Gaming system for a friend.

[RCHeliguy]

I have a friend who has asked me to help select the parts and put together a gaming system on a budget for her son. This will be a single monitor gaming system, not a VR powerhouse. She would like to keep this under $1500. Less is better.

I'm looking at suggested systems on PCPartPicker, and I'm not really sure what good bang for the buck is these days.

 

[RCHeliguy]

How does Tom's Review's $1,077 system look as a starting point since it has no monitor, keyboard, mouse, game controller, SD card reader, and Win 11.

Best PC Builds for Gaming 2024: From $500 Budgets to $4,000+

We recommend the best PC builds for every price point.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[RCHeliguy]

This is similar, but has a more powerful CPU and GPU but a bit less DRAM and disk space for $999

ASUS ROG Strix GA15 G15DK GA15DK-MB786 Gaming PC; AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8GHz Processor; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X; - Micro Center

Get it now! Give yourself a competitive edge in esports with the arena-ready ROG Strix GA15.

www.microcenter.com

 

[RCHeliguy]

Getting closer....

 

[Durge Driven]

Nice

However I would spend $130 more

$454 (Big Block lol ) vs $328

7600X
B650 mATX WIFI
16GB DDR5 6000

P.S. Ah $1,500 or less okay, then your build is great.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Thanks for the input.

Unfortunately the tax in this state is about 10%, so I still need to find a way to shrink that price a bit especially since it doesn't include Win 11. I probably have a spare DP 1.4a cable for him to use.

He also already has an X-Box so he can use the controller(s) from that.

 

[RasmusP]

How much cheaper would a 5600 non-x be?
It's still good enough for most games in my experience.
Either a game uses more than 6 cores but then also has enough fps anyway or it can't use as many cores, in which case the single core performance of the 5600 isn't much worse than the 5800X.
For me, the recommendations are currently either 5600 non-x or 5700X3D.

And you could use a cheaper nvme, as long as it's TCL. DRAM Cache isn't really needed with pci-e.
Here's a sorted list. No idea about US prices though, sorry.
And you'd have to do a quick check for massive slow downs after a few GB writing, like some SATA SSDs.
https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=hdssd&...325_3~252_1920~4832_3&sort=p&hloc=uk&v=e&pg=1

The WD SN770 seems like a good alternative. Or, depending on the price for you, the Kioxia G3.

 

[RCHeliguy]

She just told me that 1500-2000 is ok

 

[pattikins]

In the UK, the Intel i5 12400f is £100 & a cheap B660 motherboard can be had for less £90. In most games the Alder Lake cpu is quicker than the 5600[X] or for that matter 5800X.

 

[RasmusP]

She just told me that 1500-2000 is ok

Nice! Then get a 7800X3D
Just kidding, although AM5 would be way more future proof..
I'd choose a 5700X3D then. Not much worse fps than the 5800X for games that don't utilise the 3D-Cache but brutally better performance when they do.

In the UK, the Intel i5 12400f is £100 & a cheap B660 motherboard can be had for less £90. In most games the Alder Lake cpu is quicker than the 5600[X] or for that matter 5800X.

I thought about that too but wasn't sure about the exact performance and whether or not cheap B660 boards would be okay.
Definitely worth a look, I agree.
These smaller Intels don't have the insane power consumption of the big k CPUs, so that's not an argument for AMD.

 

[pattikins]

Nice! Then get a 7800X3D
Just kidding, although AM5 would be way more future proof..
I'd choose a 5700X3D then. Not much worse fps than the 5800X for games that don't utilise the 3D-Cache but brutally better performance when they do.

I thought about that too but wasn't sure about the exact performance and whether or not cheap B660 boards would be okay.
Definitely worth a look, I agree.
These smaller Intels don't have the insane power consumption of the big k CPUs, so that's not an argument for AMD.

Fair point. I've subsequently read 3 reviews, one seems to favour the 12400f, another is more mixed & the third, overall, has the 5600X/5800X in the lead. As far as I know, the Asus board hasn't been singled out as bad & it should easily handle a 65w cpu. That said, with a bigger budget, as you say, AM5 seems a better choice.

@RCHeliguy , what type of games would played on the new pc? Online or single player... rts, fps, rpg... with an x-box controller?

I'd probably go for the Thermalright Peerless Assassin cooler over Hyper 212.

