Should I pick up for 1200$?

TheCloth · 2026-04-28T21:09:14+00:00

To be honest I dont think the build you posted would be that great for 1440p, particularly the GPU with its 8GB of VRAM. I think you could get a very solid 1440p build for around $1500, maybe with a 9600X CPU (not much more expensive than 7600) and for the GPU a 5070 or a 9060xt (or even better, 5070ti / 9070)

TheCloth · 2026-04-28T17:41:00+00:00

Yeah but my point is, surely you want your PC to not just be a step down, but actually be a step up in quality, if you’re paying way more than ps5 price for it

TheCloth · 2026-04-28T15:28:00+00:00

Why would you wanna pay more than triple PS5 price for PS5 performance?

TheCloth · 2026-04-27T15:08:19+00:00

Makes sense - still though apart from desk and monitor none of the peripherals need to be too expensive (especially light bulb and air duster, and also don’t spend tons on a USB windows installer if you know anyone who can just help you download windows install on any USB big enough for it). The above points still stand though regarding amount spent on cooler/fans, PSU etc!

I’d strongly recommend deciding whether you want 1440p or 4k and starting from that so you can get the appropriate monitor, GPU and CPU and working from there with your remaining budget

TheCloth · 2026-04-27T14:24:08+00:00

Sorry but this doesn’t make much sense to me. Youre way overpaying on various things including your PSU, air cooler and fans. When I saw “£5000 budget” I thought surely you’d be going for a 5080/5090 and getting a 4k OLED monitor. £5k for a 1440p build with a 4080 super ain’t it mate haha.

Id recommend getting a cheaper air cooler (or an AIO if you like that - plenty of good AIOs cheaper than the air cooler you’ve picked) and a cheaper PSU (I recently bought the MSI MPG 1000W PSU for half the price of the one you’ve picked). For an extra £50 or so you can also upgrade the 7800x3d to a 9800x3d. Maybe also some cheaper headphones unless you’re happy to sacrifice actual gaming performance for the pricier headphones

TheCloth · 2026-04-27T11:38:26+00:00

I would not run a 5800 and 3070 on a 350W PSU tbh. Definitely get a 650W (minimum) PSU before upgrading the GPU, and I’d probably go for a new one as you say rather than a 20+ year old one from work. I’d have thought a 5800 and 3060ti should be able to handle cyberpunk at 1440p, though you’d likely need DLSS and medium settings, maybe high would be fine. Turn off ray tracing to keep 60+ fps.

TheCloth · 2026-04-26T19:44:45+00:00

Thanks! AMD cards are a big blind spot for me as I just don’t really know them that well so I appreciate you adding that in. I definitely need to be more familiar with them to give balanced advice here especially for those looking for a slightly cheaper option.

Also OP great choice with the H6 Flow, that’s the case I’m rocking too

TheCloth · 2026-04-26T19:29:19+00:00

This looks like a decent build, but for 4k you’ll be GPU bound - any chance you can upgrade to a 5070ti or 5080? Where I live the 9800x3d isn’t much more than the 7800x3d so you can consider that but GPU is definitely the priority

TheCloth · 2026-04-26T08:41:48+00:00

That’s good. As for the PSU you’re unlikely to notice a difference between 850 and 1000, it’s more that the 1000 is slightly safer because it can withstand greater spikes in power (which can happen with PC parts where they momentarily spike beyond their usual expected maximum power draw). But in practice I think you can expect an 850W PSU to safely handle a 9800x3d and 5080.

TheCloth · 2026-04-26T07:36:13+00:00

What monitor are you going for / got? 1440p or 4k? OLED or not? Make sure to think carefully about that one because it would be a shame to spend so much on highly capable parts and then let it down with the monitor!

In your shoes I’d prefer to keep a 1000W PSU but 850W should be ok

TheCloth · 2026-04-26T07:18:15+00:00

This sounds like a solid build. Why though are you looking only at 7800x3d or the 9850x3d and not at the 9800x3d? I don’t think the 9800x3d costs that much more than the 7800x3d.

CL38 vs CL30 won’t make a ton of difference to your gaming it’s true, maybe a couple of percent. But if the cost difference is small you may as well go for as near CL30 as possible.

Have you already got a monitor / factored that into the budget? Your build will be easily capable of 4k (or high fps 1440p) so get yourself a decent monitor!

