[SOLVED] Comments on my new build

kiwis

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Dec 30, 2019
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So this project is slightly over budget but I'll spend this currently. Looking for comments on what I should save money on or if I'm missing a huge improvement by not doing something else.

  1. Ryzen 5 3600X CPU
  2. Gigabyte B450 pro WIFI ATX Motherboard
  3. 2x 8GB (16GB total) DDR4 RAM
  4. Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVMe SSD for Operating System + 3TB for HDD for storage
  5. RTX2060 Super GPU
  6. Water Cooling with 120mm fan
  7. 600W power
 
Solution
Is this system intended for gaming? If so, you probably won't see much benefit from a 970 Evo over drives that cost less per GB. A 500GB 970 Evo will be close to $100, but for just a little over $100 you could get something like a 1TB Intel 660p (or other similar drives), which might not offer the same level of sequential transfer performance, and can potentially slow down during extended write sessions, but in terms of real-world performance will generally perform rather similar. And if you are installing games to the system, you would probably want at least your most-played titles on the SSD if possible, as that will typically cut load times in half. So, for gaming at least, a higher capacity SSD is arguably better than one with...
Is this system intended for gaming? If so, you probably won't see much benefit from a 970 Evo over drives that cost less per GB. A 500GB 970 Evo will be close to $100, but for just a little over $100 you could get something like a 1TB Intel 660p (or other similar drives), which might not offer the same level of sequential transfer performance, and can potentially slow down during extended write sessions, but in terms of real-world performance will generally perform rather similar. And if you are installing games to the system, you would probably want at least your most-played titles on the SSD if possible, as that will typically cut load times in half. So, for gaming at least, a higher capacity SSD is arguably better than one with slightly higher performance.

As for "Water Cooling with a 120mm fan", it's unlikely that will perform any better than a 120mm tower cooler as far as long-term loads are concerned, and those will likely cost less and be more reliable. All-in-one water coolers have a tendency of failing after a few years or so, and at 120mm, you don't really have any advantage over less expensive tower coolers in terms of the heatsink's surface area available to dissipate heat. And even the 3600X's stock cooler would likely be fine, though probably a bit more audible under load than the other options.

You might also want to make sure that motherboard supports Ryzen 3000 processors out-of-the-box, otherwise you might need access to a 2000-series or earlier Ryzen processor to update the BIOS with first. MSI's B450 "MAX" motherboards should natively support Ryzen 3000, so you might consider one of those. AMD might also potentially be announcing B550 motherboards soon. They will probably be announcing some new products at CES this week, and it's possible those might be among them.
 
Solution

kiwis

Reputable
Dec 30, 2019
38
0
4,530
Is this system intended for gaming? If so, you probably won't see much benefit from a 970 Evo over drives that cost less per GB. A 500GB 970 Evo will be close to $100, but for just a little over $100 you could get something like a 1TB Intel 660p (or other similar drives), which might not offer the same level of sequential transfer performance, and can potentially slow down during extended write sessions, but in terms of real-world performance will generally perform rather similar. And if you are installing games to the system, you would probably want at least your most-played titles on the SSD if possible, as that will typically cut load times in half. So, for gaming at least, a higher capacity SSD is arguably better than one with slightly higher performance.

As for "Water Cooling with a 120mm fan", it's unlikely that will perform any better than a 120mm tower cooler as far as long-term loads are concerned, and those will likely cost less and be more reliable. All-in-one water coolers have a tendency of failing after a few years or so, and at 120mm, you don't really have any advantage over less expensive tower coolers in terms of the heatsink's surface area available to dissipate heat. And even the 3600X's stock cooler would likely be fine, though probably a bit more audible under load than the other options.

You might also want to make sure that motherboard supports Ryzen 3000 processors out-of-the-box, otherwise you might need access to a 2000-series or earlier Ryzen processor to update the BIOS with first. MSI's B450 "MAX" motherboards should natively support Ryzen 3000, so you might consider one of those. AMD might also potentially be announcing B550 motherboards soon. They will probably be announcing some new products at CES this week, and it's possible those might be among them.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I really appreciate it. So in summary

1- Get slightly cheaper NVMe but increase capacity to 1TB
2 - Stick to fan cooling, there won't be much difference
3 - Check motherboard is okay with 3600X