I've been out of the gaming/desktop era of PC's for a very long time and I've been tasked with putting together the best bang-for-buck build that money can buy. I'd like two options if I may, best with brand new parts, and best for second hand priced parts. I already have a case I can reuse, don't need a monitor or peripherals such as speakers, keyboard/mouse. So, parts needed: GPU (possibly iGPU? - I've no idea how far these have come along on consumer CPU's these days) RAM HDD (nVME ideally - 512GB/1TB) PSU CPU MOBO (Preference for ATX over Matx/ITX, - mainly due to the case I have spare is a full tower, and thinking ahead for future upgrades) I haven't been told the exact budget, but I'm going to say around £400 - £500. I know I'm asking a lot, but I thank you in advance.
12400f would be my starting point. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel®-CoreTM-i9-12900F-Desktop-Processor/dp/B09MDFH5HY/ref=sr_1_2?crid=33KPJCNYVBT0M&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.aG27SdaOhKl1C6IQGZWQVK1z0TjbFWxB2FBtHqyqS2N_9Ck7MxfBotYGWN-_jTkaQoxQgVgc-Ck56LDqCFdrKpgtSxVO9P1ynDwvH5Wch2TD6jP0caKz-0dIE0a7d__tZDAzZplh9Pe7LP1Wn3RM4d0--rT8t0ALTuUkAjooq6CLbzMVb1stU3JCnB_d7ViVYawX0WcYDDVGmzlEqYiIMnlsXL7KU91PrS0S9lzG630.0vSrwmEcz18DIZqq7boCT_80N-LSjROc2-2K3Ax8AI4&dib_tag=se&keywords=12400f&qid=1711396335&sprefix=12400f,aps,73&sr=8-2&ufe=app_do:amzn1.fos.d7e5a2de-8759-4da3-993c-d11b6e3d217f They are just unbeatable at the moment. For a GPU? I would get an Arc. For a board this should be more than good enough. https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-PRO-B760-P-WIFI-DDR4/dp/B0BJW1G7VN/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3NFDCYX8F4FEI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ocw__BLNUYeK70XyOc3aWCS_FNJpwPMxnh36WAW7-B-vZSLSFYaT23GrtW07ouvHXBuQKxkv2tKhJ3WzoXXS9yjIsnRQt-ITrDpzWHHq1Dxs1zLtJ3_xRz5kwDko5ksDxsdCptkeRQPXMnz44jZGuZx3MFzpCqfvv_HEqkOlp1ReUIaH1t3i0TQFmUDPUTRVkr9GRwRRhF3CHTp7fsxZs4zZfrHhiLveDtBMHcyxURQ._Y-COk5lNlpc8BYvtTKhYxZ4F9aIygCoYC8kJMj5Bss&dib_tag=se&keywords=b760&qid=1711396436&sprefix=b760,aps,74&sr=8-2&ufe=app_do:amzn1.fos.d7e5a2de-8759-4da3-993c-d11b6e3d217f DDR4 too, so much cheaper for memory. Do note the 12400f has no igpu so you would need one. Maybe something used would cost less and give you more performance?
I've just been browsing on Scan, Amazon, Ebuyer. I think standard parts will be: Corsair CX650 1TB Kingston NV2 (PCIe4.0) 16GB DDR4 Vengeance PC3600 AMD options I've picked are: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G ASRock B550 PG Riptide Intel options I've picked are: Intel i5 12600K Asus Prime B660Plus D4 Both are iGPU setups Then maybe pick up a used RTX 3060 or AMD equivalent further down the line. Both are coming in around the £400-450 mark. Open to suggestions. Thank you
On the Intel side I'd definitely see if you can stretch to a 13600KF or 14600KF. There isn't much of a bump between 14th & 13th gen, but there's a noticeable uplift from 12th to 13th gen. 12600K has 4 E-cores and 6 P-cores, making for a total of 16 threads. But the 13600KF & 14600KF have double the number of E-cores, making for a total of 20 threads. There is of course a bump in power usage, from 125W-150W to 125W-181W. The KF variants don't have iGPU, but you can easily pick up a cheap second-hand PCIe GPU to tide you over in the meantime - doubtless people here will have spares they'll part with for cheap. Prices are roughly comparable between Scan and OcUK (except the 12600KF, which seems like a bit of a bargain to me - in fact I'm almost tempted myself!), and oddly the 13th gen chips are slightly more expensive than the 14th gen counterparts! 12600K: £240 Scan, £240 OcUK 12600KF: £155 Scan, £230 OcUK 13600K: £310 Scan, £320 OcUK 13600KF: £290 Scan, £290 OcUK 14600K: £300 Scan, £300 OcUK 14600KF: £270 Scan, £280 OcUK EDIT: PCPartPicker build based on 12600KF comes in at ~£470.
