My review of a prebuilt M32AD

[Guest]

So. I got this pre built few months ago. Why pre built but not custom built? Price.

So the specs of my prebuilt is as follow

Model name: ASUS M32-US019S

CPU: i5-4460

Cooler: Delta / stock cooler

Mobo: ASUS H81M-E

RAM: 1x8 GB Samsung

GPU: ASUS GTX 760 192 bit 3GB VRAM

Drive: WD 1TB and a DVD drive

OS: Came with Windows 8.1 but now Windows 10 (free upgrade)

PSU: 500 W Delta ( Delta 500AB-6A  )

 

 

So if I were to build it myself here is what it would cost

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($189.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H-A Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($40.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($33.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($45.88 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 460 2GB Red Dragon Video Card  ($104.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill FBM-02 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer  ($13.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit  ($30.00)
Total: $499.68
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-19 13:56 EDT-0400

 

Yes. Win10 could be cheaper. In general GTX 760 would have higher frame rate and better card than a RX 460. Because the only 760 available cost almost $270 which obviously does not make any sense to put in (RX 480 or 1060 is cheaper)

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/gRQypg/msi-video-card-n7602gd5ocitx

 

The prebuilt PC was bought on discount for 499 usd

Link to the computer. Should notice I have a review, small one

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1084696-REG/asus_m32ad_us021s_i5_4460_3_2g_8gb_1tb_gtx_760_3gb.html

 

Anyway. The case

If you look at all M32AD model you should notice the case is same. The only difference could be is the color of the bottom (which is also removable if you want to paint it but it is made of plastic so be careful not to break it cause I did). It could be either black, red or blue. I have the blue one.

 

It seems to be mid tower case because it is too big for a micro atx even though I don't think it can not support larger board.

 

Site claims (under bay expansion) there is 1 x 5.25" and 2 x 3.5". Well it is true. But it is not really expansion because you can only add 1 drive only. The rest are occupied already with a WD 3.5" drive and DVD drive 5.25"

 

So you can add 1 x 3.5" drive (regular HDD). There are some small holes above that where you can mount SSD. It works. I mount my SSD to a 3.5" bracket and the bracket is mounted to a single screw. The screw holes are too close together to fit with a regular spacing of an SSD.

 

Metallic on side and back. Front is plastic and can be removed.

 

The mobo has 1 x 16 PCI E 2.0 slot and 1 x 1 PCI E slot. Also 4 SATA and 4 SATA power (2 is being occupied as mentioned above). Also you can add another RAM (for a total of 8x2).

Not much to say here because you can google the mobo specs.

 

Cables are well managed with zip ties. There are no place to put it so it is just there. Also because they are tied it might hard to connect drives of their awkwardly stupid position. I don't bother breaking those zip ties.

 

For the important items.

I have not played any AAA titles on this computer yet. Most demanding games for me were Rocket League, L4D2 and CS GO. All give 100-200 fps. Nothing to say much

But I did some benchmark. No not firestrike or something yet. I will do some and update. Here is userbenchmark

UserBenchmarks: Game 40%, Desk 61%, Work 36%
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 - 71.3%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 760 (192-bit) - 38.4%
SSD: SanDisk Ultra II 240GB - 56%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB - 84.1%
HDD: WD Blue 1TB (2012) - 87.5%
RAM: Samsung M378B1G73DB0-CK0 1x8GB - 33.9%
MBD: Asus K30AD_M31AD_M51AD

 

The mobo is h81m-e. Most programs for some reason does not recognize this. Don't worry. I can tell which mobo is it because I actually looked inside

 

Please do note if you buy similar item that the gpu is not a standard GTX 760 that you see everywhere. Despite the fact it has more VRAM (3GB over normal 2GB) but it is 192 bit (compared to 256 bit 2GB) so it will be slower. Not by much. It's like slowest GTX 1080 vs fastest 1080. Also the GPU is using an 8-pin (6+2) connector if you decide getting new GPU.

 

Also the GPU has 2 DVI ports (I think they are both dual link)

1 display port and 1 HDMI port.

