Gaming Build for friend

Truvidienn

Hi!

So a friend of mine has tasked me with putting together a build for him that he can buy to replace his current computer. From what I know of his current desktop is that it’s old and he can’t run play games after 30 minutes or so before he says it feels like it’s on fire. Long story short I’m not all that tech savvy and the builds I come up are almost close to what you could order as a pre built.

What he’s after is playing future games on highest settings. Mostly into just MMO’s and I know for sure he’s gonna play Path Of Exile 2 and Diablo 4. So I am here looking for suggestions.

And it has to be able to run Microsoft Office.
Thanks! 

Bloodaxes

Without a budget, it's going to be difficult to suggest anything. Also, america or europe?

Truvidienn

Bloodaxes said:

Without a budget, it's going to be difficult to suggest anything. Also, america or europe?

I told him I was gonna use $2500 as a budget benchmark. Which he said was fine. USD. Right now this is what I've currently come up with. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/nTk7t8  I have 0 knowledge when it comes to motherboards though.. Right now he's using 1080p. I told him if he was gonna put this much into a new desktop he should look for something that will run 1400p/4K if he wanted. 

Bloodaxes

I'm not that great when choosing parts myself (I usually ask here for guidance as well), however, what GPU your friend currently have? I for instance have a GTX 1080, and when I upgrade my system in 2-3 months I'm keeping it.

The current prices are absurd for GPUs. If your friend has something similar to mine, I'd buy everything but that and wait. Perhaps, there's better deals during black friday or christmas. The GPU is one of the easiest parts to attach anyway.

Also, who's building the system, you? I'm mainly asking because B550 motherboards might require a bios update to run current gen amd cpus. You could get an X570 (I saw some in the same price range of the one you chose) which shouldn't require bios updates. For case, it's a matter of preference, but if your friend wants a lot of rgb (from your list you placed some), you might want to consider getting a hub to sync them. Alternatively, corsair have a case 4000x, 5000x that have 2 or 3 front RGB fans + a hub included in the back of the case.

Aside from that, what you chose doesn't seem bad (I'm not that familiar with that AIO, but its reviewed very highly so should be good) so it depends on what I mentioned in the beginning about requiring a GPU or can stay with the old one.

Truvidienn

Bloodaxes said:

I'm not that great when choosing parts myself (I usually ask here for guidance as well), however, what GPU your friend currently have? I for instance have a GTX 1080, and when I upgrade my system in 2-3 months I'm keeping it.

The current prices are absurd for GPUs. If your friend has something similar to mine, I'd buy everything but that and wait. Perhaps, there's better deals during black friday or christmas. The GPU is one of the easiest parts to attach anyway.

Also, who's building the system, you? I'm mainly asking because B550 motherboards might require a bios update to run current gen amd cpus. You could get an X570 (I saw some in the same price range of the one you chose) which shouldn't require bios updates. For case, it's a matter of preference, but if your friend wants a lot of rgb (from your list you placed some), you might want to consider getting a hub to sync them. Alternatively, corsair have a case 4000x, 5000x that have 2 or 3 front RGB fans + a hub included in the back of the case.

Aside from that, what you chose doesn't seem bad (I'm not that familiar with that AIO, but its reviewed very highly so should be good) so it depends on what I mentioned in the beginning about requiring a GPU or can stay with the old one.

At the current moment I'm not really sure but I don't think it's that good of a video card. I do believe he is gonna wait until Black Friday to purchase anything. We live in different states so I won't be building the desktop as far as I know he's gonna take it to his local Microcenter. From the RBG's I kinda just threw that together which I figured could be switched for something cheaper. I was just told he wanted to have a lot of ram so I went with 32GB. 

Asm0deus

I would change that mobo  tbh it's a bit of a hot mess with cut engineering corners, if you want a b550 msi mobo go for the b550 tomahawk or gaming carbon instead at least they're 6 layer pcb mobo over 4 layers like the gaming plus you chose.

You have to be very careful with the msi mpg line of baords as they can be quite shit even considering it's msi budget line of boards.

Truvidienn

Asm0deus said:

I would change that mobo  tbh it's a bit of a hot mess with cut engineering corners, if you want a b550 msi mobo go for the b550 tomahawk or gaming carbon instead at least they're 6 layer pcb mobo over 4 layers like the gaming plus you chose.

You have to be very careful with the msi mpg line of baords as they can be quite shit even considering it's msi budget line of boards.

Thank you for the recommendation.   I made a few adjustments. Would something like this work better for him? https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xfXZVc

Asm0deus

Truvidienn said:

Asm0deus said:

I would change that mobo  tbh it's a bit of a hot mess with cut engineering corners, if you want a b550 msi mobo go for the b550 tomahawk or gaming carbon instead at least they're 6 layer pcb mobo over 4 layers like the gaming plus you chose.

You have to be very careful with the msi mpg line of baords as they can be quite shit even considering it's msi budget line of boards.

Thank you for the recommendation.   I made a few adjustments. Would something like this work better for him? https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xfXZVc

Just had a cursory look, it's 4:30am here lol but I think I would go with the gaming carbon however I wouldn't get a b550 to start with but rather get a msi x570 tomahawk.

I haven't looked deeply into the b550 tbh beyond the basics so google some reviews would be best best to get an idea and see many different reviews of the same few boards you narrow it down too.

At around the 200 usd price range you can get a x570 so...b550 are hybrid 4.0/3.0 PCIe boards while the x570 is full 4.0 pcie.

Here's a quick tier list of mobo which is handy to use to get started with.

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1137619-motherboard-vrm-tier-list-v2-currently-amd-only/

There are still differences in performance among boards of the same tier. As a result, those that barely made it into that tier will be in orange while those that are better than others in the same tier are in blue. Unless specified, boards sharing the same name and chipset in different form factors are ranked the same.

