Noobie Looking For Gaming Rig Suggestions

What resolution will your monitor(s) be?

You do not want 4k. 4k gaming has only very recently become practical for the everyday user. And only with the latest, top-end most expensive hardware. Hardware that wouldn't be afforded to a 1500 dollar build. An argument could be made for 1440p but keep in mind you'll get a smoother everyday experience on 1080p and more than 70% of gamers today still use a 1080p monitor. But either works within your budget. I'd encourage you to do some homework on monitors and resolution before making a decision.

I'll prepare a build here in a bit and allow the rest of the community to share thoughts

I tend to agree here that with a $1500 build, there may be a need for some sacrifices in some parts of the build. However, there was advice to another person in another thread that I agree with, which is that the last places that you want to consider sacrificing is with the CPU and GPU. These two parts are probably the most important when it comes to gaming, particularly the GPU.

The ready to ship Lynx "Ultimate" may offer your desired performance close to your budget range. You can read a review of the Radeon RX 5700 XT at techradar, which seems to be enthusiastic about the GPU. I haven't used a Radeon for years so I won't able to speak from personal experience. There is no hyperthreading available on the Core i7 9700F CPU, but with 8 cores already, I don't think you'll be missing much in terms of performance.


If you have additional technical expertise and are willing to wait for a fully customized PC, you can play around with some of the configuration settings to only use the stock fans and heatsink, different case options (although the Lynx chassis is one of the least expensive) or opt for just the SATA SSD instead of nvme. The SATA SSD is slower than the nvme SSD, although according to the article at extremetech, the difference is hard to notice in practicality. Again, it depends on your comfort level, however, and some may argue to go with the all-in-one cooling solutions just to be on the safe side or nvme for the best performance.

I had some links here for reference, but the message board prohibits links to prevent spam, so I had to take them out.

Good thoughts here so far. The differences to keep in mind in the decision between 1080p and 1440p is primarily that 1440p will always cost more to run and more initially to buy the monitor. It is relatively inexpensive to purchase a high framerate 1080p monitor that will give great performance with a Lynx Ultimate.

It has been shown in testing that higher frame rates do more for the gaming experience than higher resolutions. Keep in mind you will only have the monitor you are playing on, and the comparison to some other resolution will never be a factor.

I suggest you shoot for the Lynx Ultimate, and a 24" 1080p monitor that can display over 100 fps. That's your sweet spot IMO. There are plenty of good monitors that fit that description under $200.