Desktop Build Advice

Not immediately aware that Nvidia have any new cards in the pipeline…

Oh yes they do, and supposedly they will be a big upgrade.
Google Nvidia Ampere.

My friend has recommended I take a Radeon RX 5700 XT for my GPU, as it falls just within my budget.

That would be the last piece of the build as everything else is already purchased.

I’ve also heard that the Ryzen 5 3600 should be overclocked, normally I stay away from that sort of thing.

The newest AMD graphics cards have had issues with driver stability/integrity, leading to many wanting to steer clear of them 'til things settle down a bit (more).

AMD CPU’s ‘can be overclocked’ but it doesn’t work in the same way as Intel.
What they offer internally/out of the box is usually sufficient for most people’s needs; my 3600 will happily clock to 4.1GHz (4.25GHz is the current max. reported by CPUID HWMonitor, since I cleared the reports) without me having had to do anything to it, based on a stock of 3.6GHz.

Yeah the driver issue was mentioned, but what would be a suitable Nvidia alternative? We were talking (me and my friend) about the 2700 as an option but it comes in more expensive for very little (if any) performance increase.

2060 Super is more likely to be on shelves than a standard 2070 (I think you meant)…

Probably, yeah. As you may have guessed I’m way out of my comfort zone with this stuff. My friend who is way more clued in has been really helpful, but it’s always worth getting a second opinion.

It was the 2060 super, yeah.

A 2060 won’t be enough for 1440P in coming titles (and some current).

Thanks for all of your advice! Yesterday I finally had all of the parts (a few things were delayed due to stock problems from China) and put it all together, it took longer than I thought it would but ultimately it turned on and all components were functioning.

In the end I went with the RX 5700 XT

Booted up WoW this morning with the 7 recommended setting and things like view distance cranked up. Might try and see what other settings I can jack up (any ideas?)

Thought I’d share a picture.

My cable work was shoddy because I was in a rush to finish but I’ll review it later this week and tidy up. Planning to re-route the PCI express cable over the top to help support the GPU since it’s already noticeably sagging. I also failed on my very first bit of cable management by forgetting to route the CPU cooler fan underneath the unit before I plugged it in, so it sticks out like a sore thumb and it wasn’t coming out easily when I tried to fix it.

Which CPU did you go with? If you chose the 3600 you will be fine at settings 8+ (60Hz right?).

Yeah, Ryzen 5 3600.

I’ll try cranking it up to 8 tonight and see what happens.

I was hitting a solid 100+ fps in old world and levelling in Pandaria anywhere between 60-100 depending on the on-screen action. Was quite a lot of effects going off during that intro segment on the airship so it was dipping to the 60-70 range at some points.

So are you running on a 60Hz display?
If so, cap to 60 and crank it up to 10.
You will be CPU limited in raids and worldbosses anyways.

I am, yeah. Planning to update the monitor once my wallet recovers but it works well for now.

I’ll take your advice and crank it!

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