Truvidienn

Didn't realize motherboards could be so expensive lol.  Would the Ryzen 5 5600x be more than enough for gaming? Or should I switch it out for something different?

Vrika

Truvidienn said:

Didn't realize motherboards could be so expensive lol.  Would the Ryzen 5 5600x be more than enough for gaming? Or should I switch it out for something different?

Ryzen 5600x is good enough for gaming. Unless your friend is rich Ryzen 5600x is the CPU I'd recommend for gaming computer.

Only exception is, if he's a fan of automation games or base building games (eg. Factorio), then with those types of games having more CPU cores can sometimes mean being able to build even bigger base. 

Vrika

Truvidienn said:
At the current moment I'm not really sure but I don't think it's that good of a video card. I do believe he is gonna wait until Black Friday to purchase anything. We live in different states so I won't be building the desktop as far as I know he's gonna take it to his local Microcenter. From the RBG's I kinda just threw that together which I figured could be switched for something cheaper. I was just told he wanted to have a lot of ram so I went with 32GB. 

If he's waiting until Black Friday, and buying from Microcenter, then doesn't it mean he'll be choosing from what Microcenter has available in November and their prices at that moment.

In which case we can make grand plans on pcpartpicker.com today, but when he eventually buys his computer he'll be facing different selection and different prices?

Truvidienn

Vrika said:

Truvidienn said:
At the current moment I'm not really sure but I don't think it's that good of a video card. I do believe he is gonna wait until Black Friday to purchase anything. We live in different states so I won't be building the desktop as far as I know he's gonna take it to his local Microcenter. From the RBG's I kinda just threw that together which I figured could be switched for something cheaper. I was just told he wanted to have a lot of ram so I went with 32GB. 

If he's waiting until Black Friday, and buying from Microcenter, then doesn't it mean he'll be choosing from what Microcenter has available in November and their prices at that moment.

In which case we can make grand plans on pcpartpicker.com today, but when he eventually buys his computer he'll be facing different selection and different prices?

I don't think he cares about all of that. But I could be wrong I guess the biggest thing is if his computer makes it that long. As far as game building goes he's into Minecraft.  He wants to buy online then have Microcenter assemble it for him. 

Vrika

Truvidienn said:

Vrika said:

Truvidienn said:
At the current moment I'm not really sure but I don't think it's that good of a video card. I do believe he is gonna wait until Black Friday to purchase anything. We live in different states so I won't be building the desktop as far as I know he's gonna take it to his local Microcenter. From the RBG's I kinda just threw that together which I figured could be switched for something cheaper. I was just told he wanted to have a lot of ram so I went with 32GB. 

If he's waiting until Black Friday, and buying from Microcenter, then doesn't it mean he'll be choosing from what Microcenter has available in November and their prices at that moment.

In which case we can make grand plans on pcpartpicker.com today, but when he eventually buys his computer he'll be facing different selection and different prices?

I don't think he cares about all of that. But I could be wrong I guess the biggest thing is if his computer makes it that long. As far as game building goes he's into Minecraft.  He wants to buy online then have Microcenter assemble it for him. 

Shouldn't we at least use Micro Center's own PC builder for this:
  https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/custom-pc-builder.aspx


EDIT: Or is the idea that he orders parts from different online retailers, then takes them to Micro Center, and they just build it from his parts? In which case you could make the plan with pcpartpicker.com.

But if he plans to buy everything from Micro Center, then using their PC builder would mean better chance of those parts being available at that price /EDIT


EDIT 2: Minecraft doesn't have high CPU requirements. For that Ryzen 5600x is more than plenty

Vrika

Truvidienn said:

From what I know of his current desktop is that it’s old and he can’t run play games after 30 minutes or so before he says it feels like it’s on fire.

Truvidienn said:

 But I could be wrong I guess the biggest thing is if his computer makes it that long. 

These comments made me think, what exactly is wrong with his current PC?

If it's a desktop PC, then any cooling problem can usually be fixed by:
 1. Cleaning dust from the computer if there's any, and
 2. Buying an extra case fan, switching one of the coolers, or doing something similar

For laptops you might be in a situation where cooling problem can't be fixed and you'd need to buy a new laptop, but for desktops there's usually no reason to build a new desktop just because of cooling problem.

Also computer parts do not generate more heat as they age. If his computer was ok when it was new and the problem is more recent, then it means the computer has developed some problem with cooling.

Truvidienn

Vrika said:

Truvidienn said:

From what I know of his current desktop is that it’s old and he can’t run play games after 30 minutes or so before he says it feels like it’s on fire.

Truvidienn said:

 But I could be wrong I guess the biggest thing is if his computer makes it that long. 

These comments made me think, what exactly is wrong with his current PC?

If it's a desktop PC, then any cooling problem can usually be fixed by:
 1. Cleaning dust from the computer if there's any, and
 2. Buying an extra case fan, switching one of the coolers, or doing something similar

For laptops you might be in a situation where cooling problem can't be fixed and you'd need to buy a new laptop, but for desktops there's usually no reason to build a new desktop just because of cooling problem.

Also computer parts do not generate more heat as they age. If his computer was ok when it was new and the problem is more recent, then it means the computer has developed some problem with cooling.

I'm not entirely sure what is wrong with it. Since I've never actually looked at the desktop myself. I just heard after a match or two of League of Legends he says his computer feels like it's overheating and he has to stop for awhile. I did not know that Microcenter had this option.. I'll definitely take a look at it. 

Quizzical

If he's not going to buy parts for three months, then wait three months to pick what you're going to buy.  A lot can change in three months, and video card prices have been especially volatile this year.