Let's make a gaming PC - The Bear and Badger

SpaceGazelle

Just say you need it Muzzy. Tbf to you, you haven't upgraded for ages. Quake RTX is amaze.

voices

Well... I finally caved and pressed buy on the 3700x. I went b450 as I'm not convinced x570 will be worth it.

I just have to wait for the next round of gpus to come out for the full upgrade, as my 1070 is still doing the job (at 1080p, and sort of in vr). I also need money for food.

SpaceGazelle

When I got a new CPU it made VR a lot smoother in some games.

voices

I'm looking forward to giving it a go.

regmcfly

My money into the cpu has been amazing. It's easy to cut on in service of the gfx or ram stuff but it's vital.

Dark Soldier

Yes, yes it is. You been knocking out the 4K shiz yet fam

regmcfly

Sure have - it's not mammoth FPS but it's consistent

acemuzzy

The missus seems amenable. There is hope. She's demanding to check the chassis though, and the prices are heading up :-/

Tempy

I'm praying for you.

acemuzzy

Cheers buddy

acemuzzy

While visiting, I asked my (fairly techy) mum what she thought a PC's life expectancy was. She said 3-5 years. "Seeeee," I said gleefully to the wife.

cockbeard

Hahaha, thank you, I think I needed that chuckle

GurtTractor

GurtTractor

A lot of the tech press are getting very excited about the latest AMD laptop CPUs, the Ryzen 4000 series is performing better or as good as the Intel equivalents, while consuming much less power.

For the first time in possibly forever AMD looks to clearly beat Intel in laptops, very cool as proper competition means we get better shit. I guess prices and availability will be fucked for a little while though...

hunk

Finally!

Speedhaak

Yeah I'd say this year is a white wash Gurt.

voices

I got myself a trio of Noctua fans to fill some empty fan sockets, and was tempted to fill out the rest of my pc with them so that I didn't have any yellow and mustard cables going around. Then I put the lid back on my pc and have hopefully put that notion to rest.

Folding at home isn't downloading any work units, so I have no idea how this has affected the thermals inside the case. Hopefully hopefully I can keep the lid on while it runs now. It's an outdated HTPC case, which looks kind of ok on the outside, but isn't particularly well thought out inside.

Syph79

Thinking of putting together a Ryzen cpu on a motherboard, 16gb RAM and an SSD in a smallish case. I’ll want to add a gpu at some stage, but right now it’s not a priority. I don’t have a spare AMD cpu to sort the BIOS issue out, so what would you guys recommend?

cockbeard

Syph79 wrote:

Thinking of putting together a Ryzen cpu on a motherboard, 16gb RAM and an SSD in a smallish case. I’ll want to add a gpu at some stage, but right now it’s not a priority. I don’t have a spare AMD cpu to sort the BIOS issue out, so what would you guys recommend?

Unsure what the "BIOS issue" is, but I'd have thought most modern boards can boot from USB, couldn't you flash BIOS from the same??

edit: did a quick google, and it seems that's not possible, but supposedly AMD will send a bootkit including a cheap processor for this purpose linky

Syph79

I think our man, Gurt, knows which mobo comes pre-done. I’ve tried PC Part Picker, but the warnings of issues are freaking me out. Safer to ask someone who knows!

GurtTractor

Syph79 wrote:

Thinking of putting together a Ryzen cpu on a motherboard, 16gb RAM and an SSD in a smallish case. I’ll want to add a gpu at some stage, but right now it’s not a priority. I don’t have a spare AMD cpu to sort the BIOS issue out, so what would you guys recommend?

The only Ryzen CPUs that have onboard graphics are the ones with the G suffix, 2200G/2400G/3200G/3400G. They are all either 4 cores or 4 cores with SMT for 8 threads. All other Ryzen CPUs will need a GPU otherwise you won't be able to use them.

I'm guessing the BIOS issue you are referring to is using the latest generation of CPUs in older motherboards, as long as they have a USB flash function to get a new BIOS you needn't worry about it. If you want a recommendation for a solid B450 mobo that will have an updated BIOS for the new chips then the MSI B450 Mortar Max is a good option, a couple of other badgers have them I think.

For RAM aim for 3200Mhz - 3600Mhz, will boost performance quite a bit.

GurtTractor

Syph79 wrote:

I think our man, Gurt, knows which mobo comes pre-done. I’ve tried PC Part Picker, but the warnings of issues are freaking me out. Safer to ask someone who knows!

Yeah any of the "MAX" motherboards from MSI have the updated BIOS, and I think a USB flash function also which is handy. Many other boards have that too. PCPartpicker has that warning because it doesn't know which boards will be incompatible out of the box and which aren't, but a wee bit of research will set you right.

Is the machine going to just be for gaming? I've been recommending the MSI Mortar as it has great VRMs and I/O for a very reasonably priced micro-ATX board. It lacks the extra few PCI-E slots that you would get with the Tomahawk or other full ATX board, but most people won't need them. You can put it in a m-ATX case which will be a bit smaller than the usual full towers.

If you really want a small machine then mini-ITX boards might be what you want though.

