Im new to PC gaming - please help

[lolagirluk]

Afternoon all,

I'm new to PC gaming - please help

I play Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox but I am in the process of buying parts to build a mid-range PC for gaming,.

I am on a budget but would like recommendations on a budget/mid-range processor and Graphics card to be able to play Phantom Liberty and another massive game coming out at the begging of September,.

Please keep it simple as I am new to this and reading other posts I am getting confused with all the technical chats.

Thank you in advice

Updated:

I have built myself a basic PC with old parts so it's all set up with a mouse/keyboard/ram/monitor etc.

Budget Around £500

My current setup is:

Processor: Intel Core i7-4790
RAM: 16GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

Lola

 

[seomid]

Tell your budget and I’ll assume you’re from the UK?
Do you own stuff like a display, mouse, keyboard? Or do these have to be within the budget?

 

[Hoplite_22]

Woof, well there is a lot to figure out here, processor/mainboard/memory/SSD side, mid range is easy. GPU side not so much.

CPU wise i would think Intel i5 or AMD ryzen r5 with 16 plus gigabytes of RAM (depends on what your budget can bare) or better and 2 terabytes of solid state disk storage, a Corsair 4000D airflow case, and a 750watt 80 gold rated power supply. (i don't know where in the world you are so store and specific part recommendation is tricky)

GPU is where we run in to issues.

mid range for GPUs would be usually x700 in a given GPU line, so a Nvidia 3070 or an AMD Radeon 6700XT sort of range, but they are around £600 currently, which is not very midrange at all. it very much depends on your budget and were you are in the world as to what you can get.

 

[lolagirluk]

Tell your budget and I’ll assume you’re from the UK?
Do you own stuff like a display, mouse, keyboard? Or do these have to be within the budget?

Yea, i am from the UK, Apologies should of added a budget.

I would say i have about £500.

I have built myself a basic PC with old parts so it's all set up with a mouse/keyboard/ram/monitor etc.

My current setup is:

Processor: Intel Core i7-4790
RAM: 16GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

I will update the post with this info (if i can)

Post automatically merged: Aug 14, 2023

Woof, well there is a lot to figure out here, processor/mainboard/memory/SSD side, mid range is easy. GPU side not so much.

CPU wise i would think Intel i5 or AMD ryzen r5 with 16 plus gigabytes of RAM (depends on what your budget can bare) or better and 2 terabytes of solid state disk storage, a Corsair 4000D airflow case, and a 750watt 80 gold rated power supply. (i don't know where in the world you are so store and specific part recommendation is tricky)

GPU is where we run in to issues.

mid range for GPUs would be usually x700 in a given GPU line, so a Nvidia 3070 or an AMD Radeon 6700XT sort of range, but they are around £600 currently, which is not very midrange at all. it very much depends on your budget and were you are in the world as to what you can get.

Thank you,

Budget Around £500, but also updated the post. Wrote it while working and missed the important bits out lol.

 

[GrimReaper801]

Yea, i am from the UK, Apologies should of added a budget.

I would say i have about £500.

I have built myself a basic PC with old parts so it's all set up with a mouse/keyboard/ram/monitor etc.

My current setup is:

Processor: Intel Core i7-4790
RAM: 16GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

I will update the post with this info (if i can)

Post automatically merged: Aug 14, 2023

Thank you,

Budget Around £500, but also updated the post. Wrote it while working and missed the important bits out lol.

Well, you need both a new CPU and GPU if you want to play PL. Unfortunately, those are the two most expensive. Additionally, that CPU is fit for an old socket, you have to buy a new motherboard.

When you say "about £500", is that a hard £500 or is there some wiggle room there?

 

[lolagirluk]

Well, you need both a new CPU and GPU if you want to play PL. Unfortunately, those are the two most expensive. Additionally, that CPU is fit for an old socket, you have to buy a new motherboard.

When you say "about £500", is that a hard £500 or is there some wiggle room there?

There is some wiggle room

 

[GrimReaper801]

There is some wiggle room

How much wiggle room are we talking about here? Another £500 or an extra £100?

I won't lie, it's a tight budget considering the necessary components. I'm not from the UK so I'm probably not the best person around here to know about the best deals available to you but a quick look on Newegg UK tells me it's gonna be more than 500. At least £100-150 more just so you reach somewhere between the bare minimum for PL and the recommended specs. Bare minimum seems out of stock/doesn't exist anymore on the UK side.

Note that this includes VAT. I'm getting around £550 before VAT.

Also, how hellbent are you on building this now? We're nearing the end of the year and some typically pretty decent sales. If you're not in a hurry, waiting the extra 2-3 month is usually worth it.

 

[lolagirluk]

How much wiggle room are we talking about here? Another £500 or an extra £100?

I won't lie, it's a tight budget considering the necessary components. I'm not from the UK so I'm probably not the best person around here to know about the best deals available to you but a quick look on Newegg UK tells me it's gonna be more than 500. At least £100-150 more just so you reach somewhere between the bare minimum for PL and the recommended specs. Bare minimum seems out of stock/doesn't exist anymore on the UK side.

