they seem quite thorough and their reviews have matched up with my experience of ones I've then proceeded to buy: https://pcmonitors.info/reviews/dell-s2716dg/

£600 will more or less rule you out of 1440p 144hz IPS monitors, and those that are within that price range have very mixed customer reviews indicating poor QC and that the panel (which is used across several different models of 1440p 144hz IPS screen) is quite prone to dead pixels.

Be aware that a dead pixel doesn't necessarily count as a defect, so make sure you buy from a place that has a very generous returns policy, and/or that sells a service where they check and guarantee the absence of dead pixels, unless you fancy playing the panel lottery. I didn't fancy playing Panel Roulette which is why I didn't buy a Vega 56 for £300 and a 1440p 144hz IPS monitor yesterday, sorely tempted as I was.
 
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SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
inlandempire said:
I had done a bit of research on that monitor and most reviews are not so favourable..
This one in particular, if you have a look at the “picture quality” section
https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/dell/s2716dg
Click to expand...

I’ve got the dell and an Acer in my sig.

The dell is superb for the money, as a TN panel it comes with the usual TN drawbacks, but also, it’s such a high quality TN panel that as a previous IPS user, personally I prefer it. I play a lot of horror games that are very dark/black environments and have never had an issue with bad blacks. At this price range you won’t get a good IPS panel that’s any better.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Yep, that's one of the damn expensive ones. If a marketplace seller was selling it for that price, it was probably a scam..m
 
I

inlandempire

Bronze Level Poster
So the Dell would be ok also for watching films? If 2 or 3 people are watching the film, the viewing angles would still make it ok?
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
inlandempire said:
So the Dell would be ok also for watching films? If 2 or 3 people are watching the film, the viewing angles would still make it ok?
Click to expand...

It’s normal TN viewing angle issue. So if you have an extreme angle then colours will suffer.

Edit: I use mine to watch movies on when in bed with the screen angled at the other side of the room and have no issues at all with viewing angles.
 
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