[SOLVED] $500 non gaming build or prebuilt

[Weathered]

My dad is currently running an i5-760, 12gb ddr3 ram(2x4 and 2x2), 2x 500gb wd hdd, geforce 6800gs gpu. Not sure if there is something wrong or it is just showing its age but it is getting sluggish even after a fresh install of windows 10. He does not do any gaming at all, just typical office type work, excel, quicken, watching youtube, email, browsing web.

I know he could benefit from a new one. At this price point, would it be better to build one or buy a prebuilt? One thing he should have is an SSD drive, nvme if possible. Would want a 2nd hard drive for storage as well, guess i could reuse one of his current 500gb hard drives. As far as intel vs ryzen, I have always used intel but nothing against ryzen. I realize ryzen might be the better option for the budget. He is using a full tower case now but would be fine with a midtower case.

Would it be worth it to just add an SSD to his current build? I know I could get one for pretty cheap but at same time, I don't want to buy a piece of crap either. I realize at this budget, he may have to make some sacrifices.

 

[jeremyj_83]

For something $500 this would probably be better than any prebuilt.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($121.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Mushkin Enhanced Helix-L 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($56.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($34.95 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Define Mini C MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($89.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec Earthwatts Gold Pro 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($79.08 @ Amazon)
Total: $506.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-10 16:03 EST-0500
While a 550W PSU isn't needed, the platform it is built on is solid and Gold rated efficiency.

 

[King_V]

Doesn't include the Windows license - but, low power consumption, small form factor:


PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Athlon 3000G 3.5 GHz Dual-Core Processor ($49.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($50.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Patriot Scorch 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($66.98 @ Amazon)
Custom: ASRock DESKMINI A300W AMD Socket AM4 1 x HDMI Barebone System ($153.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $321.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-10 16:22 EST-0500

This is based loosely on The Micro Machine in my sig.

If you live near a MicroCenter than you can get the 200GE for $39.99 in-store, which will be more than enough for basic office work.

16GB RAM is overkill, but the 2x4GB kit I have in mine is apparently out of stock - not sure if it's coming back, but that would run $29.99 at NewEgg if it comes back in:
https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-8gb-260-pin-ddr4-so-dimm/p/N82E16820232152?Item=N82E16820232152

I know you mentioned moving the existing drives over, but they obviously won't physically fit in this system. That said, can you check/confirm how much drive space your dad actually is using? It doesn't seem like the tasks you mentioned should take up much space.

(I ask because my dad's been using his system for a few years, and, when I replaced his HDD with an SSD, it turned out that of the 1TB capacity that his drive had, the TOTAL usage, Windows 10, all installed software, his own files, swap space, etc., EVERYTHING, was about 50GB).

 

[Weathered]

Doesn't include the Windows license - but, low power consumption, small form factor:


PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Athlon 3000G 3.5 GHz Dual-Core Processor ($49.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($50.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Patriot Scorch 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($66.98 @ Amazon)
Custom: ASRock DESKMINI A300W AMD Socket AM4 1 x HDMI Barebone System ($153.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $321.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-10 16:22 EST-0500

This is based loosely on The Micro Machine in my sig.

If you live near a MicroCenter than you can get the 200GE for $39.99 in-store, which will be more than enough for basic office work.

16GB RAM is overkill, but the 2x4GB kit I have in mine is apparently out of stock - not sure if it's coming back, but that would run $29.99 at NewEgg if it comes back in:
https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-8gb-260-pin-ddr4-so-dimm/p/N82E16820232152?Item=N82E16820232152

I know you mentioned moving the existing drives over, but they obviously won't physically fit in this system. That said, can you check/confirm how much drive space your dad actually is using? It doesn't seem like the tasks you mentioned should take up much space.

(I ask because my dad's been using his system for a few years, and, when I replaced his HDD with an SSD, it turned out that of the 1TB capacity that his drive had, the TOTAL usage, Windows 10, all installed software, his own files, swap space, etc., EVERYTHING, was about 50GB).

You think a dual core is enough these days?

Don't live near a microcenter, wish I did.

For the drives, I would only be moving the storage drive over. Both the windows and storage drive uses about 25gb of space each.

