I'm new to building PCs and would appreciate some honest advice. I'm in the UK and hoping to buy around Black Friday, with a target budget of £900 and an absolute maximum of £950. I already have a monitor and peripherals, and I don't care about RGB.
The PC would be used for daily remote work and 1440p gaming at around 60fps, including Red Dead Redemption 2 and EA FC. I'd also like a sensible upgrade path for future games, potentially including GTA 6 when its PC version eventually arrives. I'm happy to upgrade the graphics card later, but I don't want to cheap out on parts that are difficult or expensive to replace.
My current idea uses a Ryzen 5 7600, RX 9060 XT 16GB, 750W Gold power supply, 16GB DDR5 memory and a 1TB NVMe SSD. However, current prices bring it to roughly £1,179, mainly because DDR5 memory is unusually expensive. I'm considering starting with 16GB RAM and adding more later, while keeping four memory slots and an additional M.2 slot available.
Would it be smarter to wait for prices to change, use an older DDR4/AM4 platform, or reduce spending elsewhere? Is the RX 9060 XT 16GB a good choice at this budget? I'd also appreciate recommendations for either a complete build or a cheaper 1080p-focused system that could be upgraded to 1440p later.
4 Answers
At current UK prices, £900–£950 is a tight budget for a new system aimed at high-quality 1440p gaming. You can build something perfectly usable for 1080p, but a strong 1440p experience may require compromises or a future GPU upgrade. The Ryzen 5 7600 platform is a sensible starting point, so I’d generally prefer it over AM4 if you can afford it. Used parts are another way to stretch the budget, especially for the graphics card, memory and case.
I wouldn’t plan around GTA 6 PC requirements yet, since the PC version and its hardware demands aren’t clear. Build for the games you can play now and leave room to replace the GPU later. If you need to stay close to £950, a good 1080p build with a future 1440p upgrade is more realistic than trying to maximize every setting at 1440p immediately. Don’t assume Black Friday will automatically make RAM and graphics cards dramatically cheaper.
That makes sense. I’d be happy with 1080p for now if there’s a sensible upgrade path to 1440p later.
You may need to save roughly another £200–£300 for a comfortable new 1440p-focused build, depending on sales. If you stay within the original budget, prioritize the CPU platform, a reliable power supply and a graphics card with enough VRAM, then accept that some games will need reduced settings. A prebuilt from a reputable UK system builder could also be worth comparing, but check the exact motherboard, PSU, memory configuration and cooling rather than judging it by the GPU alone.
A cheaper AM5 setup can bring the total down. The Ryzen 5 7500F is only slightly slower than the 7600 in gaming and can be paired with a basic B650 motherboard. A 650W quality PSU should be enough for this class of build and leaves room for a moderate future GPU upgrade, so 750W isn’t essential. You can start with one 16GB memory module if necessary, but two matching modules are preferable because dual-channel memory improves performance; ideally plan to move to 32GB fairly soon. A 1TB SSD is a reasonable place to save money, since storage is easy to add later.
Thanks, that’s really helpful. I hadn’t considered the 7500F or that a good 650W PSU could be sufficient. I’ll compare that approach with the 7600 build and look carefully at memory pricing.
Which parts would be safest to buy used? I’m open to second-hand components if that lets me stay on the newer platform, and I’d also consider saving more if that makes a meaningful difference.