{"id":399895,"date":"2021-06-06T13:04:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-06T11:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=399895"},"modified":"2021-06-06T13:56:48","modified_gmt":"2021-06-06T11:56:48","slug":"building-the-beast-a-r200000-gaming-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/hardware\/399895-building-the-beast-a-r200000-gaming-pc.html","title":{"rendered":"Building The Beast \u2014\u00a0a R200,000 gaming PC"},"content":{"rendered":"

While it is possible to build a competent gaming PC in South Africa for <\/span>under R20,000<\/a><\/strong>,<\/strong> if you want a machine with the latest and best hardware it will cost you well over R200,000, a MyBroadband search for the best prices on top components has revealed.<\/span><\/p>\n

To put these amounts in perspective, the <\/span>BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index for April 2021<\/a><\/strong> showed that the average take-home pay in South Africa is currently around R15,083.<\/span><\/p>\n

A lower-end gaming PC therefore costs around an average person\u2019s monthly take-home salary in South Africa, while our dream rig costs more than the average annual salary.<\/span><\/p>\n

A bit of dreaming won\u2019t hurt anyone, so we have gone ahead and assembled a gaming machine that commits itself to excess.<\/span><\/p>\n

The strengthening rand has been <\/span>some good news for tech prices in South Africa<\/b><\/a>, as local distributors generally import electronics and pay for it in foreign currency, but retailers have warned that the ongoing semiconductor shortage may wipe out any of the gains from a stronger rand and cause prices to increase.<\/span><\/p>\n

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has warned<\/b><\/a> that it could be months for the current pressure on the supply chain to begin easing, and years until chip manufacturers catch up to the surging demand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chip shortage or not,\u00a0<\/span>we scoured the web for some of the best performing components and searched for the best deals on each.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is more of a stealth build and we kept the flash to a minimum, though there are some elements with RGB lighting to provide a bit of colour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where parts were sourced from Amazon, prices include shipping, VAT, and import duties.<\/span><\/p>\n

The total price of the build came to R232,549.<\/p>\n

\n

Processor \u2014 AMD Ryzen 9 5950X \u2014 R16,388<\/strong> (Amazon<\/strong><\/a>)<\/h3>\n

Intel\u2019s i9-11900K is neck-and-neck with AMD\u2019s top of the line CPU. <\/span>Which chip comes out on top in any given benchmark depends on the game you are testing.<\/span><\/p>\n

If value for money was the deciding factor then the i9 would\u2019ve been the best option, but bang for buck isn\u2019t exactly our aim.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have gone with the 5950X because it has 16 cores compared to Intel\u2019s 8, and the 5950X has full PCIe M.2 Gen4 storage support.<\/span><\/p>\n

We decided not to go for a R90,000+ Threadripper because even though overkill is underrated, buying a workstation processor for gaming is just unnecessary. Rather take that R75,000 in savings and buy more games.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ryzen<\/p>\n

\n

Motherboard \u2014 MSI MEG X570 Godlike \u2014 R21,395<\/strong> (Amazon<\/strong><\/a>)<\/h3>\n

The X570 is the top-of-the-line for AMD gaming motherboards.<\/p>\n

It has 4 PCIe lanes and can support 4 memory modules of up to 5GHz, as well as loads of other features.<\/p>\n

When money doesn’t matter, this is the AMD board you go for.<\/p>\n

\"msi<\/p>\n

\n

Storage \u2014 4 x Sabrent 4TB Rocket 4 Plus NVMe M.2 Gen4 \u2014 R49,450 from Amazon<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

We never said we’d be reasonable.<\/p>\n

If the motherboard can take, it’s going in, and Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus SSD has 7,100MB\/s read and 6,600MB\/s write speeds.<\/p>\n

\"sabrent<\/p>\n

\n

Memory \u2014 Patriot Viper Steel RGB DDR4 128GB (4 x 32GB) 3600MHz \u2014 R12,316 (Amazon<\/a>)<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Patriot manufactures some of the best quality gaming RAM on the market.<\/p>\n

