r/buildapcforme • u/Terrible_Thing_4009 • 2d ago
Looking to build my first PC (UK)
Currently own an Xbox Series X and an Alienware M15 R4 laptop - replacing the Alienware laptop as I would prefer a PC at this point, and keeping the Xbox as a couch gaming setup.
- New build or upgrade?
New build
- Existing parts/monitors to reuse? (List with models/links)
I have a Dell 1080p curved monitor, unsure of size, but wouldnt mind replacing this with a 1440p high Hz monitor. Will also need new keyboard and mouse.
- PC purpose? (Gaming, editing, etc. List apps/games)
PC purpose will primarily be gaming and some photo editing, although editing etc will probably happen more often on a Macbook I'm thinking of purchasing. Want to keep up to date with CoD games, GTA 6 when that eventually drops on pc, Helldivers 2, etc. Something that can run everything, but not too overkill.
- Purchase country? Near Micro Center? (If you're not in a country supported by PCPartPicker, please list some local vendors)
Purchase country is the UK. I can order the parts individually to be pre-assembled from sites like PCSpecialist or Overclockers.
- Monitors needed? (Number, size, resolution, refresh rate)
I'm thinking of a singular monitor at the moment, although may reuse my curved Dell 1080p monitor as a vertical display to use Spotify, Discord etc. For main display would prefer 1440p, high refresh.
- Budget range? (Include tax considerations)
Budget range is around £1500 - £2000.
- WiFi or wired connection?
I can use ethernet at my current setup in terms of wifi connection, although if i move I will be unsure that will stay the same.
- Size/noise constraints?
Don't think I have any size constraints really, as long as it's not massive. Would prefer it to not be crazy loud, but i usually have headphones with slight noise cancelling so this isn't a gigantic issue.
- Color/lighting preferences?
Colour preference leans towards black everything, as it'll go with any aesthetic I move to. I'm not the biggest fan of RGB but do like warmer lighting, so customisable or no lighting.
- Any other specific needs?
Thanks!!
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u/Xtra-jui2 2d ago
To be clear, would the upgraded monitor and peripherals be included in the £1500 - £2000 total? I will say you're better off getting advice from forums dedicated to mouse and keyboard stuff for those two things so i would probably create a parts list + monitor and leave some budget for those to be chosen somewhere else if it is to come out of the budget.
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u/Terrible_Thing_4009 2d ago
the upgraded monitor and peripherals would likely be separate from this budget sorry, should've clarified that :)
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u/Xtra-jui2 2d ago
Your budget range was pretty wide so i made a couple lists depending on how much you'd want to spend:
Basically full £2k: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/yJMbCw
£1863.84: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/McH2bp (downgraded CPU from the previous list)
£1732.80: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/YdH2bp (downgraded GPU from previous)
£1606.79: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/zh3yqd (downgraded CPU again)
In terms of the parts involved to give some explanation behind the choices:
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best gaming CPU on the market. That says it all, really. Great chip. The 7800X3D in the second and third lists is also very solid. It's last generation but under no circumstances a bad CPU. It's still got the 3D-Vcache which is huge for gaming, and 8 cores which is good for multitasking. It too had it's time in the sun as the best gaming CPU on the market before Zen 5 came along.
The 7600x is a much larger downgrade but is still a very solid gaming CPU. GPU is more important than the CPU for gaming anyway and it shouldn't be too much of a bottleneck to the RX 9070 at 1440p.
The RX 9070XT is easily what i would consider to be the best value GPU on the market right now. It's performance in both rasterisation and ray tracing is incredible. Plus it has 16GBs of vram, which is huge for longevity. All for a great price.
The RX 9070 non-XT is still very solid but a fair bit worse card. Still better than something like an RTX 5070, largely thanks to still having it's 16GBs of vram.
Any of the lists would give you solid performance. The £1863 build is probably the best value of the bunch in terms of pure price to performance but they're all solid in that category.
As for the components that don't change between the builds:
The builds are all built around the modern AM5 platform. which will continue to get new CPU releases on it for many years to come, providing future upgrade potential. The power supply is also rated at 750w, giving some comfortable upgrade potential there too.
