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Advice on this build?
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Advice on this build?Posted:

MattLong201
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I'm looking at building a new PC and been doing some research. Would love some feedback from some people who actually know what they're talking about, so would appreciate any advice you can give. I am wanting to build a budget gaming PC that will be able to run most modern games at the highest settings possible (in particular Star Wars Battlefront II). I have a budget of ~AU$1500 to spend, but I don't need any peripherals.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 $278
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-AB350-GAMING-3 AM4 motherboard $159
RAM: Corsair 8GB (1x8GB) CMK8GX4M1A2400C14 DDR4 2400MHz Vengeance LPX DIMM Black $118
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD $129 + Seagate 2TB HDD $0 (recycled from current PC)
GPU: Galax GeForce GTX 1070 EX OC Sniper RGB Aluminum Backplate White 8GB GDDR5B $599
PSU: Thermaltake Smart RGB 500W 80 Plus Power Supply $65 Case: Corsair SPEC-ALPHA Mid Tower Gaming Case $99

(Prices are in Australian dollars)

__

I also have a Blu-Ray burner in my current PC. As you might expect, I hardly ever use it, but I would still like to have access to it for the times that I do. The case I've picked doesn't have space for an Optical Drive, but my heart is set on it. I've seen that you can get enclosures for HDDs and was wondering if I could do the same thing with my disc drive? Is it worth the effort for the rare times I'll use the drive, should I just not bother with it at all, or should I find a new case?

Thank you!
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Get faster RAM for Ryzen. 3000/3200MHz is best. Motherboard is meh, I'd personally get any Asus board. Some of the Asrock boards are super solid, but Asrock UEFI is trash. PSU is iffy, I'm sure there are better options. Case is really bad quality, especially for the price.

For optical drive, I've never actually seen or looked for an external optical drive enclosure, but apparently they exist;
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That said, I think you could probably find an external optical drive for less than an enclosure, so if you just need an optical drive occasionally, maybe to burn CD's, or install old games that you only have on disk, I'd just do that, but the enclosure is another decent option, either will work.

Okay, so what monitor(s) will you be using with this system?
What exactly will the system be used for, other than games(if anything)?
Do you want to overclock?
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13 wrote Get faster RAM for Ryzen. 3000/3200MHz is best. Motherboard is meh, I'd personally get any Asus board. Some of the Asrock boards are super solid, but Asrock UEFI is trash. PSU is iffy, I'm sure there are better options. Case is really bad quality, especially for the price.

For optical drive, I've never actually seen or looked for an external optical drive enclosure, but apparently they exist;
[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
That said, I think you could probably find an external optical drive for less than an enclosure, so if you just need an optical drive occasionally, maybe to burn CD's, or install old games that you only have on disk, I'd just do that, but the enclosure is another decent option, either will work.

Okay, so what monitor(s) will you be using with this system?
What exactly will the system be used for, other than games(if anything)?
Do you want to overclock?


Honestly, there will be literally no difference in the ram. If anything I'd recommend to up the ram to 16GB. 2400 is more than enough, but with a ryzen processor you're probably going to want more memory.
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TaigaAisaka
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Feminist wrote
13 wrote Get faster RAM for Ryzen. 3000/3200MHz is best. Motherboard is meh, I'd personally get any Asus board. Some of the Asrock boards are super solid, but Asrock UEFI is trash. PSU is iffy, I'm sure there are better options. Case is really bad quality, especially for the price.

For optical drive, I've never actually seen or looked for an external optical drive enclosure, but apparently they exist;
[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
That said, I think you could probably find an external optical drive for less than an enclosure, so if you just need an optical drive occasionally, maybe to burn CD's, or install old games that you only have on disk, I'd just do that, but the enclosure is another decent option, either will work.

Okay, so what monitor(s) will you be using with this system?
What exactly will the system be used for, other than games(if anything)?
Do you want to overclock?


