T_Hastings

That's a great idea, I will look into that as well! Thanks!

Thank you very much! That's what I'm going to do then.

I'm planning to build a very cost-efficient NAS around a mini-ITX motherboard using a case and an 430W PSU I have laying around. The motherboard I'm looking at is very cheap, but provides only 2 SATA ports. Since the PSU has no problem handling additional 2-3 HDD's, I was wondering if I could use the USB ports on the motherboard for hard drives mounted inside the case. I am aware of the limitations in transfer speeds, but the aim of the project is long-term archiving, so I'm completely okay even with USB 2.0 speeds. My problem is that I can't find cables that would let me power the drives from the PSU while connecting them to a USB port. Everything I saw connects to both the SATA and the power port of the HDD's, and that would require additional power adapters, rendering the whole idea of repurposing the case and PSU impractical. So is this just a design-thing, or the drives need to get their connections from the same source? I'm looking forward to your answers both regarding the tech behind this, and possible solutions for the problem. Cheers! Edit: I am planning to use 3.5" drives, so using only USB power is not really an option.

Great, thanks a lot!

Just a hobby, so I'd go with nice to have

Hey, I'm looking for a monitor that helps me achieve two tasks: photo editing and very casual gaming (so nothing competitive). The exact specifications would be: - 1080p 60 Hz or 75 Hz (don't really have the horsepower to go much higher in either) - factory calibrated colors - VESA mountable - at least 24" LG makes a display that fits all of my criteria, and even has FreeSync: https://www.lg.com/hk_en/monitor/lg-24MK600M I was wondering if some of you had any better alternatives to this model. This one goes for around $170 in my area. Thanks!

Okay, so I did a bit deeper research on the 3600... I must agree with Plouffe, because even in Vulkan titles, where the 2700X came out on top in average framerates, the lows were still higher on the 3600. Didn't expect that. I'll try to stretch the budget so the 3600 fits. The cheaper RAM suggested by SavageNeo will help with that!

Yes, it's an uncommon use case for an SSD This is a compelling argument for the 3600... It'd be more or less the same for future-proofing as well, right? I mean, multi-threaded games won't just explode, requiring 6+ cores in the coming, say, 5 years?

I just mentioned the parts I already have, not shopping for GPU, PSU, storage this time. Thanks anyway, will keep in mind!

These days not really, that's true. The occasional photo editing isn't much. Actually, I'd even turn off SMT to maximize per core performance. Price is the limitation now, the additional $35 wouldn't really translate to a big change in performance. In my region (EU) the 2600X and 2700X are priced very close on the other hand.

Thanks for the input! Exactly the thing I was wondering about regarding the A320. I wouldn't expect problems from a reputable brand like Asus, but it would still be a risk? The SSD is intentionally small. I run GNU+Linux, and the root directory doesn't take more than 15 GB, so for that purpose it's still plenty. Does not help with RoTR load times though, that's true.

So I built my mini-ITX Steam Machine back in 2019. The budget was tight, so I went with an i3-6100 with a plan to upgrade to an i7 later. However, Ryzen seems to be a reasonable option these days. I don't plan to do any overclocking whatsoever, so I'd buy an A320 and a 2700X with some 2x8 GB 3200 MHz RAM. The rest would stay the same.* If all goes well, the final build would look like this: PCPartPicker Part List Type Item Price CPU AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor $227.99 @ SuperBiiz Motherboard Asus ASUS Prime A320I-K AM4 AMD A320 SATA 6Gb/s Mini ITX AMD Motherboard Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard Memory Kingston HyperX Predator 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory $102.00 @ Amazon Storage Transcend 32 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive $22.99 @ Amazon Storage Toshiba P300 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive $62.84 @ Amazon Storage Toshiba P300 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive $62.84 @ Amazon Video Card MSI GeForce GTX 1060 3GB 3 GB ARMOR V1 Video Card Power Supply EVGA 430 W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply $99.98 @ Amazon Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts Total $578.64 Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-12-06 03:05 EST-0500 What do you guys think? Even though I'm happy with the concept, it would be good to know if I'm planning to shoot myself in the foot. ________________ * The PSU would be upgraded with the GPU later down the line.

Thanks! For storage I have a 1 TB 7200rpm HDD laying around, that should work... And an SSD upgrade at some point is in the plans of course

Hi guys! I'm planning to put together a PC with the sole intention of playing DiRT Rally on ultra settings at 1080p. So anything above this game's requirements would be an overkill (so I'm not planning to build something future-proof). My current idea is something like this: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/NMZqsJ Would this do the trick? Also, if my goal could be achieved for a lower price, tell me! Thanks!

Thanks!