I'm putting together my first gaming PC with a budget of roughly £1,500. The games I'm most likely to play are Satisfactory, Cities: Skylines 2, and Apex Legends. Is the current parts list well balanced for those games, or are there better ways to spend the budget? I'm especially interested in performance, sensible component choices, and anything that would make the build easier or safer for a first-time builder.
3 Answers
You can get a noticeably faster graphics card for around the same overall price. A Ryzen 5 9600X paired with an RX 9070 XT, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, and a good 1TB NVMe drive would be a strong combination for these games. The 9070 XT gives you plenty of headroom at 1440p, while the 9600X should handle simulation-heavy games well.
The build is generally solid, but there are a few easy savings. A Thermalright Peerless Assassin or Phantom Spirit cooler should be enough and costs less than a premium cooler. DDR5-6000 CL30 memory is preferable to CL36 if the price difference is small, and the case is mostly a personal choice, so you could save there too. Put those savings toward the graphics card if possible.
For a first build, air cooling is the simpler and more reliable option. A B850 motherboard, 32GB of DDR5-6000 CL30, and a Ryzen 5 9600X would leave more of the budget for a stronger GPU. The processor does not need an expensive liquid cooler, and 1TB of storage is fine to start with, although you may want another drive later because simulation games can take up a lot of space.
You may also be able to use a less expensive power supply, but make sure it is a reputable, well-reviewed model with enough capacity for the graphics card. I wouldn’t choose purely by wattage.