[SOLVED] £430 build for nephews first gaming PC, final thoughts?

[grebgonebad]

Hi everyone, I just finished sourcing the parts for my nephews first gaming PC, I'll be putting it all together at some point this weekend. I'll try and remember to update this post with some pics once completed. But in the meantime what are your thoughts?

CASE: SaharaGaming P35 (Includes 4 RGB fans + controller + remote) - £50
CPU: AMD Ryzen 1600X (Second hand on Ebay) - £100
COOLER: Arctic Alpine 64 Pro (Came included with CPU) - £0
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16gb (2 x 8gb) 3200mhz - £75
GPU: EVGA GTX 970 SC (Second hand from boyfriends old rig) - £70
MOBO: Asus TUF B450 Plus Gaming (Ex-display) - £65
PSU: Corsair VS550 (I had one knocking about) - £0
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1tb - £35
SSD: Crucial BX500 240gb - £35

Total price: £430

Not too shabby if you ask me, pretty pleased with the motherboard and CPU purchases, nothing wrong with going second hand sometimes. Ha ha. So yeah, final thoughts please? =)

 

[clutchc]

He should enjoy gaming on the budget build. Did the same thing for my grandson awhile back. We called it the "Frankenputer" because it was built from all sorts of extra parts I had on my shelf.

The only issue I see off hand is the CPU cooler it comes with. The Arctic Alpine 64 Pro is rated at only 90W TDP while the Ryzen 5 1699X is rated at 95W. So expect cooling to be a problem when the CPU gets near 100% usage. Obviously, OC'ing is out of the picture.

 

[grebgonebad]

He should enjoy gaming on the budget build. Did the same thing for my grandson awhile back. We called it the "Frankenputer" because it was built from all sorts of extra parts I had on my shelf.

The only issue I see off hand is the CPU cooler it comes with. The Arctic Alpine 64 Pro is rated at only 90W TDP while the Ryzen 5 1699X is rated at 95W. So expect cooling to be a problem when the CPU gets near 100% usage. Obviously, OC'ing is out of the picture.

Yeah I was concerned about that myself to be honest. I'm still debating on picking up something better, if you have any suggestions I'm all ears? Cheap and cheerful, you know. Ha ha. If push comes to shove I could probably push the budget up by another 20 quid or so.

Frankenputer. Ha ha, I love that. Stealing it for a future build if you don't mind. XD

 

[clutchc]

Be my guest on the non-copyrighted name
I've used this low cost125W Gammaxx Deepcool on a couple budget Ryzen builds.
(sorry about the US site link. That's where I'm located. Maybe you can find it in the UK Amazon site)

 

[grebgonebad]

Be my guest on the non-copyrighted name
I've used this low cost125W Gammaxx Deepcool on a couple budget Ryzen builds.
(sorry about the US site link. That's where I'm located. Maybe you can find it in the UK Amazon site)

Cheers for the suggestion! Managed to find it on UK Amazon, right on budget too. =) I'm assembling the build later tonight anyway so I'll run a few tests with the cooler I have on hand and see where I'm at temperature wise. If I think it'd benefit from a better cooler I'll definitely be considering the one you suggested.

 

[grebgonebad]

Quick question for you, I happened to notice that the AMD Wraith Prism cooler isn't that much more expensive than the solution you suggested, have you any experience with this particular cooler? For the extra fiver or so it'll cost I'm thinking the extra 'bling' factor would be something a lad like my nephew would appreciate, however I'm more concerned about function over form so if the cooling capacity is sub par then I'll steer clear obviously. From what I've found it supposedly has a TDP of around 140W which seems ample, however I've heard different opinions on the noise coming from the fan, though I would assume this could be somewhat mitigated with a bit of tinkering with the fan curve. What are your thoughts?

Cheers for your help by the way, really appreciate it. =)

 

[clutchc]

I presume you mean this one? If so, yes. I have used it on an older FX-8350 for awhile. Still got it somewhere around here. I believe it is a 140W (TDP) cooler. Comes with the big Ryzen 7 CPUs, and they are 105W... I think I read somewhere that the cooler was 140W.

It is fairly quite, cools good. Perfectly good choice. Less work to install than the two-piece mounting of the tower coolers.

Btw, when it comes to mounting the clip-on Prism cooler, you may have trouble slipping the one side's clip over the retention bracket's stub. If that happens, don't panic. Just back off the screws holding the retention bracket slightly, and you can slip the clips over the stubs easily. Then re-tighten the retention bracket screws again.

 

[grebgonebad]

Perfect, that's exactly what I needed to know, thanks. =)

I've built the PC now and the Alpine cooler is definitely not going to hold up. CPU temps rocketed to 90 degrees and crashed the system while running a bench. Ha ha. Ah well, it was free with the CPU after all, can't complain too much. I'll pick up a Prism soon and throw that in before I give it to the lad at xmas. =)

I'll post some picks of the finished rig now anyway, just in case anyone's interested.

 

[grebgonebad]

For some reason Tom's isn't playing ball and my attempts to add pics have been thusfar unsuccessful. So here's links instead!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tKaq1muPGanWHqheA

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2jJGJ7JsnDSnWRAt7

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ntMiZXVCmgXNH92BA

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sqPo9a2iLFDYfXTh6

 

[FoxVoxDK]

That is a sweet looking rig, I'm not much for RGB but I like the whole glass aspect of it.

Someone is going to be happy come christmas.

