Help with ~€1000 AMD gaming build

WoundedElk · Apr 10, 2020

Some AMD B450 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Matisse CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions.
Note:The Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler may require a separately available mounting adapter to fit the ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard.

Would it be worth replacing the motherboard for an alternative?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Inspireless Llama · Apr 10, 2020

Every 400 series motherboard (B450/X470) will give that warning, because those motherboards are / were designed for ryzen 2000 series. Basically your CPU is newer than your motherboard. I don't think it will have that much of an effect. If you want to be sure it's compatible, several sellers offer a BIOS update for like 10$ so you're guaranteed your mobo can run your CPU.

As for CPU cooler mounting, usually a cooler will come with an alternative bracket if it's needed. I've had 2 aftermarket coolers only so far, but neither actually needed one. The first one I needed to remove it, the second one just used the original backplate (I was lucky I didn't throw it away lol). When AM4 came out, some coolers didn't have AM4 support yet, so they sold AM4 brackets seperately. I know for a fact that Corsair did for their liquid coolers.

From Cooler Master's website they say it has out of the box AM4 compability.

Besides that, to me your build looks balanced! Personally I think I'd rather get a 500gb SSD rather than a 240gb so you can install a few games on it as well. I'm not sure why your PC list here is from the UK version haha. Here's the one you made:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€177.99 @ Mindfactory)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (€31.49 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€86.80 @ Alza)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€86.89 @ Alternate)
Storage: Kingston A400 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€37.15 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€45.48 @ Alternate)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card (€243.80 @ Alza)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case (€52.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (€74.38 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Monitor: Asus VG248QE 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor (€209.90 @ Alternate)
Total: €1046.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-04-10 22:10 CEST+0200

Oussebon · Apr 11, 2020

Agreed with the above.

It's unlikely that the BIOS will be out of date for your B450, as many of those boards made before the 3000 series were released will have been sold by now. But even if you do get a board with an old BIOS, you have options - e.g. RMA it, or AMD may even loan you a compatible CPU for you to perform the BIOS update

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/pa-100

And a 240gb SSD will fill up very quickly these days - some games may be too large to fit on it once you take into account Windows, programs, etc.

The build looks good

I would strongly recommend a different monitor though

The Asus VG248QE is one of the few 1080p 144hz monitors that doesn't have adaptive sync (freesync). There are lots and lots of other models for a similar price that do have freesync

Oussebon · Apr 11, 2020

Inspireless Llama said:
From Cooler Master's website they say it has out of the box AM4 compability.

Though looking at the page it doesn't list the 212 Evo? Only the Hyper 212 LED Turbo which I guess is a different product. Did I miss it?

Inspireless Llama · Apr 11, 2020

You're right. As for the 212 EVO I read different things, some sites say it has AM4 support. others don't list it. I guess to be sure you'd do best to get a different aircooler, just to be sure it's compatible. The 212 LED is an option then. I personally strongly suggest the Scythe Mugen 5 PCGH since I have good experience with it, but it's massive and not everyone likes it.

Apparently the 212 LED has a limited compability, forcing you to place the cooler in a way where fans are blowing from bottom to top instead of front / back of the case. That's only a single review I read though.

If you want to save a bit on the build I think you could just keep with the stock cooler for now. If you decide to change it later because it's either too hot or too loud for your liking you can. (Just be carefull with removing the cooler, I destroyed my CPU lol).

Kaamos_Llama · Apr 11, 2020

Besides what the others have said which I mostly agree with, I'd actually recommend against the 212 EVO. I know its been the most popular choice for a loooong time but the 2000 RPM fan on there can get annoyingly loud. I'd go for a Bequiet Pure Rock at about the same price for about the same performance with less noise.

I also have a bit of an aversion to the Corsair CX PSU lines. They have gotten better since a few years ago it seems from the specs at least. But I'd still spend ~15 more on the Seasonic Focus GX gold 550 and feel better about the 10 year warranty on a higher quality unit.

I'm nitpicking though, what you have will also work just fine if you dont want to change it. Good luck with the build

Zoid · Apr 11, 2020

Like @Kaamos_Llama said, we can nitpick little things but overall it is a well balanced build. Nice work!

I do recommend getting a larger SSD. I would shell out for a 1TB drive so that you can put plenty of games on it, but you're definitely going to run out of space on a 256GB drive quickly.

I agree that the BeQuiet! Pure Rock would be a suitable alternative for an inexpensive CPU cooler, though the Ryzen 5 3600 comes with a pretty decent stock cooler, so you could also try that out and see how it does before buying an aftermarket one. I also agree that the Seasonic Focus GX Gold 550 is a better PSU for not much more money, but yours will be fine as well.

