[SOLVED] First time - building PC

[brom2855]

Title. Anyway, this'll be a thick client for my mother. She stated new PC should be capable of internet browsing, playing YouTube videos, run DVDs, Microsoft Office, that kind of low-end stuff.

I'll be using a case from another desktop she doesn't need. The proposed specs: (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Rf2xGc)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 2200G 3.5GHz quad-core
Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk ATX AM4
RAM: Kingston Fury 4 GB DDR4-2666
Storage: Western Digital 2 TB 5400 RPM internal HD; Kingston A400 120 GB SSD
Optical drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD writer
OS: Windows 10

Plan is install windows 10 via an .iso file (gonna need that experience) on the SSD. HD is for storing programs and data. pcpartpicker site didn't flag any compatibility issues and I've watched multiple videos on building PC.

So, simply, I wanted to ask Is this build good? Above site mentioned wattage, but understand PSU isn't needed for office-style PCs. Thanks!

 

[jeremyj_83]

You will always need a PSU. The PSU converts AC power from your home into DC power that the computer uses. You would be better served with a build like this.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($78.97 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M/AC Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($42.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Mushkin Enhanced Helix-L 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($58.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($19.79 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro French CDN - DVD 64-bit
Total: $340.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-10-26 13:34 EDT-0400
First you don't want to go with 4GB RAM, the computer just will be slow. Second since this is just basic computing you are better off with a 480GB+ SSD than a 128SSD and 2TB slow HDD. The PSU here is of good quality and higher efficiency.

 

[ben001]

Title. Anyway, this'll be a thick client for my mother. She stated new PC should be capable of internet browsing, playing YouTube videos, run DVDs, Microsoft Office, that kind of low-end stuff.

I'll be using a case from another desktop she doesn't need. The proposed specs: (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Rf2xGc)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 2200G 3.5GHz quad-core
Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk ATX AM4
RAM: Kingston Fury 4 GB DDR4-2666
Storage: Western Digital 2 TB 5400 RPM internal HD; Kingston A400 120 GB SSD
Optical drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD writer
OS: Windows 10

Plan is install windows 10 via an .iso file (gonna need that experience) on the SSD. HD is for storing programs and data. pcpartpicker site didn't flag any compatibility issues and I've watched multiple videos on building PC.

So, simply, I wanted to ask Is this build good? Above site mentioned wattage, but understand PSU isn't needed for office-style PCs. Thanks!

Hi! Your overall needs are more inclining towards an office-build if I am not wrong. The build inside that link is fine, but I will not take that risk going with a low-end power supply as they can go wrong at any time if you are planning to buy one and you will need another stick of 4GB or a single 8 GB instead. Getting an external optical drive sounds more sensible to me.

That is all!

 

[jeremyj_83]

Hi! Your overall needs are more inclining towards an office-build if I am not wrong. That build inside that link is fine, but I will not take that risk going with low-end power supply as they can go wrong at any time if you are buying one and you will need another stick of 4GB or a single 8 GB instead. Getting an external optical drive sounds more sensible to me.

That is all!

For any Ryzen CPU I would never go with a single stick of RAM. You are going to starve the CPU for RAM bandwidth doing that.

 

[ben001]

These are basic needs and even if you are going with a dual or single kit does not matter unless you throw any heavy task. Even, $300 notebook can do his job.

 

[brom2855]

You will always need a PSU. The PSU converts AC power from your home into DC power that the computer uses. You would be better served with a build like this.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($78.97 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M/AC Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($42.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Mushkin Enhanced Helix-L 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($58.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($19.79 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro French CDN - DVD 64-bit
Total: $340.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-10-26 13:34 EDT-0400
First you don't want to go with 4GB RAM, the computer just will be slow. Second since this is just basic computing you are better off with a 480GB+ SSD than a 128SSD and 2TB slow HDD. The PSU here is of good quality and higher efficiency.

Seen prebuilt desktops w/ similar specs but only ones built for gaming needed PSUs. In one of his videos talking about building a PC, Mike Meyers didn't say thick client needs a good PSU. You saying that's changed?

These are basic needs and even if you are going with a dual or single kit does not matter unless you throw any heavy task. Even, $300 notebook can do his job.

Dual/single kit? Ok, if this is PSU, never heard of that.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Seen prebuilt desktops w/ similar specs but only ones built for gaming needed PSUs. In one of his videos talking about building a PC, Mike Meyers didn't say thick client needs a good PSU. You saying that's changed?

Dual/single kit? Ok, if this is PSU, never heard of that.

Think of the PSU (Power Supply Unit) as the heart of your computer. If you have a low quality one it can cause total system failure. With PSUs when they fail, they tend to take out multiple other parts. The PSU I recommend is a high quality unit which means it should last a very long time.

