Where to buy a gaming PC nowadays?

[ChimpMaster]

I last purchased a PC from CyberPower 10 years ago. It was specc'd well for its time (see below) so lasted me well, considering that I'm just a casual gamer and didn't need anything too powerful.

I want to upgrade now to Win 11 and to a better spec, but of course am caught up the RAM price storm. I'm not even sure what spec to get because I've been out of the loop for years, but I want to future proof for next 5+ years so want 32gb RAM and a decent GPU.

I will not be self-building. Budget is around £1500 (PC only, not monitor etc), with scope to increase if advised.

What spec might you recommend, and where to buy from?

my old spec:-
i7-6700K 4GHz 4 cores
16Gb RAM
nVidia GTX 970
1 x 256Gb SSD for Windows
2 x 2Tb SATA HDD for data

[ladymuck]

This has been discussed before and I think the suggestions still hold up.

Scan is pretty good. Overclockers too.

It's not just RAM that's peaking in price but also SSDs.

Take a look at the recommended (not minimum) specs for a few of the top games that require high performance kit. Then try to up it from there to get extra longevity. I always massively overspec for the current requirements and that tends to last a good 5 years before signs of struggle start appearing.

[fulcon]

I'm on my 3rd PC from Power Computing. I've had it a couple of years now, the previous two I ran for ~10 years each.

You're not just contending with the price of memory, but the price of graphics cards too. At the top end. you're looking at over £1000 for a 5080, and over £2000 for a 5090. Recent rumours suggest NVidia is going to squeeze the supply of 50x0 cards next year which could drive prices up further.

Depending on the type of gaming you plan to do (AAA titles?, 4K?, VR?), and your requirement for a decent GPU, I would not go below a 5070 if I was buying a PC today.

If gaming is your main focus, you could also wait a few months and see what price the Steam Machine launches at, and what the reviews are like.

[BlueSharp]

I'm on my 3rd PC from Power Computing. I've had it a couple of years now, the previous two I ran for ~10 years each.

You're not just contending with the price of memory, but the price of graphics cards too. At the top end. you're looking at over £1000 for a 5080, and over £2000 for a 5090. Recent rumours suggest NVidia is going to squeeze the supply of 50x0 cards next year which could drive prices up further.

Depending on the type of gaming you plan to do (AAA titles?, 4K?, VR?), and your requirement for a decent GPU, I would not go below a 5070 if I was buying a PC today.

If gaming is your main focus, you could also wait a few months and see what price the Steam Machine launches at, and what the reviews are like.

5060 is more than enough for a casual gamer. I would, however, avoid the 8GB and stick to the 16GB version.

[fulcon]

5060 is more than enough for a casual gamer. I would, however, avoid the 8GB and stick to the 16GB version.

I think the small price difference between the 5060Ti and the 5070 makes the 5070 better value. Most reviews I've seen advise buying the 5070 over the 5060Ti as the better performance outweighs the extra memory for most scenarios.

[ChimpMaster]

Given the extortionate prices now, but the fact that I quite desperately need a new PC, does this appear to be a reasonable option now at £2k - bearing in mind future-proofing for a few years ?

CyberPower, AMD Ryzen 7, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD, NVIDIA GeForc...


My only additional cost would be to add in a HDD but that's cheap so long as the motherboard has the connections.

[fulcon]

I don't think the specifications are sufficiently detailed to answer that. They don't even list the manufacturer(s) of the components.

[ChimpMaster]

Prices have gone a bit crazy.

Have settled on the build below at just sub-£2k. Will install Windows 11 myself.

I'm sure there are plenty of holes that can be picked on this or any spec, but for the money this is a build I'm good with.

	Case: BEQUIET! Pure Base 501 Airflow Window CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 7800X3D - 4.5/5.4Ghz Turbo - 8 Core - 16 Threads
	BE QUIET! Pure Rock 3 - Ultra Quiet Option - (AIR)
	ASUS TUF Gaming A620M-PLUS WIFI
	32GB DDR5 6400Mhz - ADATA RGB
	2TB WD Black SN7100 M.2 NVMe - 7250MB/s(R)-6900MB/s(W) - GEN4
	500GB SAMSUNG 860 Evo SATA3 - 6Gb/s
	2TB SEAGATE SATA3 - 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM & 64MB Cache
	nVIDIA | GeForce RTX 5070 TI 16GB - HDMI-DP - GDDR7
	850W PSU - COOLERMASTER MWE V3 Gold - ATX3.1 (High Gaming)

[jamesbrown]

Prices have gone a bit crazy.

Have settled on the build below at just sub-£2k. Will install Windows 11 myself.

I'm sure there are plenty of holes that can be picked on this or any spec, but for the money this is a build I'm good with.

	Case: BEQUIET! Pure Base 501 Airflow Window CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 7800X3D - 4.5/5.4Ghz Turbo - 8 Core - 16 Threads
	BE QUIET! Pure Rock 3 - Ultra Quiet Option - (AIR)
	ASUS TUF Gaming A620M-PLUS WIFI
	32GB DDR5 6400Mhz - ADATA RGB
	2TB WD Black SN7100 M.2 NVMe - 7250MB/s(R)-6900MB/s(W) - GEN4
	500GB SAMSUNG 860 Evo SATA3 - 6Gb/s
	2TB SEAGATE SATA3 - 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM & 64MB Cache
	nVIDIA | GeForce RTX 5070 TI 16GB - HDMI-DP - GDDR7
	850W PSU - COOLERMASTER MWE V3 Gold - ATX3.1 (High Gaming)

That is pretty eye opening. I got lucky with the timing of my own rig as I got a *way* better spec than that last October for about the same price. Given the ridiculous situation, though, that spec looks solid to me. Unfortunately, aside from prices, a lot of component updates have been pretty meh of late.

[fulcon]

I got lucky with the timing of my own rig as I got a *way* better spec than that last October for about the same price. Given the ridiculous situation, though, that spec looks solid to me. Unfortunately, aside from prices, a lot of component updates have been pretty meh of late.

I bought a similar spec. in Jan 2022 when graphics card prices were, arguably, even more ridiculous than they are now, and paid considerably more.
ChimpMaster, I'd be very happy with that spec. for under 2K.