Newbie PC Builder Questions

[royalpc]

I am new to PC building so have spent a lot of time researching and trying to understand what everything means and what to look at but it is quite hard. The PC is being built for gaming use and I have already made a partial list.

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (Not sure if I should upgrade to 1600X)(Comes with a CPU cooler already but not sure if that is all I need

Motherboard: MSI - X370 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard

Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LED 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (Out of stock atm but if anyone knows a pair like this that are blue that would be great)

Storage: Crucial - MX300 525GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

Case: BitFenix - Neos ATX Mid Tower Case

Questions
1. Do I need a sound card?
2. What do I look for in a Video Card? Any recommendations would be appreciated, looking for one between £200-£300.
3. How will I know everything will fit? I am using PcPartPicker at the moment but not sure if that calculates the size of each component
4. Got a SSD card on the list due to its faster transfer rate but can I/ should I buy like a 1TB hard drive as well to put the data I don't need high transfer rate?
5. How many fans are required? I have read that the case in the list above has one pre-installed fan with two spaces at the front, if I am wrong please correct me
6. And last of all, any recommendations or changes I should make to my list? I know I haven't listed a power supply but waiting to see when my total power required is

I know I have just asked a lot of questions but would be a great help if you could even answer just one. Thanks a lot guys

 

[Obakasama]

1. Modern motherboards have sound outputs. Unless you're heavily into audio the onboard sound should be fine.

2. Depends on performance you're seeking and refresh rate and resolution of the monitor you intend to use. GTX 1050 ti is seen as entry level, 1060 (6GB) for solid 1080p, 1070 for 1440p and 1080 for 4K can be used as a general guideline. For the budget, you could get a 1060 (6GB) as most are under £300 at the moment.

3. Depends what you mean by fit. This will mainly depend on the case you choose, but PCPartPicker does indicate the main incompatibilities. Components are designed to be swapped out and conform to industry standards.

4. I would personally, though it is a personal choice dependent upon financial resources. I have an NVMe SSD for Windows and software, 1TB 7200RPM HDD for games and 2TB 5400RPM HDD for storage.

5. Depends on the sort of cooling you're seeking. Others will be more qualified to comment.

6. Will depend on budget and what usage you intend. If the PC is limited to gaming and not other tasks like streaming and content creation, then I would suggest looking at the Intel Coffee Lake CPUs (the i5-8400 perhaps) for gaming performance. As much as I like my Ryzen 5 1600 (gaming, general office work and Blender), Intel CPUs have better gaming performance.

Additionally, I would still err on the side of caution with RAM compatibility with Ryzen and choose something on the QVL (Qualfied Vendor List) to be on the safe side.

The Ryzen 5 1600X doesn't come with a cooler as I understand it, so if you are considering it then check to see if you need to get a compatible CPU cooler. If you don't plan to overclock the 1600 you should be fine with the stock cooler.

 

[royalpc]

1. Modern motherboards have sound outputs. Unless you're heavily into audio the onboard sound should be fine.

2. Depends on performance you're seeking and refresh rate and resolution of the monitor you intend to use. GTX 1050 ti is seen as entry level, 1060 (6GB) for solid 1080p, 1070 for 1440p and 1080 for 4K can be used as a general guideline. For the budget, you could get a 1060 (6GB) as most are under £300 at the moment.

3. Depends what you mean by fit. This will mainly depend on the case you choose, but PCPartPicker does indicate the main incompatibilities. Components are designed to be swapped out and conform to industry standards.

4. I would personally, though it is a personal choice dependent upon financial resources. I have an NVMe SSD for Windows and software, 1TB 7200RPM HDD for games and 2TB 5400RPM HDD for storage.

5. Depends on the sort of cooling you're seeking. Others will be more qualified to comment.

6. Will depend on budget and what usage you intend. If the PC is limited to gaming and not other tasks like streaming and content creation, then I would suggest looking at the Intel Coffee Lake CPUs (the i5-8400 perhaps) for gaming performance. As much as I like my Ryzen 5 1600 (gaming, general office work and Blender), Intel CPUs have better gaming performance.

Additionally, I would still err on the side of caution with RAM compatibility with Ryzen and choose something on the QVL (Qualfied Vendor List) to be on the safe side.

The Ryzen 5 1600X doesn't come with a cooler as I understand it, so if you are considering it then check to see if you need to get a compatible CPU cooler. If you don't plan to overclock the 1600 you should be fine with the stock cooler.

Thanks a lot Obakasama! That helps clear up a lot of things I wasn't sure about. So the OS and software goes on the SDD but what would happen if I put like my most played game on there as well? Could I reduce the SSD card storage then put my games onto the HDD or should I invest in a higher capacity SDD to put most of my stuff on?

