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Hello all,

Long time stalker listener, first time caller. :smiley:

My PC of about 10 years-ish (i3-540) released the magic smoke, followed by the BANG!, resulting in holes in chips that didn’t have them before. That was 3 months ago.

Fastforward to today and I have absorbed a lot of information and think I have the build I’m after ready for prime time.

So, a few details:

I’m from Australia, I have about $0.9-1.2k Dollarydoos to spend, pending CFO approval :laughing:
My main objective is gaming. Would like to stream with this new rig if possible (I understand it would depend on my connection [NBN-25/5Mbps, fixed wireless with pfSense box as router] but want the hardware to cope without affecting gaming.)

At this stage, I’m only looking at 1080p 60 fps rock solid gaming. Why? Because the next upgrade would be the monitor - currently rocking LG Flatron W1942T (1440x900). But I digress.

Now, the GPU did survive but is only a Zotac GTX1050 2Gb, so nothing too beefy.

Here is the PC Part Picker list link: PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($245.00 @ Scorptec)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - MasterLiquid ML240L RGB 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($89.00 @ Scorptec)
Motherboard: ASRock - B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($135.00 @ Scorptec)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($159.00 @ Scorptec)
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 250 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($68.00 @ Scorptec)
Storage: Toshiba - P300 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.00 @ Scorptec)
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 570 8 GB PULSE Video Card ($239.00 @ Scorptec)
Case: Deepcool - MATREXX 55 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply
Case Fan: Deepcool - RF 120 56.5 CFM 120 mm Fan x4

Total: Appears as $1258 @ Scorptec ex. delivery.

Okay, a few things:

  • AIO for CPU is probably not necessary but meh. The thinking is also to remove as much heat from the case as possible. The rad would mount top side of the Deepcool case.
  • Gaming for me means titles like World of Warcraft, Battlefield 4, ARMA3, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six Siege.
  • I will use a Logitech G19 keyboard and a G600 MMO mouse, along with a repaired Plantronics Gamecom Commander CDR-0576 USB headset.
  • I did run Win 10 previously and it may not work afterwards. I’m not adverse to running linux (like Ubuntu) and using something like Lutris.
  • SSD isn’t necessary but never had one. So I would like one.

So, a few questions:

  • Do I need to get 3000MHz memory if I’m not going to OC? Or can I get lower speed RAM?
  • Will the RX570 be enough for 1080p 60fps rock solid gaming?
  • Is the PSU enough for the setup?
  • Scorptec is who I’ve used in the past and seem to be pretty good for pricing and service. Open to others’ experiences.
  • Is the B450 chipset for just gaming/streaming?
  • M2 NVME vs M2 SATA. Is NVME worth it?

Feedback and questions are appreciated. Thanks.

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I would go for the Rx580 and live with the stock cpu cooler for a bit if money is tight

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Ryzen 5 2600 and ASRock B450M Pro4 work well together (have them).

When gaming is the goal here, I would invest a little more into the GPU (RX580 8GB for example).

Not a fan of water coolers, but that is personal preference.

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Get as fast as you can afford and the Mobo supports. 3200MHz seems to be the sweet spot for me right now, but each to their own. You can go slower too, it will be slightly slower but still O.K.

If not rock solid, atleast concrete solid. Some games on ultra high might dip below to 55-ish, but otherwise you should be fine.

Let’s see:

GPU < 180W
CPU < 65W
Everything else < 55W
Total < 300W
PSU promises to deliver 80% of 550W = 440W

Yep, you should be fine. Heck, even an 80% 450W should be fine, though cutting it a bit close there (effectively 360W).

No experience with scorptec so no idea.

Primarily, but as with most hardware you can use it for other purposes as well.

Most definitely priceworthy. If you run Windows 200G for a system drive should be fine, for Linux a 40G drive is plenty of space though as always, bigger is better. However, if you are strapped for cash an M2 SATA is not a terrible choice either. Going from 10s boot to 5s is not as dramatic as 30s to 10s for sure.

Also, you are spending quite a bit on fans. If you do not need a ton of drives, might I suggest a small form factor case like the Silverstone Sugo SG13 case instead? Or if you can afford it, the Loque Ghost S1. A single extra fan is enough to cool those cases, since while space is tighter, there is a whole lot less air to move. Otherwise, build looks solid!

