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Also hardware discussion. We apparently do not have one of these (Duplicate hunters, go wild). Let's all get together and collectively mourn the circumstances in which we all live in this year of our lord and savior, Steve, 2026.
To start out, I wanted to reply to this profile post by @DjQuick2008, but was hampered by a few forum limitations, so my response was abbreviated:
Let's fill that out:
Now, I neglected to mention that there's an additional cost to this build: I wouldn't have picked those parts.
Which is to say, on a price-to-price ratio, OcUK is offering those parts at a very decent price. But, those aren't the best parts at those prices. I'll offer some counterbuild options at a similar price point:
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/RvtBck (£927 [+£82] per PPP on May 10, 2026)
The main swaps are:
To start out, I wanted to reply to this profile post by @DjQuick2008, but was hampered by a few forum limitations, so my response was abbreviated:
Let's fill that out:
"What does it cost?"
Hardware alone, £845:
I'll spitball some specs (with assumptions derived from the listing, based on UK PPP prices on May 10, 2026):
| CPU | Ryzen 5 5600 | ~£120 ($160 USD) |
| GPU | RTX 5060 | ~£300 |
| RAM | 16GB DDR4-3200 | ~£130 |
| Mobo | B550M | ~£80 |
| Storage | 1TB SSD | ~£135 |
| Case | Mid Tower | ~£50 |
| PSU | 600W | ~£35 |
So, for a prebuild, this is a very decent price -- discounted or not. Relative to you going out and purchasing those parts yourself, you're only saving on about £50-100 on labor and convenience -- or about $70-140 USD. That alone covers the cost of the operating system (Windows Tax, about £120 for Home). One could easily spend much, much more on parts. One could also just not spend money on Windows.
Now, note: this is an entry level gaming PC. The Ryzen 5 5600 is a no-frills 4-year old mid-level CPU. It is fine for most gaming. An RTX 5060 is a current generation lowest level of gaming-appropriate GPUs. It is fine for most gaming. This will run Crysis, this will run Cyberpunk, Pragmata, and Crimson Desert -- but so would a Steamdeck (though, not as comfortably). You could go into lower-class GPUs (integrated, 50-series, previous generations) and maybe get away with it, but the price-performance curve starts to bend against you.
If you're playing on a 1080p monitor and are able to live without Raytracing on everything, and are okay with some occasional hiccups, or slightly lower resolution textures, you should be happy. 4K HFR + Raytracing, however, will be a real challenge.
Now, I neglected to mention that there's an additional cost to this build: I wouldn't have picked those parts.
Which is to say, on a price-to-price ratio, OcUK is offering those parts at a very decent price. But, those aren't the best parts at those prices. I'll offer some counterbuild options at a similar price point:
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/RvtBck (£927 [+£82] per PPP on May 10, 2026)
The main swaps are:
- CPU: Go to an Zen 5 9600X. You bump up two generations (Zen3 to Zen5) and get another 30% or so of performance at roughly the same TDP class. This choice, however, forces you to get into the DDR5 price scramble and it's very difficultto find DIMMs at any appreciable size at any reasonable price, or at all. It also requires a CPU cooler -- the 5600 comes with an OEM cooler, the 9600X does not.
- This mandates a 16GB DDR4 kit to 16GB DDR5 kit bump. In my barrel scraping, I had to pick a £180 single-channel 16GB kit, which is unideal. You're likely to face worst prices in reality. That alone was a +£40 bump.
- SSD: The Teamgroup MP33 is a PCIe 3 drive. Expect <2000MBps Read/Write speeds. Fast, but could be faster. For cheaper, actually, you could get an Kingston NV3 at the same size and get an overall faster drive (6000/4000 MBps Read/Write).
- Case: OcUK seems to have selected a triple-front fan 45cm-tall midtower case for an microATX motherboard. Like, it's pretty big for what it contains and most of the rear expansion slots won't be used. With these parts you don't really need that many fans, and you don't need all that case space. I picked a cheaper Aerocool case with similar aesthetics that is roughly 2/3 the size (24L vs. 35L).
- GPU: A 5060 Ti can be gotten for around £300, so there's not really much of a reason to sit on a regular 5060 if you have the choice. Though, you probably won't notice much of a difference either way -- there's like a 5-10% performance bump, and you're still going to be stuck on an 8GB card (on 8 lanes). But, on a price-performance perspective, +£10 for +10% frames is not bad. There's unfortunately no real way to break out of an 8GB GPU without adding another £80-100, which will sort of break the bank and put us well over £1000. 16GB 9060XT's can still sit below £400 while 12GB 5070's start at £500. It's all kinda fucked.
- There's a special mention here for Arc B580's. A 12GB card at £300 -- though, it is underpowered relative to a 5060.
