I'm not very experienced with PC hardware and plan to order a custom-built system from a UK retailer. My budget is about £3,000, and I'll mainly play The Division, Diablo, and World of Warcraft. I'll use a controller rather than keyboard and mouse, although I already own both peripherals. The PC will be connected to a 48-inch LG G5 4K television.
I'd particularly like a reliable, high-quality power supply because PSUs have been the first component to fail in my previous computers. Good cooling is also important because the room gets very hot during summer. I don't need to include a keyboard or mouse, and I'd appreciate guidance on choosing the components and deciding whether the extra money for a higher-end graphics card is worthwhile.
3 Answers
A strong configuration would be a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, ASUS TUF B850 Wi-Fi motherboard, 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000, a 2TB WD Blue NVMe drive, Radeon RX 9070 XT, and Corsair HX1000i power supply. The HX1000i is a premium unit with plenty of headroom and a 10-year warranty. A 360mm liquid cooler or a well-reviewed high-end air cooler, combined with a case with good airflow, should help in a warm room.
You could choose an Nvidia card instead, but the RTX 5070 Ti costs more for similar performance, while moving up to an RTX 5080 may not provide enough extra performance to justify the additional cost for these games.
A sensible prebuilt from a reputable UK builder may be easier than configuring every component yourself. With around £3,000, you should be able to get a powerful 4K-capable system with a good warranty, though prices for graphics cards, memory, and storage can vary considerably.
For these games, you don’t necessarily need to spend the entire budget. A much cheaper modern gaming PC would handle them well, although World of Warcraft is considerably easier to play with a keyboard and mouse despite your preference for a controller.
If you do want to use the full budget for a strong 4K system, a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, Radeon RX 9070 XT, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, and a 2TB NVMe SSD would be a very capable combination. A premium 1,000W power supply with a long warranty is a sensible choice, especially since PSU reliability is a priority.
I increased the budget slightly and selected a Ryzen 7 9850X3D, RTX 5070 Ti, 32GB of DDR5-6000, a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, a Corsair HXi 1000W Platinum PSU, and extra case fans. I wasn’t sure whether four additional fans was excessive, but I decided against the RTX 5080 because the extra cost didn’t seem worthwhile for the performance difference.