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The machine will draw 350 to 370W full load, with you on that.

That is not how the 80Plus rating (or efficency) works.
Take a 500W 80Plus Gold PSU at 50% load (=250W). The PSU will draw P (W) = (1+ 1.00 - 0.90) x 250W = 275W from the wall.

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Ah, thanks for clarifying.

I was under the impression that the PSU guarantees that it can handle the full 80% of 450W, anything above that is basically you’re on your own. But it was efficiency from the power outlet. Then a 450W is adequate, I’d say.

Learn something new every day. :smiley:

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Thanks everyone for your input thus far.

Looks like we’ll be scaling this down a bit from the initial proposal :frowning:

I currently have a GTX 1050 2Gb gpu and think its a little under for this cpu.
The question is: would the slightly lower clock of the RX570 with 4Gb GDDR5 be better than what I already have? I did note an RX570 with 8Gb GDDR5.

While an RX580 8Gb would be nice, I’m not sure I can do it - even though its $70 difference.

For storage, while forgoing an SSD and extra 2Tb of spinning rust, the gpu might be more of the priority. I do have an existing 2Tb Toshiba spinning rust drive (SATA 3, 64Mb cache).

The case would be upgrading the fans I have in the existing case and using it. It’s an old NZXT ATX case.

Original expectations have been put into a box for another day. The priority is to get the best bang for the limited bucks I have (about AUD$840).

Thoughts and comments appreciated. Thanks.

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Hmm. Not an expert by any means, but I happen to be in the middle of grabbing parts for a similar build. Does the 2600 come with the stock wraith cooler in Au? I think you could be slightly processor/cooling heavy if your primary goal is gaming. I might spring for the 2600, but will probably get the 1600 bc it’s considerably cheaper where I am and comes with a better cooler (wraith spire). Similar specs everywhere else, but went with a rx 580 8gb.

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Yeah @astra, it comes with the Wraith Stealth cooler, instead of the beefier Wraith Spire cooler.

From what I’ve seen, the stealth is only a few degrees Celsius over the spire. Happy to defer to actual experience on this one.
The original plan was a 240mm AIO, case fans, etc but that will have to be a bit later on.

Existing old NZXT ATX case with 2 new 120mm fans - 1 in, 1 out.

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No actual experience with the coolers - just a lot of ‘extra’ time recently to watch stress/temp/benchmark testing on youtube - so no more knowledgeable than you by the sound of it. Just a few degrees; I think it was maybe 5-7F on average if I’m remembering correctly. A consideration for me in part bc of price - locally the 2600 is roughly 43% more costly while showing around 9% in performance gains - so a better cooler would be an icing on the cake thing in terms of cost vs performance.
But it looks like others already made the points regarding cooling and asked a lot of good questions, and I didn’t pay enough attention to theirs or yours (in my defense it was lateish and I had just come back from a birthday dinner an ale or 2 deep :slight_smile: ). I see now you have cpu-heavy games on your list; in particular arma 3, which I’ve never played, but is renowned for heavy-handedness in that area; so perhaps that 9-10% improvement in single thread performance could be pretty important for you.
Opinions on other stuffs: nvme not quite worth it for me at the current price point; RAM frequency much more important (ryzen overall performance seems tied to it - I went for 3000 bc I found it way cheaper than 3200); I’ll be running linux, but for your purposes I think you may need windows (hate saying that!).

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Thanks for the feedback, @astra.

No problems, most of us are night owls anyways :laughing:

The wraith stealth isn’t designed for OC I don’t think, more to keep temps below its max of 91C. If I find that the temps are out of control, I’ll just have to get a beefier cooler or investigate other options. For my neck of the woods, the difference in price for the 2600 vs the 2600X is about $64 and that’s after it’s on sale. :grimacing:

Yeah, ARMA3 is a heap of crap and anything better than the 15-20 fps I was getting on an i3/GTX1050 combo would be awesome :laughing:
Will have to push the budget for an RX 580 at least, over the RX 570. User benchmarks has most of the more regular games I play at 60+ fps, which is the goal.
That site had ARMA3 at an average 45 fps - which could be almost playable :stuck_out_tongue:

One thought was to go Ryzen 3/ GTX 1050 but kinda don’t want to gimp myself too early.