Syph79

Cheers, Gurt. I honestly just fancy a project and, although I’d eventually like to work up to something for gaming, I’m not dropping a grand on something in one go in this climate. So if I can put it together bit by bit, or just get the foundations in place now, that would help.

GurtTractor

Aye not a bad idea. As I mentioned you will be looking at one of the chips with integrated graphics if you want to be able to use it just now, if you won't be getting a GPU initially. That does limit you to a lesser amount of CPU power though, fewer cores and the previous generation of the Zen architecture, so not as good as the 7nm silicon the like of which will be in the next consoles. Ideally I would recommend the 3600 or 3600X six core chips, which are really kickass for the money.

It depends a bit on what kind of games you will want to be playing on the system, if it's older or simpler stuff then a lower end setup should suffice. You might want to look at picking up a used GPU on ebay or elsewhere, like a GTX 970 or something. Often if you get a card for a good price you don't end up losing much when it comes round to selling it on again. Let me know if that idea appeals as I've done a fair bit of buying/selling on the used market before and I can offer some advice.

Syph79

Perhaps that’s the better idea then? I wouldn’t want to throttle the potential now, so I can’t get the most out of it later. I’m just keen to avoid dropping a wedge all in one go.

cockbeard

Can the "better" cpus not drive any display?? Just thinking of my laptop with it's onboard gwaffix, and ebing very low powered in comparison

GurtTractor

Syph79 wrote:

Perhaps that’s the better idea then? I wouldn’t want to throttle the potential now, so I can’t get the most out of it later. I’m just keen to avoid dropping a wedge all in one go.

Here's a solid set of parts to start with -

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£156.78 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B450M MORTAR MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£89.98 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£79.98 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£91.45 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Define Mini C MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£84.99 @ Box Limited)
Power Supply: EVGA 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£94.40 @ Alza)
Total: £597.58
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-04-02 07:36 BST+0100

No GPU included, so you might want to look at getting a used on for now, like RX 570 cards are going for ~£80ish on ebay atm and there will plenty of other options. Let me know if that's a route you want to go down and I can do some looking around for the best deals.

That CPU has 2 fewer cores than what the new consoles will have, but can run at a slightly higher clockspeed so it should balance out. If you want 8 cores then the 3700 is where it's at.

There are a bunch of different "Mini" cases from Fractal that are designed for micro-ATX, others have used them here, look at page 81 to see Speehaak's build for an idea of the size. Mini-ITX motherboards and cases will be smaller if that's important. If you search "fractal mini" here - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/products/case/ you'll see that theres a few different options for the form factor, some have the mesh front for better airflow, some just the side vents which might make for a slightly quieter overall system, and then there are tempered glass variants if you care about a flashy system. Choose what seems best for you or go for a different brand, there are many.

GurtTractor

cockbeard wrote:

Can the "better" cpus not drive any display?? Just thinking of my laptop with it's onboard gwaffix, and ebing very low powered in comparison

All of the 6/8/12/16 core Ryzen CPUs have no onboard graphics, so rely on a GPU. I don't know what you have in your GPU but typically laptop CPUs are low powered out of necessity for optimal battery life.

Speedhaak

GurtTractor wrote:

Perhaps that’s the better idea then? I wouldn’t want to throttle the potential now, so I can’t get the most out of it later. I’m just keen to avoid dropping a wedge all in one go.

Perhaps that’s the better idea then? I wouldn’t want to throttle the potential now, so I can’t get the most out of it later. I’m just keen to avoid dropping a wedge all in one go.

Here's a solid set of parts to start with - PCPartPicker Part List CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£156.78 @ Aria PC) Motherboard: MSI B450M MORTAR MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£89.98 @ CCL Computers) Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£79.98 @ Aria PC) Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£91.45 @ CCL Computers) Case: Fractal Design Define Mini C MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£84.99 @ Box Limited) Power Supply: EVGA 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£94.40 @ Alza) Total: £597.58 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-04-02 07:36 BST+0100 No GPU included, so you might want to look at getting a used on for now, like RX 570 cards are going for ~£80ish on ebay atm and there will plenty of other options. Let me know if that's a route you want to go down and I can do some looking around for the best deals. That CPU has 2 fewer cores than what the new consoles will have, but can run at a slightly higher clockspeed so it should balance out. If you want 8 cores then the 3700 is where it's at. There are a bunch of different "Mini" cases from Fractal that are designed for micro-ATX, others have used them here, look at page 81 to see Speehaak's build for an idea of the size. Mini-ITX motherboards and cases will be smaller if that's important. If you search "fractal mini" here - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/products/case/ you'll see that theres a few different options for the form factor, some have the mesh front for better airflow, some just the side vents which might make for a slightly quieter overall system, and then there are tempered glass variants if you care about a flashy system. Choose what seems best for you or go for a different brand, there are many.

That's pretty much my recent build @syph minus the GPU - can attest to it being a very solid machine, a great foundation for future upgrades and the case is superb. It has sound-proofing built into it's design feature set and is relatively quite even under load with the stock cooler.

Syph79

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

Is putting it all together simple enough? It’s been a long time since I threw a PC together!

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