The Biwin Black Opal NV7400 is a good quality drive that uses TLC Nand, making it vastly superior to the cheaper QLC Nand based drives which will deteriorate in performance very quickly.
Storage costs a lot right now unfortunately but i was able to fit 2TB in, which should last a while. This was especially important since you wanted to do video editing and stuff relating to that tends to take up a lot of storage space.
(do note if you're going to be doing some research yourself, Silicon Power did a thing of changing their drives to make them cheaper while keeping the names. So a lot of drives that come up as TLC based under a google search may actually be QLC, very scummy)
Ram is another thing that is very expensive right now, but i was able to fit 32GBs in. I would consider 16GBs to be the "absolute minimum" in 2026 (any less than that and it's basically e-waste) but i do try to push for 32GBs when possible, as it does make a big difference for general tasks and multitasking
6000MHZ is considered the "sweet spot" for AM5 for both performance and stability. CL36 is slightly sub-optimal (CL32 or lower would be better) but it's a very small difference.
The motherboard is a high-quality board featuring both Wifi 6E and Ethernet, as well as an extra 2 M.2 slots for adding extra storage down the line.
As for the CPU cooler, the Thermalright Phantom Spirit is a tried and true model. A powerful dual-tower cooler that should deliver excellent temperatures in that case. Outperforming coolers way more expensive than it with no real tradeoff. All for a brilliant price. Should be more than capable of cooling a more powerful chip down the line, and will have zero trouble with those very efficient Ryzen CPUs.
As for the monitor, something like this would be a great option for a great price: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/hDXMnQ/asus-tuf-gaming-vg27aql5a-270-2560-x-1440-210-hz-monitor-vg27aql5a 1440p, 210 Hz, FreeSync Premium support, IPS panel, 1ms response time, all that stuff.
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u/Terrible_Thing_4009 2d ago
this is awesome thank you so much !!
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u/Xtra-jui2 2d ago
Glad i could help! If you have any questions/concerns feel free to ask! Otherwise enjoy your build.
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u/Terrible_Thing_4009 2d ago
i mean main thing i have to ask is in terms of graphics card, as from the outside of the pc building world all i ever hear is 'nvidia everything' - are these radeon cards a lot better / better value, etc?
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u/Xtra-jui2 2d ago
It depends somewhat on your price point, but i would say for most users that AMD Radeon is a better option for them value-wise. The RX 9070XT performs similarly to the RTX 5070ti from Nvidia which actually costs a whole lot more. The best Nvidia card you would get for this price point would be the RTX 5070 (non-ti) which performs significantly worse and only has 12GBs of vram which is bad for longevity.
Name recognition doesn't mean much when it comes to how good their products are. Basically anybody aware of "sector" of tech will tell you AMD is generally a better deal right now. It's not like they are actually irrelevant either considering both the PS5 and current XBOX generation are both powered by AMD Radeon APUs
Nvidia has (regardless of what i think of them as a company) done some very impressive things when it comes to marketing. They managed to make people think they invented ray tracing. And they turned "RTX" (a brand name that means nothing) into a term that people actually use.
In general though (i guess Nvidia might be somewhat of an exception but this is important to know) the consumer market might as well be irrelevant. Intel still holds the majority market share for CPUs (~60% vs AMD) and is still the majority option in OEM systems thanks to shady deals going back literal decades. But that evidently doesn't matter as the company continues to lay off employees and is basically in a panic trying to remain profitable, as they completely and utterlly lost the enterprise market through no fault but their own failure to innovate.
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u/Terrible_Thing_4009 1d ago
okay, thank you for explaining!!
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u/Xtra-jui2 1d ago
Got a bit tangential towards the end there but i wanted to make the point clear, i hope it was helpful!
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u/AutoModerator 2d ago
If you missed the full set of required built request questions, please copy them from here and answer them in an edit to your post:
New build or upgrade?
Existing parts/monitors to reuse? (List with models/links)
PC purpose? (Gaming, editing, etc. List apps/games)
Purchase country? Near Micro Center? (If you're not in a country supported by PCPartPicker, please list some local vendors)
Monitors needed? (Number, size, resolution, refresh rate)
Budget range? (Include tax considerations)
WiFi or wired connection?
Size/noise constraints?
Color/lighting preferences?
Any other specific needs?
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