My First Experience Building: Budget Ryzen

Eup · February 11, 2020

I can't find the picture I took of my computer when I first built it over two years ago, so you're just going to have to take my word for both the initial build and first upgrade to my computer; however, I'll still be sharing my experiences with the initial build and first upgrade below, where I've also linked the parts lists and posted the most recent pictures of my rig.

2017 Christmas Build

Honestly, other than the hassle that was attaching the front panel IO connectors to the motherboard, and attaching my PSU to the case before plugging in the Molex connectors, it was a pretty straightforward build. This was my first build, and it took me about two hours to complete whilst being conscious of cable management and overall aesthetics. In my opinion, the most interesting aspect of the build was that I was able to get my 1300x to stably run at 4GHz on the stock cooler. At the time, I didn't bother fidgeting with the GPU clock speeds or ram timings/frequency, mostly because the computer worked well enough as it was, but also because I just didn't understand how it worked in the first place.

2017 Christmas Build: Upgrade v.1

By this time, I had the computer for a little over a year and a half, and I had some upgrades I wanted to make to increase performance on a budget.

* Firstly, I wanted to see how much more performance I could get out of my CPU, so I tossed the stock cooler and opted for the more appropriate ARCTIC Freezer 34 eSports DUO to help me reach 4.2GHz on my 1300x.
* Secondly, the only air intake fan was the one that came with my case, so I bought a 5-pack of ARCTIC 120mm case fans. This allowed me to have one intake fan on the back and two on the top, and three fans expelling air towards the front of my case - all connected through my Silverstone fan hub.
* Thirdly, I wanted to tackle the problem that was dust build up. In a year and a half, I took my computer completely apart - GPU shroud and all - three times to remove dust, so I added dust filters to the intake fans. This very drastically reduced the amount of cleaning necessary to maintain both my computer's cleanliness and thermals - maybe it's all the dogs my family has owned over the years, but my house is abnormally dusty.
* Lastly, I switched from Protronix Series 7 Thermal Paste, to the graphite thermal pad I'd seen Linus make a video about. I didn't record my temps before and after to compare, and I wish I would've, but I'm sure it had a slight impact on my thermals nonetheless.

Overall, I'd say for how cheap the upgrades were, these choices are probably your best bet for squeezing out some more performance on your current hardware, both without opting for new hardware altogether or drastically modding your hardware (i.e. IHS deliding, IHS Lapping, liquid metal application, etc.).

After the upgrades, whose purpose in the end was mostly to affect thermals, I decided to try and wrap my head around how to successfully overclock my RAM. I was able to mess around with the frequency and get it to 2666MHz, (testing stability with Prime95), but I just don't understand how much I'm supposed to adjust the timings, or really what the timings affect in the first place. I also gave overclocking my GPU a shot, and initially I had some issues, but in the end I was able to successfully overclock my GPU's core clock to 1878MHz from 1746MHz, and the memory clock to 8808MHz from 8008MHz. The OC is stable, idling at 26 degrees Celsius, and 66 degrees Celsius under load (Fur Mark).

2017 Christmas Build: Upgrade v.2

For the most recent upgrade to my computer, I swapped the Ryzen 3 1300x for a Ryzen 5 1600. The CPU was given to me by a friend who was selling his computer parts at the time - he didn't feel like going through the hassle of selling it, and knew I was about ready to need a new CPU anyways. I'm using the same cooler as I was for the 1300x after my computer's first upgrade, and it's still working great - I'm able to run 4 GHz stable at 1.2375V. The upgrade from 4c/4t to 6c/12t is a sizable one and I feel like the 1300x was slightly bottle-necking my GTX 1060 6GB. In addition to the upgraded CPU, I added another 8 GB's of 2400Mhz RAM to my computer to total 16 GB's, which I ended up overclocking to 2666MHz. In the near future, I'll probably give adjusting my timings another shot, and possibly try and push my RAM to 2933MHz as well, but we'll see how it goes.