I originally planned to spend about £1,200 on my first gaming PC, but I can stretch the budget to roughly £1,600 if it means getting a setup that will remain capable for a long time without needing major upgrades. The current parts list includes a Ryzen 7 9700X, Gigabyte X870E Aorus Elite WiFi 7 motherboard, Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, an 850W Gold modular power supply, a Hyte Y70 case, a 360mm liquid cooler, and additional RGB fans. Is this a sensible and well-balanced build, or should I spend less on the motherboard and cooling and put the savings toward a faster graphics card or an X3D processor?
3 Answers
You do not really need a 360mm liquid cooler for the 65W Ryzen 7 9700X. A good tower air cooler should handle it comfortably and would save a decent amount of money. You could put that budget toward the graphics card instead.
The X870E motherboard is far more expensive and feature-packed than this build needs. A good B850 or reasonably priced X870 board would still support the processor, DDR5-6000, Wi-Fi, and future upgrades. Spending roughly half as much on the board would leave more room for a stronger GPU or an X3D chip, which would make a bigger difference for gaming.
Are there any particular boards in those ranges that you would recommend?
The parts should work together, but the build is not especially balanced for gaming because so much of the budget is going into the case, motherboard, cooling, and fans. The 9700X does not need water cooling, and an 850W supply is already more than enough. If you can add around another £200, moving up to a Radeon RX 9070 XT would give the system a much longer useful lifespan. Otherwise, reduce the motherboard and cooler costs first and put the savings into the GPU.
That makes sense, thanks. I’ll look at air coolers and see how much that frees up.