Question Was my What-Ever-You-Like PC build worth it?

[ptTimeBldr]

Finally, after numerous reorders due to parts being out of stock and Royal Mail strikes, I have my new What-Ever-You-Like PC build up and running. The reason for doing this build at all, is that my gaming laptop's performance was just about adequate playing certain mmorpgs/mmos, so I wanted slightly better graphics capability. I went for an ITX open-frame chassis instead of a normal ITX case so as to make maintenance and cleaning as easy as possible.
Anyway, performance isn't that bad and graphics rendering is a lot better than it was with the laptop, but was my What-Ever-You-Like PC build worth it? I think it was, just about, but what do others think?
The total build cost for everything, so including delivery charges, the monitor, keyboard & mouse and USB DVD drive, was 701.47GBP.

Basic spec:
Mboard: Gigabyte A520I AC Mini-ITX skt AM4
Proc: AMD Ryzen 5600G
Ram: Corsair DDR4 DIMM - 16gb (2 x 8gb)
Heatsink/fan: Gelid slim silence
SSD: Kingston 240gb
PSU: thermaltake 550W modular SFX
Extra storage: Sandisk 128gb USB 2.0 flash drive

 

[DavidM012]

it's lovelay but only 1 dimm in single channel mode is a performance hit and I prefer nvme over sata 3 ssd persnly even if they say you can't tell the difference gaming.

have you tried actually copying 128gb of data to your sandisk usb 2.0 flash drive? Get back to me in a few days I'd be very interested to know how long it took! My usb portable storage of choice at the moment is a lexar 1000x microsd with usb 3.0 caddy 150mb/s . Cheaper than a usb ssd enclosure and way faster than a 2.0 flash drive. Kind of the goldilocks zone for portable storage.

All that aside, I like the open design for easy maintenance. Tired of fiddling around with pliers for the cmos jumper or fan headers or cmos battery etc. So yes these days I could go for something like that.

 

[ptTimeBldr]

it's lovelay but only 1 dimm in single channel mode is a performance hit and I prefer nvme over sata 3 ssd persnly even if they say you can't tell the difference gaming.

have you tried actually copying 128gb of data to your sandisk usb 2.0 flash drive? Get back to me in a few days I'd be very interested to know how long it took! My usb portable storage of choice at the moment is a lexar 1000x microsd with usb 3.0 caddy 150mb/s . Cheaper than a usb ssd enclosure and way faster than a 2.0 flash drive. Kind of the goldilocks zone for portable storage.

All that aside, I like the open design for easy maintenance. Tired of fiddling around with pliers for the cmos jumper or fan headers or cmos battery etc. So yes these days I could go for something like that.

Thanks for the positive feedback. There's two dimm's @ 2 x 8gb but my phone camera isn't that great so doesn't show that very well. Nope, I haven't tried copying 128gb of data to the sandisk yet, mainly because it's main purpose will be for permenantly storing app/prog data, I won't be using it to transfer stuff from one system to another. The sata SSD will be for mainly software. There's nowhere to mount another sata drive easily, unless I use hook 'n' loop tape to stick it on top of the PSU, so that's why I went for the sandisk option. Thanks for the heads-up on the lexar 1000x microsd, I didn't know about that tbh, so might get one.

 

[DavidM012]

righty-o there's a wide range of sd and micro sd's that are generally fasterer than a usb 2.0 flash drive the lexar 1000x is sometimes packaged with the usb 3.0 adapter or you can buy one separately or even a dual sd/micro sd adapter (only 1 type of card works at a time) so if you find the price unappealing you could opt for something slightly different for me the 32gb lexar 1000x is perfect for niftier occasional windows installs so it's a way of avoiding spending too much on a usb enclosure, usb 3.2 card, and nvme for an external drive.

External drives are kind of interesting a way since you could potentially port your operating system around on usb and just plug and pray into any client machine you happen upon - but windows licensing probably doesn't let you roam like that. Not to diverge into diverse topics would it be nice or not, might work for libraries and internet cafes, but people still prefer their custom pcs to generic thin clients.

 

[ptTimeBldr]

Yep I agree that sd and micro sd cards are faster than usb 2.0 flash drives, but I would have to get an adapter which I'm slightly against as I don't really want to spend much more on this build. A shade over 700GBP is enough I think for a minimum spec, and it still does the job it was intended for.

 

[DavidM012]

A520I AC (rev. 1.x)

4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports on the back panel
Chipset:
2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports available through the internal USB header
4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)

What do mean adapter for usb 3.+ or usb adapter for micro sd? Samsung pro plus micro sd is around £25 on amazon for 128gb, 160/120 r/w, ships with an adapter and isn't restricted to 1 build and you have a usb 3.2 port.

Saw a lexar 32gb with adapter go for $12 on ebay last week but that was in US so you can't always get them at the sharpest price in the uk true but £25 isn't too bad for 128gb.

 

[ptTimeBldr]

What do you mean what do I mean? You just said 'ships with an adapter' so an adapter is needed for sd cards, right? I don't have any slots for sd cards so I would need an adapter, but as said, I don't want to spend much more on this system. I'm saving app data onto the 128gb sandisk without issue and files load reasonably quickly, so that's good enough for me.

 

[DavidM012]

no I mean wondered if you meant like pci-e usb 3.2 adapter but the micro sd cards ship with an adapter in the package like this Samsung PRO Plus and you only need 1 adapter so you can use it with multiple micro sd cards with it so all in all the price isn't terrible. Yes you pay more for a faster drive but it's worth it and you can port data fast to any pc and also run a faster windows setup when necessary. Not sure why a portable drive has to be part of a build. It is an accessory.

 

[ptTimeBldr]

I opted to use a portable usb drive as permanent extra storage because there's nowhere to mount another sata drive. Sd cards does the same thing albeit they're slightly faster. Sd cards are just as much an accessory as usb flash drives, also any other system that you're transferring files to would need to have sd card slots which may not always be the case. All systems have usb ports however.