new pc time ?

shaynemawer

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hi all, am thinking of finally changing my 14 year old pc.

It's slowly becoming slower and slower. So thinking it's to to just purchase a new pc as the current specs are Intel core 2 duo E4500, 3gb ram, with a as rock conroe 133-d667 motherboard and ati radeon HD 4600 series graphics card.

ideally i only use a pc to surf and watch my own sourced tv content at the minute but, i'd like something gaming wise, that could maybe play flight sim as i have a flight stick from years ago so would be good to make use of it again.

i've not built a pc for many of years so hoping you more knowledgeable people will be able to point me in the right direction please.
 
I think people will need to know your budget before they can give you any advice :)
Ah yes, totally forgot..

I'd like to say around the £500-600 mark to start with, but then have the potential to upgrade in the future.

I have a ps5 so gaming wise I'll be using that for the foreseeable.
 
Graphics cards got hit with a double whammy on the usual pandemic shortages and a cryptocurrency bubble and supply is still far outstripping demand with ridiculous prices at the moment.

I'd plan to go with integrated graphics, it doesn't affect the rest of the system much other than narrowing your CPU choice slightly (they moved from the motherboard chipset to the CPU a few years ago) but it does mean you can leave the graphics card choice until after the system is built - you may even find the flight sim performance on integrated graphics to be acceptable.
 
Graphics cards got hit with a double whammy on the usual pandemic shortages and a cryptocurrency bubble and supply is still far outstripping demand with ridiculous prices at the moment.

I'd plan to go with integrated graphics, it doesn't affect the rest of the system much other than narrowing your CPU choice slightly (they moved from the motherboard chipset to the CPU a few years ago) but it does mean you can leave the graphics card choice until after the system is built - you may even find the flight sim performance on integrated graphics to be acceptable.

Thats a pretty good idea, it's not a killer if flight sim works or not. Take it AMD is the route to go down ?.
 
Thats a pretty good idea, it's not a killer if flight sim works or not. Take it AMD is the route to go down ?.
AMD is fine.

I have no doubt that gaming on integrated Intel graphics would be a horrendous experience.

I'd like to say around the £500-600 mark to start with, but then have the potential to upgrade in the future.

£600 gets you just a graphics card right now. For a full system, £1200 would be around about the ideal mark.

£200 for an Intel CPU (11400 or something)
£70 for RAM (Crucial Ballistix 3600)
£150 for a mobo (H series, no need for a Z series)
£90 for a PSU (don't cheap out on this, it'll last several upgrades if it's decent)
£60 for a chassis (Phanteks is pretty amazing value)
3060ti/3070 - For flight SIM, you'd need to get something with mid-range power.

(3060 has 12 gigs of VRAM but don't be fooled, that's not a usable 12 gigs of RAM)
 
Am guessing I should scrap the idea on flight sim (at least for this year) and just get something that will see my through for now.
 
Thats a pretty good idea, it's not a killer if flight sim works or not. Take it AMD is the route to go down ?.

Tricky, there's slim picking around mainstream parts generally at the moment - most of that has moved to laptops or tablets so a lot of the desktop focus is on the more pricey enthusiast parts.

IIRC the E4xxx processors were around £100, today's equivalent of an i3 or Ryzen 3 so you certainly don't need anything faster. If it's lasted 14 years I'd happily consider a cheaper CPU.

Intel do have wide availability but they're STILL not enabling AVX for their Celeron- and Pentium-branded models and I've noticed a few programs starting to require it now. So while they have plenty of raw performance I'd be a bit wary of buying them. The i3s do have it so that's probably the models you're looking for in the i3 range. I believe the F suffix denotes one with disabled integrated graphics so avoid those.

AMD CPUs are harder to find, the 3000G generally goes for double its £45 RRP while the 3150G, 4300G and 5300G haven't even had a open market release yet - AMD are generally only selling them to system manufacturers and not retail shops.

GIven the competition the 3000G is still a reasonable choice even at £80 though.
 
Am guessing I should scrap the idea on flight sim (at least for this year) and just get something that will see my through for now.
You do know that the specs for gaming on Flight Sim are quite intense? I wouldn't go with the recommended spec. That's just asking for a bad time.

