I originally planned to spend about £1,200 on my first gaming PC, but I'm willing to increase the budget to roughly £1,600 for a setup that should stay capable without major upgrades for a while. The build includes a Ryzen 7 9700X, Gigabyte X870E Aorus Elite WiFi 7 motherboard, Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB, 32GB DDR5-6000 memory, an 850W ATX 3.1 power supply, a Hyte Y70 case, and a 360mm liquid cooler with additional RGB fans. Is this a worthwhile and well-balanced build, or are there areas where I should spend less or redirect the money for better gaming performance?
3 Answers
You can save quite a bit by replacing the 360mm liquid cooler with a good air cooler. The Ryzen 7 9700X is only a 65W chip, so it doesn’t need an expensive AIO to perform well. That money would be better spent elsewhere.
The main weakness is the balance between the premium motherboard and cooling and the relatively mid-range graphics card. If you can add roughly another £200, a Radeon RX 9070 XT would make the system much stronger and more suitable for staying relevant for several years. Even without adding money, cutting back to a sensible motherboard and air cooler should free up budget for a better GPU.
The X870E motherboard is far more expensive than this build really needs. A decent board around half the price should still handle the 9700X, DDR5-6000 memory, Wi-Fi, and modern storage just fine. Put the savings toward a faster graphics card or an X3D processor, since those would have a bigger impact on gaming.
Are there any particular more affordable motherboards you’d recommend?
That makes sense, thanks. I’ll look at air coolers instead.