building a £600 pc and I want a little help.

[charlsfuture]

I just want some tips for building this pc because it's my first time. Thanks.

1. £600 GBP

2. playing new AAA games and youtube

3. just the one shown in the list

4. all the peripherals that I plan to purchase are on the list

5. I'm upgrading from a £200 laptop to a pc because I want to be able to play games above 20fps

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/KwLr8Y
Price breakdown by merchant: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/KwLr8Y/by_merchant/

 

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£85.99 @ Aria PC) 
Motherboard: ASRock - B450M-HDV Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£60.77 @ SmartTeck.co.uk) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory  (£58.38 @ Aria PC) 
Storage: Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£57.96 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: Gigabyte - Radeon RX 570 4 GB Gaming 4G  Video Card  (£137.94 @ AWD-IT) 
Case: Xigmatek - Scorpio MicroATX Mid Tower Case  (£27.97 @ Ebuyer) 
Power Supply: be quiet! - System Power 9 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£41.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Monitor: AOC - G2260VWQ6 21.5" 1920x1080 75 Hz Monitor  (£84.96 @ Amazon UK) 
Headphones: Patriot - V360 7.1 Channel  Headset  (£26.99 @ Amazon UK) 

Mouse: Asus GX850 lazer gaming mouse (£21.50 @ cex)

Total: £582.94

 

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-09 19:59 GMT+0000

[SupaKomputa]

All good.

 

[ATFink]

What kind of tips do you want? Building tips and/or a second opinion on the selected hardware? The hardware looks fine, but I'd recommend a better motherboard and a different AIB supplier for the RX 570. Gigabyte screwed the pooch on their RX 4xx cards, so I'm assuming they cheaped out on the RX 5xx series as well. Sapphire, XFX, and Power Color usually make good AMD GPUs.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor	£85.99 @ Aria PC
Motherboard	MSI - B450M MORTAR Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	£89.99 @ Box Limited
Memory	Patriot - 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-2133 Memory	£46.79 @ Amazon UK
Storage	Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	£57.96 @ Amazon UK
Video Card	PowerColor - Radeon RX 570 4 GB Red Devil Video Card	£143.99 @ AWD-IT
Case	Xigmatek - Scorpio MicroATX Mid Tower Case	£27.97 @ Ebuyer
Power Supply	be quiet! - System Power 9 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	£41.98 @ Amazon UK
Monitor	AOC - G2260VWQ6 21.5" 1920x1080 75 Hz Monitor	£84.96 @ Amazon UK
Headphones	Patriot - V360 7.1 Channel Headset	£26.99 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£606.62
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-09 20:26 GMT+0000

I chose the MSI B450M Mortar motherboard because it is the best MicroATX motherboard. Pretty much all mATX b450 boards are very underwhelming and incapable of thermally supporting heavy-ish work loads with moderate core counts CPUs. Good VRM + ok heatsink layout. It'll easily handle an 8 core CPU if you upgrade to a better one down the line. Probably the only mATX motherboard that can be said about.

 

Since the 8 GB of RAM will probably be upgraded I went with some value RAM to save on costs. It won't affect performance very much, but it could be faster with faster RAM. A compromise had to be made to get the computer cost down closer to £600.

[charlsfuture]

thanks for the help. I'm looking for tips on building for the first time so basically all the help that I can get.

[ATFink]

1 - Make sure you put the Motherboard on a hard, non-conductive surface outside the case (definitely NOT carpet). I recommend putting the anti-static bag the motherboard should have come in on top of the motherboard box, and put the motherboard on top of the anti-static bag. If there was no anti-static bag just put the motherboard straight on top of the motherboard box. Install the RAM, CPU, and CPU cooler on the motherboard (again outside the case, do not put this in the case yet).