Honestly, there will be literally no difference in the ram. If anything I'd recommend to up the ram to 16GB. 2400 is more than enough, but with a ryzen processor you're probably going to want more memory.


What are you talking about? RAM speeds matter with Ryzen, there are literally benchmarks out there on games and even 3D Mark that show the difference between 3200Mhz all the way down to a 2133 MHz on Ryzen, Skylake and Kaby Lake -- no surprise, the 3200 Mhz is clocking in better performance. Hell some tests pitted against 3200 vs 2133 were showing an easy 16 or more FPS difference. 2400 MHz to 3000 or 3200 MHz makes a difference. Problem now becomes that OP is going to have to enable an XMP profile in his BIOS as I believe most motherboards keep the speed at 2133 MHz. Most people just slap in RAM stick(s) and assume they are hitting the advertised speed, without touching anything in BIOS. Ryzen is going to favour faster RAM, 3000 or 3200 MHz above 2400 MHz any day.

We don't even know what RAM is going to be put into the build until OP posts the needed information to go forward. He easily can be getting 16 GB RAM with 3000 MHz.
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Ryzens architecture is interesting and I would suggest, if you're interested, that you take a read on it. If not, you can quickly glance at this video which should explain all.

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MattLong201
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13 wrote Okay, so what monitor(s) will you be using with this system?
What exactly will the system be used for, other than games(if anything)?
Do you want to overclock?


I have a Samsung 32" LED monitor (1920 x 1080 resolution).
I'll only be using it for gaming
I haven't planned to overclock, not sure if I should?

13 wrote Get faster RAM for Ryzen. 3000/3200MHz is best. Motherboard is meh, I'd personally get any Asus board. Some of the Asrock boards are super solid, but Asrock UEFI is trash. PSU is iffy, I'm sure there are better options. Case is really bad quality, especially for the price.


Updated RAM to get 2x4GB at 3000MHz (Team T-Force Dark 3 DDR4 Grey Black @ $129)
Is the motherboard "meh" because of the brand? How do you know what to look for in a good mobo?
As for the PSU, is it iffy because of the brand or the capability? (i.e. if I up it to a, say, 700W is that better, or is it because I'm getting a Thermaltake?
Changed case to a Phanteks Eclipse P400S ( [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ) .

Thanks!
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MattLong201 wrote I have a Samsung 32" LED monitor (1920 x 1080 resolution).

TV or monitor? If it's a TV, dump it and buy a nice monitor. If it's a monitor, use it for now at least, but I'd probably still want to upgrade it at some point in the near future.

MattLong201 wrote I haven't planned to overclock, not sure if I should?

Not if you don't want to. There's no need to overclock unless you specifically want to really. Well, with Intel. With Ryzen you really might as well OC IMO since all Ryzen CPUs are unlocked anyway, and it's really not hard to OC.

[quote=MattLong201"]Is the motherboard "meh" because of the brand? How do you know what to look for in a good mobo?[/quote]
Not the brand specifically, no. Companies make good and bad products. There are different things which will determine how good a motherboard is, mostly the VRMs. Gigabyte's VRMs are meh. They're not god awful, but there is definitely better. AFAIK, all of Asus' AM4 mobos are solid, so I tend to lean towards Asus. I'm a bit bias towards Asus though because I've used Gigabyte and MSI mobos in the past, but my current Asus board is so much better, and Asus' UEFI is the best you can get IMO. You're really not going wrong with any B350 or X370 mobo, aside from a few, like some of Asrocks cheapest B350 boards are utter garbage.

MattLong201 wrote As for the PSU, is it iffy because of the brand or the capability? (i.e. if I up it to a, say, 700W is that better, or is it because I'm getting a Thermaltake?

No. Same as with motherboard. Companies make good and bad products. Thermaltake have some pretty decent PSUs, just this specific one is pretty bad. Again, it's not the worst but you can do better. As for wattage, a 450W PSU is enough for any modern single GPU system, as long as you don't have an HEDT CPU(like Threadripper or X299).

