[SOLVED] Small Form Factor PC

[ShadowDragon25]

Hi, my friend is a Mac User mainly, but plays Halo MCC on a windows boot drive with me and our friends. He is interested in getting a small form factor PC. I have put together a build that is around £1200. I would like advice on this build. He wants it to have Thunderbolt 3. He will be using his current TV which is not 4k. But one day would like a 4k TV or gaming monitor. But the GPU can be upgraded when needed to cater for the 4k screen upgrade. Any advice on

CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3800x
CPU Cooler - Noctua NH-L9i Black
Motherboard - ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX with Thunderbolt 3
Memory - G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 - 3200
Storage - Samsung 970 Evo 1TB M.2-2280 NVME
GPU - MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB Ventus XS OC
Case - Fractal Design Node 202 with 450W PSU

 

[jeremyj_83]

Hi, my friend is a Mac User mainly, but plays Halo MCC on a windows boot drive with me and our friends. He is interested in getting a small form factor PC. I have put together a build that is around £1200. I would like advice on this build. He wants it to have Thunderbolt 3. He will be using his current TV which is not 4k. But one day would like a 4k TV or gaming monitor. But the GPU can be upgraded when needed to cater for the 4k screen upgrade. Any advice on

CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3800x
CPU Cooler - Noctua NH-L9i Black
Motherboard - ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX with Thunderbolt 3
Memory - G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 - 3200
Storage - Samsung 970 Evo 1TB M.2-2280 NVME
GPU - MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB Ventus XS OC
Case - Fractal Design Node 202 with 450W PSU

I would do something more along these lines.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£147.90 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L12S 55.44 CFM CPU Cooler (£46.31 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock X570 PHANTOM GAMING-ITX/TB3 Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard (£239.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£140.12 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (£113.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 5600 XT 6 GB PULSE Video Card (£269.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Silverstone RVZ03 Mini ITX Desktop Case (£97.55 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: Fractal Design Ion SFX-L 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply (£127.80 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1183.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-26 14:49 BST+0100
You save money on the CPU since this is for gaming and can put that into the GPU and PSU. On top of that the CPU you choose has a 105W TDP and the cooler is 95W max. The cooler here is a 160W TDP cooler and the CPU is 65W. You can save money on the SSD and while it isn't as fast, the difference will not be noticeable.

 

[ShadowDragon25]

Why the Radeon over an Nvidia when AMD GPUs have had so many issues?

 

[jeremyj_83]

Why the Radeon over an Nvidia when AMD GPUs have had so many issues?

Better performance and it was in the budget. This 5600XT will have performance equal to the RTX 2060. You can always go with the 1660 Super as well, it is an excellent budget card. From what I've heard a lot of the 5600XT card issues were with ones that got the vBIOS update but only had 12Gbps RAM. Those with the 14Gbps RAM, like the Sapphire Pulse, haven't had issues.

 

[ShadowDragon25]

Fair enough, but if my friend was willing to spend a little more doesn't 1080 have better performance than the 5600XT or have I got that wrong?

 

[jeremyj_83]

Fair enough, but if my friend was willing to spend a little more doesn't 1080 have better performance than the 5600XT or have I got that wrong?

Depends on the game. https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2581?vs=2527 If he was wanting to spend more the step up would be the RX5700 at about 350 Quid for something like the Sapphire Pulse or PowerColor Red Dragon. Otherwise the RTX 2060 is a lateral move https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2581?vs=2515 so going to the RTX 2060 Super would be the step up for nVidia. That would give performance around the RX5700 but cost as much as the RX5700XT.

 

[ShadowDragon25]

Ok thanks

 

[jeremyj_83]

Ok thanks

Based on GPU prices right now there is actually no reason to go with the 5700 at all. For example the PowerColor Red Dragon 5700 runs 353 Quid but the 5700XT version is 360 Quid. You get 10-15% more performance for 2% added cost.