 

[dantej33]

Having only a ssd that small if your planing on gaming wouldn't be the best, a 120 gb ssd + 1 tb hdd would be good. Ssd is completely optional and doesn't really speed things up THAT fast but if you can't wait that extra 10 seconds for your pc to boot for go it. Now as a lot was answered from the guy above all I can say now is tell me your budget, if you want amd or intel, amd or nvida for gpu or if you just want best preformance for your money. And the type of case you want is something you can decide yourself, I can make you a build that is all compatible with that information. I just got into this stuff only took me 2ish days and I knew basically everything. Because if this site and youtubers, it's not hard once you understand the basic's

 

[Vic 40]

Just take the 1600,overclock it yourself. It does fine at 3.6/3,7 with the stock cooler.
Why blue ram? You chose a red motherboard ... If you want good ram look at this,
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9rDzK8/gskill-memory-f43200c14d16gvr
bit pricey but is afaik Samsung B-die which has best compatibility with Ryzen.I have the motherboard you chose as well and the Hynix ram i have (G.Skill F4-3200C16D-16GVKB) doesn't do very well above 2666mhz on it. Must say i haven't touched the SOC voltage yet.
If within budget maybe a nice case if you like rgb leds,
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Fj38TW/cooler-master-masterbox-lite-5-rgb-atx-mid-tower-case-mcw-l5s3-kgnn-02

 

[royalpc]

Okay thanks guys. Ill post an updated part list soon but just realised do I need to buy wires to connect them? Haven't read anywhere where it mentions wires but it would make sense.

I am trying to go for a gaming PC with the Ryzen 5 1600 with a blue theme. My budget is maximum £950.

 

[royalpc]

This is my current build so far https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/LrcDD8
Just looking for a power supply. When looking for one what details should I be interested in? It says my estimated power usage will be 324W so should I go for a 400W so I can do some overclocking? Any one in particular I should look at?

 

[Obakasama]

Power supplies are typically most efficient at half load. I would personally double the estimated wattage and choose a power supply close to that figure (650 or 700W in this case). A power supply isn't something to go cheap on, and a lower quality power supply won't be able to handle close to full draw that well either; so it's best to go with something of good quality. I think the EVGA B3 power supplies are good for the price (the 750W model is rated highly by JonnyGuru).

The motherboard comes with four SATA cables as well as a few other things: https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/PRIME-X370-PRO/specifications/

The power supply will also have the relevant power connectors required.

 

[Vic 40]

Why not stick with the stock cooler for now and invest that money in a better ssd.What do you think about this?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£158.84 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Asus - STRIX B350-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard (£107.95 @ BT Shop)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LED 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£170.33 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£73.96 @ BT Shop)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Palit - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Super JetStream Video Card (£262.96 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Cooler Master - MasterBox Lite 5 RGB ATX Mid Tower Case (£62.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair - TXM Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £946.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-11-27 21:00 GMT+0000

has plenty of rgb so blue could be set as main color.

 

[royalpc]

Why not stick with the stock cooler for now and invest that money in a better ssd.What do you think about this?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£158.84 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Asus - STRIX B350-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard (£107.95 @ BT Shop)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LED 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£170.33 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£73.96 @ BT Shop)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Palit - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Super JetStream Video Card (£262.96 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Cooler Master - MasterBox Lite 5 RGB ATX Mid Tower Case (£62.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair - TXM Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £946.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-11-27 21:00 GMT+0000

has plenty of rgb so blue could be set as main color.

Thanks Vic changed the some things around, getting close to finished! 😀
Just last concerns,
Does overclocking hurt the life of it?

 

[Vic 40]

If I plan to overclock is the stock cooler enough?
Does overclocking hurt the life of it?

If you don't go overboard will the stock cooler be fine. My own 1600 runs at 3.6 with no troubles,just don't want to go higher with it myself. Have seen other do 3.8 with the stock cooler.Make sure you dial the voltage abit back when having to high temps (if you try with it at auto) or go for a lower overclock.
It doesn't hurt to overclock,but stay within reason. A 3.8ghz overclock is already nice.These chips are designed to be overclocked and will throttle down if you push temps too high so i wouldn't worry too much.
For voltages,
https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjK6LOc49_XAhVCDOwKHZN7BPEQFggmMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FAmd%2Fcomments%2F5zmg6s%2Fmaximum_safe_vcore_voltages_for_ryzen%2F&usg=AOvVaw1epD7jnaZBgZZw7z9ReUkL
See how far you can go with a max of 1.35Vcore. With the stock cooler this might (and probably will) already be pushing it for temps so keep it as low as you can. Read some tutorials for overclocking Ryzen before starting anyway.

 

[royalpc]

Thanks a lot Vic 40! Theres a lot to understand but ill order the parts tomorrow. Thanks mate

 

[Vic 40]

You're welcome.😀