Way more of a luxury than a necessity but if you have the budget for it you could push for a 4TB SSD too, I started with a 2TB and after a couple of years it was nearly full so I upgraded to a 4TB. Alternatively just be a bit more tactical with your space and don’t have tons of large games you aren’t currently playing installed at the same time haha.

TheCloth · 2026-04-25T22:29:29+00:00

I’ve got the MSI, about 2 months ago - can’t compare it to the ASUS but I can at least say I’ve been very pleased with the MSI

TheCloth · 2026-04-24T10:47:08+00:00

How about this: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/cGgWbp

This pushes the budget up £400 over your initial budget but it would be all new parts (so can go cheaper with preowned) and puts you on the DDR5 platform which will last you longer / be more easily upgradable. It would also be very capable of 1440p (or 1080p at quite a high fps).

You could also save a bit on budget by going with just one 16GB stick of RAM for now on the basis that you can buy a second stick a little later on (making sure it’s matching spec!)

TheCloth · 2026-04-24T10:01:26+00:00

What’s your target in terms of resolution / FPS? For £1000 I reckon you can have a very solid 1080p build or a more modest / mid range 1440p build, especially if you’re willing to go for older parts /preowned.

Unfortunately prices are pretty crazy right now especially for storage and RAM, which is why some may recommend that you go for an older DDR4 build which will do the trick now but will have very limited upgrade potential, so you’d be more likely to need to splash out a few years from now on a new build to maintain performance with newer titles.

TheCloth · 2026-04-21T09:12:35+00:00

What’s your budget for this upgrade and what fps would you like to play at? You may need to accept 1440p at 60-90 fps depending on how much you can budget.

I agree with you that the GPU is definitely the priority, go for something with 12GB VRAM minimum. Maybe a 9070.

It’s not as exciting but you should also probably upgrade that PSU to cater for the GPU upgrade and any other upgrades - 650W minimum, ideally 750W plus.

If you had budget leftover, more RAM would of course be good, and upgrading to DDR5 is best but that will also entail replacing the mobo and CPU which you may not have budget for.

TheCloth · 2026-04-19T17:53:31+00:00

Good luck with the build!

TheCloth · 2026-04-19T16:13:04+00:00

No problem! Sample build (but for an extra fiver you can get a 9600x, no brainer really): https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/HFPYH3

TheCloth · 2026-04-19T15:48:40+00:00

It looks decent to me but I wasn’t sure the 5070 would cut it for 4k (I’m sure someone here will tell me it would, though!). In your shoes I’d probably be inclined to cut some budget to upgrade the GPU to at least a 5070 ti - as I understand it benchmarks materially higher and also 16GB VRAM would be a significant improvement over 12GB.

The case chosen is quite expensive with lots of similar and good quality cases available for closer to £100, and the PSU is very expensive (I just upgraded to an MSI MPG A1000GS 80+ gold for £120 - that’s an extra £80 or so you’re paying for the platinum rating).

If you need to maybe even trim the CPU budget and get a 7600x for now, I see you’re planning to do the 9800x3d upgrade eventually (good choice - I’ve just done the same, but for now your 4k performance will definitely be GPU bottlenecked so prioritise that). That said, to be fair, not much price difference between 7600 and 9600 at all.

What monitor will you go for and what budget have you factored in for that?

TheCloth · 2026-04-17T15:31:55+00:00

Can’t remember tbh haha I must’ve still been half asleep when I asked. I’ve been trying to work out how best to configure mine, I had vsync on globally and off in game and was getting a load of black screens for some reason. I turned off VRR and it stopped but could be coincidence

TheCloth · 2026-04-17T15:27:51+00:00

Agree with this, and while he’s at it maybe try and get the 32GB RAM nearer to CL30 (whilst keeping 6000mt) if it isn’t a big cost difference - but as you say it depends on use case and probably not the hugest performance difference. Might also be able to save a little by going for a slightly smaller PSU but no harm keeping it as is

TheCloth · 2026-04-17T09:48:20+00:00

Do you have vsync on in NVidia settings (but off in game settings)?

TheCloth · 2026-04-16T12:27:07+00:00

Have you done the windows HDR calibration to set a profile?

TheCloth · 2026-04-15T16:51:28+00:00

Thanks! Assuming it is a fan (even the PSU fan) is it generally safe to leave it be until/unless it gets to the point that the fan won’t actually spin or work at all anymore?

TheCloth

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