One thing I just thought about is letting him use my old system which is an i7-920, 6gb's of ram(thought it had more than that), ATi 5870 gpu, intel ssd. Don't recall the power supply at the moment.

 

[King_V]

You think a dual core is enough these days?

Don't live near a microcenter, wish I did.

For the drives, I would only be moving the storage drive over. Both the windows and storage drive uses about 25gb of space each.

One thing I just thought about is letting him use my old system which is an i7-920, 6gb's of ram(thought it had more than that), ATi 5870 gpu, intel ssd. Don't recall the power supply at the moment.

Hmm, sounds similar to my dad's disk usage, in which case, I'm going to make a minor tweak to the suggested build - assuming you're not giving your dad your old system:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Athlon 3000G 3.5 GHz Dual-Core Processor ($49.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($50.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Patriot Scorch 128 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Custom: ASRock DESKMINI A300W AMD Socket AM4 1 x HDMI Barebone System ($153.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $284.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-10 17:19 EST-0500

And I'll reiterate that if the 2x4GB kit I linked to from NewEgg in my previous post comes back in stock, get that instead, as 8GB is more than enough - plus it'll shave another $21 off the total price of the system.

I'd say copy all data and files from the existing hard drives to a USB stick or two (but not the actual programs, Windows directory, etc), and then, once you've done a clean install of Windows on the new system, copy the data over to the SSD on the new machine.

The Micro Machine is what I use to connect to work when I'm working from home - I also browse the web, check email on the web, use Google Docs, play YouTube videos, and do some retro gaming, and it's been more than up to the task.

The only thing that ever gets it to hang up is when using FB via a web browser - I'll go to my notifications page, and then I'll hold down control and click several of the notifications in rapid succession. Trying to open 8 or so FB pages simultaneously does cause it to peg at 100% utilization, which then settles down once all the pages load. I suppose also if you stumble across a bad webpage that has multiple video ads and a runaway javascript running, that can bring it to its knees, but that kind of page brings my main system to its knees, too.

Otherwise, though, the kind of use you described in your original post won't make this thing break a sweat. If you have concerns, you can go for a Ryzen 3 2200g, which is 4 core, 4 thread. But I think the Athlon CPUs are plenty.


Two things to note:

1. The size of this system means it uses laptop RAM
2. The size of this system means there's no PCIe slot - you MUST use an AMD processor that has integrated graphics, as there's no place to put a GPU.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Hmm, sounds similar to my dad's disk usage, in which case, I'm going to make a minor tweak to the suggested build - assuming you're not giving your dad your old system:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Athlon 3000G 3.5 GHz Dual-Core Processor ($49.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($50.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Patriot Scorch 128 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Custom: ASRock DESKMINI A300W AMD Socket AM4 1 x HDMI Barebone System ($153.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $284.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-10 17:19 EST-0500

And I'll reiterate that if the 2x4GB kit I linked to from NewEgg in my previous post comes back in stock, get that instead, as 8GB is more than enough - plus it'll shave another $21 off the total price of the system.

I'd say copy all data and files from the existing hard drives to a USB stick or two (but not the actual programs, Windows directory, etc), and then, once you've done a clean install of Windows on the new system, copy the data over to the SSD on the new machine.

The Micro Machine is what I use to connect to work when I'm working from home - I also browse the web, check email on the web, use Google Docs, play YouTube videos, and do some retro gaming, and it's been more than up to the task.

The only thing that ever gets it to hang up is when using FB via a web browser - I'll go to my notifications page, and then I'll hold down control and click several of the notifications in rapid succession. Trying to open 8 or so FB pages simultaneously does cause it to peg at 100% utilization, which then settles down once all the pages load. I suppose also if you stumble across a bad webpage that has multiple video ads and a runaway javascript running, that can bring it to its knees, but that kind of page brings my main system to its knees, too.

Otherwise, though, the kind of use you described in your original post won't make this thing break a sweat. If you have concerns, you can go for a Ryzen 3 2200g, which is 4 core, 4 thread. But I think the Athlon CPUs are plenty.


Two things to note:

1. The size of this system means it uses laptop RAM
2. The size of this system means there's no PCIe slot - you MUST use an AMD processor that has integrated graphics, as there's no place to put a GPU.

