Question New build advice

[Court67ontour]

Hello everyone

I'm looking to build a new custom pc, my current computer is a custom build from 10 years ago, I'm also looking to remove current ssd and hdd, would this be a good idea to take ssd out and put into new build?. I've looked around and decided on the following.

Corsair Carbide 200r
I5-9600k
Asus prime z390-p
Corsair vengeance lpx 16gb 2666
Corsair cv650
Asus drw 24d5mt
Cooler master hyper 212 evo
Samsung 850 evo (in current pc, hoping to salvage from pc)
Seagate 1tb hdd

Is this all compatible, could I use ssd.

If there are compatibility issues please make suggestions.

Look forward to replies and thank you

 

[Oussebon]

The motherboard + CPU + RAM combo is majorly sub-optimal. You're kind of buying the worst of all worlds.

The 9600k struggles (badly) to justify itself against the AMD R5 3600, which is going to cost similar or less, especially taking into account the mobo, while giving similar performance in today's games and probably being more futureproof thanks to the additional threads. AMD's mobos will also support Zen 3 CPUs giving an upgrade path. Alternatively if looking to push maximum framerates then the Intel 10600k would be the go-to since it's faster, has more threads, and the Z490 platform is expected to support one more round of Intel CPUs.

The RAM should be 3200/3600MHz depending on pricing, since it's usually barely any more than 2666MHz.

The CV PSU may not make much sense as once you start spending that much on a PSU, getting a better quality, more efficient, modular unit often is a relatively inexpensive upgrade. Seasonic Focus Gold or Corsair TXm may be options.

Why that case? Do you already own it?

What GPU are you using?

What are you going to be using the system for?

You could use your existing storage in your new system - though you will want to format the SSD and perform a clean Windows install as the chipset and drivers in the new system will be different. Also if your HDD really is 10 years old there might be much larger and faster options available quite cheap.

 

[Court67ontour]

The motherboard + CPU + RAM combo is majorly sub-optimal. You're kind of buying the worst of all worlds.

The 9600k struggles (badly) to justify itself against the AMD R5 3600, which is going to cost similar or less, especially taking into account the mobo, while giving similar performance in today's games and probably being more futureproof thanks to the additional threads. AMD's mobos will also support Zen 3 CPUs giving an upgrade path. Alternatively if looking to push maximum framerates then the Intel 10600k would be the go-to since it's faster, has more threads, and the Z490 platform is expected to support one more round of Intel CPUs.

The RAM should be 3200/3600MHz depending on pricing, since it's usually barely any more than 2666MHz.

The CV PSU may not make much sense as once you start spending that much on a PSU, getting a better quality, more efficient, modular unit often is a relatively inexpensive upgrade. Seasonic Focus Gold or Corsair TXm may be options.

Why that case? Do you already own it?

What GPU are you using?

What are you going to be using the system for?

You could use your existing storage in your new system - though you will want to format the SSD and perform a clean Windows install as the chipset and drivers in the new system will be different. Also if your HDD really is 10 years old there might be much larger and faster options available quite cheap.

Essentially the new build won't be for gaming, even though I might be tempted to play football manager in the future, so no thoughts of gpu at the moment. The computer will be used for every day stuff, surfing the net, using itunes for importing music and streaming music to my sonos speaker etc. I might be tempted in the future to play the odd game, nothing like gta or call of duty where need fps. My current computer has a dual core i5 in there, so I thought the processor I mentioned in proposed build would be significantly better. I've never looked into amd processors and whether they're better or not, generally I only ever see intel, hence chose what I mentioned above. As for motherboard I'm at a loss as to what's good or bad. I didn't quite understand the ram spec for the mb. I couldn't get my head around the psu, what semi modular and modular means, I chose corsair because thats the brand in current pc and never caused any problems. I don't own the carbide 200r case, is there something wrong with the case? I saw it online it kinda looks similar to current pc case (antec 300) and seen something it was expandable for more case cooling if needed. I thought there might be a possibility of losing out on my current ssd and needing to buy w10, after I was able to have free upgrade of w10, little bit gutting, so be it! I was also thinking about the hhd buy a new one and migrate data over, I'll need to have a back up for about 180gb of songs and some free itune movie downloads. To be honest the above spec is the first one I've done, I wanted someone to be able give feedback whether I got things completely wrong or just make tweeks on certain things.