They also have international lifetime warranties on all their desktop memory.<\/p>\n

\"patriot<\/p>\n

\n

GPU \u2014 Asus ROG Strix Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 \u2014 R61,200<\/strong> (Amazon<\/a>)<\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Yes, it\u2019s available, and yes, it\u2019s expensive. Unnecessarily so, thanks to the massive demand for GPUs by cryptocurrency miners and the ongoing semiconductor shortage.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it’s the best GPU on the market right now, beating out AMDs Radeon RX 6900 XT in 4K gaming.<\/p>\n

\"msi<\/p>\n

\n

Power Supply \u2014 Corsair AX1600i 1600W 80 Plus Titanium \u2014 R10,699 (<\/strong>Titan-Ice<\/a>)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

1600W may be excessive, but this rig won’t be running short on power anytime soon.<\/p>\n

In fact, you could almost run two of the rigs we’re assembling on this much power.<\/p>\n

Sadly this power supply didn\u2019t appear to be in stock anywhere except at Amazon, where it\u2019s substantially more expensive than buying <\/span>locally would be<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe we\u2019ll settle for that 1,200W power supply after all.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"corsair<\/p>\n

\n

Case \u2014 Corsair Obsidian Series 1000D ATX Super Tower \u2014 R7,999 (Evetech<\/a>)<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

A big rig needs a big case, and this is it.<\/p>\n

This tempered glass case has 13 fans inputs, of which we’ll be leaving none unoccupied. It also has plenty of input and output options.<\/p>\n

\"corsair<\/p>\n

\n

Case fans \u2014 13 x Noctua NF-A14 Premium Quiet Fan \u2014 R6,718<\/strong> (Amazon<\/strong><\/a>)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Noctua is an established name in the cooling industry.<\/p>\n

These fans are made to be silent, reaching a maximum of 24dB at full speed \u2014 which is up to 1,700rpm.<\/p>\n

We couldn’t leave the case empty, so we’ve opted for 13 of them.<\/p>\n

\"noctua<\/p>\n

\n

Liquid Cooler \u2014 NZXT Kraken Z73 360mm RGB CPU Cooler \u2014 R5,215 (Amazon<\/strong><\/a>)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

No high-end PC build is complete without a liquid cooler, and NZXT makes some of the best.<\/p>\n

The Kraken Z73 also has an LED display to monitor temperature.<\/p>\n

\"nzxt<\/p>\n

\n

First monitor \u2014 LG 55-inch OLED UHD 120Hz \u2014 R21,999 (Incredible Connection<\/a>)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As far as high-end builds go, a minimum of two monitors is a must.<\/p>\n

Yes, the LG 55-inch is technically a television, but it was this or the Alienware 55-inch<\/a><\/strong> “monitor”, which is a year older, and just absurdly priced at R71,555 for essentially the same specs.<\/p>\n

The point is not to waste money, but to spend it well, albeit generously. And the LG TV is money well-spent, with its 4K resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. It also has the added benefit of Nvidia G-Sync.<\/p>\n

\"lg-cx-55-inch-gaming-tv<\/p>\n

\n

Second monitor \u2014 Asus ROG Swift FHD 360Hz \u2014 R19,174 (Amazon<\/a>)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Asus ROG Swift is for serious gaming, when you’ve had enough of the pretty visuals of the LG and want to play a competitive session.<\/p>\n

The monitor is FHD, but what sets it apart is the 360Hz refresh rate.<\/p>\n

\"asus<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: Importing your next PC from Amazon vs buying local<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What kind of gaming PC would you build if you became a Bitcoin millionaire?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341065,"featured_media":394415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[577,947,625,32260,40456,35,383,2162,40796,30812],"class_list":["post-399895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-amd","tag-asus","tag-corsair","tag-gaming","tag-hardware","tag-headline","tag-lg","tag-msi","tag-pc-build","tag-pc-gaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341065"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400393,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399895\/revisions\/400393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}