Building An Average PC... I'm Scared And Confused (X_X)

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by Mulsiphix, Jan 11, 2019.

  1. Mulsiphix

    Mulsiphix Guest

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    EDIT - This Build Is Completed (post #34)
    _____________________________________________________________________

    I haven't built a new PC in a number of years. I'm completely out of date on what is new and hip or why. But when I built PC's it was always for performance, gaming, and overclocking. My mother has asked me to build her a PC and I'm completely out of my element. So I wanted to ask you fine folks for some feedback.

    I have $450 to spend. If there is a big difference in performance or if it will greatly increase how long the computer will remain responsive (see Design Goals below), I might be able to go as high as $600. I don't know if I should even bother building it at this price point, or if I would be better served by going with a prefab from Dell or a local store. Perhaps a bare bones combo from a site like NewEgg.com would be wise? Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

    PC's Regular Intended Usage
    • Using Microsoft Office
    • Browsing the web
    • Viewing photos from her personal collection
    • Watching browser-based videos
    • Light photo cropping in MS Paint
    Design Goals
    • Computer feels responsive/speedy and will remain so, despite software resource requirements slowly increasing, for the next 5 to 7 years.
    Parts Needed In This Build
    1. CPU and CPU Heatsink/Fan
    2. Motherboard (onboard video and sound required)
    3. RAM
    4. 1x Hard Drive (1TB or larger, 1TB is all I need )
    5. Power Supply
    6. PC Case
    Extra Notes
    • Windows 10 is the OS (already purchased)
    • She does not game, doesn't listen to music for pleasure, and doesn't watch DVD's on the PC.
    • Do not need advice on peripherals, only the PC itself.
     
    Last edited: Jan 20, 2019
  2. RealNC

    RealNC Ancient Guru

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    Well, for that use case, a Ryzen 2400G would do it. Any mainboard supporting the 2400G will do. The 2400G has integrated graphics, so you don't need one on the mainboard. The board just needs to support graphics through the 2400G.

    8GB RAM should be fine.
     
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  3. Mulsiphix

    Mulsiphix Guest

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    Thank you for your response. I was at Amazon and they have the 2400G for $159.99, but they also have the 2600 for $164.99. It looks like it has better stats. Is there any reason I shouldn't go ahead and opt for the 2600?
     
  4. RealNC

    RealNC Ancient Guru

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    The 2600 does not have integrated graphics. Also, since you said no gaming is involved, the 2400G sounds pretty much perfect.
     

  5. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    This. Since you're not gaming you won't have any issues with the 2400G at all, works pretty well for me.
    Just make sure you either have a mainboard that was launched at the time or later than the 2400G, since you might need to flash the firmware of the mainboard first (like in case of some B350 boards, like when I built my HTPC). Saves you the time of building the PC and then not having it work when you try to boot.
     
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  6. Mulsiphix

    Mulsiphix Guest

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    Awesome. I just wanted to double check. Thank you very much for your help ^_^.

    That is great advice. I am also on a time crunch to build this, so this was very helpful. Thank you =).

    Question: Other than what fantaskarsef mentioned about the release date, is there anything else I should be looking out for when choosing a motherboard There are definitely some different price points available for a AM4 motherboard purchase. Since I don't need extra features related to gaming or overclocking potential, I'm thinking I might just go with a cheap board. But I also consider that cheap may mean poor quality components. When shopping for a motherboard for a general use PC build like this, is it wrong to go dirt cheap on the motherboard? Any advice on things to look out for?
     
  7. RealNC

    RealNC Ancient Guru

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    I don't consider cheap components that important when not overclocking. Just get a cheap one that explicitly lists the 2400G as supported, so you know it works. You won't be able to do a BIOS flash on a board that doesn't support the 2400G out of the box, because you'd need another Ryzen CPU to boot with, then flash the BIOS, and then put the 2400G in. Obviously you don't have another Ryzen CPU to do that, so make sure the board is explicit about supporting it.
     
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  8. Mulsiphix

    Mulsiphix Guest

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    Based on your recommendation I decided to go with the ASRock B450M-HDV ($59.99). It's product page specifically lists support for Ryzen 5 2400G and multiple user reviews state the processor is supported right out of the box.

    So now I am moving onto picking out RAM and the manual for the motherboard states the following:
    If the maximum frequency in this chart states 2933, why does the text above claim 3200+(OC)? Also, what does the (OC) stand for in that description?
     