 

[grebgonebad]

Cheers man. I'm not keen on overdoing it on RGB, but I don't think this turned out too bad. The fan colors can be changed or turned off, so whatever your tastes really there's something to suit all. Ha ha. But knowing my nephew he'll just want all the lights glaring 24/7. XD

 

[clutchc]

Nice looking build! RGB is perfect for a young person as I suspect your nephew is. Should be a good 1080p gamer too. And it ended up looking a heck of a lot better than my "Frankeputer" I mentioned.

 

[grebgonebad]

Nice looking build! RGB is perfect for a young person as I suspect your nephew is. Should be a good 1080p gamer too. And it ended up looking a heck of a lot better than my "Frankeputer" I mentioned.

Cheers bud! Yeah my nephew's only 12 (lucky sod getting a gaming rig at his age, I had to wait till I was working to buy my own, ha ha) and his parents asked me to build one for him for xmas. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out in the end. Yeah 1080p is all he'll be needing for now, I mean heck I'm still gaming on 1080p because I'm too cheap to buy a new monitor.

Thanks again for your help and input, much appreciated.

 

[grebgonebad]

Just dropping another update with regards to performance on the rig. I'm happy to say that while I'm not overly surprised, it runs a heck of a lot better than my own rig with a similar GPU in games. Ha ha. For reference I run an 8350 (4.4ghz OC) with 16gb RAM (1733mhz OC) both coupled with a 1060 6gb (again, heavily OC'd).

Considering that the 970 and 1060 could arguably be pretty evenly matched, this new system consistently pulls around 30% more FPS in most games. Not an inconsiderable amount. Tested a few games such as Valorant, World War Z, Crysis 3, couple of newer COD's and Fall Out 3/4 and Skyrim. In most cases the new rig manages to pull ahead by anywhere from 50-100FPS.

I guess it really does just goes to show how much of a difference it makes running a CPU/Mobo/RAM combo that isn't nearly a decade old makes compared to my own dated rig. Ha ha. Definitely going to look into upgrading my old girl later this year. Probably going to go for a 3600, should be able to pick one up for a decent price once the 4000 series are in full swing.

 

[clutchc]

Just dropping another update with regards to performance on the rig. I'm happy to say that while I'm not overly surprised, it runs a heck of a lot better than my own rig with a similar GPU in games. Ha ha. For reference I run an 8350 (4.4ghz OC) with 16gb RAM (1733mhz OC) both coupled with a 1060 6gb (again, heavily OC'd).

Considering that the 970 and 1060 could arguably be pretty evenly matched, this new system consistently pulls around 30% more FPS in most games. Not an inconsiderable amount. Tested a few games such as Valorant, World War Z, Crysis 3, couple of newer COD's and Fall Out 3/4 and Skyrim. In most cases the new rig manages to pull ahead by anywhere from 50-100FPS.

I guess it really does just goes to show how much of a difference it makes running a CPU/Mobo/RAM combo that isn't nearly a decade old makes compared to my own dated rig. Ha ha. Definitely going to look into upgrading my old girl later this year. Probably going to go for a 3600, should be able to pick one up for a decent price once the 4000 series are in full swing.

Yep, but I suspect the greater performance is mostly due to the difference in CPUs. RX 1600 vs FX 8350 isn't much of a fight. I've had/have both CPUs. My 1600(X) was stock and my 8350 is OC @ 4.7GHz. Not really a fair fight. But I hate to give up the old Vishera 8 core. It runs so darn good and never balks at anything I throw at it.

 

[grebgonebad]

Most definitely. I knew that my Piledriver was showing it's age, but by that much? Guess I've been out of the loop for longer than I had originally hoped. Ha ha.

This is my first real experience with a Ryzen and I have to say colour me impressed. What an architecture.

I have to agree with you though. I love my 8350, still pulling it's own even now. I've no qualms about it currently, it's lasted through 3 rebuilds and more abuse than I care to mention. XD While I do plan on upgrading to Ryzen soon I've a mate of mine who's never had the privilege of owning a gaming PC so I plan on giving my current build of 8+ years to him. Should still prove more than functional in the years to come.

 

[grebgonebad]

Also I have to say that my 8350 has been through more than it's fair share of abuse. I basically had no idea what I was doing with regards to OC'ing back when I bought it, to say it was a guinea pig would be an understatement. But it took everything I threw at it and survived long enough to become my daily driver ever since. If inanimate computing hardware were more important than my boyfriend, I think I'd marry the damn thing.

 

[clutchc]

Also I have to say that my 8350 has been through more than it's fair share of abuse. I basically had no idea what I was doing with regards to OC'ing back when I bought it, to say it was a guinea pig would be an understatement. But it took everything I threw at it and survived long enough to become my daily driver ever since. If inanimate computing hardware were more important than my boyfriend, I think I'd marry the damn thing.

I have to agree. The Piledrivers were just about as sturdy as their Phenom II/Athlon II forerunners. I think the motherboard would die before those processors if you threw caution to the wind while OC'ing.

 

[grebgonebad]

I have to agree. The Piledrivers were just about as sturdy as their Phenom II/Athlon II forerunners. I think the motherboard would die before those processors if you threw caution to the wind while OC'ing.

Definitely agree with you on that. I struck lucky when buying my motherboard as I found an Asus Sabertooth TUF board going for a pretty good price that suited my budge. Still use it to this day, been going strong for just as long as the 8350 that I paired it with. The only signs of degradation I can see so far is the possibility of the on board audio going a bit funky (sporadic hissing and popping noises). Not too shabby for an 8+ year old board. definitely had more than my money's worth out of her. Ha ha!