The PC Build Thread

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Maybe we should establish a budget first though. A Ryzen 3600 would be far better if you can fit it in the budget.
 
UrBaN963 said:
Maybe we should establish a budget first though. A Ryzen 3600 would be far better if you can fit it in the budget.
Click to expand...
If you're talking to me... Then budget is quite flexible, i.e. happy to spend for big step changes in performance (but not thread ripper or anything silly like that).

So my current view:
CPU - TBD (Im tempted by lower power, newer model even if fewer cores 5600x... Even if a bit slower...?)
B550 chipset motherboard (Im quite tempted by the ASRock B550M-HDV AMD B550 Ryzen Socket AM4 Micro-ATX Desktop Motherboard - Cheap but has what I need?)
8gb+ GPU... Possibly RX 5500 XT Series - but could also go cheaper - Smart Memory Access sounds clever, but Im dont see me forking out / waiting for next radeon series, so maybe thats an upgrade later on?
Pci4.0 nvme Samsung Evo 500gb?
(Have another ssd slightly older ssd that Ill add on Sata for slower backup :))
Memory - still don't know for sure - what should I be looking for to ensure this isnt my bottleneck?

Case... Small and quiet - any suggestions?

Which decisions above are completely stupid :)
 
richjdavies said:
If you're talking to me... Then budget is quite flexible, i.e. happy to spend for big step changes in performance (but not thread ripper or anything silly like that).

So my current view:
CPU - TBD (Im tempted by lower power, newer model even if fewer cores 5600x... Even if a bit slower...?)
B550 chipset motherboard (Im quite tempted by the ASRock B550M-HDV AMD B550 Ryzen Socket AM4 Micro-ATX Desktop Motherboard - Cheap but has what I need?)
8gb+ GPU... Possibly RX 5500 XT Series - but could also go cheaper - Smart Memory Access sounds clever, but Im dont see me forking out / waiting for next radeon series, so maybe thats an upgrade later on?
Pci4.0 nvme Samsung Evo 500gb?
(Have another ssd slightly older ssd that Ill add on Sata for slower backup :))
Memory - still don't know for sure - what should I be looking for to ensure this isnt my bottleneck?

Case... Small and quiet - any suggestions?

Which decisions above are completely stupid :)
Click to expand...
If you're happy to spend then the Ryzen 5600X is probably your best CPU option.
That motherboard is fine.
RTX 2060 Super would be better.
No real benefit from a PCI-E 4.0 nvme over a pCI-E 3.0 nvme, but it is future-proof I suppose.
Ryzen responds nicely to faster RAM, so DDR4-3600 is about the sweet-spot.
Case is a personal preference really. Not clued up on small cases so can't usefully comment there.
 
Some advice please - My in-laws have been struggling with a decade old PC that I've gotten tired of needing to fix... PC is mostly used for admin, basic photo editing, home video editing etc. No gaming or hardcore CPU usage. I'd like to set them up with something that's nice and snappy for day to day use that can give them a good few years of service. What would you guys recommend? Obviously not trying to spend a fortune hear... looking for the bang for buck recommendation of that exists. Thanks!
 
Ryzen 3400G (built in APU so no need for a discrete GPU)
8GB DDR4 (16 would be better, not sure how much the video editing would require)
512GB SSD
B450 motherboard
 
RVZ said:
Thanks, but if I compare the 3400g with my current setup, it's not really that much better, so I might as well keep what I have? Or am I missing something?

Click to expand...

You can't run a 3600 or a 5600X without a GPU. So, you'd need to buy a new one.

A 3400G probably isn't that much faster than what you have now, no, but a 3600 would be. A 5600X even more so.

Trouble is, if you do that, you're looking at basically a new computer. You'd need a new CPU, motherboard, memory and graphics card. R25k easy.

EDIT: R25k if the graphics card is something decent like an AMD 6800 or an Nvidia 3070. Plus I was assuming at least 16GB of memory. But yeah, maybe you could spend less.

Personally, in this day and age, I would not buy less than 16GB of DDR4 3200. Anything less isn't worth it. Plus at least a 6 core CPU. You're right, don't bother with an APU like the 3400G. But the problem with that, is then you have to buy a graphics card. Those are very expensive. Not necessarily overkill for 1080p, but overkill for what you do right now.
 
