I Built A PC For $2300 / £1700
I built this PC in March 2019, I had roughly £1700 / $2300 to spend at the time and I wanted to be able to play games, possibly stream and also possibly edit videos. Unfortunately I do not have a better picture as at the time of building this was the only picture I had taken and I have made a couple upgrade since therefore I cannot another one. I wanted something that would last approximately five years with only having to have graphics card upgrades to keep up with the latest games coming out. Below I go through each part of the PC and the reason I picked each part and the thought process I went through. Hopefully it might help some of you pick your parts in the future as the same rules I use still apply to building a PC now.
Processor (CPU)
Intel Core i9 9900k Unlocked Processor
My thought process at the time was to have the best CPU possible and at the time that was the Intel Core i9 9900k. One of the reasons I wanted the best CPU is that I did not want to upgrade my CPU for several years as when updating a CPU that means that you also need update the motherboard and possibly other parts that do not work with the updated motherboard.
I also wanted the best CPU available at that time because I wanted to be able to have the best gaming performance but also be able to stream games with only using a one PC setup. Lastly I wanted the best possible CPU performance for video editing (I watched one too many Peter McKinnon videos and got inspired).
Graphics Card (GPU)
Gigabyte NVDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB Gaming OC Pro
At the time I really wanted to get into Ray Tracing, it was still pretty early in the tech and there weren't that many RT games out however I believed it was the next big thing in how games will look more realistic. I also was on a budget and as there weren't many RT games out at the time I decided to get either a 2060 or 2070. In the end I landed on the 2060 as I thought of saving the extra money for next gen graphics card for when they came out, plus I only had one 1080p screen at the time, so not as much power was required.
Memory
16GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3000 MHz DDR4
In my experience you can't really go wrong if you pick a well known brand however picking memory modules is fairly easy, these are the main rues I follow.
Firstly dual channel is faster than single channel and quad channel is faster than quad channel.
Secondly to check the actual rated speed of the module using a memory module calculator or check a reputable site which has comparison charts (Highest MHz does not mean highest speed)
Thirdly only buy the amount of GBs you really need, it is great to say you have a 32GB or 64GB in memory but if you aren't going to be using it then it's not worth wasting extra money which can go into other part of the system which will be much more useful to you. Most systems do not need more than 16GBs.
Fourthly, make sure your CPU can run the Mhz you are pushing your RAM to. In other words do not buy anything above 3200 Mhz unless you know your CPU can run the speed.
Lastly do not mix and match different rated and branded modules, they may work fine but won't give you the best performance.
I chose the 16GB dual channel because I wanted to be able easily upgrade to quad channel 32GB using the same modules in the future. I chose G.Skill Trident Z RGB because they make some of the fastest modules and are well known brand, plus they look cool and I wanted RGB. I wanted the 3200Mhz modules however I chose 3000 MHz because it was in the price budget.
Hard Drives
250gb Samsung 970 EVO PLUS m.2 PCIe NVME SSD
500gb Samsung 840 EVO Sata SSD
This was the easiest and simplest choice of all the parts, the 500GB I already owned and the NVME drive for 250GB was quite cheap so I bought this knowing I would upgrade this in the future to a 1TB drive when I could. I did not upgrade the drives for a eighteen months and then added another 1TB Sata SSD and will shortly be also adding a 1TB NVME SSD.
Motherboard
ASUS Intel Z390 ROG Maximus XI Hero ATX
Picking a motherboard has to be one of the more difficult choices to make, there are so many different brands and each brand has different variants. It is hard to know how much budget to allocate to a motherboard as well as the prices range from £100 pounds to £500 pounds. When trying look at differences they are quite hard to spot as there are so many different things on a motherboard. It is also really hard to price shop as there are so many boards to compare. This one took me the most time to find something for my needs and also a good price. One thing I know I wanted was WiFi on the board, I also wanted a good amount of NVME slots so I could easily upgrade and a good amount of USB connections as the many mid - lower end boards tend to not to have enough USB connections.
Power Supply (PSU)
850W - Corsair RM850X Modular 80+ Gold Power Supply
Power supplies have always been a bit of a mystery to me as you don't actually need over 500W (Using a Watt calculator online - not tested by myself) for the system that I am building however as far as I am aware buying a 500 / 600W power supply isn't as efficient as a high watt PSU for the 500W power range - (I might be completely wrong in that). I do need to do some more research on how to pick the best PSU but going higher than required is not going hurt, especially when the cost difference of a good 500W and 850W PSU is not huge compared to the price of the full system. I always go for a modular power supply as it is easier and cleaner install. Another reason I chose an 850W is that if I was to upgrade parts such as the graphics card then it is more than likely more power will be required. One thing I would recommend when looking at power supplies is not to skimp out and buy the cheapest one or go with any unknown brands as even sometimes well known brands have had issues with PSUs. I personally have not had any issues with Corsair so many of my builds use Corsair power supplies.
All in one CPU Water Cooling (AIO)
NZXT 280mm Kraken X62 RGB All In One CPU Water Cooler
Living in the UK you would think a Big heatsink fan cooler would be fine, however the issue is the location of my PC in my house. It is sitting on a carpet floor in my study which is quite a small box room and this means it can get really hot really quick in the summer. Also as I have kids and I need to keep it quite at night time so the door needs to be closed which means as it heats up there is not much passthrough airflow which does not help when it gets hot. I have used heatsinks + fans in the past for the most part it works fine but they tend to heat up quicker and the CPU sit at higher temps when at idle and full load. At the time of buying I knew an AIO won't solve the problem the room heating up but I though it would let me game for longer than before the CPU gets too hot. In practise I found that the CPU does not go above 55 degrees C when gaming and idles at about 35 to 40 degree C (based upon the custom fan and pump curve I have set).
Case
NZXT H500 Tempered Glass Midi PC Gaming case - White
One of the first parts that should be chosen is the the case and that is because all the other parts need to fit into the case. PC cases can actually be quite hard to pick, there are so many cases out there and many many bad cases, I would recommend checking out other builds in the same case to see if anyone else has come across issues with it. I do tend to go for the looks first and then plan my build around the case however there is also the functionality aspect to it. I actually chose this case as I thought it was the perfect size but also I liked how it looked with the white bar inside designed to hide the wiring. My previous case was a huge full tower and that was great however it was very cumbersome and this time I wanted something slightly smaller without making things difficult in the wiring aspect around the back of the PC. There were a couple issues with the case, firstly the motherboard has a build in IO shield and this was not perfectly aligned with the case which meant it was a little difficult to fit the motherboard in. Secondly there was an issue where if you have a 280mm radiator, you can only fit it one way around on the case which is not a big issue however it is not the optimum was of fitting the radiator.
It has been almost three years since the build and things have moved on quickly in terms of the graphics card power and CPU processing power that is available on the market, however this machine still holds up well with most current games running at pretty high settings on a 1080p screen. I have upgraded the graphics cards a couple times since and also upgraded the hard drives a couple times which I will go through those in more details in another post.
This is not a full guide for anyone who wants to buy and build their own PC but hopefully it gives you some idea of my thought process that goes into building a PC and possibly helps you when you build your PC.
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