 

[Oussebon]

In fairness if you post on the hardware section of a website called PC Gamer and ask for advice on hardware and you don't plan on gaming on the system it probably helps to specify that, and what you'll be using it for instead Since people would often assume gaming here

If it's for office use then the above is very poor value. You're buying a CPU and motherboard that are geared for overclocking, which you aren't doing, and which you wouldn't benefit from if you did. You can get much better value with alternatives.

e.g. an i5 10400 on a B460 motherboard, or even H410. Or a Ryzen 3600 + compatible A320 or B450 mobo. Either would likely be cheaper and more futureproof.

couldn't get my head around the psu, what semi modular and modular means,

It's to do with the cables. PSUs like the Corsair CV series have fixed cables where all the cables are attached and can't be removed. Semi modular aka modular PSUs might only have the cable for the mobo and CPU fixed, with cables for GPUs and Sata devices removable, This means less cable management needed in the case and could improve airflow.

My point was also that there's very rarely any point to buying a cheap but high wattage PSU. Either you want cheap in which case why buy 650W when even with an entry level graphics card 450W would be way more than enough. Or, you want to overprovision the PSU (not necessary) in which case you're spending a certain wadge of cash on it. So you might as well get one that's only slightly more expensive but is better quality e.g. gold rated - more efficient, better build quality, and a longer warranty (usually).

The Carbide 200R is an older design and doesn't have very good dust filtration iirc.

What country and currency are you shopping in? Could help be more specific with alternatives

 

[Court67ontour]

In fairness if you post on the hardware section of a website called PC Gamer and ask for advice on hardware and you don't plan on gaming on the system it probably helps to specify that, and what you'll be using it for instead Since people would often assume gaming here

If it's for office use then the above is very poor value. You're buying a CPU and motherboard that are geared for overclocking, which you aren't doing, and which you wouldn't benefit from if you did. You can get much better value with alternatives.

e.g. an i5 10400 on a B460 motherboard, or even H410. Or a Ryzen 3600 + compatible A320 or B450 mobo. Either would likely be cheaper and more futureproof.

It's to do with the cables. PSUs like the Corsair CV series have fixed cables where all the cables are attached and can't be removed. Semi modular aka modular PSUs might only have the cable for the mobo and CPU fixed, with cables for GPUs and Sata devices removable, This means less cable management needed in the case and could improve airflow.

My point was also that there's very rarely any point to buying a cheap but high wattage PSU. Either you want cheap in which case why buy 650W when even with an entry level graphics card 450W would be way more than enough. Or, you want to overprovision the PSU (not necessary) in which case you're spending a certain wadge of cash on it. So you might as well get one that's only slightly more expensive but is better quality e.g. gold rated - more efficient, better build quality, and a longer warranty (usually).

The Carbide 200R is an older design and doesn't have very good dust filtration iirc.

What country and currency are you shopping in? Could help be more specific with alternatives

I live in Wales, my currency is GBP. When current pc was spec'd out for me, there were plenty of message boards active, now most of those message boards don't seem to be in use now. Please make suggestions

 

[Oussebon]

So as an example of an AMD Ryzen 3600 build, something like:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£164.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B550-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard (£139.98 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£57.45 @ Amazon UK)
Case: be quiet! Pure Base 600 ATX Mid Tower Case (£69.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£76.98 @ Aria PC)
Total: £509.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-11 13:07 BST+0100

The 3600 is a great all-round CPU and cheaper than the 9600k

In terms of features versus the Z390 board you were looking at, the B550 board offers USB 3.3 Gen 2 Type C, and supports PCIe 4.0, and it should support some beefy CPUs from AMD's next release too. If you keep the system for 10 years you might be glad of those features down the line, but if you'd rather save money and doubt you'd need any of those, there are much cheaper boards at around £50 e.g.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/vs2rxr/asrock-a320m-hdv-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-a320m-hdv

With plenty of options in between.

For CPU cooling, you could actually use the Wraith Stealth CPU cooler that comes included with the R5 3600. Which would save you £25/30 on the 212 Evo

The case is black, has space for 2 DVD drives as well as your other storage, has dust filters, and is apparently very quiet. And isn't too expensive.