 

[RCHeliguy]

He's 12 and has an X-Box. I honestly don't know what he is going to play.

 

[RCHeliguy]

His mom says, "He plays Minecraft, Fortnite, Teardown, Forza. Not sure if Fortnite is considered FPS but in general I try to steer him away from those."

"He wants to be able to mod games, run higher tech engines in driving and flying games, and Teardown works better on PC."

Now she's saying War Thunder and MSFS. I know MSFS can eat some power.

The last time I downloaded MSFS, it was HUGE. Now take the video editing he wants to do and I'm thinking another drive. Maybe a 1Tb boot drive and use the 2Tb drive for video and games.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm hoping a 4070 will drive a 2560x1440 monitor well in MSFS and the 5800X will keep up.

 

[RasmusP]

I'm hoping a 4070 will drive a 2560x1440 monitor well in MSFS and the 5800X will keep up.

Put the 5700X3D CPU in that system. Fortnite and MSFS gain a lot afaik.
The 4070 should be enough. I'm doing well with a 3080 in 3440x1440.
Most newer games have DLSS and often also frame generation, so the fps will be fine.

Also most modern games basically have the "medium" Preset to be the optimized console look and everything higher won't look much better.
Battlefield, COD: Warzone, Fortnite, Forza Horizon 5 to name examples.

Warzone even calls the graphics settings something like low, normal, extra high, ultra.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Put the 5700X3D CPU in that system. Fortnite and MSFS gain a lot afaik.
The 4070 should be enough. I'm doing well with a 3080 in 3440x1440.
Most newer games have DLSS and often also frame generation, so the fps will be fine.

Also most modern games basically have the "medium" Preset to be the optimized console look and everything higher won't look much better.
Battlefield, COD: Warzone, Fortnite, Forza Horizon 5 to name examples.

Warzone even calls the graphics settings something like low, normal, extra high, ultra.

I get this warning. Can you update a motherboard without an updated Bios if the CPU won't work?

Warning: The MSI PRO B550M-VC WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard supports the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D 3 GHz 8-Core Processor with BIOS version 7C95vHA. If the motherboard is using an older BIOS version, updating the BIOS will be necessary to support the CPU.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Taking your suggestions into account, I'm at this.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm actually surprised that the Meshify C with tempered glass is available for $69.99
Considering the tempered glass, I thought the Assassin with RGB might be cool.
This is for his 13th birthday.

 

[RasmusP]

I get this warning. Can you update a motherboard without an updated Bios if the CPU won't work?

Warning: The MSI PRO B550M-VC WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard supports the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D 3 GHz 8-Core Processor with BIOS version 7C95vHA. If the motherboard is using an older BIOS version, updating the BIOS will be necessary to support the CPU.

Yes, it'll be possible. I guess you'll be building the pc?
The procedure would be to prepare an usb stick with the correct bios, plugging it into the specific USB port and then following the manual, probably something like holding a button while powering it on and waiting for some LED to flash in the correct pattern.
From the Msi website of the mobo:

Taking your suggestions into account, I'm at this.

View attachment 768206

Looks good!
Only remark would still be the Samsung nvme (which is a great nvme). If he wants to get into video editing, it could be nice to get him 1+2 TB with one of the cheaper nvme.
I didn't check the amount of nvme slots of the mobo though..

I'm actually surprised that the Meshify C with tempered glass is available for $69.99
Considering the tempered glass, I thought the Assassin with RGB might be cool.
This is for his 13th birthday.

Yep, meshify C is a great deal! Just to be sure: did you check if the graphics card fits? The meshify C isn't the biggest case. 4070 should be fine, but I remember that some 30/40 cards caused trouble with that case.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'll have the right Bios ready on a USB fob in advance. That seems pretty simple.

I will be building this, but I'm going to try to involve him as much as possible and make a learning experience out of this. He wants to learn how to build a PC so he can upgrade it in the future, and it will take a lot longer to complete this way, but he'll get a lot more out of it.

He also wants to learn about creating a YouTube video, so I'm going to see if I can get their video camera ahead of time to see how to get the best results out of it.

The 4070 I'm looking at is 4.96" tall. and the Meshify C case is 8.35" wide, so I think accounting for the internal offset of the MB there is likely about an inch or more to spare.

This now has a 1Tb NVME boot drive and a 2Tb 6Gb/s SATA SSD for games and video.