New build under 2k?

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CrashAndBurn

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#304686 28-May-2023 13:39

My son's PC is struggling now with his university and gaming requirements. My last build from scratch was over 7+ years ago so was wondering if there are any recommendations for a bang-for-the-buck build somewhere in the 2k range without a monitor.

If there is an existing thread for this, please let me know and this can be closed. Thanks

Games he is currently into:

Call of Duty, CSGO, Fortnite

University app:

Solidworks and Adobe Photoshop

Trying to avoid using any of the old parts from his current machine so that can try and sell it whole and use that towards the new build.

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#3080323 28-May-2023 13:47

Is this allowed, feels dirty posting a gpforums link, but it's the first thing that came to mind

https://www.gpforums.co.nz/gp-suggests-pc-builds-t302905-s5200.html#p11476085

CrashAndBurn

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#3080324 28-May-2023 14:00

For starters am thinking of either 3060 or 6700 XT? or any better recommendation that is best in price-to-performance ratio.

Also 1TB M.2 NVMe?

Will the GPU decide on whether I do AMD or Intel?

His current is an i5 6600k from 2015.

16GB ram which I think is still DDR3. 16 should be enough as not getting maxed out.

It is the CPU I feel is the bottleneck, but upgrading would mean changing boards and RAM so thought it best to do a full new build instead.

dvsdave

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#3080331 28-May-2023 14:17

I'm not familiar with those uni applications requirements but they may benefit from specific hardware? Might be worth looking into.

Will you build yourself or just buy a pre-built?

And yeah at least a 1tb imo.

dvsdave

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#3080333 28-May-2023 14:20

Sorry, this link is better http://pyronic.al/

With the typical gaming build having both an Intel and an Amd cpu option.

CrashAndBurn

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#3080334 28-May-2023 14:21

dvsdave: I'm not familiar with those uni applications requirements but they may benefit from specific hardware? Might be worth looking into.

Will you build yourself or just buy a pre-built?

And yeah at least a 1tb imo.

My son wants to build it himself as he did last time.

Solidworks and Adobe requires a 6th gen Intel or higher or AMD equivalent and 16 GB RAM.

Jase2985

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#3080336 28-May-2023 14:28

what resolution and FPS are you aiming for? that will dictate GPU and CPU

i personally wouldnt be putting anything less than a 1TB M.2 NVMe in as my main drive.

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paulgr

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#3080337 28-May-2023 14:29

GPUs don't care if you are running AMD or Intel CPUs.
They all use the same interface.
The GPUs you mention will work ok on Photoshop and game ok remembering your cost restraints.
Solidworks usually recommends a Pro card but unless he is doing a lot of heavy rendering and/or working on assemblies with hundreds of parts (very unlikely as a student) the cards you are looking at will do the job OK.
A 1tb boot SSD should be plenty -- use a larger secondary HDD if he wants to offload game libs.

CrashAndBurn

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#3080339 28-May-2023 14:32

Jase2985:

what resolution and FPS are you aiming for? that will dictate GPU and CPU

i personally wouldnt be putting anything less than a 1TB M.2 NVMe in as my main drive.

1080p at 144Hz is fine for him. His current monitor can do 240Hz if that changes anything.

dvsdave

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#3080387 28-May-2023 15:21

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/products/CHADPC2032_CPUAMD05800X3D_HDDSAM980600_MBDMSI4904278_MEMKHX31320_PSUCLM5851_VGAMSI66750_?qr=sharelink

If I was building I'd aim for the above, although it's a smidge over budget and still needs a cpu cooler.

Jase2985

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#3080388 28-May-2023 15:31

dvsdave: https://www.pbtech.co.nz/products/CHADPC2032_CPUAMD05800X3D_HDDSAM980600_MBDMSI4904278_MEMKHX31320_PSUCLM5851_VGAMSI66750_?qr=sharelink

If I was building I'd aim for the above, although it's a smidge over budget and still needs a cpu cooler.

can save about $80 going for the crucial P3 over the Samsung 980 Pro. You'll never notice the difference.

Ditch the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D for the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU saving you $180, again You'll never notice the difference, might actually be better for the mixed use load you plan for it.

Qazzy03

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#3080391 28-May-2023 16:22

my 2 cents.

I had a 6600k until i moved to a i7 8700 (ex lease programming equipment).

Saw a massive uplift in gaming, the extra cores and/or hyper threading was significantly noticable, imo anything new your son gets will show up the 6600k imo.

I would go for 32 GB though, while his current system might not max out the 16, i noticed the jump again in preformance going from 16 - 32gb.

As for GPU i went from 960 GB to a 6600xt 8gb at 1080p and massive uplift from there as well.