  9. RealNC

    RealNC Ancient Guru

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    @Mulsiphix

    It means you can use higher clocked RAM, but it counts as overclocking. Basically, they tell you they don't guarantee you can achieve higher clocks, even though you could.

    Anyway, I don't think you need to bother with that. 2667 is fine.
     
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  10. Mulsiphix

    Mulsiphix Guest

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    Last edited: Jan 13, 2019

  11. illdrag0n

    illdrag0n Guest

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    You want more than 60gb to run win 10. I'd recommend 256gb, they are cheap enough. 120gb at the least
     
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  12. RealNC

    RealNC Ancient Guru

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    A 1TB HD doesn't make sense anymore. You start at 2TB. 3TB is also an option due to the very small price difference compared to 2TB. A Toshiba P300 for example would do nicely (it's available in 3TB as well as 2TB, and performance is the same because they use 3 platters and 2 platters respectively; 1TB per platter.)

    For a PSU, I lost touch with them the last couple of years. Most brands (like Corsair and others) use PSUs from CTW and Great Wall and these are considered decent from what I know. So something like a 450W Corsair or Sea Sonic should be safe. You don't need anything higher than 450W. In fact, 450W is good enough even if you add a discrete GPU later on (as long as it's not a power hungry higher-end GPU.) So a decent brand 450W is more than plenty for this system.

    Not sure you really need an SSD though. If you get one, 60GB is not enough for Windows 10 anyway. When it comes to SSDs, people usually claim the Samsung Evo ones are among the best, but they can be expensive. With that being said, I'm not sure you actually need an SSD. You could just run off the HD. Should be fine for most uses.
     
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  13. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    For OS, you could buy a 500 GB Crucial MX500 SSD. Best value for money, they are found now at $65-70 ish.
    Later on, you can add some 3 TB HDD for storage and backups.
    For PSU this one should be enough-Seasonic FOCUS 450W.
     
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  14. BlackZero

    BlackZero Guest

    For windows 10, you don't need more than ~20 GB SSD space, but smaller drives make little economic sense.
     
  15. RealNC

    RealNC Ancient Guru

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    C:\Windows eats something like 40GB here. Also, major Windows 10 updates will copy the whole thing to C:\Windows.old while doing the update.

    There is no way 20GB is enough.
     
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  16. Arctucas

    Arctucas Guest

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    Do not know if you are interested in an Intel system, but if you live near a Microcenter.

    Intel Core i3-8100 Coffee Lake 3.6 GHz LGA 1151 Bo...

    $114.99

    ASRock H310M-HDV/M.2 LGA 1151 mATX Intel Motherboa...

    $29.99

    Toshiba P300 2TB 7200RPM SATA III 6Gb/s 3.5" Inter...

    $62.99

    G.Skill Ripjaws V 8GB 2 x 4GB DDR4-2400 PC4-19200 ...

    $59.99

    Thermaltake 500 Watt 80 Plus ATX Power Supply

    $39.99

    Thermaltake V100 ATX Mid-Tower Computer Case - Bla...

    $29.99

    Crucial MX500 250GB 3D NAND SATA III 6Gb/s M.2 228...

    $49.99

    $387.93 before taxes.
     
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  17. 0blivious

    0blivious Ancient Guru

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    I got a 120GB SSD (Kingston) from Amazon last month for $25 to use an OS drive in a spare PC.

    They are getting crazy cheap at that size. Point the User folders to a slave drive and done.

    [edit] just checked my receipt. They are $26 now and the 240GB model is $36.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2019
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  18. BlackZero

    BlackZero Guest

    On my drive, where I don't allow clutter to build up, it uses around 17 GB.

    20 GB is also the number given by Microsoft.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 13, 2019
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  19. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    What the other's say. For the system drive I'd advice to 120GB SSD at least, this one's pretty full rather quickly when you leave some stuff on the desktop etc., but should do fine.
    In Terms of PSU, I had the weird issue that the Seasonic Focus I bought refused to work in the 2400G build at first. They're good PSUs besides that, never had issues with Seasonic before that.
     
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  20. Mulsiphix

    Mulsiphix Guest

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    I forgot to ask, regarding the power supply and the 80 Plus Rating System, are there any ratings I should avoid? I was thinking Gold rating and above, just to be safe, but I'm curious if anybody disagrees with that?
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2019

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