PC Building Hot Takes

Having been building PCs for a decade and a half now, I’ve seen my fair share of trends and myths about speccing and building gaming PCs, so I think it’s time I share some of my favourite hot takes when it comes to PC building. You might disagree on some of these – and feel free to let me know why in the comments below, along with sharing your own hot takes for PC builders! Right, let’s ruffle some feathers…

First off, you should skimp on your first GPU in favour of buying a higher end CPU. Now I know this defies all conventional wisdom, and if you were just looking at that first iteration of the system in isolation I’d agree this was complete madness, but you’ve got to look at the bigger picture. The vast majority of gamers who build their own system will end up upgrading the graphics card, but will often forgo upgrading the CPU, eventually just retiring or repurposing the CPU, RAM and motherboard in favour of a full platform upgrade five or so years later – but in those five years the GPU will likely change out at least once, if not twice. The purpose of essentially sacrificing some performance now for a better experience later might not be for everyone, but think of it like this. If you bought an i3-10100 in 2020, so you could get a 2070 instead of a 10400F or 10600K and a 2060, the 10100 is going to be a bigger bottleneck to a 4060 when you want to upgrade this year, compared to a 10600K. It isn’t likely to be huge either way in the grand scheme of things, but if you can eke out more performance in the long run from your system, at the cost of a bit of performance up front, isn’t that a trade-off you’d prefer?

Next up, you don’t need an NVMe SSD. Now this isn’t necessarily an argument against NVMe drives – they have quite a few benefits I’ll explain in a second – but more a rally against the march of PCIe Gen 4 and Gen 5 drives. As I found in my recent dirt-cheap 8 TB SSD video (that I’ll link in the cards for you to check out after this one), SATA drives are still more than adequate, and in that case can be had for exceptionally cheap while getting an enterprise grade, 8 TB capacity drive, all for the price of a 2TB PCIe Gen 5 drive. When DirectStorage finally turns up in games, yeah, something like a PCIe Gen 4 drive might see a bit of loading time benefit, maybe, but even being charitable and say that the 30 total titles SteamDB lists with DirectStorage support – which includes 3D Mark, a couple demos and a couple closed betas no less – it’s clear DirectStorage isn’t exactly being rushed into the market. You’ve got time. With that said, getting a decent Gen 3 NVMe drive actually isn’t a bad idea – the form factor of M.2 alone makes it an incredibly appealing option, thanks to the complete lack of cables. You just slot the drive in, screw or clip it down, maybe put a heasink back on, and hey-presto you’ve got a whole SSD built right onto your motherboard. That is well worth it, but you don’t need to splash out on a Gen 4 or Gen 5 drive any time soon if you don’t want to. 

Next, air cooling is better than AIO liquid coolers. This one might need the most clarification, because yeah, outright, an AIO liquid cooler – especially a larger 360mm rad for example – is likely more performant than even a high end air cooler, but that isn’t necessarily what I mean by ‘better’. The biggest advantage air coolers have over AIOs is their lifespan. A good air cooler will never fail or degrade. Maybe a fan breaks a decade or two into use, but just throw a new fan in and you’re golden. By comparison, AIOs will all fail. Maybe that’s in two years, maybe it’s in ten, but it will fail. They have improved a fair bit too, and I’ve only had a couple of AIOs fail on me in over a decade of building PCs, but if you want to build your PC and not touch it again – at least the CPU anyway – an air cooler is your best bet. They are often pretty cheap too – the ARCTIC Freezer 36 is the latest version of my favourite air cooler, and that is under £20. That will happily cool any mid-range CPU, like a 9600X or an i5, and means compared to the £60, £70, or £80 you might spend on a 240mm AIO, you’ve got more cash in your pocket for more storage, or even a higher end CPU! I will concede though that AIOs tend to be easier to mount as there’s less in the way of the socket itself, and there isn’t a hefty lump resting on the board itself. With that said, air coolers tend to be an install-out-of-the-case type deal, then they just become one with the motherboard, so when you come to replace the board with something newer you just take the cooler out with it. 

Next, let’s be real. You won’t actually overclock your CPU, so don’t waste your money on a high end motherboard. Realistically the number of PC gamers who actually overclock their CPU is so marginal that the odds are you, the person watching this video right now, won’t ever overclock your CPU. Even among the more enthusiast crowd who actually build their own systems, the number of genuine overclockers – especially in today’s max-boost era – is a tiny fraction of people. The point is, motherboard vendors like to upsell you on more expensive motherboards that feature insane power delivery circuits to be able to support crazy overclocks that, especially with the current crop of chips, just isn’t feasible without liquid nitrogen, so you sure as hell don’t need it. With Intel boards in particular, they market their Z series chipsets as the one for gamers, when really a B or H series chipset is more than enough for basically everyone. Here’s an example – Asus will sell you a Z790 TUF board for £210, but they will sell you a remarkably similar B760 board for just £145 right now. Both have WiFi, both have more than one M.2 slot, both have four RAM DIMMs, and they even have awfully similar rear IO. Why waste £65 on essentially just overclocking support when that’s money you can put into a higher end graphics card, more storage, more RAM, or a better CPU, or hell just save outright? 

And last but not least, you don’t need to upgrade. This one is mostly aimed at those of you who are like a feral cat chasing the next thing. If you’ve got an ageing system that can’t play the games you want to play at the settings you want to play at – maybe you’ve just upgraded to 1440p and your 1060 isn’t doing it for you – then yes of course you should upgrade. But if you have a 3080, an 11900K and are gaming at 1440p with no problems, you are essentially wasting your money upgrading. Now of course it’s your money to waste, and who am I to judge you if you get some genuine enjoyment out of that hunt for the best, latest, top shelf stuff and knowing you’ve always got the best thing, but I know some of you haven’t stopped to consider if chasing the rabbit down the PC-parts hole is actually what you want, or if you’re stuck in blind consumerism. If you aren’t actively having issues playing the games you want to play at comfortable settings, you don’t actually need to upgrade just because there’s a newer, better thing available. You can stop and smell the roses, as it were. 

So, those are my favourite PC building hot takes. I’m sure you’ll disagree with at least some of them, so let me know what you think in the comments below, and let me know what your PC building hot takes are while you’re at it!