Gaming System Spec Advice

[bodhi]

I’m looking for some advice on graphics cards.

I’m going to build a gaming system for my son for Christmas. The budget is a lot less than I spent on my machine. Anyone care to help with the spec?

Was thinking of an intel i5 (I’ve for a bias for intel though I know the new AMD processors are meant to be great).

16gb RAM.
Was planning the 1660 Super as his GPU.
Thoughts?

edit (Ian): Moved this post to a new thread for more visibility

 

[Ian]

What's your budget (approx)? The AMD Ryzen range of CPUs are great value - I'm running a 3600 and it's amazing for the price.

The new 30xx series NVIDIA cards are just coming online now, so graphics card pricing is going to get a big shake up in the coming month or two. AMD are also launching their new graphics cards very soon.

I'd hang fire till Nov if you can (plenty of time before xmas), as price/performance is going to be waaaaaaay better very soon. The price/performance of the 3060 will be particularly interesting.

 

[bodhi]

What's your budget (approx)? The AMD Ryzen range of CPUs are great value - I'm running a 3600 and it's amazing for the price.

The new 30xx series NVIDIA cards are just coming online now, so graphics card pricing is going to get a big shake up in the coming month or two. AMD are also launching their new graphics cards very soon.

I'd hang fire till Nov if you can (plenty of time before xmas), as price/performance is going to be waaaaaaay better very soon. The price/performance of the 3060 will be particularly interesting.

Hey Ian,

yeah, I’ll hold on a bit longer to make sure the prices are impacted by the 30 range of nvidia Cards. Budget is in Aussie dollars, probably somewhere around $1000-$1200, so can’t go crazy. Though I’ve been seeing the price of ram falling massively recently as well as GPUs.

I hear the Ryzen chips are awesome. It’s the fear of building a non intel machine that mainly puts me off. lol.

 

[muckshifter]

It’s the fear of building a non intel machine that mainly puts me off. lol.

I won't buy a Ford car Intel for the same reason.

 

[Ian]

You can definitely get a gaming system for that, but I think it's best we spec it in November as so much will change by then - with both major GPU players releasing cards by then. Pricing is going to be disrupted a lot, as new consoles are launching then too.

Great time to be building a new system!

I really would consider AMD Ryzen, it's such good value for money . There are good value i5 CPUs though if you can't be tempted .

 

[Quadophile]

I upgraded my old Lenovo i7 desktop with a Crucial 1 TB SSD last month and switched the HDD for back up duty. In my opinion, Crucial is one of the best SSD in the market with a great balance between price, speed, and reliability. Just thought I'd chime in since you are planning to build a rig for your son later on.

 

[bodhi]

I upgraded my old Lenovo i7 desktop with a Crucial 1 TB SSD last month and switched the HDD for back up duty. In my opinion, Crucial is one of the best SSD in the market with a great balance between price, speed, and reliability. Just thought I'd chime in since you are planning to build a rig for your son later on.

Appreciate that mate. I’ve always loved Crucial as a company. I’ve just got on with Samsung 970s recently. But you’re totally right, Crucial are worth considering.

 

[Abarbarian]

As oppose to a ssd or m2 drive I would recommend a NVME drive for boot up. You could get away with a 128 GB, a 256 GB would be better and 512 GB and upward would be grand.

 

[bodhi]

As oppose to a ssd or m2 drive I would recommend a NVME drive for boot up. You could get away with a 128 GB, a 256 GB would be better and 512 GB and upward would be grand.

Sorry, that’s what I meant. I’ve got 2 nvme Samsung 970s in my own machine, one a 1tb and one a 500gb.

Will probably stick a 500gb nvme in my sons machine.