Based on the cost of RAM right now I would always go with 16GB. One thing that is true is that RAM usage keeps going up. My work desktop started with 8GB of RAM, but now it is at 16GB and most of what I need is done in web browsers. For example I have 12 Firefox tabs open, Outlook, Slack, Notepad ++, and SAP GUI and I am using 70% or 11.3GB of RAM. The desktop also has an i5-6400 and far too often it hits 100% usage, especially if websites don't allow for Ad Block Plus. For these reasons I would recommend 16GB and a 4c/8t processor with a 480GB SSD. If nothing else this will mean that you won't have to upgrade the computer for many years to come.

 

[Weathered]

Ty all for the help so far. I think I would want a 4 core or higher processor. Just seems like he would be going backwards getting a dual core when he has a quad core now. I know the dual core is a newer generation and all that.

This is one thing I don't quite understand. Let's say I build him a new one and it does what he needs it to and beyond. Now if he doesn't change his usage in the future, just keeps doing the basic stuff like he is now, what makes the computer become slow? I mean if it is more than fast enough in the beginning, why would it not be the same years down the road until hardware starts going? Is it the ads, the way the software is coded, new software having more features, more of a windows thing? As time goes on, isn't things supposed to become more efficient?

 

[jeremyj_83]

Ty all for the help so far. I think I would want a 4 core or higher processor. Just seems like he would be going backwards getting a dual core when he has a quad core now. I know the dual core is a newer generation and all that.

This is one thing I don't quite understand. Let's say I build him a new one and it does what he needs it to and beyond. Now if he doesn't change his usage in the future, just keeps doing the basic stuff like he is now, what makes the computer become slow? I mean if it is more than fast enough in the beginning, why would it not be the same years down the road until hardware starts going? Is it the ads, the way the software is coded, new software having more features, more of a windows thing? As time goes on, isn't things supposed to become more efficient?

Software keeps getting more and more bloated and using more resources. Also newer software is becoming more multi-threaded all the time and if you don't have the same number of threads that will mean newer software won't perform as well. There is an old saying that no matter how fast the hardware gets, developers will find a way to piss away all the performance. Windows does start to get slower over time, however, using a SSD helps mitigate that performance difference.

 

[King_V]

I suppose clutter is a possibility - Windows doing various updates, the Registry getting burdened, etc.

Also, if HDDs aren't defragmented, access can get slow (note: NEVER, EVER defragment an SSD).

But, I'm not really sure. I suppose it couldn't hurt to back up your dad's data, wipe the drives, and do a clean-install of Windows and all the apps he uses. It could help.

I do get the impression, though, that Windows does so much stuff with accessing the disk at times that Microsoft is almost running on a sort of "nobody ever uses hard drives anymore - everyone's got an SSD" assumption. I know that when I swapped my dad's HDD for an SSD (which also naturally involved a clean install of Windows) that he felt like it was a completely new system.

@jeremyj_83 - I think the usage you describe is still far more than what @Weathered's dad is doing, though I'm kind of relying on my dad's usage as a baseline. He'll have as many as 4 Firefox tabs open at once, but doesn't max out the mere 4GB of RAM his system has. Hovers just under 3GB utilization, if I recall correctly. I have ZERO idea of how resource light or heavy SAP GUI is... but your utilization sounds way too much unless, say, all of your Firefox windows are from sites that run multiple simultaneous ad videos or something.

8GB and the 200GE is my personal experience with the Micro Machine that I'm using currently, and while I do use an adblocker, I also whitelist some of my regular sites. I haven't had issues with multiple Firefox tabs, unless I'm trying to get them to load up simultaneously, though I refrain from going more than 8 tabs at once.

As for the 2 core vs 4 core issue - well, admittedly, the old i5 is 4 core, but no hyperthreading, whereas the Athlons are 2 core, 4 thread. That said, the Ryzen 3 2200g and Ryzen 5 2400g will also work, and they're both 4 core. I'm not sure if the DeskMini A300W's board has the most updated BIOS out of the box, but I believe they added support for the 3200g and 3400g as well, and pretty sure the Athlon 3000g is also supported.

 

[Archaic59]

I'm thinking something more like this-
Pcpartpicker list

 

[jeremyj_83]

I suppose clutter is a possibility - Windows doing various updates, the Registry getting burdened, etc.

