First Build Advice (Rough Idea)

SirSnrub

Hey,

I've recently decided to try and build my own PC for the first time. I plan to mainly use it for Music Production, but also use it for gaming too.

After searching around I put together a rough build of parts I found on Komplett.ie and was looking for any advice on it from some with a bit more knowledge on the subject.

Below is my planned build (excluding the network card which I couldn't find on PCPartPicker), any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.



https://pcpartpicker.com/list/XJBq2R

Samuel T. Cogley

I'd base it around Ryzen for a start which would require faster rated DDR4 and to be safe go with dual channel (2 sticks). You won't need an additional cooler so it should all even out and give you a faster PC. Lower end Corsair PSU's used to be garbage, not sure if they still are - EVGA do a cheap 430 or 500w model with excellent after sales support.

That case looks to be worth about €20 which is absolutely fine - just don't over pay because its coolermaster branded.

Not a fan of nvidia at the lower end as freesync isn't an option - I'd push it for a RX570 if you could. That said if you#re not planning on changing the monitor anytime soon, meh.

Is that sound card any better than what you'd get on board?

Billy86

First, I'd say avoid Komplett or Irish retailers since the prices seem exorbitant - you'll likely get a much better deal on Amazon

Taking a peak on Komplett I think these might be your prices... cpu €200, mobo 56, ram 63, gpu 170, ssd 73, case 35, psu 47, sound card 35, cooler 27 = total €706, so I'll try to keep within that budget.

Good news is you don't need a cooler as pretty much all CPUs come with decent stock ones (the intel 'K' chips and some higher cost Ryzen like 1700/1800 are the only ones I know of that don't). Also, your motherboard will come with a sound already in it... that said I know feck all about music editing so don't know if you will require the additional one on top or not. Do you have a hard drive also, by the way? 120GB SSD is good for holding the OS, Chrome etc and assuming that music production requires a good deal less than video production you may also be able to do a good bit of your work off that which will speed things up nicely. But most AAA title games these days run at about 30GB+, and even older ones from 4-5 years back will likely take up 15+, so you would need a HDD to go with it. I'll factor that in, keep you with the sound card, and suggest upgrades for if you don't need either and have additional budget...

By the way I've actually got a build with a weaker CPU and the 1050 TI installed during the week and just finished getting the games downloaded last night. I tried out Witcher 3 on high settings and it performed really well (I'm not great at seeing the difference over about 45 frames per second and didn't have a counter on, but it looked very smooth to me, better than I expected). I'll be testing it more thoroughly over the weekend so will be sure to give you feedback there.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£190.83 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£63.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston - Savage 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory (£67.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: PNY - CS1311 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£39.47 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Mini Video Card (£122.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA - 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£37.93 @ CCL Computers)
Sound Card: Creative Labs - 70SB157000000 Sound Card (£30.46)
Other: Budget case (£22.99)
Total: £616.64
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-02 12:01 BST+0100

£616.64 = €706.68... plus possibly €11.85 more if Ebuyer/CCL Computers don't deliver to Ireland (in which case Parcel Motel will cover you for €3.95 per item). The sound card is still from Komplett, they actually did a better price than PC Part Picker was listing assuming it's the one they have for €34.90 which I adjusted into the GBP equivalent.

With this, you've got a 1TB HDD to store tonnes of audio and games on while you can dedicate the SSD for the actual editing programmes as well as the general PC stuff. You've also got a PSU that has an additional 50W on it and is probably better, you would think Corsair = good quality but their 'VS' series is infamously bad - the EVGA is nothing special but it's known as a decent, reliable budget unit (I have the 430W model on the build I did in the week). I left you with the 1050 TI GPU since as I said it looks to do the job quite well from what I can see so far, will get back to you over the weekend after I've tried other demanding titles like Shadow of Mordor and Arkham Knight on it. I would however say if you do not need the HDD and/or sound card after all, to upgrade this to an RX 470/570 or even 480/580 as they are exceptionally good value for money and the 480/580 models are the best cards you can get before you get into the really expensive 1070/1080/1080 TI type of stuff (more for 1440p and 4K gaming). You can get a 480 4GB works out to about €203.

The big upgrade was in the CPU - an i5 6400 is grand, but a bit dated so I switched it over to a Ryzen 1600 which wallops it in every respect - especially as a workstation which will impact your editing a good bit. Others here who know more than me could give you a better idea on the hows and whys, but essentially it has 6 cores and 12 threads compared to the 6400s 4/4. It's also a lot newer as the 6400 came out nearly two years ago and the 1600 was released less than 2 months ago, and AMD keep their chipsets a lot longer on average (meaning if you ever want to upgrade the 6400, you will -already- need a new motherboard since they are now on Kaby Lake whereas the 6400 is Sky Lake, while AMD only just released the Ryzen chipset and are likely to keep with it for at a guess three or so years... meaning if you want to upgrade the 1600 you won't need a new motherboard, though all the extra cores/threads will likely give the 1600 a very nice, long lifespan beyond three years). This will help your frames per second gaming, it will help even more down the line as games are beginning to go beyond four cores, it will help your editing and other processes like that, and it will help you in just general PC usage. Here is a brief comparison of the two - http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-6400-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-1600/3512vs3919

I also upped you to 2800mhz RAM, as the one catch with Ryzen is you need at least 2666mhz to really get the best out of it (there is another 3000mhz model for about €10 more that will give you another little boost but 2800mhz will still do extremely well and I wanted to keep within your initial budget).

*Keep in mind on either build you would also likely need a wifi adapter but can get one for about €20 in any computer shop - USB ones work grand too, picked one up two days back and have been downloading at 4mpbs+ on it.

Some budget case suggestions in this thread - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057747104

SirSnrub

****, i stopped thinking people would reply and with the help of a friend already bought everything...

Seriously though, thanks so much for the advice. Even just reading through it I learned stuff I had no clue about. I really do appricate you guys taking the time to help a complete novice out with this stuff. Thanks

Billy86

No worries, to be honest the 6400 will do fine and you likely won't even notice what you're missing out on - the build you have doesn't look like it will limit you in any way (beyond maybe ultra graphics settings in some game, but if you've only used consoles before I believe they level out at about what a PC would have as medium so it's still a step up ).

TerrorFirmer

It's nothing to worry about. The i5-6400 is as good as the Ryzen in most games and even faster in some. Bit slower in workstation tasks generally (but not catastrophically or anything like that) though will be faster in some which prefer individual core performance over number of cores.

It's also upgradable to the i7-6700/7700 down the line so it's still bullet proof really.

The GTX1050Ti is a decent card for the money, most of the latest AAA titles will run at 1080p high settings at 60fps. Certain games on consoles, particularly ones like Fallout 4/Witcher 3, run at 30fps and often dip way below that.