Looking for some advice....

Camco

Greetings fellow PC lovers. I am looking to build a new PC in the near future, but I have been out of the PC building game going on 5 years. Used to build them all the time, but after my dad passed, I sold all m extra parts and my entire set up to ensure my family members could get urns. So I am looking for some help as there are too many new things for me to wrap my head around.

I would be playing at 1080p or 1440p (going for those frame rates), and playing a wide variety of games such as: CoD MW, BF, CSGO, LoL, WoW, GTAV (with mods), and the list goes on. With this PC, I will be looking into doing some streaming and possible editing also. I prefer the simplicity of air cooling, but will consider AIO if I'd have to OC to get some extra juice out of the PC. Lastly, trying to keep the build around $1,500; could go slightly higher if it means a good performance jump for one of the parts.

Any and all help would be appreciated. Oh, and I forgot, I do have a 2TB SSD I would be using to put m games on if that helps (would like a M.2 boot drive)

TSNickW

Hey Camco. Sorry to hear about your dad, but I think your PC is a noble sacrifice for family.
$1500 budget gives you a ton of space to work with. Before suggesting any specific parts I wanted to check if your budget included Keyboard, mouse, & monitor?

Also do you have a preference in terms of AMD, Intel, or Nvidia?

Camco

Thanks Nick. I thought it was too until they didn't appreciate it, then it just stung a whole bunch.

But, to answer your questions, the KBnM and monitor are not included in the $1,500 price. I have a decent monitor for now, and will pick up a KBnM at the store when picking up parts. Also, I do not have that much of a preference between AMD or Intel for the CPU but for the GPU I'd prefer to stick with Nvidia.

PowerSpec_MichaelB

Alright, so $1500 budgeted for the system. Our recommendations for gaming while streaming would definitely be leaning towards AMD's new Ryzen processors. The higher core counts will come in handy when streaming while gaming to avoid those microstutters when your processor is under heavy load. Here is my recommended part list: https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/custom-pc-builder.aspx?load=322b2f6f-2f4e-416b-a65b-f05646c14ada. Now the choice in motherboard and case will ultimately be up to your personal preference on aesthetics and future upgrade options. The MasterCase Pro 5 offers extremely high airflow and is modular, so you can completely customize the internal layout of the chassis. Offers great watercooling support if you wanted to upgrade to water cooling in the future, and looks very clean overall. The motherboard is a bit pricey, but is very feature rich and would support even the highest end 16 core 3950X processor with ease. Speaking of processors, the 3700X chosen for that build is an 8 core, 16 thread processor that offers a turbo boost to 4.4ghz in less demanding situations without any overclocking required. The stock RGB cooler included with the processor is also plenty capable at keeping the processor cool, even when overclocked. I've chosen a fast kit of DDR4 3600mhz memory as Ryzen really benefits from faster memory. I chose a very high quality EVGA 650W 80+ Gold power supply which will support even the higher end RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards without an issue should you ever wish to upgrade. The GPU selected in that build is the RTX 2060 Super, which performs on par with the original RTX 2070's while using less power and producing less noise. They overclock quite well and will handle any 1080p/1440p games you throw at it, especially the ones mentioned in your original post.

The build costs around $1320 before taxes and should leave you enough money to buy your keyboard and mouse. If you do not have a monitor that supports adaptive sync, I would highly recommend investing in a high refresh rate monitor with that technology. It will greatly improve your gaming experience overall. Now that Nvidia officially supports Freesync, you can save money by investing in a FreeSync monitor and enabling G-Sync Compatible mode: https://www.microcenter.com/tech_center/article/10968/how-to-enable-nvidia-g-sync-compatible-mode. I wish you the best of luck with your build. If you have any questions, please let us know.

PowerSpec_MichaelB

@Camco said:
Thanks Nick. I thought it was too until they didn't appreciate it, then it just stung a whole bunch.

But, to answer your questions, the KBnM and monitor are not included in the $1,500 price. I have a decent monitor for now, and will pick up a KBnM at the store when picking up parts. Also, I do not have that much of a preference between AMD or Intel for the CPU but for the GPU I'd prefer to stick with Nvidia.

On second thought, looking at our current sales, the PowerSpec G706 is currently on sale for $1350 which is $450 cheaper than it's normal price: https://www.microcenter.com/product/608933/powerspec-g706-gaming-desktop-computer. This would include a much faster RTX 2070 Super while still including the same processor, same memory capacity and same SSD capacity as the $1320 system I parted out above. It is built with off the shelf components as well, so it's extremely easy to upgrade and customize it in the future. It also comes with a 240mm Cooler Master liquid cooler, which will help the CPU stay cool while running much quieter. It also includes Windows 10 Pro, which I forgot to add to the original pricing of the first build. If you wanted to save the time of having to build a computer, and wanted to get a 1 year warranty and 1 year of complimentary technical support, I'd definitely recommend the G706 for this price range.