Also, if HDDs aren't defragmented, access can get slow (note: NEVER, EVER defragment an SSD).

But, I'm not really sure. I suppose it couldn't hurt to back up your dad's data, wipe the drives, and do a clean-install of Windows and all the apps he uses. It could help.

I do get the impression, though, that Windows does so much stuff with accessing the disk at times that Microsoft is almost running on a sort of "nobody ever uses hard drives anymore - everyone's got an SSD" assumption. I know that when I swapped my dad's HDD for an SSD (which also naturally involved a clean install of Windows) that he felt like it was a completely new system.

@jeremyj_83 - I think the usage you describe is still far more than what @Weathered's dad is doing, though I'm kind of relying on my dad's usage as a baseline. He'll have as many as 4 Firefox tabs open at once, but doesn't max out the mere 4GB of RAM his system has. Hovers just under 3GB utilization, if I recall correctly. I have ZERO idea of how resource light or heavy SAP GUI is... but your utilization sounds way too much unless, say, all of your Firefox windows are from sites that run multiple simultaneous ad videos or something.

8GB and the 200GE is my personal experience with the Micro Machine that I'm using currently, and while I do use an adblocker, I also whitelist some of my regular sites. I haven't had issues with multiple Firefox tabs, unless I'm trying to get them to load up simultaneously, though I refrain from going more than 8 tabs at once.

As for the 2 core vs 4 core issue - well, admittedly, the old i5 is 4 core, but no hyperthreading, whereas the Athlons are 2 core, 4 thread. That said, the Ryzen 3 2200g and Ryzen 5 2400g will also work, and they're both 4 core. I'm not sure if the DeskMini A300W's board has the most updated BIOS out of the box, but I believe they added support for the 3200g and 3400g as well, and pretty sure the Athlon 3000g is also supported.

SAP GUI actually doesn't use much RAM. Most of what is being used is by Firefox and Windows. Remember that the more RAM you have the more Windows expands into it, which means it will have to go out to disk less, which means better performance. For example on my desktop I have 32GB RAM and while my Windows install is no where near a fresh install anymore, on a fresh boot it uses 4.5GB RAM by itself. My laptop on the other hand has 4GB RAM and a 250GB 850 EVO SSD and boots using 2.5GB RAM. However, since it has such a small amount of free RAM it is painful to use due to all the disk swapping. If I have more than 2 tabs open the laptop is almost unuseable. Again the main reason why I would go with 16GB RAM instead of 8GB is due to the cost right now.

I did some extrapolation of the 200GE performance compared to an i5-760 and they would be about equal in performance. Had to compare the i5-760 to the i5-2500k and then then 200GE to the 2500k and the 200GE appeared to slot into the same spaces that the 760 would.

I'm thinking something more like this-
Pcpartpicker list

Only change I would make on that would be to go with a 480-512GB SSD instead of the 256GB 970. For the same amount of money you can get the 512GB ADATA 8200Pro.

 

[Weathered]

I suppose clutter is a possibility - Windows doing various updates, the Registry getting burdened, etc.

Also, if HDDs aren't defragmented, access can get slow (note: NEVER, EVER defragment an SSD).

But, I'm not really sure. I suppose it couldn't hurt to back up your dad's data, wipe the drives, and do a clean-install of Windows and all the apps he uses. It could help.

I do get the impression, though, that Windows does so much stuff with accessing the disk at times that Microsoft is almost running on a sort of "nobody ever uses hard drives anymore - everyone's got an SSD" assumption. I know that when I swapped my dad's HDD for an SSD (which also naturally involved a clean install of Windows) that he felt like it was a completely new system.

@jeremyj_83 - I think the usage you describe is still far more than what @Weathered's dad is doing, though I'm kind of relying on my dad's usage as a baseline. He'll have as many as 4 Firefox tabs open at once, but doesn't max out the mere 4GB of RAM his system has. Hovers just under 3GB utilization, if I recall correctly. I have ZERO idea of how resource light or heavy SAP GUI is... but your utilization sounds way too much unless, say, all of your Firefox windows are from sites that run multiple simultaneous ad videos or something.