Minimum SpecRecommended SpecIdeal Spec
CPUAMD Ryzen 3 1200
Intel i5-4460
Ryzen 5 1500X
Intel i5-8400
AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X
Intel i7-9800X
GPURadeon RX 570
Nvidia GTX 700
Radeon RX 590
Nvidia GTX 970
Radeon VII
Nvidia RTX 2080
VRAM2GB4GB8GB
RAM8GB16GB32GB
Storage150 GB150 GB150 GB (SSD)
Minimum OS versionWindows 10 Nov 2019 update (1909)Windows 10 Nov 2019 update (1909)Windows 10 Nov 2019 update (1909)


That and the fact that the Flight Sim is on a console you already owns means I'd stick with that you have for now.
 

MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GAMING Z TRIO LHR 8GB OC​

£649.99


This is £150 more than I paid for my 3060 ti Gaming X Trio. Madness.
 
Yeah But you cannot play MS flight sim on a PS5 - dont get me wrong having both might not be ideal but graphics cards are a lot more than a Xbox at the moment.
 
Yeah But you cannot play MS flight sim on a PS5 - dont get me wrong having both might not be ideal but graphics cards are a lot more than a Xbox at the moment.
I'd still then have to upgrade the pc though.

I'd rather just not run Flight Sim to start with and wait and see what happens next year with prices. To start with, it's all about getting a functioning pc again.
 
Fair enough - good to focus on the most important part.
yeah, my pc and ps5 are right next to each other. so whenever am on my ps5 i'll turn the pc on and put something on tv wise or just browse inbetween games
 
What I would recommend and it depends on what you want to spend but trying to get near you budget is a AMD B550 motherboard, with either a Ryzen 3600 (£185) or 5600x (£245) CPU - the 5600x is the better choice. 16MB 3600 RAM minimum, you can get more later if needed. The issue is you need some kind of Graphic card to make it work - could you use the one you already have maybe to just drive videos and the internet ?

Also Get a NMVe drive maybe 1TB that really improves the speed of the loading of windows etc. My PC loads from pressing the power button to windows in around 8 seconds now.

Also consider if want PSU you buy as if you get a 750watt now it will power most Graphics cards in the future, if you get a 500w it may well need replacing if you get something in future - worth thinking about.

I built a PC around this spec in January , cost around 700 but I spend £115 on the PSU as I knew it would need it and I bought 32GB of RAM so could be done in your budget if you get a cheaper PSU and less RAM
 
I'd suggest going Intel i5 with a mid tier board, 16GB ram which should come in at around £330/350 then use the rest for PSU, nvme and case, the reason I'd go Intel is the fact it has decent onboard graphics at a decent price which you can upgrade later the new AMD CPU with onboard graphics is hard to come by and the graphics part isn't as good.
 
the new AMD CPU with onboard graphics is hard to come by and the graphics part isn't as good.

What are you talking about? What on earth are you basing your opinion on?


AMD crushes Intel in every game with their onboard graphics. They may be switching to the new AMD 5600G but there's plenty of stock available for the new range and it's priced fairly.
 
That article is a year old, new 11 gen Intel has a good graphics package.
 
That article is a year old, new 11 gen Intel has a good graphics package.
Rocket Lake-S gets a small but noticeable upgrade to its integrated graphics performance—the 10th-generation Core CPU's UHD 630 graphics gets bumped up to UHD 750. While it is an improvement, it's nothing to write home about—if you were hoping for an equivalent to Intel's Iris Xe graphics in Tiger Lake laptop CPUs (or AMD's Vega 11 in desktop APUs) you'll be sorely disappointed.



image.png.cab8ea9bbf745eb8443b85c7144a28ba.png



Yeah, a big improvement over the UHD 630 but really lacking any competitive edge against AMD.

Nice recommendation mate. Opinion <> fact
 
Yeah I agree with @JollyJamma if you intend using IG then AMD, but the i5 is better cost effective purchase if your using a discrete graphics card.
 
Well, looking at gpu prices I might actually wait till next year lol. As mentioned, they are stupidly high.

Dont know if to just wait and see if someone drops a decent price on a pre-built system.
 

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