Note that this includes VAT. I'm getting around £550 before VAT.

Also, how hellbent are you on building this now? We're nearing the end of the year and some typically pretty decent sales. If you're not in a hurry, waiting the extra 2-3 month is usually worth it.

Thank you, I dont mind waiting as i will get Phantom Liberty on XB anyway, just looking to be able to play some newer games at some point on my PC

 

[GrimReaper801]

Thank you, I dont mind waiting as i will get Phantom Liberty on XB anyway, just looking to be able to play some newer games at some point on my PC

If waiting is not an issue, I would strongly recommend you wait. Black Friday/Cyber Monday(cyber week nowadays) and the holidays are right around the corner and you will definitely get better deals then. Deals that would help you get better components and future proof you far more than what you could get right now.

 

[lolagirluk]

If waiting is not an issue, I would strongly recommend you wait. Black Friday/Cyber Monday(cyber week nowadays) and the holidays are right around the corner and you will definitely get better deals then. Deals that would help you get better components and future proof you far more than what you could get right now.

What items would you suggest? for between 500-700, then i can add them to my list to watch

 

[GrimReaper801]

What items would you suggest? for between 500-700, then i can add them to my list to watch

I'd suggest looking out for an RTX 3070 and a i7-12700K, combined with a LG1700 socket motherboard. Right now, from Newegg UK, you could buy those for £836 (includes estimated VAT) so I wouldn't be surprised if you could get those within your price range during those sales. It's only £136 more than your budget's max range, chances are, you could actually be under £700.

I'm not getting into brands or anything at this point because, well, I have no clue what the deals will be so there isn't much point in discussing this right now. Suffice it to say that everyone has their own specifics brands they love but, generally speaking, as long as it's a well known and proven brand, you're not going wrong.

The only other thing is, your power supply may not be able to handle the power draw. Do you know your PSU's specs? Your current PC would run on a 500 watts PSU but the components I listed above definitely would not. Depending on your PSU, it could change what components you watch for as you would have to fit in a new PSU somewhere in there.

 

[Bartinga2077]

"IM NEW TO PC GAMING - PLEASE HELP"​

Would recommend that you take these schematics as a base for your budget.
Also, know that, since you're used to the very high image quality of the XBOX, you may end up quite disappointing with the image quality on PC that your budget will bring.

 

[koalahugs]

Looking at Scan.co.uk, this is what I managed to scrounge up:

Option 1:

CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 5600G	£120
MOTHERBOARD	ASRock B550M Pro4 Micro-ATX	£100	Note: I'm assuming your case can fit a M-ATX sized motherboard
RAM	16GB (2x8GB) Corsair DDR4 PC4-25600 (3200)	£39	Note: I'm assuming your current RAM isn't compatible with this setup? Hence the need to replace?
GRAPHICS CARD	Sapphire Radeon RX 6650 XT PULSE 8GB	£230	Note: The brutal reality is that graphics cards are DAMN expensive now - this is really the budget end of things. You'd maybe get ~40FPS in Cyberpunk (1440p, high settings, with no RTX and no upscaling - but that's based on PRE-Phantom Liberty Cyberpunk; it'll probably be slower once it comes out)
		TOTAL: £489	Note: I'm assuming you have a power supply that provides at least 500W

If you went with something like that, you'd have to make sure your existing power supply is sufficient (at least 500W for the above, I think).

If you did have to buy a new power supply, I would probably stick to something from either Seasonic or Corsair (that's well reviewed). Can last you over a decade and keep your system safe and stable electric wise.


Option 2 (what I would do, personally):

GRAPHICS CARD	RTX 4070 Founder's Edition	£570	Note: see Daniel Owen's analysis here, it's really good for CP77
POWER SUPPLY	750W Corsair RM Series RM750 White	£120	Note: Only if you don't have a power supply that's rated to at least 650-750W
		TOTAL: £570 - 690

Alternatively, and this is probably gonna sound controversial, but you could just buy an RTX 4070 for your existing machine. Can get one for £570 from NVidia's website (they're partnered with Scan in the UK I believe) - but then you'd have to make sure you have an even stronger power supply (like, at least 650-750W, I think).
If you went this route instead, you'd have a pretty strong mid-range card, but it would be held back by your other hardware. But it wouldn't surprise me if it still ran better than Option 1, even with the bottleneck. You could always upgrade the rest later.

Also, like @GrimReaper801 mentioned, waiting for Black Friday is a good idea too. I probably wouldn't buy from Newegg though (aren't they American? You'd have to risk massive customs fees if you ordered from abroad). I'd probably stick with authorised retailers like Scan, Overclockers.co.uk, and the like (most companies list who their authorised sellers are for a given country on their official websites).

EDIT: I forgot to add, PC Part Picker is a pretty good website to help you pick components and ensure compatibility - they have guides for different budgets as well.

EDIT 2: Also forgot to ask, what kind of hard drive do you have? Might be worth looking into an SSD hard drive if you don't already have - they're really cheap these days.