8GB and the 200GE is my personal experience with the Micro Machine that I'm using currently, and while I do use an adblocker, I also whitelist some of my regular sites. I haven't had issues with multiple Firefox tabs, unless I'm trying to get them to load up simultaneously, though I refrain from going more than 8 tabs at once.

As for the 2 core vs 4 core issue - well, admittedly, the old i5 is 4 core, but no hyperthreading, whereas the Athlons are 2 core, 4 thread. That said, the Ryzen 3 2200g and Ryzen 5 2400g will also work, and they're both 4 core. I'm not sure if the DeskMini A300W's board has the most updated BIOS out of the box, but I believe they added support for the 3200g and 3400g as well, and pretty sure the Athlon 3000g is also supported.

I just did a clean install of windows recently and it didn't seem to help any.

There are times when he will have several chrome tabs open, along with programs like quicken or word. He is still using office 2000.

 

[Weathered]

SAP GUI actually doesn't use much RAM. Most of what is being used is by Firefox and Windows. Remember that the more RAM you have the more Windows expands into it, which means it will have to go out to disk less, which means better performance. For example on my desktop I have 32GB RAM and while my Windows install is no where near a fresh install anymore, on a fresh boot it uses 4.5GB RAM by itself. My laptop on the other hand has 4GB RAM and a 250GB 850 EVO SSD and boots using 2.5GB RAM. However, since it has such a small amount of free RAM it is painful to use due to all the disk swapping. If I have more than 2 tabs open the laptop is almost unuseable. Again the main reason why I would go with 16GB RAM instead of 8GB is due to the cost right now.

I did some extrapolation of the 200GE performance compared to an i5-760 and they would be about equal in performance. Had to compare the i5-760 to the i5-2500k and then then 200GE to the 2500k and the 200GE appeared to slot into the same spaces that the 760 would.


Only change I would make on that would be to go with a 480-512GB SSD instead of the 256GB 970. For the same amount of money you can get the 512GB ADATA 8200Pro.

Even though he maybe able to get twice the amount of storage for the same price, I don't think it is really needed in his case especially if he gets a 2nd hdd just for storage. Currently he has 2 500gb hdd's. Between both drives, he is using a total of 50gb's combined and that is counting windows 10. He also has lots of stuff that needs to be deleted. Even though he may not need that much space right now, he may need it down the road, who knows.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Even though he maybe able to get twice the amount of storage for the same price, I don't think it is really needed in his case especially if he gets a 2nd hdd just for storage. Currently he has 2 500gb hdd's. Between both drives, he is using a total of 50gb's combined and that is counting windows 10. He also has lots of stuff that needs to be deleted. Even though he may not need that much space right now, he may need it down the road, who knows.

While he might not need 512GB of SSD, that is where the price/capacity sweet spot right now. Performance of the ADATA will likely be a bit higher than the Evo Plus, granted you would need benchmarks to see the difference. That being said, having the larger SSD means he won't need to worry about the SSD storage for a very long time.

 

[King_V]

SAP GUI actually doesn't use much RAM. Most of what is being used is by Firefox and Windows. Remember that the more RAM you have the more Windows expands into it, which means it will have to go out to disk less, which means better performance. For example on my desktop I have 32GB RAM and while my Windows install is no where near a fresh install anymore, on a fresh boot it uses 4.5GB RAM by itself. My laptop on the other hand has 4GB RAM and a 250GB 850 EVO SSD and boots using 2.5GB RAM. However, since it has such a small amount of free RAM it is painful to use due to all the disk swapping. If I have more than 2 tabs open the laptop is almost unuseable. Again the main reason why I would go with 16GB RAM instead of 8GB is due to the cost right now.

I did some extrapolation of the 200GE performance compared to an i5-760 and they would be about equal in performance. Had to compare the i5-760 to the i5-2500k and then then 200GE to the 2500k and the 200GE appeared to slot into the same spaces that the 760 would.
The 3000g I think has a ~10% speed advantage over the 200GE.

Interesting, and thanks for putting that comparison effort in - I actually wouldn't have thought CPU-wise it would've been quite up to the i5-760, but I was also semi-guessing that the CPU wasn't at issue.

