Building mother a new PC

Have you skinflint.co.uk for cases? I like the dimensional search they let you do there

Let’s see here, some time has passed and new recommendations are starting to float to the top.

1st: I now recommend a B550 motherboard for ITX. The extra features are well worth the extra 100 quids you spend on it, and there aren’t enough PCIe ports to take advantage of X570 boards.

Unfortunately, the 3400G is still the most readily available Ryzen with integrated GPU circuits - and B550 boards do not support this CPU. AMD has said they will come out with the 5300G, 5500G, and 5700G later this year for system integrators, but we’re looking at August, maybe October before that happens.

So, what are the options then? If upgradability isn’t a concern, I would suggest an Asus PN50 with a 4700U or 4800U CPU - it’s plenty for gaming for now.

The other alternative is to wait another 6 months before buying, and see if you have better luck then with GPU prices. A 3400G with a B450 doesn’t really feel worth it anymore, unfortunately.

Yes, that’s worth a look, thanks very much. I definitely will check it out. I quite like the idea of building the whole thing IKEA-style from a flat pack, which is what you do with the Lazer3D guys, but the only thing about that one is that I’m not sure if I have the courage to take it on. There is a very brief video about it that I found from their website,

but it didn’t list the items used as much as I’d like. I do still need a bit of spoon-feeding :baby_bottle: :baby:

Hi, you’re still here!!! Thanks for replying again so fast.

Yeah, I don’t want to wait around too much for the right conditions. I really do need to put something together soon. Don’t forget that this is kind of a stopgap for me, and that eventually I’ll gift it to my mum to sit under her TV, and down there it really doesn’t need to be anything fancy! And what’s more - I’m not a gamer. I say it every time, but I guess that you guys all are and you just block those words out :hear_no_evil: Hence I’m sure I’d be OK with the older motherboard.

I might be able to fix my old PC to keep going for a bit longer, but I don’t really know what’s wrong with it. Probably the PSU has given up, and I suppose I could buy a new PSU that I will use in a future big case build in any case, to see if that is the source of the problem. But anyway, I don’t really want to be using only my laptop for the next few months.

As I said in my previous reply to the other post, I am quite impressed with the Lazer3D cases, but just not totally confident about how I would put it together. The guy in the video that I mentioned above talks about it needing an external power supply, but not really sure what I would be looking for. Well, maybe I can find another video. I haven’t researched so thoroughly yet!

It’s 100 quid, without the “s”, an irregular plural like “fish” and “sheep”. Sorry, I’m actually an English teacher (or at least that’s what I was before Covid), so I had to teach you a bit of British there :laughing:

Anyway, thanks very much indeed for the speedy reply.

“Currently unavailable”! (like so many things)

You can also go for the one with the 4500u. It is the one I have and performance is great (and even the 4300u would be fine. Might have better chance stockwise. And you can always get a nvme to pcie adapter to plig a GPU if you want more graphical power.

Ah, right. Well, here is my pick then for an easy assembly, if you are not interested in upgrades (more than perhaps storage):

Part Model Price Comment
Case Asrock X300 Deskmini £145 Small, includes PSU and motherboard
Motherboard - - Included in case
Power Supply - - Included in case
CPU Ryzen 5 3400G £160 Great value for the price
Memory Crucial Ballistix SO-DIMM 2x16 GB 3200MHz £150 Decent enough, 32 GB is plenty
Storage Kingston A2000 1TB NVMe SSD £90 1TB should last you a while
Cooler Alpenföhn Silvretta £22 Fits the case and seems quiet enough.
Total £567

Do note prices can vary, but this build should last you a long time, and is super easy to put together. Let me know if you still want an ITX build and I’ll see if I can put something together.

Ah, apologies if my English is a bit off, I’m from Scandinavia so English isn’t my first language. Thanks for the tip, I’ll strive to do better! :slight_smile:

No need to apologise, Dude. I guess I assumed that you were American! (although then again very very few Americans would ever even think of using the word “quid”). Anyway, you should take that as the compliment which it certainly is.

This suggestion is fine, and thanks of course, BUT i think that the aesthetics are important if this is to be a PC that is eventually going to sit under my mum’s telly (and also, for a while, on the shelf under my TV). So I think I would prefer to go for the Lazer3D option, albeit that I know it’s going to be a fair bit more expensive and a little bit fiddly to assemble. But I enjoy fiddling with such things!

Also, don’t get me wrong. I’m no gamer, but I do like playing with graphics and rendering software sometimes, so I need something fairly powerful, and I would also prefer the machine to be reasonably upgradable. So I’m OK with the B550 motherboard, which is apparently just £50 more than the B450, albeit a little bit confused as to which of these I’d be getting:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=aorus+b550&i=computers&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Now, you said that I have to wait a while until the right CPU comes along. Thinking again, two days after the immediate panic of having the PSU on my old PC blowing, I think that maybe I can manage for a while with just the laptop hooked up to the big screen. In any case, it seems that these Lazer3D cases take a little while to produce. So I think on reflection that I can wait a little bit more.

What I might do, while waiting for that, is to try seeing if I can fix this old PC (never give up!). I’m going to post about that on another thread, in order to avoid going off on a tangent.

The problem with B550 + 3400G combo is that B550 does not support the 3400G (with the exception of the ASUS ROG Strix B550-I Gaming). So, your options are these two combos:

B450 + 3400G
B550 + 5300G

But the 5300G is not yet released for the public, only system builders (Dell, Lenovo, mom & pop builders, etc). AMD has said it will come out with it to the public in a few months, but…

Anyway, my recommendations if you are set on the Lazer3D HT5 case and want one before the end of summer, can’t say I blame ya, it is really nice:

Part Model Price Comment
Case Lazer3D HT5 £115
Motherboard Gigabyte Aorus B450I Pro Wifi £107 This is my daily driver, no complaints so far
Power Supply HDPLEX 200W Direct Plug £46 To power the Lazer3D HT5, you need a Pico-PSU…
Power Supply HDPLEX 200W AC-DC Internal Adapter £48 … AND an AC/DC converter.
CPU Ryzen 5 3400G £160 Great value for the price
Memory Crucial Ballistix black DIMM 2x16 GB 3200MHz £152 Decent enough, 32 GB is plenty
Storage Kingston A2000 1TB NVMe SSD £90 1TB should last you a while
Total £718

That looks fine :+1:

You didn’t put a cooler or fan in there. Is that because the CPU comes with a cooler? Also, just wondering where you saw the CPU for £160. It’s showing as £214 on the site that you linked to.

Anyway, thanks very much for all the help. I’m almost certain that this is the option that I’m going to go for. I’ll wait a little bit, and see if I can fix the old monster PC, while planning this build in the meantime. Love this forum!!!

Yep, cooler for 3400G is the AMD Wraith Spire stock cooler, it’s alright, slightly noisy but performs good otherwise.

The reason I didn’t use it for the other build is that it is too high for the Asrock X300 case (max height 46 mm). The HT5 case allows a max cooler height of 72 mm which gives quite a bit extra room to play with. I would go for a Noctua NH-L12S if you want a more silent cooler.

The prices I listed were available yesterday, they will change around a bit. Also, see if you can import from Germany or other places.

One word in reply to that - BREXIT :sob: :sob: :sob:

Anyway, thanks again!!!

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