Get an RTX 3060 Ti and Ryzen 5600X mini PC for £1099
This small form factor build doesn't cut many corners.
With Ryzen 5000 processors and RTX 30-series graphics cards extremely hard to come by right now, thanks to minimal supply and an incredible amount of demand, turning to a pre-built PC is becoming one of the only ways to get your hands on the latest hardware at a (somewhat) reasonable price. After all, retailers make money on each component, so selling a whole PC provides better margins than selling a single CPU or GPU.
One option from Scan and Nvidia is a small form factor (SFF) gaming PC currently retailing for £1099, which includes an RTX 3060 Ti graphics card and an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X processor. That spec should provide very competitive frame-rates at 1080p and 1440p, so it could be worth considering if you're interested in making a substantial upgrade over your existing gaming PC or if you're getting into PC gaming for the first time.
Behind the headlining CPU and GPU, the rest of the specs are reasonable too. 16GB of dual-channel 3200MHz DDR4 RAM is the current price/performance sweet spot, especially for AMD Ryzen processors, and a 1TB Intel 665p NVMe SSD should provide a good amount of fast storage. The motherboard is one of the most full-featured and best-reviewed A520 board on the market, the AsRock A520M ITX, so you get compatibility with new Ryzen processors, Wi-Fi and RAM overclocking. The only thing you're really missing out on here with the budget A520 chipset compared to more expensive B550 and X570 is PCIe 4.0 support, which only makes a fractional difference to graphics performance and game load times right now.
The build is cooled by the AMD Wraith Stealth CPU cooler, a great budget option, and the power supply is a cheap but reliable Corsair CV550 550W 80+ Bronze unit. The case is the simple but effective Fractal Design Node 304, a well-reviewed SFF case that was one of the first to ditch an optical drive. It measures just 37x25x21, for a total volume of less than 20 litres, so it'll fit in a media cabinet, won't take up much space on a desk and is easy to bring with you for work, LAN parties or the like. You also get a legitimate Windows 10 Home license, normally around £100, included as well.
We priced out this build and it totally checks out - the RTX 3060 Ti is going for around £500 (when you can find it at all), while the Ryzen 5 5600X goes for a little under £300. That leaves you with less than £300 to get all of the remaining components and come under £1099 - not very likely when the motherboard itself is is £95, the RAM is around £80 and the storage is near £100, to say nothing of the case, the power supply and Windows 10!
Altogether, there are some cutbacks here to deliver that £1099 price point, but they're all pretty reasonable ones we'd make ourselves - and as every component used here is off-the-shelf, you can upgrade down the road pretty easily, as long as there's space for what you want in the small form factor case (which itself could be replaced with a larger mid tower if you preferred!). You could also use this PC purely as a way to get the CPU and GPU, selling on any components that you want to spec differently. Either way, we reckon it's a deal worth knowing about, and I guess if you're reading these words you might agree!
We hope this Ryzen 5600X and RTX 3060 Ti PC was useful. If you're looking to build from scratch instead, consider following us on @dealsfoundry as we're posting RTX, Ryzen and console stock updates when we have them, plus all manner of tech and gaming deals. We'll see you next time!