Re: would you recommend this gaming pc for playing the sims 3?
@redtailboa1982 The monitor is fine but a little dim. If you're going to be playing in a somewhat-dark room, that's fine, but it wouldn't necessarily feel bright enough with the lights fully on. If that matters to you, look at a model with 300-350 nits (cd/m^2) brightness, as opposed to this one's 250. You'll also want an IPS panel, which this one has.
If you'd like a higher resolution, which an RTX 3060 can easily handle, consider one of these:
AOC makes panels for other companies you've heard of, in case you're wondering, and a few of its own monitors. These are somewhat more expensive than the one you found, but the higher resolution makes everything look more crisp, and both have a 350 nit typical brightness. There's no practical difference between 144 and 165 Hz when it comes to Sims games either—your reaction time doesn't matter, just how the game looks.
I'd search on Amazon too, but the site makes that difficult for someone who's not in the U.K. (It only shows me what will ship to the U.S.) You could check the prices of these models though, or if you find something else you like, I'll be able to view the link.
For the computer itself, the graphics card is the right choice for the monitors above; you'd be fine with a 3050 on the monitor you chose. The important question about the processor is not i5 vs. i7 but the boost clock speed. Sims 3 can only use two CPU cores, so anything above 4 doesn't matter unless you're doing other processor-intensive tasks at the same time, or you're using the computer for something else that needs more power. So an i5-12600K, for example, is as good for Sims 3 as an i7-12700F because they both boost up to 4.9 GHz and have more than 4 cores. The i5-12400F but still more than good enough for Sims 3; at most, you'd see a very slightly longer pause when the game enging had a lot to calculate in short sequence, which doesn't happen very often.
I do want to point out that you could do better on price and components with a custom build from PCSpecialist. I started with this configuration:
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-home-office-pc-V/
and added what I thought were the best reasonably-priced options (the case is £57 if that makes it easier to find):
The build comes out to £1,143, including VAT, and has a better power supply, and likely a better motherboard, CPU cooler, and SSD, than what you see on Currys. That doesn't make either Currys option bad, but when the price is this much better and you know you're getting quality components, I personally think it's an easy decision.
As a side note, I definitely went overboard on the power supply, but that is the single most important component, and Corsair is the gold standard in PSUs. Plus, upgrading to 750W isn't that expensive to build in the ability to add a more powerful graphics card later should you decide you want one for whatever reason. Sims 3 won't ever need it, but maybe you'll play something else some day.
I do want to mention that the 12600K requires the Alder Lake workaround, just as the 12700 would, but if you run the patch mentioned in the thread I linked earlier, that's a one-time intervention.
If you have more questions, please feel free to keep asking.
Edit: I forgot to say, you could of course choose a different case, but the key here is getting one that has three front fans plus a back fan, at the very least. The cheapest options don't have good-enough airflow for the components in this build. Other than that, pick whatever style you like.
