Please help. Build advice

[sgarbett364]

I'm wanting to help my nephew build his first gaming PC.

He has a budget of around £700 and so wanting to make sure he gets the best setup for the money. We've had a look and have come up with the below but totally open to all suggestions and help

Thanks in advance

ADMI CPU Motherboard Bundle: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU Six Core 3.9GHz CPU, Gigabyte B450M GAMING Motherboard, 16GB 2400Mhz DDR4 RAM

MSI Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X 6G Graphics Card 6 GB GDDR5, 1860 Hz, RGB Mystic Light, 3x DisplayPort, HDMI, Dual Fan Cooling System

Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow, Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX Smart Gaming Case, Black

Corsair RM750x 80 PLUS Gold, 750 W Fully Modular ATX Power Supply Unit - Black

Western Digital Green 240 GB Internal SSD 2.5 Inch SATA

That's currently at £670

 

[Oussebon]

What monitor are you gaming on? Just a regular 1080p 60hz one?

Do you need a Windows Licence within the budget?

Is it just the PC tower within £700, or the tower, monitor, KB+M?

Will he be streaming gameplay e.g. to Twitch?

 

[Oussebon]

Depending on the above, something like:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor (£101.97 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B450M PRO-M2 MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£60.49 @ Box Limited)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£73.99 @ AWD-IT)
Storage: Crucial BX500 960 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£91.95 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB GAMING Twin Fan Video Card (£179.98 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case (£74.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£73.99 @ Box Limited)
Total: £657.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-02-29 14:52 GMT+0000

 

[sgarbett364]

For the moment it'll be run from a normal 1080 and he's saving up for new monitor. I said I'll buy him windows so the 700 is essentially just the hardware excluding peripherals

 

[Oussebon]

Then something like:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£147.98 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£52.58 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£73.99 @ AWD-IT)
Storage: Crucial BX500 960 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£91.95 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB GAMING Twin Fan Video Card (£179.98 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case (£74.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£73.99 @ Box Limited)
Total: £695.45
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-02-29 16:09 GMT+0000

Springing for a better CPU, and apparently the VRMs on this mobo are a smidge better.

Versus your original list, it:
Has a better CPU
Has faster RAM
Has a much larger and probably faster SSD (games can be very big these days, some are ~100gb)
Opts for the least expensive 1660 because there's really very little performance difference between any of the models anyway
Has a slightly less expensive motherboard - but that's not really an issue for this kind of system, and the B450M Gaming is quite budget level anyway
Has a less expensive but still high quality PSU with a 7 year warranty - and 650W is plenty even for a much more powerful system
Squeezes this into about £700 through shopping around.

 

[sgarbett364]

That's great thanks for help

 

[sgarbett364]

On the above it has these warnings

This an issue?

• 
  
• Warning!Some AMD B450 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Matisse CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions.
• 
  
• Note:Some physical dimension restrictions cannot (yet) be automatically checked, such as cpu cooler / RAM clearance with modules using tall heat spreaders.

 

[Oussebon]

No.

The CPU cooler is fine because you're using the stock AMD one - clearance isn't an issue. And the GPU, PSU and all the other bits will fit into that case.

The other one needs a little more explanation but is also fine. The BIOS thing is unlikely to be an issue, and in any event is one that can be solved. B450 motherboards existed before the 3000 series CPUs. So they needed a BIOS update to be compatible when the new 3000 series CPUs were released. The issue for people buying B450 boards was that a specific unit might have been made and left the factory before the BIOS updates existed. So even a few months after they launched, if the board had been sat on a warehouse shelf for a while, you'd get a B450 board that didn't support your new 3000 series CPU.

However, the CPUs launched in July 2019 so a lot of those boards will have been cleared by now. It's fairly unlikely you'll get one that doesn't have a sufficiently new BIOS version.

And even in a worst case scenario where you end up with one of those motherboards, there are provisions made for that to get you sorted:

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/pa-100

e.g. you can RMA the board for one that does have the new BIOS, or AMD will loan you a compatible processor for you to perform the BIOS update yourself.

So you're fine on both counts.

 

[sgarbett364]

Thank you that's hugely helpful