Vetseun said:
Some advice please - My in-laws have been struggling with a decade old PC that I've gotten tired of needing to fix... PC is mostly used for admin, basic photo editing, home video editing etc. No gaming or hardcore CPU usage. I'd like to set them up with something that's nice and snappy for day to day use that can give them a good few years of service. What would you guys recommend? Obviously not trying to spend a fortune hear... looking for the bang for buck recommendation of that exists. Thanks!
Click to expand...

This is the ideal APU situation. Swap out the B450 motherboard in urban's earlier post with an A520 (should shave a few hundred bucks off) and you can fit the rest into whatever budget you're looking at. Get 2 sticks of RAM though and if you don't like your in-laws, leave off the SSD :p


jk...nobody should build a PC without an SSD.
 
Neoprod said:
This is the ideal APU situation. Swap out the B450 motherboard in urban's earlier post with an A520 (should shave a few hundred bucks off) and you can fit the rest into whatever budget you're looking at. Get 2 sticks of RAM though and if you don't like your in-laws, leave off the SSD :p


jk...nobody should build a PC without an SSD.
Click to expand...
This coming from the guy running IDE hard drives with both jumpers on slave and being upset when it doesn't work :(
 
UrBaN963 said:
This coming from the guy running IDE hard drives with both jumpers on slave and being upset when it doesn't work :(
Click to expand...

IMG_20201116_231252.jpg

:)

Are jumpers on hard drives still a thing? That one's used exclusively to short the clear_CMOS pins when I put some overly-optimistic settings in the BIOS.
 
Neoprod said:
This is the ideal APU situation. Swap out the B450 motherboard in urban's earlier post with an A520 (should shave a few hundred bucks off) and you can fit the rest into whatever budget you're looking at.
Click to expand...

Won't work, they have limited backwards compatibility with earlier architectures, the apus don't share the same architecture as the rest of the chips in the series as they're one iteration behind. He'll need something like a ryzen 3 pro 4350G to go with the A520 chipset.
 
ponder said:
Won't work, they have limited backwards compatibility with earlier architectures, the apus don't share the same architecture as the rest of the chips in the series as they're one iteration behind. He'll need something like a ryzen 3 pro 4350G to go with the A520 chipset.
Click to expand...

The motherboard I was thinking of, Gigabyte S2H, does support Zen 2 APUs - built a PC with a 3200G previously with it.

I don't know if that's official support or it just works - it was on the F10 BIOS.
 
Neoprod said:
The motherboard I was thinking of, Gigabyte S2H, does support Zen 2 APUs - built a PC with a 3200G previously with it.

I don't know if that's official support or it just works - it was on the F10 BIOS.
Click to expand...

Not officially supported according to their site.
 
Neoprod said:
The motherboard I was thinking of, Gigabyte S2H, does support Zen 2 APUs - built a PC with a 3200G previously with it.

I don't know if that's official support or it just works - it was on the F10 BIOS.
Click to expand...
3400g isn't a Zen 2 APU it's Zen +
 
I would grab an extra case fan for the rear but otherwise it looks good.

Also, spend a little extra and get this GPU, if that's roughly your GPU budget.
www.techfox.co.za

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER OC Graphics Card | Techfox

The GTX 1660 SUPER features the award-winning NVIDIA Turing architecture and ultra-fast GDDR6 memory, with performance up to 1.5X faster than the GTX 1060.
www.techfox.co.za www.techfox.co.za
 
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UrBaN963 said:
I would grab an extra case fan for the rear but otherwise it looks good.

Also, spend a little extra and get this GPU, if that's roughly your GPU budget.
www.techfox.co.za

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER OC Graphics Card | Techfox

The GTX 1660 SUPER features the award-winning NVIDIA Turing architecture and ultra-fast GDDR6 memory, with performance up to 1.5X faster than the GTX 1060.
www.techfox.co.za www.techfox.co.za
Click to expand...

Palit GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GamingPro OC NE6166SS18J9-1160A 6GB GDDR6 192-bit PCI-E 3.0 Desktop Graphics Card - Wootware

Buy Palit GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GamingPro OC NE6166SS18J9-1160A 6GB GDDR6 192-bit PCI-E 3.0 Desktop Graphics Card at Wootware with fast shipping & superb service.
www.wootware.co.za www.wootware.co.za

Been looking for a 1660 super for a long time, waiting for black fir day otherwise I will go for this guy cheapest one I have found
 
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