 

     a - Be careful when handling the CPU. The pins on the CPU are very fragile. They will bend and you won't be able to install the CPU if you drop the CPU or drop anything on the CPU pins. Look at the pins to make sure they aren't bent prior to installing the CPU in the motherboard. They can bend during shipping. If they are bent they can be fixed, but you are in trouble. Check out Jayz2cents video about how to fix bent CPU pins on PGA CPUs (pins on CPU instead of in motherboard):

 

     b - Make sure the plastic clips on the side of the RAM slots are open before you attempt to install the RAM. When installing the RAM you must push with a little bit of force to seat the RAM all the way in the slot. The clips will snap in place once you've pushed the RAM all the way in. Make sure you install the RAM into the motherboard such that the RAM is run in dual channel. See either markings on the motherboard, color match the RAM slots on the motherboard, read the motherboard manual, or look up your motherboard online to make sure when you put in the RAM it is installed in dual channel.

 

     c - Make sure you plug the CPU fan into the header on the motherboard that is the designated CPU fan header.

 

2 - The first piece of hardware you should put in the case is the power supply. Mount it in the case and route the cables you will need to approximately where they should go. These cables should include the CPU power header (probably a 4+4 pin), the 24 pin for the motherboard, the 6+2 pin for the GPU, and the sata power cable for the SSD.

 

3 - Make sure you install the I/O shield in the case before the motherboard (unless the I/O shield is built into the motherboard).

 

4 - If your case has pre-installed mother board standoffs you're good to move onto the next step. If not install those now.

 

5 - Now you're good to put the motherboard with the RAM, CPU, and cooler already installed in the case.

 

6 - Wire up the front panel USB and I/O.

 

7 - Install the SSD, the sata power cable from the PSU, and sata data cable from the sata ports on the motherboard to the SSD.

 

8 - Plug the 24 pin and CPU power cables into the motherboard.

 

9 - Wire up case fan(s) to the motherboard.

 

10 - Install the GPU and plug in the 6+2 pin power cable to the GPU.

 

     a) You can put the case back together at this point if you want, but you should wait until the end in case you have to troubleshoot anything during installation.

 

     b) Plug the video cord from you monitor INTO THE GPU!!!. If you plug it into your motherboard you will not be using the GPU to power the display. That wouldn't help you at all.

 

11 - Install your OS. Do you know if you're going to run Windows or Linux? Do you know how to boot from a USB to install the OS?

[charlsfuture]

thanks again. I am going with windows because it's mainstream so I'll be able to play most games and I know how to install OS. Should I consider over clocking and how would I do that?

[ATFink]

9 hours ago, charlsfuture said:

thanks again. I am going with windows because it's mainstream so I'll be able to play most games and I know how to install OS. Should I consider over clocking and how would I do that?

Once you have the computer together and verify it is working you should download some 3rd party stress testing programs and run them overnight to make sure the system is stable. This is just a precaution. The components are probably fine.

 

I recommend MSI afterburner to monitor CPU and GPU temperature and utilization. I recommend Prime95 to stress test the CPU and RAM. I recommend Unigine Heaven 4.0, Unigine Superposition, and Unigine Valley to stress test the GPU. FireStrike extreme to simultaneously stress test the CPU and GPU.

 

Then you can look into overclocking when you verify the system is stable.

 

EDIT:

You should probably leave the clock settings stock to start with. Only overclock if you need to squeeze out more performance from a hardware component. If you're going to overclock anyways I recommend sticking with GPU overclocking if anything since you're new. The PowerColor GPU I recommended will definitely be more than receptive to OCs since it's a way overkill triple fan design. If you really want to overclock the CPU just push the single core turbo across all cores to start. Don't go for broke in your first attempt. Also don't push the voltage slider much (if any) for either CPU or GPU. Voltage = heat = decreased component life. The stock AMD stealth cooler that comes with the 2200G may become a lot louder when if you overclock the CPU (it'll spin faster to convect heat away from heatsink). Whenever you make a tweak (only one at a time) run a stress test on the component to test stability. If it succeeds and meets your expectations do a several hour long test and keep those settings if it passes smoothly.

[charlsfuture]

Thanks but I think I'll just leave over clocking to another time because it seems too risky for me.

 

P.S. can I use the motherboard box to install the CPU and should I worry about static electricity