$1000 Gaming PC Build to Play Overwatch at 144 Hz

Hello everyone! YEsportsBet.com experts are here to ask you a question. How do you think, does the 144 Hz monitor give advantage to its owner when playing esports disciplines? Here is the video explaining and showing the difference between 60Hz, 144Hz and 240Hz displays directly.

To say it shortly, a higher monitor refresh rate lets the gamer to see the “fresher” frame compared to that of a lower rate. That means, when frames refresh more frequently, the gamer has a bit more time to react to the changed in-game situation. That time can count in milliseconds and higher network pings can really neutralize the difference. Still, when the other conditions are the same for you and your opponent, the person with a higher refresh rate has higher chances to win the duel, especially in such dynamic esports disciplines as Overwatch matches.

But to be able to play Overwatch at 144Hz you should have the appropriate hardware providing you with at least 144 frames per second in that game. In this article, we aimed to show you the optimal PC build to play Overwatch and other esports games at a 144Hz monitor.

Note: we didn’t aim to play all other games on ultra graphic settings in 4K. Our goal was to get stable 144 FPS in Overwatch with the excellent picture quality in 1080p. The price of $1000 INCLUDES the monitor itself, but doesn’t include the price of the OS license. We took prices from pcpartpicker.com (relevant for September 23, 2019).

Let’s go with the $1000 PC build for Overwatch.

CPU to Give 144 FPS in Overwatch

The beginning of every PC build is always about the choice of a processor. At this moment, there is a wide range of CPU’s available on the market and worth your attention. Still, the central processing unit satisfying our needs the most is the AMD Ryzen 5 3600. It is the 3.6 GHz six-core processor supporting the SMT technology turning it into a 12-thread chip.

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor is, in our opinion, the best market proposition now in terms of price-to-performance correlation. By paying only $200, you get the 6/12 CPU relevant for the current gaming reality and even future-proof enough. It can draw over 140 FPS in Overwatch stably. The box cooler is enough for the R5 3600 to function on stock frequencies at acceptable temperatures. In case you plan streaming Overwatch, there is a slight overclocking potential with the default cooling system as well. However, to reach the frequency of 4.0 and above, we’d recommend purchasing a more effective cooler.

Ryzen 5 3600 price: $195

Overwatch Gaming PC Motherboard

When choosing a motherboard, one should consider their current and planned needs. Our demands about the board were simple. We wanted to get a B450 chipset as it allows overclocking the CPU (be advised, the AMD A320 does not let you tweak processor frequencies). Additionally, we planned to get

• 4 DIMM slots to have up to 4×16 GB of dual-channel RAM (total of 64 GB),
• not more than 1 PCI-Express x16 slot (just forget about multi-GPU configurations as their manufacturers did),
• 1 M.2 slot to use the compact M.2 SSD,
• and up to 4 SATA ports to have the opportunity of adding some HDDs later.

The MSI B450M Bazooka V2 Micro ATX motherboard satisfied our needs perfectly. It additionally has the light VRM radiator to keep the temperature of power lines safe.

MSI B450M Bazooka V2 motherboard price: $98.

Overwatch PC RAM

The choice of RAM modules is actually up to you. Nevertheless, you should keep in mind the fact that AMD Ryzen CPUs work better with higher clocks of DDR4 modules. We recommend getting at least two 8 GB DDR4-3000 MHz modules for contemporary Overwatch gaming builds, and then overclocking them as seriously as possible.

For our $1000 Overwatch 144 Hz PC build, we chose the kit of 2 x 8 GB DDR4-3200 GeIL EVO POTENZA sticks. The reason to choose them was trivial. These were the cheapest 3200 MHz modules available in stock on pcpartpicker.com.

GeIL EVO POTENZA 2 x 8 GB DDR4-3200 MHz price: $66.

Gaming PC Storages

As you probably know, the standard combination of physical memory devices inside modern PCs is the set of an HDD as a file storage (films, single-player games, music, family photos, etc.) and an SSD to install the operating system, software and favorite online games like Overwatch.