We'd love to see photos of the finished build over in Show Us Your Setup if you want to share!

Inspireless Llama · Apr 11, 2020

As I can see with all the comments combined I think you'd end up with a build simular to this one:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€177.89 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€87.69 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€86.89 @ Alternate)
Storage: Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (€148.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card (€236.99 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case (€52.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (€74.38 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Monitor: Asus VG248QE 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor (€209.90 @ Alternate)
Total: €1075.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-04-11 17:39 CEST+0200

Quite honestly I'm not sure if an m.2 SSD actually will benefit in boot times over a SATA SSD, but the good thing is that you'll need less cables since you want a semi-modular PSU anyway.

As for storage it's very easy to add storage so you can just buy another SSD / HDD when you need it and have the funds for it. I've done that as well, adding storage over time to keep up with the sizes and amount of games I got installed.

Monitorwise, you could look at AOC monitors. As far as I've used them and read reviews about them, they usually give you a good price to performance.

Oussebon · Apr 11, 2020

On the subject of NVMe SSDs not being worth it, I'd argue the 860 Evo isn't worth it versus a Crucial MX500, WD Blue 3D NAND etc depending on pricing.

MX500 seems to be ~30€ cheaper, WD Blue 3D NAND 40€-50€ cheaper(!). And both are very good drives.

Inspireless Llama · Apr 11, 2020

I agree, I never used any SSD's besides Samsung so that's why I suggested, but I think almost any 1tb SSD would do compared to a 240gb + HDD. I suggested nvme over SATA because it's less cable management, but I don't know if it actually will provide a performance boost as well.

MangoPop · Apr 13, 2020

MSI B450 Tomahawk Max (make sure you get the Max version) comes out of the box not needing a BIOS update to post using an R5 2000 / 3000 series CPU plus, it's the best bang for the $$$ and the VRM chips are very robust, no problem when it comes to OC'ing

WoundedElk · Apr 14, 2020

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the help! I ordered parts last week, this is what I went for in the end (I ended up changing a decent amount; I dropped the aftermarket cooler on Inspireless Llama's advice, the monitor (to a Freesync ready monitor, on Oussebon's advice). I opted for the ~500gb SSD, with the HD too so I should have no storage worries and I stuck with the B450M motherboard with a BIOS update from the seller (€35 extra). The PCPartsPicker list is:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/2GYyZf

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€177.89 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€87.69 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (€98.89 @ Alternate)
Storage: Kingston A400 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€69.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€38.49 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card (€236.99 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case (€52.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (€74.38 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Monitor: ViewSonic VX2458-C-MHD 23.6" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor (€149.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €987.20
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-04-14 10:47 CEST+0200

Hopefully the parts will come over the next week and I'll have a picture for Show Us Your Setup sometime soon. Thanks again for all the help!

Inspireless Llama · Apr 14, 2020

So there's one thing I notice here: you went for a micro atx motherboard, was that on purpose? I don't know if that is going to have any incompatibilities or other things you might run into

Zoid · Apr 14, 2020

Inspireless Llama said:
So there's one thing I notice here: you went for a micro atx motherboard, was that on purpose? I don't know if that is going to have any incompatibilities or other things you might run into

I don't see anything in the parts list that would be incompatible with a micro ATX board. @WoundedElk as long as you don't need more than 2 PCIe 3.0 slots ( I doubt you would) then you'll be fine. Looking forward to seeing the finished build!

Inspireless Llama · Apr 14, 2020

Looking good then! Seems like you managed to save some money as well, and that's including a bigger SSD!

And as I said, if you want to change the cooler later on you can, it's usually not that hard to replace them. You just need to be careful with removing it I noticed, I've happened twice now the CPU followed the cooler on it's way out (second one wasn't destroyed though)

WoundedElk · Apr 30, 2020

Update time:

All the parts arrived and I assembled it all and... It wouldn't run. The CPU, GPU and case fans would spin up for half a second then nothing... I took it apart and reassembled, but again couldn't get it to start. I took the Mobo, Ram and CPU to a hardware shop and the guy said the CPU was faulty (I thought this was quite unlikely to happen, but okay...) He also said the Mobo and RAM were incompatible.
This is the exact Mobo I bought and This the RAM. On their site it claims DDR4-3200 compatibility, but in the Quick Installation Guide it doesn't mention anything higher than 2933 Mhz.

So I've requested a replacement CPU from Amazon, and will potentially change the Mobo depending on what mindfactory.de say...