That all said, given this info, maybe the following changes:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($129.99 @ Walmart)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Patriot Scorch 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($66.98 @ Amazon)
Custom: ASRock DESKMINI A300W AMD Socket AM4 1 x HDMI Barebone System ($153.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $400.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-11 11:08 EST-0500

Pushes it up to the highest CPU available for use in this system, goes with a 512GB SSD, and retains the 16GB RAM.

NewEgg's site shows for the A300W listing that it supports the 3200g and 3400g. I don't know if that implies that the BIOS already is updated for that or not, though.

There might be better choices for SSD as well, I just went with the Scorch because I know I used a Patriot Scorch (albeit with a lesser capacity), and it works fine.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Interesting, and thanks for putting that comparison effort in - I actually wouldn't have thought CPU-wise it would've been quite up to the i5-760, but I was also semi-guessing that the CPU wasn't at issue.

I think it is quite impressive that the 2c/4t 200GE at 35W TDP gives performance equal to the 95W 4c/4t 760 less than 10 years later. Don't forget that the 200GE is based on 1st Gen Zen vs the 3200/3400G which is Zen+.

 

[King_V]

I think it is quite impressive that the 2c/4t 200GE at 35W TDP gives performance equal to the 95W 4c/4t 760 less than 10 years later. Don't forget that the 200GE is based on 1st Gen Zen vs the 3200/3400G which is Zen+.

Wholeheartedly agreed. And, while supposedly all of the Ryzen-based Athlons are 35W parts, supposedly the 200GE is more like 20W in actual usage, though I can't recall where I read that.

 

[Weathered]

Sorry if I missed something but what type of PSU do these barebone systems have? What is the advantage of buying a barebone system vs buying the parts seperate? Is it mainly the cost? I have never dealt with a barebones system.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Sorry if I missed something but what type of PSU do these barebone systems have? What is the advantage of buying a barebone system vs buying the parts seperate? Is it mainly the cost? I have never dealt with a barebones system.

The barebones system that King-V recommended comes with a 120W PSU. For a Ryzen 3400G, RAM, SSD, and HDD that is more than enough juice. Estimated for that would be 100W max draw, but most of the time the system would be drawing much less than that. My guess is the PSU is proprietary so if it goes bad it won't be able to be replaced. Also it probably doesn't have the same efficiency rating, but it will be closer to the sweet spot in efficiency than a 450W PSU so the difference in overall efficiency might be a moot point.

Advantage of buying a barebones system is that all the cables have been run already and the motherboard is already installed. All you have to do is put in the RAM, CPU, HDD, and HSF and make sure they are powered and have their cables run to them. Disadvantage is that you have to work with the components that the manufacturer decides is necessary for that build.

 

[King_V]

Sorry if I missed something but what type of PSU do these barebone systems have? What is the advantage of buying a barebone system vs buying the parts seperate? Is it mainly the cost? I have never dealt with a barebones system.

I can't speak for all of them, but in the case of the DeskMini A300W:

• external power brick included
• small form factor (a little bigger than an ATX power supply)
• inexpensive
• wi-fi is also included (there was a variant of this model without wifi, but that wasn't offered in the US market)
• included HSF to use that will fit in the case, though I've read that the Wraith Stealth will just barely fit if you remove the top shroud off the fan.

Of course, for that space savings, it's required to use laptop RAM, as well as an AMD CPU that has integrated graphics, as there's no PCIe x16 slot. Generally low total power draw as well.


EDIT: @jeremyj_83 and I posted nearly simultaneously. To touch on the PSU, I can't tell for sure, and I'm not home right now to look at it, but I think the PSU is the same as laptop PSUs, so might be easily replaceable that way. Don't hold me to that, though, as I only casually glanced at it and thought "Huh, this looks kind of like a laptop PSU connector" - I've never personally owned a laptop.

 

[Weathered]

Not sure how I feel about going with a barebones system. 120 watt psu doesn't leave much head room. I don't have a problem with using the igpu but would also like to be able to add an actual card if needed.

Made a adjustment on the hard drive:

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Weathered/saved/TKsykL

 

[King_V]

Yeah, the barebones system doesn't have a video card slot, so there's that. But, it's intended for the light-usage scenario.

Your parts list is showing up as private, so we can't see what's on it.

 

[Weathered]

Try this: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Weathered/saved/TKsykL

 

[Weathered]

I changed the hard drive and case.

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Weathered/saved/zVxykL