Yes, you should install all the frequently used software on an SSD (solid-state drive) because its memory cells function significantly faster than those of an HDD. Contemporary SSD drives have two main form-factors – the standard 2.5’’ device and the M.2 stick.

As our motherboard has the M.2 socket in it, we went for an NVMe SSD drive that is even faster than regular SATA drives. The Silicon Power A80 256 GB M.2-2280 SSD is a perfect choice to get a reliable, fast and inexpensive NVMe storage device.

The choice of an HDD is common though. The Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 7200RPM hard drive is enough for home use without overpaying for unnecessary features of corporate and server HDDs.

HDD price: $ 43.

SSD price: $38.

GPU for 144 Hz Overwatch Gaming

The choice of a GPU is probably the most important step when going in for high refresh rate gaming. It is impossible to get a too powerful video card, but unfortunately, most gamers have their budgets limited, so we won’t go too far.

Currently, the best choice for online gamers willing to play everything in 1080p@144 Hz is the Radeon RX 5700 GPU. For the price of $330 dollars, one gets pure performance without paying much for unnecessary technologies. Online gamers playing Overwatch probably don’t need the access to the RTX technology, especially when it comes to prices. Top NVidia cards are significantly overpriced. To get the “complete pack” of RT-core performance, one should be ready to pay over $700.

So, here is our GPU for 144Hz Overwatch performance – Sapphire Radeon RX 5700. It is the reference model with a blower bulk cooling system which is enough for comfortable 144 Hz 1080p gaming in Overwatch.

Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 price: $337.

Power Supply Unit

The PSU has many myths people frequently apply to it. Still, for out gaming build it is enough to get a 500 W power supply of good quality. Modern hardware components are quite energy-efficient, no matter if you choose Intel, AMD or NVidia products. So, the reliable SeaSonic S12III PSU is the optimal option in our case. It is the 500 W 80+ Bronze certified power supply unit from a reliable manufacturer for a moderate price.

SeaSonic S12III 500 W price: $50.

Overwatch Gaming PC Case

The choice of a PC case is always the call of the user. Your case should satisfy your needs in terms of air conditioning, inner space, sizes, exterior design and noise reduction. We won’t pay attention to any of the factors above. Zalman ZM-T4 MicroATX Mini Tower case is the most suitable market proposition for people on a budget (we still need to get a 144 Hz monitor). So, for the cost of 40 bucks, this Zalman case provides the user with an acceptable set of possibilities, including 5 internal storage bays, enough space to fit the long GPU, and even some cable management features.

Zalman ZM-T4 case price: $40.

144 Hz Gaming Monitor for Overwatch

Here is the point of the entire build. We aimed to get the 144 Hz gaming system, and our PC hardware components can give out 140+ stable FPS in Overwatch and other esports disciplines (including CSGO, DotA 2, LoL, Rainbow Six Siege, etc.) yet it makes little to no sense if the matrix of your display has only 60 or 75 Hz of refresh rate.

Our 144 Hz FullHD monitor is Dell S2419HGF. It has 24 inches of diagonal size, the TN matrix with 1 ms of G2G response time and 350 cd of brightness. The chosen display also supports the AMD FreeSync technology.

The 144 Hz Dell S2419HGF display price: $130.

Summary

Here is what we’ve got:

Part	Name	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core	$195
MOBO	MSI B450M BAZOOKA V2 mATX AM4	$83
RAM	GeIL EVO POTENZA 2x 8 GB DDR4-3200	$66
HDD	WD Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5” 7200RPM	$43
SSD	Silicon Power A80 256 GB M.2-2280 NVME	$38
GPU	Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 8GB	$330
PSU	SeaSonic S12III 500 W 80+ Bronze ATX	$50
Case	Zalman ZM-T4 MicroATX Mini Tower	$40
Monitor	Dell S2419HGF 24.0” 1920×1080 144 Hz	$130
Total	Overwatch 144 Hz Gaming PC	$975

Mission accomplished!