Its fair to say I'm a little confused, and I just hope that with a new CPU things will get going...

Oussebon · Apr 30, 2020

Avoid that computer shop in future I think. I hope you didn't have to pay them anything.

Did your motherboard box / shrink wrap have a sticker on it that says "3000 Series Ready" or similar?

Is there a sticker on the motherboard itself (like this) that states the BIOS version?

It is possible that the BIOS does not support 3000 series CPUs, so we need to rule that out first.

WoundedElk · Apr 30, 2020

Oussebon said:
Avoid that computer shop in future I think. I hope you didn't have to pay them anything.

Did your motherboard box / shrink wrap have a sticker on it that says "3000 Series Ready" or similar?

Is there a sticker on the motherboard itself (like this) that states the BIOS version?

It is possible that the BIOS does not support 3000 series CPUs, so we need to rule that out first.

- Yeah, it has the 3000 series sticker
- Yeah P3.90 is on the Mobo
When ordering the Mobo I requested BIOS update for compatibility with Ryzen 5 3600... The BIOS was checked as being version P3.90 which as far as I'm aware should be fine

Zoid · Apr 30, 2020

WoundedElk said:
Update time:

All the parts arrived and I assembled it all and... It wouldn't run. The CPU, GPU and case fans would spin up for half a second then nothing... I took it apart and reassembled, but again couldn't get it to start. I took the Mobo, Ram and CPU to a hardware shop and the guy said the CPU was faulty (I thought this was quite unlikely to happen, but okay...) He also said the Mobo and RAM were incompatible.
This is the exact Mobo I bought and This the RAM. On their site it claims DDR4-3200 compatibility, but in the Quick Installation Guide it doesn't mention anything higher than 2933 Mhz.

So I've requested a replacement CPU from Amazon, and will potentially change the Mobo depending on what mindfactory.de say...

Its fair to say I'm a little confused, and I just hope that with a new CPU things will get going...

What @Oussebon said... I'd avoid that computer shop in the future. I don't know what testing the technician did to determine that you had a faulty CPU, but your RAM and motherboard definitely aren't incompatible. First of all, it looks like your MOBO does support DDR4 3200 in OC mode, but regardless, you can use faster RAM than your motherboard supports, it will just downclock the RAM to a supported speed.

WoundedElk said:
- Yeah, it has the 3000 series sticker
- Yeah P3.90 is on the Mobo
When ordering the Mobo I requested BIOS update for compatibility with Ryzen 5 3600... The BIOS was checked as being version P3.90 which as far as I'm aware should be fine

You're right, BIOS version 3.9 is the most recent version released for your board, so it should support Ryzen 3000 series CPUs. It is possible that some component is DOA. Have you verified all connections from the PSU to make sure they're all fully seated correctly? I guess if you've already requested a replacement CPU you can see if that changes anything.

Oussebon · Apr 30, 2020

Yes, then it's not that.

if you've RMAed the CPU, see what happens with the replacement.

Perhaps build the PC outside of the case, on a non-conductive surface like the cardboard box the mobo came in.

Just the CPU (and CPU cooler), mobo, 1 stick of RAM, PSU. Perhaps try with the GPU if you want to see if you get video output / can get into the BIOS.

I've not built one, but I think I heard AMD Ryzen systems can turn themselves on and off quite a few times when you switch them on for the very first time ever. So give it while.

WoundedElk · Apr 30, 2020

I believe the PSU is fine, as I was able to spin things up for half a second, I've not tested other components, but I did try to run the Mobo, CPU and ram on a cardboard box, with the same results.

I imagine Mindfactory will come back saying no issues on their side, so I will have to wait for the replacement CPU to arrive and try that with the Mobo. If that doesn't work then I really will be clueless as to the issue.

Edit: Mindfactory replied with:

"The Motherboard might not have the current BIOS which is necessary. This is needed for the Board to Support Ryzen 3000.
I would suggest you to RMA that Board, get a refund and buy a MSI MAX Board. Those are always compatible with ryzen 3000."

They might not have looked into the order to check the BIOS version... I'm unsure whether to wait and try the replacement CPU with the current board, or return the board and get the MAX Board as suggested...

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Help with ~€1000 AMD gaming build

WoundedElk

Inspireless Llama

Oussebon

Oussebon

Inspireless Llama

Kaamos_Llama

Zoid

Inspireless Llama

Oussebon

Inspireless Llama

MangoPop

WoundedElk

Inspireless Llama

Zoid

Inspireless Llama

WoundedElk

Oussebon

WoundedElk

Zoid

Oussebon

WoundedElk

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