I'm putting together a gaming PC for a friend in the UK with a total budget of roughly £2,000–£3,000, including a new 1440p monitor. He won't need any other peripherals. The games he plays or may want to play include Bannerlord, Total War: Warhammer, Rust, Apex Legends, Subnautica 2, and a wide range of other titles.
I'm aiming closer to £2,000 rather than spending the full budget, since I don't want to pay extra for upgrades he is unlikely to notice. I've started a parts list and would appreciate suggestions for better-value components or sensible changes, particularly regarding the graphics card, processor, storage, and monitor.
2 Answers
The RTX 5070 Ti is probably the least convincing part of the current selection. Unless you specifically need Nvidia features, the Radeon RX 9070 XT generally offers better gaming performance per pound and has 16GB of VRAM. Nvidia's software is easy to use, but that alone may not justify the price difference for this build.
The build is already fairly solid, but I'd consider a Ryzen 7 7800X3D for gaming, especially for CPU-heavy games such as Bannerlord and Total War. Pair it with a reasonably priced B850 motherboard and 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory. The Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE is a good-value cooler and is effectively the newer choice at a similar price.
You could also use a good 850W power supply instead of paying a premium for the Corsair model, although the Corsair unit is still an excellent option. The RX 9070 XT is the stronger value graphics card here. Also, don't rely on the unusually cheap 2TB NVMe price in the original list—the listing appears unavailable, so budgeting closer to £200 for a suitable 2TB drive is more realistic.
A sensible alternative comes in at about £1,796 before the monitor: Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Phantom Spirit 120 SE, an Asus B850 Wi-Fi board, 32GB DDR5-6000, a 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, Radeon RX 9070 XT, NZXT H5 Flow case, and an 850W Gold-rated modular PSU. That leaves plenty of room in the overall budget for a good 1440p monitor.
I was mainly undecided between the RTX 5070 Ti and RX 9070 XT. Since my friend isn't very technical, I thought Nvidia's software might be simpler, but value for money is the bigger concern.