The TXm PSU is modular, more efficient, better quality, with a 7 year warranty. However, if cheaper is better, you could go with something like the be quiet! System Power 9 400W at around £45. 400W would be more than enough for the system even if you added an entry level gaming GPU for Football Manager or even mainstream titles.

Edit: NB in the build I posted the CPU doesn't have onboard graphics so a basic graphics card like a GT 710 would be needed - or something better depending on your monitor setup.

 

[Court67ontour]

So as an example of an AMD Ryzen 3600 build, something like:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£164.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B550-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard (£139.98 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£57.45 @ Amazon UK)
Case: be quiet! Pure Base 600 ATX Mid Tower Case (£69.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£76.98 @ Aria PC)
Total: £509.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-11 13:07 BST+0100

The 3600 is a great all-round CPU and cheaper than the 9600k

In terms of features versus the Z390 board you were looking at, the B550 board offers USB 3.3 Gen 2 Type C, and supports PCIe 4.0, and it should support some beefy CPUs from AMD's next release too. If you keep the system for 10 years you might be glad of those features down the line, but if you'd rather save money and doubt you'd need any of those, there are much cheaper boards at around £50 e.g.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/vs2rxr/asrock-a320m-hdv-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-a320m-hdv

With plenty of options in between.

For CPU cooling, you could actually use the Wraith Stealth CPU cooler that comes included with the R5 3600. Which would save you £25/30 on the 212 Evo

The case is black, has space for 2 DVD drives as well as your other storage, has dust filters, and is apparently very quiet. And isn't too expensive.

The TXm PSU is modular, more efficient, better quality, with a 7 year warranty. However, if cheaper is better, you could go with something like the be quiet! System Power 9 400W at around £45. 400W would be more than enough for the system even if you added an entry level gaming GPU for Football Manager or even mainstream titles.

Been able to go to a computer store, and they spec’d up couple of options they could do

option 1
And ryzen 5 3400g and the cpu cooler that comes with cpu
No gpu
16gb (2x8gb) Corsair vengeance lpx pro 3200mhz
Asus tuf b450-m plus gaming
500gb wd blue sn550 (m.2 nvme)
350w 80plus psu
Either a micro-atx or atx Case

Option 2
Amd ryzen 3 3300 x
Arctic freezer 7x
Power color Radeon Rex 5600xt
16gb (2x8gb) Corsair vengeance lpx pro 3200 mhz
Asus tuf B450m-plus
500gb wd blue sn550 (m2.nvme)
450w 80plus psu
Either a micro atx or atx case

are these any good, don’t know anything about amd and whether I’m being given a dud build

 

[Oussebon]

So, you're looking to have it built for you rather than self-build?

That depends on the prices I suppose.

What prices are they offering these for? (with/without Windows)?

What are the actual cases they're offering?

What model of PSU is it? e.g. Corsair VS? Or something that's actually trash-tier?

The second one has a reasonably powerful gaming graphics card, which you don't need or want. Also while the 3300x is a good gaming CPU, the R5 3600 is often not much more expensive and has additional cores and threads, which make it a bit more versatile.

What monitor(s) will you be using with this set up? How many and what resolutions?

 

[Court67ontour]

So, you're looking to have it built for you rather than self-build?

That depends on the prices I suppose.

What prices are they offering these for? (with/without Windows)?

What are the actual cases they're offering?

What model of PSU is it? e.g. Corsair VS? Or something that's actually trash-tier?

The second one has a reasonably powerful gaming graphics card, which you don't need or want. Also while the 3300x is a good gaming CPU, the R5 3600 is often not much more expensive and has additional cores and threads, which make it a bit more versatile.

What monitor(s) will you be using with this set up? How many and what resolutions?

I'm still looking to build the pc myself, it was a ploy to get another spec and mainly see what their major component combo was. The psu is a corsair txm gold 550w 80+ atx supply. Can't understand what they've written for the case.

 

[Oussebon]

The PSU in the specs you posted above cannot be TXm because TXm doesn't come smaller than 550W and also is gold-rated, whereas the specs you say they suggested are:
450w 80plus psu
350w 80plus psu

Which would be Corsair VS series, if you're lucky.

Corsair VS or similar (a budget-level PSU) would be fine for the system you're building. I didn't suggest Corsair VS specifically, however, as due to the pandemic, pricing and availability of components (especially PSUs) are all over the place and looking at what was on offer online it seemed that the be quiet! one I linked above made more sense if you were going for a budget level PSU. or TXm if you want something better quality and more efficient.

