Need help building a few pc’s for a startup

Hi,
I’m looking for some advice on pc builds for a game designer who is working on open world style unity games and another for a back end programmer. Any advice you be very much appreciated. Could you also suggest a good monitor for an asset designer.

I have listed a bit of info for you below.

Thanks.

Zee

  • Budget. Would prefer to keep it at max £2500.
  • live in the U.K. and use the pound.
  • Is there a retailer you prefer? No
  • Do you need or already have peripherals? No but peripherals and monitors have their own budget.
  • I need help with 2 computers one will be used by a game designer using unity and the other is a back end programmer.
  • Do you overclock or want to get into overclocking? As these will be work pc’s in a. Office I’m not sure if I should advice on this would be handy.
  • Do you plan on going for custom water-cooling now, or in the future? No but I’m intending to get an AIO for the cpu.
  • Operating System. I will be using Windows and would need to get the key.
1 Like

2500 without a monitor will get you a solid x570/3950/64G/3080 build…

As for monitors, things are tough, because you’ll want one 4k + something high framerate for regular developers. Ask the asset person what they want/need… they might be ok with a pd3220u + color munki to use with displaycal, or they might be used to upper class photography monitors.

Your backend dev might appreciate a 3070 and 128G of ram instead.

Yes, it definitely would be sufficient for that. But for the company needs, that is way, waaay more than necessary, and I also think the budget is £2500 combined.

I’m thinking here is best to avoid your gamer instincts, and think more for the whole. I would go for something like this:

Backend developer system

Part Model Price Comment
CPU Ryzen 7 3700X £284.95 Ryzen because it is cheap and the backend want as much cores as you can give it. Also, good with diversity for the game developer.
Memory 2x16 3200MHz Corsair Vengeance LPX black £122.87 32 GB of 3200 memory is a good deal
Motherboard Gigabyte B550 AORUS PRO AC £174.99 B550 is the sweet spot right now, I do not see any reason to go X570 for your use case
Storage Kingston A2000 SSD NVMe M.2, 1 TB £95.49 Great NVME with decent price, no reason not to buy
Case Fractal Design Focus G £46.99 Decent case, might want to add an extra fan in the back though
PSU Seasonic CORE-GM-650 Gold £89.99 Really good PSU and should be able to handle most modern things you throw at it
GPU Powercolor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5600 XT £278.99 Recommending a 5600 XT to again give more test options to the game developer, graphics are otherwise not that important, could go with a 5500 XT or 580 instead
Total £1094.27

Game developer system

Part Model Price Comment
CPU Intel Core i7 10700K £353.89 Recommending an Intel CPU to give the game developer more to test
CPU Cooler Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO £26.39 Since intel stock coolers are shite, get this too
Memory 2x16 3200MHz Corsair Vengeance LPX black £122.87 32 GB of 3200 memory is a good deal
Motherboard Gigabyte B460 AORUS PRO AC £104.99 No clue what is a good buy here to be honest, I go blind by brand, someone feel free to suggest a better option
Storage Kingston A2000 SSD NVMe M.2, 1 TB £95.49 Great NVME with decent price, no reason not to buy
Case Fractal Design Focus G £46.99 Decent case, might want to add an extra fan in the back though
PSU Seasonic CORE-GM-650 Gold £89.99 Really good PSU and should be able to handle most modern things you throw at it
GPU Nvidia RTX 3070 £550 Cards are not available yet. A 3080 would be better but would also mean another £200 minimum.
Total £1390.61

Grand Total: £2484.88

This gives the latest capabilities, only thing I’m unsure about is the 3070 over the 3080, if you can reach for the 3080 then go for it. Good luck!

2 Likes

With the recent news about OC instability, I would give it another month or two.

Sorry I should have been more clear the budget is per pc but I have been told the back end developer pc can be significantly less powerful. Also these won’t be built till around Christmas. This will give me some time to see the rtx 3000 stability stuff and also waiting to see the new rdna2 stuff.

In that case I’d probably swap the RTX 3080 for a 5700 XT on the Intel system, and have a look at the Threadripper platform (24c+) with a 3080 on there. This gives around £1500 + £3500 budget to work on for backend/game development. You will still need both an intel CPU and an AMD GPU for testing out the games on though.

And yes, do look at AMDs RDNA2 and Ryzen 4xxx offerings before locking anything in. Black Friday might save you a few hundred quids, as well.

Are you the IT manager for this startup? Are you getting paid to provide daily support for these systems?

Reason I ask is building something generally implies more responsibility.

Have you looked at something like the Dell Alienware, or Acer’s gaming line, and adding an RTX after purchase?

I am part owner of the start up but I’m the one that knows anything about building pc’s I can repair them that’s not a problem. I would love to go threadripper and spend £3500 on one of them but £2500 is more like a hard limit per pc that my partners want to spend.

I was thinking something more like this

Upgrade the RAM and GPU as needed, maybe a 3060 TI if you’re lucky enough to get one with all the shoe-bot nonsense.

My argument is building computers is fun for a home enthusiast / gamer, but gets in the way of other priorities at a business.

boy I’mma be 100 with you chief:

your backend developer doesn’t need too much horsepower, I tell you that…

if you could get him a thinkpad or a latitude with some i7 and 16 gigs and some 1 TB ssd they’d be set… the real processing power will need to be on your servers

the game designer tho, he gon need some really serious firepower

I was thinking i7 for the back end and 3950x/4950x if they are the same price for the game dev system

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