PC Upgrade - Any Reason to Not Go Prebuilt?

PurchaseAnxiety on 19/01/2020 - 12:04

Hey all.

I've been out of the PC building scene for about 6-7 years, so I'm looking on some advice on the path to take for an upgrade.

My requirements:
- I already have an existing PC, but I want to pass it onto my wife as a workstation (it's no longer great for gaming anyway and would basically need a full overhaul). So I'll essentially be starting from scratch.
- I don't have a hard budget, but keeping it around the $1500 mark would be great. I also want to get a new desk and monitor, so anywhere I can save a few bucks would be awesome (probably don't need to mention that considering what site we're on).
- I have an Oculus Quest and want to leverage Oculus Link, so I'm after a pretty beefy GPU
- Not too phased on AMD vs Nvidia. I'm happy to take advice on this, because I don't really know the difference. Again, AMD seems to the more budget friendly option.
- Also probably won't be getting a 4K monitor, so 4K capability probably isn't a concern at this point.

Now instinctively I was expecting to build the PC myself, but after looking through a few techfast deals, going the pre-built route is looking more tempting from a pure value proposition, specifically this AMD build with a 3200mhz ram, case and power supply upgrade (https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/510117). This also enables me to pick up a more budget friendly freesync monitor. This seems like a decent deal as the CPU and GPU alone would be ~$1250. And while I'm not opposed to building a PC myself, I'm also not yearning for that experience.

One thing I'm not about is how big of a sacrifice the mobo is. So I guess I'm just wondering if I'm overlooking anything here or will this do the job I'm after just fine? Is there a reason I should looking at Nvidia (or another build) instead?

Bonus question (feel free to ignore): Any recommendations for budget monitors?

Computing

Comments

  • scrimshaw on 19/01/2020 - 12:38
    +1

    Nothing wrong with prebuilts nowadays. As long as it's not a prebuilt from a big-box electronics store like JB Hifi, Harvey Norman or Officeworks, in which case you are paying for much more than the sum of it's parts because of sales commission.

    I have a Vega 64 and found that it adequately powers my Oculus Rift S, a modern mainstream GPU such as a RTX 2060 Super or Radeon 5700XT (which is +30% better than Vega) has enough grunt for VR gaming.

    That techfast prebuilt is also fine, but I do recommend getting a nicer 80Plus Gold-rated power supply unit and faster DDR4 memory (3200mhz or more). The Biostar B350 motherboard isn't very good nor does it have the latest chipset but it will work out of the box. I would suggest replacing it yourself for a newer gen board instead of paying for their overpriced upgrade.

    • dogboy on 19/01/2020 - 13:21

      I concur

    • PurchaseAnxiety on 19/01/2020 - 13:25

      Thanks for the advice. With the mobo, what are the noticeable effects of having a cheap one? I gather the more expensive ones allow for more components to be plugged in, but is reliability and/or bottle necking also a concern in this case?

      • scrimshaw on 19/01/2020 - 13:55

        The VRM (no heatsinks) / power delivery isn't a strong point for the board but in your case, Ryzen 7 3800x should be OK as it doesn't use that much power when compared to Ryzen 9.

        I would generally opt for a better/ newer generation chipset, maybe something in the $150~180 tier for better IO options (more USB ports, USB type C header) and generally more features like BIOS flashback, more DIMM slots, right angled SATA connectors, built in diagnostic LED's in case your PC doesn't boot and it has no buzzer to generate Beep codes etc.

      • dcep on 19/01/2020 - 14:01

        if you're not into manual overclocking (which you shouldn't need to, with pb/xfr closing the gap considerably unless you're after extreme OC),

        then you don't need to upgrade, just wait till it's dead then only upgrade the mobo

        performance will be the same at stock, just different / newer / better built-in features like, beefy vrms for oc / 3950x, vrm heatsinks cooling, high speed ram compatibility, usb-c 3.2, nvme m.2 / pcie4.0 , wifi6, dual gigabit lan, etc. which you probably never use / won't matter

  • Switchblade88 on 19/01/2020 - 12:39

    I was in a similar situation myself.

    Prior PC was a refurb Optiplex 9010 with an added GPU, which was really good value for money when I got it a few years ago.

    Next step was getting a cheap Freesync ultrawide - I settled on the Kogan 34" 100hz monitor, which is absolutely brilliant and had been tested with both Freesync and Gsync by Hardware Unboxed. $520 delivered when on special!

    At this point the 1050Ti was struggling to keep up with the 3440x1440 resolution, and I needed a new GPU - but thanks to the advice from others here, I went for a full PC instead of a hacked-together solution with a new GPU and extra power supply etc.

    I bought one of the ever-popular Techfast deals on here for about $720 delivered, which had an i5-9400f and an RTX 1660; and stuck my spare SSDs and RAM in that I already had. There was no way to build a system with these components even with the best discount from eBay etc, so I knew I was getting value for money - although you have to be prepared for issues with RMAs and troubleshooting if something is wrong, and Techfast can get very busy with other jobs.

    …That's $1240 spent for a setup I'm extremely happy with, and leftover change can go to an M.2 SSD or more RAM as you need or desire!

    • PurchaseAnxiety on 19/01/2020 - 16:02

      Good to hear the you're happy with the Kogan monitor, as I've been eying down their widescreen offerings.

  • akaakmdm on 19/01/2020 - 13:40

    A minor issue, but I don't think that motherboard comes with USB-C ports which may be an issue if you're planning to use the official 5m Oculus Link Cable.

    That said, you can just use a generic USB-A 3.1 cable (though these tend to be a maximum of 3m in length)
    USB-A to USB-C adapters and active USB extension cables should also work, but your millage may vary with regards to compatibility.

    • PurchaseAnxiety on 19/01/2020 - 14:52

      Good point. I wasn't aware the link cable was C to C, just assumed it was A to C. Something to consider. Cheers.

  • Muzeeb on 19/01/2020 - 15:02

    I've been out of the PC building scene for about 6-7 years

    As far as constructing a PC goes, not a lot has changed in that time.

    Research your preferred components, check compatibility on pcpartpicker, purchase said components, build.

  • Yuri Lowell on 19/01/2020 - 16:14

    Not knocking Techfast as they do put together incredible value pre-built systems, but outside of the CPU/GPU, the rest of the PC is pretty average to bad. When you factor in the case and PSU upgrade it becomes less appealing and you're almost better building your own for a little bit more (and you get to upgrade the motherboard, choose your own case and PSU, and get a better SSD like an M2).

    • PurchaseAnxiety on 19/01/2020 - 16:41

      I was starting to think that too so I threw together a quick build in PC part picker with the same specs (used the cheapest option for all parts where the brand isn't specified by Techfast) just to see what it came to. In total, it came to a bit under $1600, compared to Techfasts $1425 (after upgrades). So not a huge difference between them. Some food for thought.

  • frondono on 19/01/2020 - 17:21

    I did pretty well with building a pc in Novemeber. I got the 2700x for $199 and spent way too much on everything else, but come out with a very quality system for less than I could get it for anywhere else, and techfast started to look pretty shit when comparing. My main savings were, I lucked into the $50 ebay voucher with ebay plus membership, ebay plus coupled with the 20% sales were cheaper than just about anywhere for components.

    X570 aorus elite wifi, 2700x, 32gb ddr4 3200mhz, 1tb pioneer pcie 3.0 ssd, 5700 xt gaming x, 650w gold & case, argb fans, 27" samsung 144hz 1ms 1440p cost me just less than 2k with quality keyboard and mouse too. Easy to upgrade the cpu later on.

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