In general the 2 builds that you say the store suggested make a fair amount of sense for certain purposes, but I wouldn't say were the best fits for you. In short because one, while adequate, is relatively low powered for the ballpark price, while the other is really geared heavily to gaming.

I think rather than discussing every possible alternative component to the ones in the spec I posted above, it might make more sense to talk about how that fits your needs and what the pros/cons of alternatives are.

If you look through a load of different builds and we end up comparing every single other component, one by one, we'll end up with conversations like:

"R5 3600 is a great all around CPU that should be futureproof"
"What about R3 3300x"
"Fine, but fewer cores make it less versatile and the overall savings don't seem worth it to me, especially as you keep PCs for a very long time"
"But the R3 3100 is cheaper and similar to the 3300x - would that be worth it?"
"The 3100 is built a bit differently to the 3300x which can hurt performance in some tasks, including gaming which you said you may dabble in"
"What about the 3400G?"
"That's built on an older architecture, is slower, has fewer cores, and tends to be relatively expensive"
"The 3200G looks cheaper"
"That lacks multithreading so is less capable in some tasks - given you keep PCs for 10 years
"So what about the Intel i5 10400"
And so on.

Multiplied by every component.

Which isn't practicable, and won't be very interesting either I reckon!

1) What monitors will you use with the build?

2) What questions do you have about the sort of spec I posted above? If you have specific questions about why X is suitable or whether Y would make more sense instead, it'll be easier to discuss that rather than run through the entire list of AMD CPUs, motherboards, RAM configs, etc.

 

[Court67ontour]

The PSU in the specs you posted above cannot be TXm because TXm doesn't come smaller than 550W and also is gold-rated, whereas the specs you say they suggested are:
450w 80plus psu
350w 80plus psu

Which would be Corsair VS series, if you're lucky.

Corsair VS or similar (a budget-level PSU) would be fine for the system you're building. I didn't suggest Corsair VS specifically, however, as due to the pandemic, pricing and availability of components (especially PSUs) are all over the place and looking at what was on offer online it seemed that the be quiet! one I linked above made more sense if you were going for a budget level PSU. or TXm if you want something better quality and more efficient.

In general the 2 builds that you say the store suggested make a fair amount of sense for certain purposes, but I wouldn't say were the best fits for you. In short because one, while adequate, is relatively low powered for the ballpark price, while the other is really geared heavily to gaming.

I think rather than discussing every possible alternative component to the ones in the spec I posted above, it might make more sense to talk about how that fits your needs and what the pros/cons of alternatives are.

If you look through a load of different builds and we end up comparing every single other component, one by one, we'll end up with conversations like:

"R5 3600 is a great all around CPU that should be futureproof"
"What about R3 3300x"
"Fine, but fewer cores make it less versatile and the overall savings don't seem worth it to me, especially as you keep PCs for a very long time"
"But the R3 3100 is cheaper and similar to the 3300x - would that be worth it?"
"The 3100 is built a bit differently to the 3300x which can hurt performance in some tasks, including gaming which you said you may dabble in"
"What about the 3400G?"
"That's built on an older architecture, is slower, has fewer cores, and tends to be relatively expensive"
"The 3200G looks cheaper"
"That lacks multithreading so is less capable in some tasks - given you keep PCs for 10 years
"So what about the Intel i5 10400"
And so on.

Multiplied by every component.

Which isn't practicable, and won't be very interesting either I reckon!

1) What monitors will you use with the build?

2) What questions do you have about the sort of spec I posted above? If you have specific questions about why X is suitable or whether Y would make more sense instead, it'll be easier to discuss that rather than run through the entire list of AMD CPUs, motherboards, RAM configs, etc.

Just checking the amd ryzen 5 3600 you spec'd the other day and if I've got it right from a little google on it, it states that cpu needs a discrete gpu, is this correct?

The monitor I'm using at the moment is actually a 1080p. Will this make any difference then?

 

[Oussebon]

It needs a dedicated graphics card yes (I edited my post above to say that previously)

With a 1080p 60hz monitor a £20-30 Geforce 710 would be fine for basic video output. For higher resolution monitors and for entry level gaming, an RX 570 at around £120 last I checked would be an excellent option.