[SOLVED] Low Power use Small form factor but still an upgrade?

chuffedas

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Approximate Purchase Date: No rush. Second hand, as and when bits come up on the used market.

Budget Range: Trying to find if there is a sweet spot that costs under about £300 (including the sale of my existing bits.)

System Usage from Most to Least Important:Ripping multiple CDs, watching films, but not at any great resolution, only have a 2K monitor.
Processing photos.


Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade:MB, CPU, RAM, PSU

Do you need to buy OS: No I use Linux.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts:eBay used normally.

Location: UK Cornwall

Parts Preferences: Open to suggestion, but I am thinking AMD AM4 socket

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution:Pretty sure it is 2K, but will be upgrading, but not for higher res. Because mine is now faulty.

Additional Comments: (e.g.: Need to have a window and lots of bling, I would like a quiet PC. Please also list specific software or games you're using)

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: (e.g. I'm having trouble running game X or my PSU broke)

I am hoping for the world for a fiver.
I am hoping to find a balance with low power usage, physical size, performance and second hand low costs with plenty of availability.
So, I suspect something that was considered awesome about 6 years ago :)

I currently have full size PC with Intel Xeon E3-1245 v3 and 20GB DDR3.
GPU I think is Radeon R7 250 2GB, but I think I hardly use it. (there is some confusion to the exact model somehow).
The point is, I am not expecting any miraculous upgrade, but thinking that the switch to AM4 will allow me a lot of future upgrades.

I have been using my Pi4 as a desktop for the simple things and when I want to do bigger things, switch on the main PC.


I am not a gamer.

The things I want my main pc to do is rip CDs for example and process photos. Perhaps if I want to upload things and work multiple things online etc
I think that is it.

So, I am at the limit of my system, I can’t get much more performance with DDR3 and so will need a new motherboard and RAM and CPU, so time for a rethink.

I would quite like low power (save some money), smaller form factor (I would like to tuck it away, and also I am thinking lower power reduces fan requirements). I would like an upgrade in CPU performance, but am mainly thinking of future upgrades which I think I can acheive with smaller form factor and less power consumption.

Does the following make some sort of sense?

Mini ITX. Smaller. Seems like it might still provide my needs.
CPU something like AMD Ryzen 5 4600GE which seems to sell used for about £80. I am thinking that will give me a bit of a jump up in performance. Is only 35W compared to my 85W. So, would also mean less cooling required and so less fan power, right?
Motherboard. I don’t know much about them. Basically was thinking AM4 as that will give me room to grow with CPU for quite a while.
RAM. DDR4 but not looked into roughly how much I would need, but will be looking used.

Am I sort of along the right lines or wildly out?
Any thoughts and suggestions are very welcome please.

Thank you.
 
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Solution
32GB of DDR4 shouldn't be too hard to come by.
B450/B550 motherboard would be ideal for your upgrade plans, though, AM4 is end of life already. So you could just go ahead and get the 5600G which has the latest architecture for the socket. Otherwise you will need to look at getting a GPU, as all of the "big" CPUs don't come with graphics.

Mini-ITX motherboards do tend to be expensive, but not unreasonably so. There are like 60-80 range Micro ATX boards, so you could compromise there depending on the chassis you want.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/G6VG3C/asrock-b550m-itxac-mini-itx-am4-motherboard-b550m-itxac

Eximo

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32GB of DDR4 shouldn't be too hard to come by.
B450/B550 motherboard would be ideal for your upgrade plans, though, AM4 is end of life already. So you could just go ahead and get the 5600G which has the latest architecture for the socket. Otherwise you will need to look at getting a GPU, as all of the "big" CPUs don't come with graphics.

Mini-ITX motherboards do tend to be expensive, but not unreasonably so. There are like 60-80 range Micro ATX boards, so you could compromise there depending on the chassis you want.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/G6VG3C/asrock-b550m-itxac-mini-itx-am4-motherboard-b550m-itxac
 
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chuffedas

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Wonderful, thanks loads for this.
I am pleased that people have moved on from AM4, means I can get it at a reasonable used cost :)

sorry, I don't understand 'There are like 60-80 range Micro ATX boards'.

I haven't thought about Micro ATX actually.
I happen to have a Mini ITX box. I shall look up Micro ATX.
That is not the deal breaker.
Do you have opinions on one vs another?

Looking great. Thanks for the confirmation that I am not a million miles away.
B550 £120 ish Used. £140 new......

Thanks for pointing out the 5600G with regards the graphics. I need to remember that.
I don't need decent graphics card and want to avoid a GPU.
I will probably go for lower spec while I wait for a 5600GE to crop up for the lower tpd.
But, yes, the 5600G is going at an acceptable price, so the 5600GE will be somewhere near.

Pretty exciting for me :)
 

Eximo

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Micro ATX boards are just cheaper. They are the most mass produced boards as this is a popular size with OEMs and system integrators. Not limited like Mini-ITX, and not fully featured like ATX boards.

I generally build ATX and Mini-ITX systems. In truth, there are few compelling reasons for an ATX build these days unless you have a lot of expansion cards or high end cooling solutions.

There are Micro ATX cases that can be roughly as small as some Mini-ITX, but it depends a lot. Not intending for a GPU means you can look at desktop chassis without expansion slots.

With riser cables though, there are many ITX cases with full GPU support that can be as slim as some gaming consoles. They do this by placing the GPU on the back side of the motherboard.
 
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chuffedas

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This is brilliant, thank you.
so, yes, on the right lines.
Kind of just depends what comes up on the bay I think.

That sounds interesting putting the gpu on the back.
sounds like I have a bunch of options which is nice.

No 5700GE or 5600ge second hand or sold to get values right now. I will set a search.

Thanks again.
 

chuffedas

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I might start a new thread, but I wondered if youknow?
I was playing with a psu calculator.
It shows a standard mobo at 37W i think it was, with micro atx at 27W and mini itx at 20W.

I also read stuff talking about 140W for the mobo.

Can the mobo use that much power?
20W saved equals four Pi at full bore for free :)
 

Eximo

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You can't trust those calculators. They are generalizing.

The assumption is the larger the board the more components it has to power. But it mostly depends on what you plug into them.

If they are counting the memory and CPU as separate, there is still the chipset to power, sound chips, network chips, USB controllers, disk controllers. And they could also count the 3.3 volts that go to PCIe cards...

Most Mini-ITX boards are more fully featured than their Micro ATX counterparts in general. Mini-ITX are already at a premium, and they almost always have WiFi
 

chuffedas

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Thank you for your help on this.
I went with:
ASUS Prime A520M-K (it is what came up used.)
2400GE (while I wait for a better performer to come along (but it is still a bit better than my old one especially with the DDR4 RAM))
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB 2400.
In old case with old PSU for now while I ponder cases.
Plenty of future upgrade ability.