AmisThysia

I started my first build recently with the intention of spending around £350-400 on a bunch of used parts, a la Scrapyard Wars. Over time, the budget increased as I was informed across this forum that buying certain parts used is pretty dumb in reality - and also as I realised that I'd forgotten some core parts of the build, such as case fans and a wifi card. Ended up at around £550, having had a shift in priority towards performance rather than budget due to a series of perplexing BSODs on my 'gaming' laptop. I've ended up with the following parts: Case: Be Quiet Dark Base Pro 900, £50, used Case fans: 2x140mm Noctua NF-A14, 2x120mm Noctua F-12, £30, used Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk Max, £82, new CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 with Wraith Stealth stock cooler, £90, used - can hopefully sell on the Wraith Stealth and earn a little back. Cooler: Arctic Freezer 34 Esports DUO, £27, new GPU: AMD RX 480 4GB, £60, manufacturer refurbished RAM: Patriot Viper 4 16GB (2x8) DDR4 3000Mhz, £55, "new" (off ebay, opened-but-never-used category.) Storage: Crucial MX500 500GB SATA SSD, £58, new PSU: Corsair TX650M 650W 80+ Gold, £65, new WiFi Card: Ziyituod AX2974, £25, new Thermal paste: Arctic MX4, £5, new With all of those now confirmed - the last things arrive/are being picked up tomorrow or Monday - it's time to start my build log! I'll be updating with images as I put everything together, and with benchmarks upon completion. We'll see if I've managed to put something worth ~£550 (~$700) together.

Tbh it was more the guy's attitude that put me off. If someone says "hey, I can't set it up for that because [decent reason]", that's normal and I'd be more willing to put my faith in them. This guy's reaction just seemed sketch to me. I'm also more willing to take that risk on a single part than half my build. This ends up being better for my purposes anyways.

I get that, but they haven't given a reason why they won't do it - if they said something like what you typed I'd be less sketched out. Plus we're meeting at their place, at a weekend, at 5pm, so it's not like they're at work. But all they've done is assert that it isn't a common thing to run benches when selling used parts, and that nothing over a POST will be happening. No justification at all. See attached images. Just seems mega sketchy to me. It's a crazy deal on the parts, which possibly contributes to me being wary. But even so, for £170 I'll have no way to get back I'm not sure it's worth the risk.

The seller - on Gumtree, which is a buy-and-sell site similar to e.g. Facebook Marketplace. In other words, the dude selling it is just some random guy. I feel okay taking a risk on used parts if I can test them but idk about this considering he won't even let me run a free bench.

Thank you for the advice! I'll ask that they install the free 3DMark from Steam and run those. EDIT: They've refused to set it up to do anything more than just post (barebones CPU+mobo+RAM+cooler.) I'm wondering if that should be a cause for concern...?

Ah sorry, I should have been more clear - I meant the specific board I linked in the gumtree combo, the ASUS Prime X370-Pro. I shorthanded it without realising that X370 meant the chipset and would therefore be confusing haha

Ah sorry, misunderstood you. I believe the x370 has solid VRM, though any check/confirmation of that from someone more experienced would be nice. And I think the H100i will be enough cooling but again, hard for me to know without the experience. As for RAM stuff, I'll definitely look into that - I think it may be one of the weaknesses of this board. Thank you for all the advice! True, but it doesn't really give me any practice of researching compatibility and understanding why certain parts work together. The above post by Bombastinator is a good example - just buying this, disassembling, and reassembling doesn't teach me about the importance of fast RAM for Ryzen, or about needing good VRM for overclocking (I didn't even know that VRM was a thing, honestly). It'd purely be about what cable plugs in where in this particular setup. Choosing parts and constructing my own, by contrast, does bring up those questions in conversation that allow me to learn. Plus I think it's more fun, and I'm entering this to develop a hobby and passion - that's the end goal, really, rather than my end goal being the actual product I end up with. As a sidenote, I am genuinely astonished at the value CeX is selling that at. Really good. They're often fairly expensive (they want £95 for the 4GB RX 480 that I'm getting for £55 manufacturer-refurbished off Ebay!)

£72 hard maximum for case, psu, cooler, and storage seems pretty low See OP, I'm doing this to practice and learning to build rather than just to have a cheap PC. Yeah but as I said, the X370-Pro (with a BIOS update, I think) can support Ryzen 3000 cpus, so plenty of room to theoretically upgrade if necessary. And the Ryzen 1800x that comes with it has 8 cores. Not sure I really follow what you're saying, or what the issue with the parts I linked in the OP are. Yeah that's what I've been doing! But I wanted some tips about the 'testing' part when you head over to pick something up - just seeing something POST or boot a game doesn't feel like enough to know I'm not getting something with a problem, so wanted some testing tips or things to look out for. The 1800x is about as good as I'll get on my budget, I think, but maybe I'll hold out for a 570/580 - although I think the £55 for a 480 I linked is still super solid so might just roll with that. Absolutely going Ryzen, at least for CPU - just because of the AM4 socket, if nothing else!

