EyeslikeOlives

This is the build I managed to come up with regarding the specifications I required. Besides the RAM being Samsung B Die, which as far as I know will help with OC, the RGB would look nice and I figured since the board came with it might as well... I went for 1TB of NVMe M.2 SSD for storage as the efficiency and size are a good starting point. Can add a PCI Gen 4 M.2 for boot and core programs in the future, while using the HP for games. After researching great value graphics cards, the GTX 1650 Super and the RX 580 are neck and neck. With a local used card, it's added value as I plan for a 2070 Super/2080 Super in the future. Again, the X570 board allows 2000, 3000, and future 4000 series chips. I will be replacing its wifi card for better speeds. Case is pretty compact and offers room for AIOs when I upgrade to better GPU and 8/12 core CPU. Peripherals are pretty standard. The extra mouse and keyboard programmable buttons help with MMOs and editing. Any critique?

Hey there Bombastinator, Thanks for your reply (and the chuckle your signature caused). I have considered X570 ITX boards. ITX was my main consideration, but may be leaning more towards mATX since they allow 4 ram slots. Other than that (if, for example, 32GB of memory is sufficient for my needs), ITX is still a big contender. As for X570, I would like this route as the 2000, 3000, and upcoming 4000 series are possible with them. The concern is my budget and if I could drop $300+ on one. What is this news, though? I'll also look into those B550 boards. Edit: reviewed the B550 motherboard information on the AMD site and it looks like X570 is the best route to take as the B550 will not support 2nd gen Ryzen and the B450 will not support 4th gen, or Zen 3 arch., sockets.

$1,200 - $1,400 USA Photo editing - Lightroom and Photoshop (layers, blending, stitching) for A7 II RAW files / Gaming - WoW BfA, Diablo 3, PoE, DotA, LotR, ESO, CoD, BF1, Witcher, Dark Souls (in order of importance). Will need all components of a PC build - monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers (if not integrated with monitor) and/or headset, case, and psu. Main objective is compactness and upgradability. For example, I can find the Ryzen 5 2600X for a great price and B450 boards are cheap - these boards can also be used for a future upgrade to, say, Ryzen 7 3800X; although, keep in mind most B450 boards I am seeing for Micro ATX don't go past 3200 memory speeds and the sweet spot for the Zen 2, as I am led to believe by studies, is 3600; moreover, this also brings RAM into the picture as I would like something that can scale to 3200 C14 and 3600 C16. Since "future proofing" is what I am mostly after, in terms of upgradability, the new 4000 series AMD chips will not be supported by B450; additionally, if the new 4000 series has a new 'sweet spot' for RAM, I would like my memory to have the ability to OC past 3600 stable. RAM to be considered is 32GB with the board allowing me to add an additional 2 sticks to total 64GB. Monitor - if possible, 27" 1440p 120Hz/144Hz IPS. IPS since this will essentially double as an editing monitor and color accuracy is important. I would ideally like to only be switching out CPU and GPU in the future to reduce how much money I 'lose' out on. Most importantly is your experience and feedback. Feel free to leave constructive criticism on my ideas above as it would help me understand more about PC building. Thank you all for the time you took to read this.