For the RAM you are best off with a dual kit. While your use case doesn't require maximum bandwidth, having the dual kit will give it the best performance.

 

[brom2855]

Ok, thanks everyone for the replies! Looks I'll be going a tad overboard for an office desktop, but ah well, gotta start somewhere.

@ben001 not too sure about external optical drives. From what I could learn, Windows 10 seems to have compatibility issues with them, so sticking to internal.

 

[cryoburner]

Dual/single kit? Ok, if this is PSU, never heard of that.

They are referring to RAM. A dual-channel kit of RAM (containing two sticks) will perform a bit better than a single stick. So, assuming the price is relatively similar, it probably makes sense to go with a 2x4GB kit of RAM rather than a single 1x8GB stick. I agree that you should probably put 8GB in there, since it isn't likely to add that much more to the cost, and should keep the system relevant longer. Windows itself tends to use a couple GB on its own, so with only 4GB performance may suffer in some situations.

Is there any reason you think the system will need a 2TB hard drive in addition to an SSD? Unless she's storing lots of video on the computer or something, a single larger SSD will likely be plenty, and should cost a bit less than the HDD + SSD combined. Something like the 500GB model in JeremyJ's build would probably be good, or if she has very little storage needs, maybe even a 240-256GB model would be fine. I also agree that you can probably get away with a less-expensive motherboard.

You'll need a power supply of some sort to supply power, but I take it you were intending to re-use the power supply that's in the case? That might work, assuming it's a standard model with standard, modern connections, though I agree that it could be worth replacing if its of questionable quality. For the needs of this system, I would probably go with something less-expensive than the one in JeremyJ's build though. 550 watts would be good if there were plans of including a mid-range graphics card for gaming, but it doesn't sound like that's the case for this system, and any moderately-decent 450 watt model would probably be fine. I would just avoid the real cheap off-brand ones.

 

[brom2855]

They are referring to RAM. A dual-channel kit of RAM (containing two sticks) will perform a bit better than a single stick. So, assuming the price is relatively similar, it probably makes sense to go with a 2x4GB kit of RAM rather than a single 1x8GB stick. I agree that you should probably put 8GB in there, since it isn't likely to add that much more to the cost, and should keep the system relevant longer. Windows itself tends to use a couple GB on its own, so with only 4GB performance may suffer in some situations.

Is there any reason you think the system will need a 2TB hard drive in addition to an SSD? Unless she's storing lots of video on the computer or something, a single larger SSD will likely be plenty, and should cost a bit less than the HDD + SSD combined. Something like the 500GB model in JeremyJ's build would probably be good, or if she has very little storage needs, maybe even a 240-256GB model would be fine. I also agree that you can probably get away with a less-expensive motherboard.

You'll need a power supply of some sort to supply power, but I take it you were intending to re-use the power supply that's in the case? That might work, assuming it's a standard model with standard, modern connections, though I agree that it could be worth replacing if its of questionable quality. For the needs of this system, I would probably go with something less-expensive than the one in JeremyJ's build though. 550 watts would be good if there were plans of including a mid-range graphics card for gaming, but it doesn't sound like that's the case for this system, and any moderately-decent 450 watt model would probably be fine. I would just avoid the real cheap off-brand ones.

Ok, didn't know about that. I'll up to a couple 4GB sticks.

Mom's not really storing tons of data, but IDK, my impression is SSD lasts around 15 years w/ normal everyday usage. Went w/ 2TB cause eh, it's pretty cheap. Also, since more room to store data, it should wear out slower right?

Will do, I'll add one of the 80+ rated 450 watt PSUs.

Anything else I should know?

 

[ben001]

Ok, thanks everyone for the replies! Looks I'll be going a tad overboard for an office desktop, but ah well, gotta start somewhere.

@ben001 not too sure about external optical drives. From what I could learn, Windows 10 seems to have compatibility issues with them, so sticking to internal.

You will only need the license key of windows 10. Download the installer from the website and put it in a USB flash drive (make sure that USB drive is formatted before storing your Windows 10 installer and has a minimum of 4GB space).

Internal optical drives are becoming obsolete and can get faulty sometimes also make one's system noisy. External optical drives do the same job with the same feature and it is also convenient to use, carry, etc.. and you will only need it whenever it is needed.

I have seen and built many office setups and till now most of them are running very well with a single-kit low profile RAM including a single HDD for everything due to narrow budget. It is true, Dual-kit memory increases performance, but I just do not see a problem here.