MattLong201 wrote Changed case to a Phanteks Eclipse P400S ( [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ) .

Super solid option. This is what I was going to recommend. Although, you could get the P300. It's the P400S' little brother, so you lose some stuff, like rubber grommets for cable management, you lose some fan/rad support, and the P300 is a bit smaller but it's $50AUD cheaper, at $80AUD. It's a bulletproof option for the price, but the P400S is better so I'd be choosing between those 2.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] / [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

CPU: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($279.00 @ Scorptec)
Motherboard: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($195.00 @ PLE Computers)
Memory: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($105.00 @ Umart)
Storage: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($132.50 @ Shopping Express)
Video Card: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($369.00 @ Shopping Express)
Case: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($129.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Power Supply: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($75.00 @ Shopping Express)
Total: $1284.50

RX 580 is going to be more than adequate for 1080p. If you up the GPU to a GTX 1070, you'll be right around the $1500AUD mark, but I'd probably only do this if you plan on getting a better monitor sometime soon. Coffee Lake i5 is by far the better option over Ryzen considering you only plan on gaming. Unfortunately, Z370 motherboards are the only ones available right now that are compatible, so you have to pay more for a mobo than I'd like, but even with this added cost, Coffee Lake is still going to be the better choice than Ryzen.
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MattLong201
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Really appreciate all the help!

If I were to update my monitor, which would be a good way to go about it? Can you recommend any in particular?

Sticking with the current build (at least for now) is a Corsair CX550M better for the PSU and an Asus ROG Strix B350-F better for a Motherboard?

Again, thanks a lot!
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MattLong201 wrote Really appreciate all the help!

If I were to update my monitor, which would be a good way to go about it? Can you recommend any in particular?

Sticking with the current build (at least for now) is a Corsair CX550M better for the PSU and an Asus ROG Strix B350-F better for a Motherboard?

Again, thanks a lot!


Intel > AMD for gaming, and or most on Coffee Lake, just z370 boards are overpriced for now until others begin to drop.

If you REALLY wanted to stick with AMD scratch your whole build.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] / [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

CPU: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($278.00 @ Shopping Express)
Motherboard: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($133.00 @ Shopping Express)
Memory: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($185.90 @ Newegg Australia)
Storage: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($218.00 @ IJK)
Storage: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($89.00 @ IJK)
Video Card: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($346.50 @ Newegg Australia)
Case: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($79.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Power Supply: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] ($75.00 @ Shopping Express)
Total: $1404.40

Far better choice then what you listed. You DO NOT need a 1070 for 1080p even upscaling it wouldn't be worth it. Faster RAM is a must with Ryzen, and 2x4 is not cutting it, especially with what you linked.

No real difference in motherboards, i've had four different b350/x370 boards, and no real difference other than the temps, and some overclocking limitations, but most can hold a 3.9/4.0 stable.

Go with something LIKE this if you really want AMD. Go with what 13 said if you want better gaming, and somewhat better all-around performance, in games, applications, and general loads.
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MattLong201
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CPU: Intel Core i5 8400 279
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Ultra Gaming LGA 1151 ATX Motherboard 279
RAM: Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) CMK8GX4M2B3000C15 DDR4 3000MHz Vengeance LPX DIMM Black 127
Storage: Samsung 250GB SSD 850 EVO 129
GPU: Galax GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB DDR5 Video Card 375
PSU: Corsair CX550M Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply 95
Case: NZXT Phantom 240 Mid Tower Case White 89
Total: 1373

Took your (very solid) advice and started a new build around intel.

I know I could find a cheaper motherboard, but I'm (probably as stupid as it is) keen on the RGB lights. I'm also a fan of having 5 audio jacks on the back panel.

Is this a better build for what I'm going for?

Cheers!
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