Upgrading from a 7 years old laptop

[Space_man]

So this is my first post here and while my choice of hardware has already been thought through the goal of this thread is to make sure I'm not making any critical mistake, as well as finally dipping a toe in the LTT forum, since I've been a daily viewer for almost two years now.

 

As advised I'm using the guidelines provided, though in a different order to make more sense for my case.

 

1. Why are you upgrading?

My current main computer is a 7 years old laptop, with a Core i7 3610QM CPU (2.3GHz base / 3.3 Turbo), 8GB of RAM, and a Nvidia Geforce 610M dedicated GPU. And while for basic tasks (meaning web browsing and media consumption) it is more than enough, especially since I upgraded it with an SSD and Windows 10, for more demanding tasks it is clearly getting slow, especially when the GPU is key.

 

2. Budget & Location

Location : France  (in Europe)

Chosen supplier for parts : LDLC (French hardware & electronic specialist)

Budget : Around 500-600€, the build I currently have costs 600€, I could go a little bit over that but not a lot (max 700€ if there is a really good reason)

 

3. Aim

This would replace my old laptop as my main PC, so it would do a bit of everything. My laptop followed me through my last year of high school and my engineering studies, doing things from CAD on Solidworks or Creo, to casual gaming, to photo and video editing (1080p videos mostly) in association, to discovering linux and the command line and monitoring a Raspberry Pi set as a headless server. Of course I also did a lot of web browsing and media consumption (films, TV shows ...) on it.

 

That said, I am well aware that the configuration presented below is suboptimal for anything demanding, like CAD, AAA gaming at 1080p High details, or advanced video editing. But it would still be an upgrade from my old laptop and its crappy GPU, and more than an upgrade it would be a safety mesure for me, to have something new to use BEFORE my laptop dies. And seeing my CPU hit the same temps as a core i9 Macbook Pro is not really reassuring.

 

So, to give you the whole picture, this is how I see it :

- I recently started working as an engineer and I am saving some money for a new computer

- I've waited to save a bit but I'm not wanting to wait like 4-6 more months to get something better (I have other projects following the new PC)

- This PC will be an improvement to my current situation as it will allow me to play recent games (not really aiming for AAA) at 1080p medium at over 30 fps, which is currently just a dream for me

- This PC will be "temporary", or last me around 1 year, after which I will be able to save for a decent gaming setup

- I plan to recycle this PC into a home server (probably running Debian linux) to use as a NAS and other services to try (like a Mumble server, maybe a Web server, etc.) so the choice of an APU against a dedicated, more expensive GPU also comes from this idea. The 8 PCI-e lanes of the CPU could later be used for a 10 Gigabit NIC.

 

4. Monitors

I currently have one 1080p monitor, which is connected to my laptop. I plan on adding at least one more 1080p monitor later (maybe a third depending on the availability of diaply outputs on the motherboard), but gaming will still be done on a single monitor.

 

5. Peripherals

I already have my own peripherals, and the purchase of a mechanical keyboard and a gaming mouse are planned in the more distant future. So the budget is spent on the tower only.

 

6. Selected config

This is the config I selected. I tried to be as efficient as possible, and to not waste money on useless stuff :

- CPU : AMD Ryzen 5 3400G Wraith Spire Edition (3.7 GHz / 4.2 GHz) with BIOS update (the supplier will update the motherbard's BIOS prior to expedition)

- Motherboard : ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0

- RAM : G.Skill RipJaws 5 Series Gris 16 GB (2x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz CL16

- SSD : Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500 Go M.2 (actually cheaper than the bigger SATA one)

- Mass storage : Seagate BarraCuda 2 TB 7200rpm

- Power Supply : Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 500

 

To this I will only add a 4TB 5400rpm hard drive I already have for slow data storage (i.e. not video footage I'm working on or my game library / heavy softwares).
Oh, and I shoudn't need a case as I will reuse a very old case I got from a friend, to have a semi "sleeper" PC, but mostly because I'm a cheap motherf***er.

7. Conclusion
If you've reach this paragraph, thank you for reading, I hope I have made my case clear and this build actually makes sense to you, as I spend a lot of time thinking about which config I should go with, but the hunger for gaming is getting to me so I don't want to wait any longer. However, if I am hugely mistaken in some of my config choices (like RAM, I know Ryzen likes fast RAM but maybe I'm missing something), let me know and feel free to explain me why I'm wrong I'm open to advises, especially since this will be the first PC I'm building myself so there could be a rookie mistake I didn't realize I made.