Hi - thanks for the feedback! My budget is more firm than my performance expectations for now. This is essentially a practice kit for learning to build, which I hope to tide me over for the next year or so before I invest in a significant upgrade (for which I'd be happy to start mostly from scratch.) So expandability in future isn't a huge priority, as weird as that sounds. I was looking at online benchmarks and videos using similar setups and reasonable frames (50ish average) at 1080p, high settings, or on older games (like vanilla Skyrim or something) potentially cranking up to 1440p seemed possible. Can you explain where I've gone wrong in assuming this system wouldn't be able to achieve that, whereas theirs did? My concern with picking up like an old Dell or something is around OEM/ECC, like specialised parts or mobos, where finding e.g. a sizable enough compatible PSU could become a problem, even without worrying about future expandability. However I really don't have a firm understanding of this aspect. After that, I feel like the components I linked fulfil the requirements you specified, for the most part - I'll explain my reasoning below, so you can explain what I'm not understanding here. I'm probably just missing something obvious in my inexperience. Then: 1. The motherboard in the combo I linked is an AM4, which works with the attached 1800x. It supports overclocking. It's also apparently compatible with Ryzen 3000 series CPUs for future expandability. I've also seen a variety of reviews describe it as having strong VRM. It supports dual GPU setup for future expandability. 2. The 1800x works with the motherboard as its an AM4 socket. It's good for overclocking. This fulfils the "replacement" aspect, skipping the step of buying a bulldozer or something, and from online benchmarks should be strong enough to handle AAA gaming at 1080p. 3. That's great advice, thank you. I'll be sure to spend a good amount here. What about a Corsair CX650M for £60? (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CP-9020122-UK-CX650-Bronze-Power-Supply/dp/B01C3FFATU/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=650w%2Bpsu%2Bbronze&qid=1582047450&s=computers&sr=1-2&th=1) 4. The barebones I linked comes with 2666MHz DDR4, which as you say might be insufficient long-run and not pair the best with the Ryzen. The mobo also only supports up to 2666MHz as a maximum apparently. This could be a problem area. However, I get the impression that getting a >2666MHz-compatible motherboard feels like it would take me out of my price range. The monetary savings on the barebones linked (mobo, CPU, RAM, cooler) might be worth the decreased performance - i.e. the "buy cheap and replace later" option. 5. Cool, will make sure to get cache. If I were to buy used off e.g. ebay, how would I test it to make sure its not dodgy? I'm inexperienced so the best thing I could think of is sfc /scannow and chkdsk, and see how long they take etc., but there are probably more efficient and accurate methods? For now I'm thinking this Crucial MX500 from Amazon Warehouse: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B0786QNS9B/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all 6. Cool, just have to make sure it's big enough and stuff right? What other things should I be considering? (Strongly prefer a case, as I rent and can't just put screws in the walls to hang stuff up or anything.) Appreciate the help, thanks!

That's their buy price - unfortunately the sell price is approx. double in CeX, so a 280 costs £60 there, and a 290 costs £70 (although will have been tested so still would have been a better deal!) Came close to getting ripped off. By contrast their 4gb rx480s are going for £95, so the £55 deal on ebay seems like what I'll go for. Thanks!

Update: Already bought: Case: Be Quiet Dark Base 900, £50, used GPU: AMD RX 480 4GB, £60, manufacturer refurbished Storage: Crucial MX500 500GB SATA SSD, £58, new Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk Max, £82, new RAM: Patriot Viper 4 16GB (2x8) DDR4 3000Mhz, £55, new PSU: Corsair TX650M 650W 80+ Gold, £65, new CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 with Wraith Stealth stock cooler, £90, used - can hopefully sell on the Wraith Stealth and earn a little back. Cooler: Arctic Freezer 34 Esports DUO, £27, new WiFi Card: Ziyituod AX2974, £25, new Case fans: 2x140mm Noctua NF-A14, 2x120mm Noctua F-12, £30, used TOTAL SPEND: £542. Well over budget, but ended up with significant performance increase and some top-notch parts which I can transfer over to a new build in future. Laptop started to die pretty hard (regular blue screens) so ended up shifting some priority to performance over budget instead. Will be putting this over to the Build Logs thread now! See below for relevant info from original post: I'm here to learn, so please chip in with any thoughts or considerations, no matter how pedantic or small! Thank you so much for any help and responses.

Afaik the RX 480 and GTX 970 are pretty much the same performance - found a refurb'd RX 480 for £55 (see above.) Would there be any reason to go for a 970 over (what seems to me) a good RX 480 deal? See above. Thank you for the response and help, all of you! Definitely a learning experience for me.

I went this route because it allows me to A) not pay for P+P and more importantly B) test the hardware before I spend any money on it. Howweeevvveeerrr, I just found out that SAPPHIRE do officially refurbished cards on ebay (via realtime_distribution?) and there's a 480 there for £55 (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sapphire-RX-480-Nitro-Graphics-Card-4GB-GDDR5-DVI-D-HDMI-Display-Port/174184234980?hash=item288e307fe4:g:En0AAOSwGpBePWHv). Excellent call, thank you! Generally they were going for £70 or more but with no testing opportunity, but the official refurb makes it super worth even if it was £70. Do you have any comments about that black stuff, and what tests are good to run? Just so I can recognise what might/might not be a problem in the future if ever buying components - really I'm doing this build to learn!

Hi all, I'm planning my first ever build - very exciting - and am working on a low budget (around £350). I've decided to go the used parts route (somewhat inspired by Scrapyard Wars..) and found an MSI R9 290 not too far from me. I'm going this Friday and have been assured I'll be able to test it. The questions I have are: 1. Based on these images (see https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/538138203486147/?ref=messenger_banner), does the card look okay? On the second image there seems to be some sort of black marking/gunk on one of the chips, on the underside of the GPU. 2. What sort of tests should I run? At the moment I'm planning to just download userbenchmark's tool, check it performs as expected, and then boot up some games to check framerates. Is this sufficient? Thank you in advance for any responses, very much appreciated! :)