Sister looking to build - budget of ~US $1300
Sister looking to build - budget of ~US $1300
Hello all. My sister is looking to build a new PC. I've been out of the game for a while now so just want to make sure I'm giving her good advice. She's built before a while back so I just want to make sure she's getting her money's worth this round.
She wants a decent PC for the release of Starfield.
I put this list together below, it's a little more expensive, but I'm just wondering what we could change that would still be good. I know she's wanting to stick with Intel, but we're open to AMD parts if the performance would be similar/better.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/d4fs6r
Thank you for any advice!
So, I see several things here, that I did during my first build that I now regret:
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You have a relatively limited budget. You're spending an awful lot of that on your case. If you're not absolutely married to the idea of that case, I would suggest to go for something cheaper. (Check out Gamers Nexus' end of year round up for some suggestions)
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You're buying a pretty top of the line motherboard. I would suggest looking at the features this delivers and what you really need from that. Why not a B-Series with WiFi ( if you need that)
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Once you managed to free up those additional 100-150$, you can look at upgrading your GPU. Maybe even a 6800XT.
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For the windows: there are third party resellers selling OEM versions of windows for like 10$. Look around the net a bit. There's ways to get reaaaally cheap (and legal) versions of windows.
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If you really want to stick within the budget, I would suggest going last-gen, depending on how enthusiast you are. Max out the GPU, go cheap on everything else. The 5600x has been a beast of a cpu, the mobos and ram for it are cheap. My suggestion (with still outstanding overhauls to the case and windows version) looks like this.
If it was my PC though, I'd probably go current gen but still work on the case and windows version. AMD CPU may probably still be cheaper.
Awesome. thank you for the advice. I think we're going to go this route with a previous gen intel cpu and the 6800XT with a B-series mobo and a bit cheaper of a case.
Thanks so much for the write up, it all makes a lot of sense and has me wanting to do a new build myself lol.
So, what did you end up with? :)
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I think your choices are overall good, but the RTX 3060 Ti with its merely 8gb of VRAM might have some limitations when it comes to Starfield. We don't know, but we have seen VRAM limitations in some recent titles. Personally, I think the RX 6700XT might the better option.
I think this should perform the same as your build, but it will save you some money.
My bad, I included the RX 6700 instead of the 6700xt. The xt is what I recommend https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LtMGv3
Looks like a pretty good build to me. Mid-range ryzen and intel chips don't have a big difference when it comes to speed so the i5-13600K is good. I own the exact same Zotac 3060 Ti and can vouch it's pretty good. I would personally ditch buying Windows and instead just get Windows 10 for free off Microsoft's website. You'll have the "activate windows" watermark but you can get rid of it through other ways. It's weird to me that some people still buy Windows at full price.
If she wants a PC for starfield the best option would be to wait closer to release. Both AMD and nVidia are doing big sales and reducing prices now and this is likely to continue until nextgen so they clear stock up. Also at release you will be aware of performance problems and you may need a stronger build than the minimum reqs suggest.