I have never built a PC and was going to try but with GPU prices high and hard to find I am thinking of purchasing another prebuilt system. My local Microcenter sells what seems to be a decent setup for the price. Two options I am considering are the PowerSpec G900 and G436
I have always had intel systems, so I am not familiar with AMD. Also, I wish the Intel system had an i9. I figured I could swap out pieces on this system as I go. I would love to be able to venture into more demanding games like Cyberpunk and I assume either of these will work. Any opinions are welcomed and appreciated.
For reference, I currently have an older i5 4590 3.30GHz, Asus H81M-D Plus, 8GB DDR2 RAM, with a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti … its an old system but does OK.
As a side note … Ill need a new monitor but I have not researched that yet.
nothing wrong with pre-builts as along as you understand what you are getting. The issues that arise from pre-builts is when the user desire is above the pre-built’s capabilities and their upgrade path becomes limited by the pre-built.
Side note: GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is not old, more than capable to handle WoW at 1080p high FPS or even 1440p 60FPS. If it was my system I would wait it out for the next few months until prices and inventory re-stabilize. Maybe check out the dell outlet for some sales and carry over the gtx 1660ti.
Thanks for the advice. Is my card good enough to justify building around it and possibly upgrading it later? For example, shop for a new board, chip, RAM, case, etc.?
I think that’s entirely reasonable.
You could grab a cheap system for now for under $300 that would be a big improvement and hold you over until new stuff comes out
$155 i5-10400F
$70 H410 motherboard
$70 16gb DDR4 2666mhz
Or, wait until March for new Intel parts…that seem to be very very hot and power hungry, or wait for more Ryzen 5000 stock to replenish. Both of which may take a lot longer, perhaps not until Q3.
If I were you, I’d grab the cheap Intel build parts.
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Also going with a pre-built. I work all day, I literally don’t have the time or energy to track down a 3000 series GPU.
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Like Sal said you can certainly build around that card. The i5-10400 is a very capable gaming CPU for the price. If you want to go pre-built, I saw Dell outlet had some i5-10400 xps systems for around $600 (with no GPU). Stick a SSD in there for the game client (and OS if you like) and your current video card and you have a very capable shadowlands PC. Upgrade the GPU down the road and you will be able to handle future expansions.
I ended up going with this option on mine and my wife’s computers. Big thing is watch what you are getting in the guts to be sure it’s decent stuff.
I ordered mine back in November and ended up waiting til last week to get it as I wanted the AMD 5600x and get a 5700xt to go with it.
Just ordered the wife’s because it looked like availability was only going to get worse ( tax returns and another government check are looming). Ended up being able to get her the same processor and a 3060ti for roughly the same money.
These are the 3rd and 4th ones I’ve bought from Ibuypower. Never had any issues with the hardware, although admittedly their customer service ain’t great if you need to get in contact.
I should clarify ours technically aren’t prebuilt I guess since we went with the customization option that let’s you pick each part. Since I didn’t build it I call it prebuilt though 
Being you have a 1660 I’d just build around it for now and wait if it was me. I was running an old Phenom II with an R9 380 though so I needed everything so I didn’t have that option.
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There’s some little things you can do on these systems to make em run better - check to make sure XMP is enabled so your ram is running at appropriate speed, and also in the right slots for dual channel.
That’s usually the biggest thing they miss. It’s basically free performance that they almost always fail to enable.
I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a prebuilt in these times though. One of the easier ways to actually get parts.
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Where do you find that? Not gonna lie been out of the computer parts game for nearly a decade as I have a friend that works for the University of Tennessee doing all of their hardware so I just let her handle any issues lol.
if you’re in windows, check what task manager says about your RAM under the performance tab.
what is your memory supposed to be rated at? look at the speed, and it will tell you what it is at presently. Make sure they are the same.
If they aren’t, you’ll want to go into BIOS, which you can do easily by holding down shift while clicking restart on the windows start menu.
then troubleshooting—uefi
from there you can enable XMP depending on your system’s BIOS menu.
As far as dual channel, if there are four slots, just look in the box and make sure the ram sticks are in every other slot (not right next to eachother, or if there are only two slots, then don’t worry)
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Thanks I’ll dig around and see. I have an Asus x570 mobo and I’m pretty positive it’s 4 slots.
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It’s “technically” overclocking since 2133/2400 is JDEC spec, so I don’t know how ibuypower would consider it. However, Ryzen 3000/5000 series is rated at 3200mhz straight from AMD, so i would say that it’s not really overclocking.