 

[jeremyj_83]

They are referring to RAM. A dual-channel kit of RAM (containing two sticks) will perform a bit better than a single stick. So, assuming the price is relatively similar, it probably makes sense to go with a 2x4GB kit of RAM rather than a single 1x8GB stick. I agree that you should probably put 8GB in there, since it isn't likely to add that much more to the cost, and should keep the system relevant longer. Windows itself tends to use a couple GB on its own, so with only 4GB performance may suffer in some situations.

Is there any reason you think the system will need a 2TB hard drive in addition to an SSD? Unless she's storing lots of video on the computer or something, a single larger SSD will likely be plenty, and should cost a bit less than the HDD + SSD combined. Something like the 500GB model in JeremyJ's build would probably be good, or if she has very little storage needs, maybe even a 240-256GB model would be fine. I also agree that you can probably get away with a less-expensive motherboard.

You'll need a power supply of some sort to supply power, but I take it you were intending to re-use the power supply that's in the case? That might work, assuming it's a standard model with standard, modern connections, though I agree that it could be worth replacing if its of questionable quality. For the needs of this system, I would probably go with something less-expensive than the one in JeremyJ's build though. 550 watts would be good if there were plans of including a mid-range graphics card for gaming, but it doesn't sound like that's the case for this system, and any moderately-decent 450 watt model would probably be fine. I would just avoid the real cheap off-brand ones.

The 550W that I linked was the cheapest, modern platform, good quality 80+ Gold I could find. A 450W SeaSonic Focus Gold would be a good choice as well, but was more expensive.

Ok, didn't know about that. I'll up to a couple 4GB sticks.

Mom's not really storing tons of data, but IDK, my impression is SSD lasts around 15 years w/ normal everyday usage. Went w/ 2TB cause eh, it's pretty cheap. Also, since more room to store data, it should wear out slower right?

Will do, I'll add one of the 80+ rated 450 watt PSUs.

Anything else I should know?

The difference in cost between 80+ Bronze and 80+ Gold is pretty minimal. Because of that there isn't a reason to go 80+ Bronze anymore unless you cannot afford the $10 difference.

 

[cryoburner]

The difference in cost between 80+ Bronze and 80+ Gold is pretty minimal. Because of that there isn't a reason to go 80+ Bronze anymore unless you cannot afford the $10 difference.

The question is whether that's even needed. This is a budget system for general use after all, that won't likely ever come close to 200 watts of power draw from the PSU, and will probably be drawing well under 100 watts most of the time. An extra 10% or so efficiency is probably not too important at those power levels, especially if the system isn't being left powered on all day.

And even a somewhat lower-end PSU probably isn't going to be a problem, as long as its of at least moderate quality. Better protection of other hardware in the event of a failure is probably more relevant when that other hardware not so inexpensive to replace. At this budget level, a premium 80+ Gold power supply arguably doesn't make much sense, in my opinion. Just about any 80+ Bronze unit from a known brand would probably be alright, if it can save at least $20 or more.

Are these components going to be bought at US prices, or in some other currency? I noticed the Windows version appears to be French Canadian, but PCPartpicker is not set to Canada there.

Mom's not really storing tons of data, but IDK, my impression is SSD lasts around 15 years w/ normal everyday usage. Went w/ 2TB cause eh, it's pretty cheap. Also, since more room to store data, it should wear out slower right?

For SSDs, larger capacity drives will tend to last longer, as they have more capacity to spread wear across. Seeing as 240+GB SSDs are available for only a little more than the 120GB models, I would go with at least a 240GB model now.

For regular hard drives, like that 2TB model, that isn't the case, and endurance does not generally improve from increasing capacity. Of course again, unless she has hundreds of GBs of data (like video) to store, she probably isn't even going to need 1TB of storage. So, a 240+GB SSD alone might be enough for her storage needs, and a separate hard drive is probably unnecessary. At the very least, more storage could be easily added later if it were found to be needed. Of course, its probably a good idea to periodically backup any irreplaceable data (like photos and documents) to another drive somewhere in case of drive failure of any sort, but that can be another system, or a thumb-drive, or whatever, and doesn't need to be a dedicated drive in the system.

 

[ben001]

The question is whether that's even needed. This is a budget system for general use after all, that won't likely ever come close to 200 watts of power draw from the PSU, and will probably be drawing well under 100 watts most of the time. An extra 10% or so efficiency is probably not too important at those power levels, especially if the system isn't being left powered on all day.

"The difference in cost between 80+ Bronze and 80+ Gold is pretty minimal. Because of that there isn't a reason to go 80+ Bronze anymore unless you cannot afford the $10 difference". This line was not written by me if you can correct yourself.

 

[cryoburner]

This line was not written by me if you can correct yourself.

Yeah, this forum seems to have a problem where quoting multiple parts of different posts sometimes results in the wrong name getting appended to a quote. I've noticed that happen before.