 

 

PSU is on the whitelist (

 

What else? It has x2 USB 3.0 in the front panel as well as audio in port and mic port, SD card reader. Front panel is easily removable. I used that to paint my power button in blue. (All of the M32AD power buttons glow in white)

 

Back it has x3 USB 2.0, bunch of audio ports. VGA and HDMI as well.

 

What else. This is good? If you can find it cheap.

 

This is the exact same computer but with 16 GB of RAM, i7 4790 and 3TB of HDD. I saved some money and went with what I have.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1114080-REG/asus_m32ad_us019s_desktop_computer.html

 

 

 

EDIT 01: Forgot to mention that it comes with a keyboard and mouse. Just a regular ASUS mouse with blue lasers

Keyboard has blue backlight which is really nice and a volume wheel too plus an extra button to turn off/on the light

 

EDIT 02: GPU indeed very loud but for the cheap price nothing can be done honestly

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NinjaJc01]

Specifically what PSU?

[Guest]

Just now, NinjaJc01 said:

Specifically what PSU?

Delta 500AB-6A. I stated on the part list above

[NinjaJc01]

6 minutes ago, dexxterlab97 said:

Delta 500AB-6A. I stated on the part list above

Didn't see that. Delta make some excellent stuff, but their coolers can be a bit loud. But it's OEM only, so many of us will never have to deal with that.

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, NinjaJc01 said:

Didn't see that. Delta make some excellent stuff, but their coolers can be a bit loud. But it's OEM only, so many of us will never have to deal with that.

Delta makes some of the best Industrial Power Supplies you can get. I don't recall if I've ever used one of their Computer PSU's before though.

 

Quality and craftsmanship should be top notch though.

[NinjaJc01]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

Delta makes some of the best Industrial Power Supplies you can get. I don't recall if I've ever used one of their Computer PSU's before though.

 

Quality and craftsmanship should be top notch though.

They are basically OEM only. I think Dell use them quite a bit.

[WkdPaul]

moved to Member Reviews

[Guest]

1 hour ago, wkdpaul said:

moved to Member Reviews

Thank you

[Spork829]

I bought precisely this exact PC about a year ago, many of the parts from which I still use in my current custom build. One thing to note is that the cooler on the GTX 760 is VERY poor. I had 25C ambient temps and even added a 90mm fan in the front for extra airflow, and the thing still throttled and sounded like a jet engine even just playing Overwatch on low settings. Would not recommend the whole PC for that reason alone.

[Guest]

Just now, Spork829 said:

I bought precisely this exact PC about a year ago, many of the parts from which I still use in my current custom build. One thing to note is that the cooler on the GTX 760 is VERY poor. I had 25C idle temps and even added a 90mm fan in the front for extra airflow, and the thing still throttled and sounded like a jet engine even just playing Overwatch on low settings. Would not recommend the whole PC for that reason alone.

If you game with your headset on and still can hear the cooler then I don't know what the hell is wrong with you

[Ichi]

14 hours ago, dexxterlab97 said:

If you game with your headset on and still can hear the cooler then I don't know what the hell is wrong with you

I think his problem is more about the GPU throttling, when it throttles you lose performance, ain't nobody got time for that.

 

And noise wise depends on where he game, if it's his own space then it's probably fine, but if his rig is in a shared space then it would bother people around him, just an example.

 

How does this "not a standard GTX 760" looks like anyway?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Ichi said:

I think his problem is more about the GPU throttling, when it throttles you lose performance, ain't nobody got time for that.

 

And noise wise depends on where he game, if it's his own space then it's probably fine, but if his rig is in a shared space then it would bother people around him, just an example.

 

How does this "not a standard GTX 760" looks like anyway?

[Ichi]

1 hour ago, dexxterlab97 said:

Dayum, did not expect that, I can see why it got all those thermal/noise issues, that cooler looks like what manufacturers slap on super low end GPU...

[TheRandomness]

It's an OEM 760 btw. Should have a few more CUDA cores iirc. 

[Spork829]

On 9/28/2016 at 3:49 PM, deXxterlab97 said:

If you game with your headset on and still can hear the cooler then I don't know what the hell is wrong with you

Idk man, perhaps I got an especially loud one. I have noise cancelling headphones and could still hear it pretty clearly. Super annoying.