Not that it would really harm anything anywyay.
Super easy to build a computer these days just put in some time learning what you need to do. Can figure it all out in a few hours.
For a budget build I’d recommend AMD Ryzen but I’m biased cause it’s what I run if you get newer generation ryzen and motherboard it should have some forward compatibility for future upgrades when newer CPUs come out. Plus Ryzen is pretty damn good currently.
I would absolutely build one though, you can build a much better computer yourself than buying a prebuilt one for same price if you shop around for good deals.
Watch youtube videos, read forums, etc, etc for recomendation on parts that fit what you’re looking for and how you can put it together. You can literally do all of this with just youtube. Motherboard manual will help a lot also.
I love pcpartspicker btw you can see tons of other peoples builds and parts lists as well as make your own.
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Yeah I’m running 3200 mhz sticks they put in so we will see. Considering how they sell things I don’t think OC is a big deal to them unless you do something silly of course.
It’s pretty much standard to run them at 3200mhz XMP. It won’t damage anything. Worst case is it doesn’t take, and you have to clear CMOS and manually enter in timings and settings.
But maybe it is already at 3200mhz, hopefully.
Thank you all for the information. You all have given me a lot to research. I will head over to PC part picker and see what is available built around the GPU I have. I am confident I can assemble everything, just want to make sure it is all stuff I can upgrade down the road since Id like to branch out to some demanding single player games. Is it true WoW runs a lot better on Intel than AMD?
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Not really - it depends on the generation and specific processor.
Right now, I cannot recommend 3rd generation Ryzen for builders. The prices are too high, and in gaming the experience is nearly identical.
It is not really until the 5000 series that AMD is clearly superior to Intel.
Right now you can get an i5-10400F for $155, and the Ryzen 5 3600, the nearest counterpart, is $199. Both will function perfectly fine on the cheapest motherboards, with Intel systems being very slightly behind in that the H and B boards only allow a maximum of 2666mhz RAM on i3 and i5 chips.
From a value perspective, the i5-10400 is king for gaming. From the performance perspective, the Ryzen 7 5800x is generally the king for gaming. The Ryzen 5 5600x comes close, but again it is still $300 MSRP, when you can find one. Otherwise they are all marked up.
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runs fine on both, the better the CPU is as an overall performer the better WoW will be on it (as will most games).
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So I was playing around on partpicker and came up with this but I am still browsing what others have done and reading about everything.
CPU - i5 - 10400F
CPU Cooler - Corsair iCUE H150i Elite
Motherboard - MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge WiFi ATX LGA 1200 Motherboard
Memory - Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 26GB DDR-3200 CL16
Storage - Samsung 970 EVO 1TB M.2 NVME SSD
GPU - MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
Case - Phanteks Eclipse P400A Digital ATX Mid Tower
PSU - Corsair CXM 600 W
The GPU and PSU are what I already have. (Would be nice if I could just link it all haha)
If you’re getting a Z490 motherboard and a strong cooler, then I would opt for the i5-10600k or an i7-10700k and overclock. Otherwise, you’re better off getting the cheapest H410/B460 (or the cheapest Z490 if you want faster RAM). The i5-10400F won’t perform any better on the Z motherboard (outside of RAM speed) or the cooler over the stock cooler.
i5-10400/stock cooler/H410: $235
i5-10400/Corsair H150/Z490: $515
i5-10600k/Corsair H150/Z490: $620
i7-10700k/Corsair H150/Z490: $710
Honestly, if I were going Intel right now, I’d go best value, which is a lower end motherboard and stock cooler.
If your budget is higher, you may be better off camping for a 5600x instead, or even paying $390 for a marked up unit and a good $175 B550 motherboard.
Ryzen 5 5600x/B550: $475
Ryzen 5 5600x Marked Up/B550: $565
Ryzen 5 5600x/Corsair H150/B550: $635
The 5600x will perform better in gaming than the others, generally.
I would probably go for something cheaper on the storage front, something like and Adata XPG SX8200 1TB or Western Digital SN550 1TB. They’ll be indistinguishably slower than the 970, and cost a lot less (ADATA is $120, has DRAM, TLC chips, WD is $100, has no DRAM (SLC cache, though), is TLC, but still quite good. Will boot fast and load games fast. Potentially save around $30-50 here. If you end up going Ryzen, then get a PCIE4 SSD, something like a Sabrent Rocket.
Case is a good case.