On the GPU side, best bang for buck as of today imo would be

$650 for the 6750 XT but could cut costs here as this card will was marketed at 1440p

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/VGAMSI66750/MSI-AMD-Radeon-RX-6750-XT-MECH-2X-12GB-OC-GDDR6-Gr?qr=pspy&ref=pricespy

at the highest graphics presettings the 6750xt should get on average with a (10900k as CPU)

CSGO 389 fps

Fortnigth 137 fps

Call of duty warzone 2.0 97 fps

Turning down settings or change in CPU can have other results.

If your son will stick to 1080p could also go with 6650 xt at $499 could be worth a look at too.

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/VGAPOW26650/Powercolor-Fighter-AMD-Radeon-RX-6650-XT-8GB-GDDR6?qr=pspy&ref=pricespy

at the highest graphics presettings the 6750xt should get on average with a (10900k as CPU)

CSGO 344fps

Fortnigth 110 fps

Call of duty warzone 2.0 77fps

Turning down settings or change in CPU can have other results.

A loss of 20-30 FPS but a saving of $150 could be worth it if wanting to go for a better CPU or go DDR5 ram/MB/CPU route.

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CrashAndBurn

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#3080399 28-May-2023 17:22

Wonder if I should try CPU/Mobo/RAM first and then upgrade the rest if necessary? To see if the current PSU and 1060 will be enough for the same use? I know the old parts won't sell for much, but would save me from buying a full new build if can be avoided.

Something like this Buy the PB AMD Ryzen 7600X CPU / MBD / RAM Upgrade Kit with Gigabyte B650M... ( BDLPBAMD0001 ) online - PBTech.co.nz unless someone has a better recommendation? Hoping to buy them in this coming weekend's sale if the prices are justified.

dvsdave

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#3082517 30-May-2023 18:14

You will get good performance and also long platform support from Amd (four? Gens of ryzen have been in my X370 Mobo)

But,

Do you trust this shiny new kit with your old psu?
You will soon want to be upgrading that 1060
An os transfer to this mobo is not recommended, reinstall is better, may as well do that on the new drive

By all means do the upgrade kit, that would be fun, but I reckon a clean build from scratch would be a better bet, maybe do everything except the gpu and then do that in the future.

If like your last build you keep it for such a length of time it's worth doing it properly.

SpartanVXL

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#3082591 30-May-2023 22:06

Depends what PSU you have. If it’s a e.g. corsair rm series, evga g2/g3 series or seasonic from back then it’ll still hold up fine.

I’m of two minds on this. If you want a full rig then a AM4 b550/x570 with a r7 5700/5800x cpu and accompanying GPU from nvidia/amd, 6750xt 3070/ti, will do great for what he’ll need now. I’d only recommend a 5800x3d if he was into competitive gaming, even then you have the 7800x3d if you spend more for current gen.

With memory only get 16GB if you are sure it is dual rank, dual channel kit. 32GB kits are majority already dual tank so less worry there. Both AM4/5 rely on memory for better performance.

Don’t get a SSD without dram cache, p3 might be enticing at a low price but a p5 plus also from crucial outperforms it.

Latest graphics cards are pricey and will take a chunk out of your budget. You may be able to snag someones 20xx, 30xx card secondhand.

If you do end up getting a full build sans GPU it might be better to go Intel, while AM5 is holding up its got a few too many little bugs as a general recommendation. Just get at least over 8 thread CPU to keep up with modern demands.

On that note, csgo, valorant, fortnite play on a potato so no need to worry about those. CoD Warzone2 is a mixed bag and relies a lot on good cpu platform for over 100fps.

Handle9

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#3082607 31-May-2023 06:13

CrashAndBurn:

Wonder if I should try CPU/Mobo/RAM first and then upgrade the rest if necessary?

I'd be going the other way and upgrading the GPU first. It's going to have the biggest impact on framerate. You could end up CPU bottlenecked but it's worth trying.

For what you are looking at I'd go last generation hardware. You'll get great performance and your money will go further. This is what I did recently and it performs great.

If you are going for straight framerate go AMD, if your son needs streaming encode or really wants ray tracing NVIDIA. DLSS isn't really an issue at 1080p.

The RX 6750XT is around $600-700 and will smash 1080p gaming and be ok for 1440p gaming. To go NVIDIA you are likely looking at an RTX3060 for around $600. There are pros and cons to each but if you got for the RTX3060 make sure you get a 12GB model as it's becoming more important for newer games.

This is the biggest issue with the newly released RX7600 which only has 8GB of VRAM.

The RTX 6750XT will likely give you around 25% higher framerate than the RTX3060. For CS GO it won't matter, they'll both scream.

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