Hi, I have been tasked with building a budget pc for my girlfriend. it doesn’t need to be heavy on graphics capability but it does need a lot of fast storage memory and it does need to be as small and as quiet as possible. I have come up with this so far: https://www.scan.co.uk/wishlists/b58e4fbb-ce24-46b3-a826-db1f6dd2f3a5 Could you please kindly advice me as to wether this is all compatible and is a decent enough £500 build for her purposes ( which are mainly watching videos, Netflix, playing music, surfing the web and storing photos and documents) many thanks in advance. IO
For that usage, I'd be tempted to up the APU to a 3400G get some 3200 RAM and ditch the RX550. Maybe a nice NVME SSD instead of the SATA. Also personally prefer the Milo ML05 case. All stock depending etc. of course.
Pretty much this - Ditch the GPU, get a better SSD, get some 3000/3200/3600 MHz RAM [don't go lower than 3000]. And get a better PSU.
What do you consider lots of fast storage because when you want lots of anything ITX wouldn't be the route I'd choose. If it is mainly watching videos, Netflix, playing music, surfing the web you don't need a great deal, the storing photos and documents side of things is different, what are the storage requirements, now and what do you anticipate them being, will you require data redundancy in this machine or do you have clound/nas backup assuming these photos/documents have importance and machine will just hold local. What is fast storage, sata SSD fast or really fast NVME for pushing about Gigs of data. I assume you have all the other bits like screen/os keyboard etc.
What you've suggested will work fine without issue, though if it was me I'd change the following: As other have suggested drop the GPU - there's no point with the 3200G. That give £72 back to either save or spend on some upgrades. RAM - for a few pennies shy of double the cost you can go from 2x4GB 2133MHz DDR4 to 2x8GB 3600MHz for £79.73: this kit of Corsair Vengeance LPX Black will do the job. Note that for APUs, faster RAM makes a big difference on AMD - at this price I'd go for this upgrade as it'll last way longer. CPU - The 3400G is basically a 3200G with SMT - it's likely that the workload doesn't justify buying one but I think the 3200G at £117 is overpriced and for £25 more I'd go with the 3400G as it's about right on price. Also, don't rule out the Intel 10100 - Scan want £105 for it and it's 20% faster than the 3200G, around 10% faster than the 3400G - for less money. Motherboard selection is also likely easier though RAM choice becomes more complicated. It's worth keeping in mind. SSD can be massively faster for not much more money. Even the Intel 1TB 660p is £95 - so far as nvme drive go it's not the best option but it's around 3-5x faster than the Sata SSD you've included and for only £12 more - and it's easier to install as you won't need any cables for it. The case isn't amazing and apparently the original version was released in 2009 so it's a 12 year old design. Personally I'd go with either the Thermaltake Core V1 for £44 (I've just bought it's bigger brother, the V21 for my US build), the Fractal Design Define Nano S for £60 (£65 with window) or the Silverstone ML08 for £65 (which I'm buying for my UK based HTPC replacement). Cases though tend to be subjective purchases as form & factor are of personal preference. The point is that I believe that for £30 extra you can get a lot more for your money. PSU - especially if you drop the GPU even the 300W option you've included will be fine. Personally I'd go fully modular but looking only at Scan, you'll need £75 for a 450W option - so long as you can handle the cable management I don't think the extra cost is, in your case, worth the upgrade. Motherboard - that's a great choice and as it's a B450 board you should have no issues with either 3x00G APU.
Thanks so much for the clear and concise advice I really appreciate it. I’ll post an updated build going on your input shortly one thing tho. Are you sure I should drop the gpu? What if she wants To play some dota or something. Not unheard of from her. I’m a bit behind the times with all this...will onboard graphics be enough for light gaming, photo editing and video editing? Thanks in advance edit: pls checkout this updated build and advise https://www.scan.co.uk/wishlists/267a4b65-2be7-4c55-ba90-bf31615dabc0 I still feel like it’s just wrong without a gpu though. What if she wanted to sell it in future? Would anybody buy it without the attention grabbing sign that says I’ve got a massive...gpu? don’t forget the budget is strictly £500 and she still doesn’t have an os
Ryzen 3200 and 3400 come with an integrated GPU that is reasonable for low demand, think ability to play games at PS4 level, not only does the 3400g come with 4 extra threads but it comes with 11 GPU cores vs 8 for the 3200G so for low end gaming it is decent might daughter has the old gen 2400G and it constantly surprises me at what it is able to play. The Intel onboard GPU is less good, but will work fine if its all you have, though if you take the Intel route you might want a dedicated GPU because it is probably 50% slower than Vega11 in the 3400G, for Dota. ballpark framrates are 30fps vs 60fps @ 1080p If you don't forsee high hardware demand and don't actually need lots of storage there are plenty of these APUs in laptops which might be an interesting alternate option for you around the £500 mark.
Dota 2 is playable at 1080p on a Ryzen 3400G: https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/amd-ryzen-5-3400g-review/2 (and the same applies to the 3200G really, although you might want to turn down shadows on that) That being said, you can always add a "proper" GPU later once they are actually available to buy at normal prices again.
Ok updated the build again pls tell me what you think... https://www.scan.co.uk/wishlists/0f6beac9-cd8f-4061-ad92-8c63f80ee588 if this is all fine I’d really like advice on how to shave off that extra 40 quid I’ve added. She’s being really tight about the budget. Says I always make it more expensive...sheeesh
With your modest requirements you could shave that dough on the motherboard and lower spec NVMe, the B450s don't support PCIe gen 4 anyway.
What about going back to the original psu? That would save £20 I’ll take a look at the mobo as well ok sry for the barrage of posts just trying to get this done ASAP as time is of the essence here’s my latest idea pending you good fellows approval. https://www.scan.co.uk/wishlists/5da847b7-d7e2-4766-831a-c4d13b710a22 btw I can’t thank you guys enough for the advice. Bit-tech simply rocks! Thumbs up + rep good job
As mentioned drop the SSD, to a lower spec gen 3, it will save you 20-30quid, anything with a 3-3,5Gb speed will do (to be honest even the lower speed ones will be fast) I would really hold out for a 3400g if there are ever any intentions to put a proper GPU and bigger games as 8 threads should be considered entry level gaming IMO, plenty of titles out there that max 4 threads now. With respect to motherboard there are loads that would do the job but I would suggest the cheapest b550 at 78quid this will give you PCIe gen 4, so you would get full speed NVMe if you choose to keep that drive, but drive speed really is not critical at this level. for a cheap b450 the asrock b450m pro4 works well I have this and clock the **** out of my daughters system. but no gen 4.and its no longer sub 60, so not the bargain it used to be @70. (you are ITX, I forgot about that, there are some sugo microATX cases that would open up mobo choice and what GPUs would actually fit in the future) The dearth of APUs at the moment might suggest that the 3xxx could be going EoL for the latest cores, I have not seen any news on that though so hard to say but 3xxx chips are old zen chips, not the swanky 7nm cores, not that it matters, its enough for low end, just saying.