 

[GrimReaper801]

Also, like @GrimReaper801 mentioned, waiting for Black Friday is a good idea too. I probably wouldn't buy from Newegg though (aren't they American? You'd have to risk massive customs fees if you ordered from abroad). I'd probably stick with authorised retailers like Scan, Overclockers.co.uk, and the like (most companies list who their authorised sellers are for a given country on their official websites).

They're not only American.

They have various websites for various countries that normally ship from within these countries. I would assume the UK is no exception.

To be clear, I was using Newegg not as a "buy from here" but as a reference for prices in the UK.

EDIT 2: Also forgot to ask, what kind of hard drive do you have? Might be worth looking into an SSD hard drive if you don't already have - they're really cheap these days.

That's an awfully good point. Both PL and Starfield both have SSDs as minimum. It's just a must these days.

I'll bow out of this, @koalahugs obviously knows more about where to check for UK pricing will definitely be able to help you more than I. I had no clue scan.co.uk was a thing.

I still stand by my statement of waiting for deals that are right around the corner though. If you're going to get PL, and possibly Starfield, on Xbox anyway and are in no hurry to jump into PC gaming, there are only good sides to waiting for these typically massive deals.

 

[DC9V]

It's always difficult to find the optimal middle ground of components. Generally you want your graphics card (GPU) to be as good as possible, and try to build around it. E.g. when you cannot afford a power supply that is strong enough to feed the GPU, you'll have to choose a less powerful GPU. The CPU on the other hand depends on your motherboard chipset, just like the DRAM (aka RAM or "memory") does.

That being said, If you want your PC to be future proof, then you'll have to go with a current-gen chipset, which I do not recommend for a budget build.

Like the previous speakers, I'd suggest to wait. There will be better deals in the future.

 

[koalahugs]

They're not only American.

They have various websites for various countries that normally ship from within these countries. I would assume the UK is no exception.

To be clear, I was using Newegg not as a "buy from here" but as a reference for prices in the UK.

Yeah, I figure you were just using them as a price reference. @lolagirluk, you maybe already know this, but if not, there's a number of well established e-tailers in the UK, including but not limited to:

overclockers.co.uk
scan.co.uk
ebuyer.com
amazon.co.uk (just be mindful of 3rd party sellers)

They tend to do Black Friday stuff as well.

 

[seomid]

I suggest to save up a little more and purchase stuff that will last for longer. You current budget won’t cut it, unfortunately.

I suggest saving up for a RTX4070, 2x8gb DDR4 (don’t waste money on DDR5) and a somewhat current i5 /Ryzen 5 CPU that runs on DDR4. Grab the cheapest motherboard, and a Seasonic power supply that has enough juice to run the rtx4070. All in all you’re looking at around 800£.

 

[BigPopsLamb]

I posted a few times on this subreddit on upgrading. while My budget was initially solid, I now have come aware that I do not have much wiggle room around for my new gaming rig. That being said I would appreciate any advice (wanted to wait till more infor on PL requirements, but then I am missing out on Starfield which i do not want to do).

AMD Ryzen 7 7700x
Gigabyte B650 gaming X AX
32 DDR5 gig ram
RX 7900 XT

Keeping my old case and PSU (500W psu, so dont know if that needs upgrading)

$1300 budget.

was looking to play PL on atleast high 1080p, but the 7800x3d is seemingly out of my budget unfortunantly

 

[Notserious80]

Keeping my old case and PSU (500W psu, so dont know if that needs upgrading)

Get a new one to be safe. The recommended for a 7900xt is 750w and make sure its a good brand and with a gold or above rating preferebly..

was looking to play PL on atleast high 1080p, but the 7800x3d is seemingly out of my budget unfortunantly

Ive been sceptical about the cpu requirements they posted so a 7700x might be enough but we wont know untill release.

 

[seomid]

I posted a few times on this subreddit on upgrading. while My budget was initially solid, I now have come aware that I do not have much wiggle room around for my new gaming rig. That being said I would appreciate any advice (wanted to wait till more infor on PL requirements, but then I am missing out on Starfield which i do not want to do).

AMD Ryzen 7 7700x
Gigabyte B650 gaming X AX
32 DDR5 gig ram
RX 7900 XT

Keeping my old case and PSU (500W psu, so dont know if that needs upgrading)

$1300 budget.

was looking to play PL on atleast high 1080p, but the 7800x3d is seemingly out of my budget unfortunantly

You’ll definitely need a stronger PSU. I suggest anything above 700W.

Your mainboard is a little overkill, personally I’d grab an A620 and use that spare money for the x3d version of that CPU or for the PSU, perhaps the XTX version of your GPU, if the budget fits.

In case of a stronger CPU/GPU you’d probably need to upgrade to a 750W PSU.

Overall solid rig, however I strongly doubt PL will be that CPU hungry. Don’t take my word for granted, things might be exactly as CDPR told us. I’d wait out the release, see how it performs and decide what to buy then.