At that budget, I'd get an NVMe and a PSU new, may RAM if you're going DDR4 because it's so cheap. For the rest, I'd go second hand, spending as little as possible on CPU and motherboard, because whatever GPU you get for the remainder, the CPU won't be a bottleneck (unless you've been heckin bamboozled). You may also find people selling bundles as they try to offload old systems, may be a good idea to be on the lookout for those. That being said, it's difficult to say "get this and that" because you never know what you find second hand. Looking in second hand though, I think you'll be able to find Zen3 or Alder Lake for CPU, and RDNA1 or Nvidia 3000 series within budget. Just remember to compare prices to new and decide if the extra hassle is worth it for you. Otherwise 8500G can be had within budget. Zen4 APUs are the only worthwhile APUs imho.
you could get a Handheld gaming PC (Steamdeck OLED, ROG Ally etc) if you think you might be APU based for the long term? The rog Ally and others of its ilk are essentially running a low power 8700G. depends what you want to use it for and what level of gaming you are happy with. We have one and it's used more than the gaming PC as you can just use it anywhere anytime. failing that APU based desktop system based around a 8600G below for similar dough. a tiny bit over budget as I have chosen 32Gb of ram, it's CPU is ~30% stronger than a 5700g and runs RDNA3 instead of RDNA2 on the iGPU and is quite overclockable with PBO, when you eventually have the few hundred quid for dedicated GPU the stronger CPU should pay dividends. Its in the i5-13400 ball park for games, it's a shame the 8700g is so overpriced as that is a nice chip, too much extra dough though, needs a price cut but its not been out long and has no competition, well except for a cheap non iGPU CPU and dedicated card, which you can get at that cost bump but ups you budget to ~600. You could drop 50quid going for 16Gb but I don't feel that's the right move personally unless you get a discrete GPU with a lot of RAM. Seems hard to add a decent discrete GPU with a decent CPU for £500 even secondhand bits seem over priced. On the iGPU front, Intel aren't really in the game unfortunately, certainly with the uhd 770 in the chip you have chosen above, but even later Iris xe and ARC in the 155H have poor performance and drivers, Intel are getting there, just not yet.
It’ll be for playing Minecraft/fortnite as well as homework etc. So, needs to be a dedicated pc rather than a games console. I’ve suggested an igpu for now and then when funds allow, it’s always easier to drop in a dedicated gpu and more ram/better cpu.
The handheld PCs are just PCs in handheld console shape, they are not consoles, my daughter does all her schoolwork on hers just plugged into a dock. The steam deck is closer to a console in that it runs SteamOS but the others are Windows 11. Obvious downsides are fixed spec but my daughter has been an APU gamer for years and never needs more than that.
Understood it's not for everyone. Definitely avoid Intel iGPUs though they're just disappointing. And also, whilst 32Gb might seem OTT remember this is system and GPU RAM, for the games you mention you can get away with 16Gb on an iGPU you just might get more stutters due to more paging, it's not terminal, my daughter ran like that for ages but more RAM is smoother. If you were going with a dedicated GPU which had 8Gb on board then of course 16Gb is fine but iGPUs need to use system RAM.
Also worth saying that with an APU/iGPU the speed/timings of the RAM are more important than in a system with a dedicated GPU for the same reason. Tighter timings seem to have more of an impact than just higher speed RAM.
Hence the choice of reasonably priced DDR5 6000 CL30 in that partpicker above depsite being able to go a couple of quid cheaper.
Throwing a 580 in there, even a 4GB one would help massively. £65 on CEX CeX (UK): - Buy, Sell, Donate (webuy.com)
That's probably not a bad shout, I was looking at GPUs with more VRAM which almost doubles the cost but for those titles 4Gb would do, then you could drop the CPU down to a 7600 or 12400f etc and the RAM down to 16Gb.
I run a 12100F @ 1440p (Albeit with a 7600XT) and I am able to set most games at high settings. Deus Ex MD (An oldie but still a relative machine killer), I can max out with 2X MSAA for between 40-60FPS. Don't discount using DDR4 and a lower end Intel chip, they still perform excellently in most games.
Certainly that is a choice you can make but how far back do you go, older gear tends to use more power, that APU build above won't crack 100w if you were to fully load it, will probably sit around 50w gaming and half that idling (homework) if its a kids machine that might be on all day it may be a consideration, with an older system, typically that power budget would be higher, as it would of course if you slap a dedicated GPU in.