In regards to SSD, SATA vs NVMe m.2 is about $5-8 difference for the same capacity in my neck of the woods. But even that may be left for another time. :frowning:

I’ll most likely go with this setup:

Ryzen 5 2600 / 16Gb DDR4 3200MHz / AsRock B450M Pro4-F mobo / Coolermaster MWE 550W 80+ Gold PSU (non-modular) / RX580 8Gb GPU and some case fans for the existing case I have.

Was able to find a gold PSU for the same price as the bronze previously listed.

I’ll probably be running both but not adverse to running something like Ubuntu 18 and Vulkan/Lutris. I mean, some Steam games support linux natively so yeah. :sunglasses:
Hell, I played through Portal on my socket 775 Core2Duo with a 1Gb 8500GT gpu and it ran alright on medium-ish settings.

That’s probably the most bang for buck I could possibly get to be honest. And now that I know that B450 will support the Zen2 cpus, I’m a little happier and don’t care that much for PCI4.0 just yet.

Will ponder further over the weekend after having a few bourbons :stuck_out_tongue:

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https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti-vs-AMD-RX-570/3649vs3924

The RX 570 will completely destroy the GTX 1050, absolutely, but the 1050 still works quite fine. It will not give you the best experience, but if money is an issue the big investment is the switch to Ryzen, new Mobo and RAM. Keep the 1050 a few more months and upgrade piecewise is also a viable option.

If you can afford it the RX 580 is worth it, but the RX 570 should work just fine too.

Looking at building a SFF box for Looking Glass myself. I’ve put together an LG build where I will utilise an APU to offload everything non-gaming on and then an LG VM completely dedicated for my gaming, hooked up to my RX 580. Might also do some solidworks-ing cad there. Might need one case fan, but otherwise…

My current specs for comparison, roughly 1100 AUD (excluding VAT):

  • AMD Ryzen 5 2400G (since I will need two GPUs, else a 2600 would be nice)
  • Sapphire Radeon RX 580 4GB Nitro+ (Cheapest 580 available in my country)
  • Asus ROG Strix B450-I Gaming (Because SFF rules yo!)
  • Silverstone Sugo SG13 (See above)
  • WD Black 500 GB NVMe M.2 (Main drive for everything)
  • Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 3200MHz 2x8GB
  • Corsair CX450M Bronze 450W (<235W + 65W TDP gives me a 150W margin, Modular for SFF)

Sounds like an excellent build. :slight_smile:

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Similar here for m.2. I went 2.5" since I have plenty of space, and they’re still around 40-50% cheaper than any m.2 I’ve run across. Nvme would be neat, but I’ll wait a bit.

Only passing on advice I was given on the build thread I started HERE, but you might consider getting a slightly beefier board if you want to be sure it will adequately support zen2 (?) - at least on the higher end. I didn’t opt to jump to x470, but did pick msi in part due to the fact their vrms seem to be the most highly respected in the b450 class.

Finally got a delivery date on the last mail order I was waiting on for tomorrow eve so I picked up the r5 1600 + msi tomahawk I was getting locally today; should be putting it all together Sat :slight_smile: .
Cheers!

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Yeah, @astra, fair point on PCI-E 4.0. :grimacing:

Wendell just released a video about that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSNPYcZqAsY) from Computex.

it kinda ruins the “promise” that they could support Zen 2 using Zen boards but understand why vendors would be reluctant to support Zen 2 on Zen architecture.

Have fun with the build :+1:

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@MazeFrame So, the 80 Plus stuff is interesting.

The equation you listed was for 115V and Australia is 230V, which means slightly better efficiencies at 20, 50 and 100% load. Albeit, 88% for 20 and 100%, with 92% for 50% load (according to this article.)

So, if the system is going to pull 370W at 100% load, that should make it about 414.4W at the wall for 230V (non-EU) systems.

If I spec a 750W 80 Plus Gold PSU (like this one), that would mean the parts barely break half the load of the PSU.

This is significant because the original PSU I specced was a 80 Plus Bronze and the 80 Plus Gold is the same price point.

My question is: is this line of thinking correct? Or am I barking up the wrong tree? :thinking:

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A better PSU for the same price is always nice.

Yup, you got it.

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