First ever PC build!

[lenardmgtr]

Budget (including currency): ±P36,000 (Around $710)

Country: Philippines (will be buying all my parts from Lazada)

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Music production in Ableton Live 10 running several plugins, content creation in Photoshop & Premiere Pro, Games at 900p - 1080p on medium to high settings (not looking to game on ultra quality at 1440p or 4k)

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Hey all! After using low-performance laptops all my life, I've finally decided to start a personal PC Build! I've had exposure to the actual build process but this is my first ever time making a parts list. Looking for some general advice, tips, and suggestions!

 

PART NAME	PART	PRICE
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600	$315.56
Motherboard	Gigabyte B450M Aorus M	Bundled with CPU
GPU	Gigabyte Radeon RX 570	$128.19
RAM	Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 16GB 3000mHz 2x8	$98.42
HDD	WD Blue 1TB 7200rpm	$42.98
SSD	ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 256GB	$65.07
Case + Case Fans	DeepCool Smarter MicroATX + DeepCool Xfan 120 x3	$39.37
	TOTAL	$689.59

 

Would like some suggestions for a good-value PSU as I don't have any idea what's good or compatible with the system I'm planning to build :^((( would like to know any possible incompatibilities between parts! Would also like to know if I could get away with 8GB of ram (2x4 for dual-channel goodness). I don't plan to overclock so I think the Wraith Stealth Cooler that comes with the R5 3600 is good for my purposes.

 

Looking forward and really excited to be part of the PC Building community! :DD

[Fasauceome]

11 minutes ago, lenardmgtr said:

Would like some suggestions for a good-value PSU as I don't have any idea what's good or compatible with the system I'm planning to build 

Have you had a look at the power supply tier list?

 

Usually the Corsair CV650 is available in the Philippines (the 650 is not the same as the 450 or 550).

 

You could start with 8GB for now and get 8GB later, because your motherboard has 4 slots.

[boggy77]

get the mortar max or mortar titanium instead of the gigabyte aorus m. it's a much better motherboard for a similar price.

 

the rest looks good, and i'd keep the 16gb of ram.

 

for psu, go for corsair cx, tx or rm

or evga or seasonic gold rated

500W or more.

[Guest]

Here's the tier list from the Cases and power supplies section of the forum:

You should be aiming for a B+ grade or higher power supply for your system. I would consider choosing a larger sata SSD instead of a slow mechanical hard drive and boot SSD. Stepping it up to a case with better airflow and more modern features would be a good idea too. You can skip the aftermarket fans. Hope this helps! 

[lenardmgtr]

46 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

get the mortar max or mortar titanium instead of the gigabyte aorus m. it's a much better motherboard for a similar price.

I'm getting the motherboard because it's bundled with the R5 3600 (edited my original post to better reflect this). I can't find the Mortar Max or the Mortar Titanium new or used in the Philippines sadly :^((( However, getting an R5 3600X and buying a Gigabyte B450M DS3H separately bumps up the total cost to $20. Would this be worth it?

 

1 hour ago, Konrad_K said:

You should be aiming for a B+ grade or higher power supply for your system.

 

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

Usually the Corsair CV650 is available in the Philippines (the 650 is not the same as the 450 or 550).

I found a Corsair CV650 for a good deal, but it's listed as Tier B on the tier-list. Is this fine or should I look for a better PSU?

 

1 hour ago, Konrad_K said:

I would consider choosing a larger sata SSD instead of a slow mechanical hard drive and boot SSD. Stepping it up to a case with better airflow and more modern features would be a good idea too. You can skip the aftermarket fans. Hope this helps! 

So get a sata SSD with a boot nVME SSD (i.e a 1TB sata SSD + 256GB nVME SSD) or would a single larger-capacity SSD be enough (i.e. 2TB sata SSD only)? I have very limited space currently, that's why I chose the case. Looking to buy the aftermarket fans to maximize airflow. Will be moving to a bigger space soon-ish though and will move my system to a more breathable case once that happens!

 

Thank you all! :DD

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, lenardmgtr said:

I found a Corsair CV650 for a good deal, but it's listed as Tier B on the tier-list. Is this fine or should I look for a better PSU?

The CV650 is good enough for your system, no need to look for anything better.

14 minutes ago, lenardmgtr said:

So get a sata SSD with a boot nVME SSD (i.e a 1TB sata SSD + 256GB nVME SSD) or would a single larger-capacity SSD be enough (i.e. 2TB sata SSD only)? I have very limited space currently, that's why I chose the case. Looking to buy the aftermarket fans to maximize airflow. Will be moving to a bigger space soon-ish though and will move my system to a more breathable case once that happens!

I would just get a single sata SSD, you can skip the NVME boot drive, SATA III is still plenty fast and it would allow to keep the cost down. I still advise you to get a different case, the size isn't the issue, it is the really dated layout inside and generally poor quality. You could spend a bit more on a modern case, and that would allow you to skip the cheap aftermarket fans. 

[boggy77]

34 minutes ago, lenardmgtr said:

However, getting an R5 3600X and buying a Gigabyte B450M DS3H separately bumps up the total cost to $20.

the 3600x isn't worth more than $15 more than the 3600. the ds3h and aorus m are similar in performance, so just get the cheaper.

[Wotzit1980]

I've been looking at building a rig for Ableton/ DAW workload and have found that audio latency can be an issue with Ryzen if components are not matched well. It might be worth looking at 3600 ram with low cas values to ensure you don't get any issues, costs more but better than having to find out later and buy again.

[lenardmgtr]

5 hours ago, Konrad_K said:

I would just get a single sata SSD, you can skip the NVME boot drive, SATA III is still plenty fast and it would allow to keep the cost down. I still advise you to get a different case, the size isn't the issue, it is the really dated layout inside and generally poor quality. You could spend a bit more on a modern case, and that would allow you to skip the cheap aftermarket fans. 

After scouting around, and the DeepCool Tesseract seems promising! It's bigger than the Smarter but I think I can make some space for it. I'll try to find a good-value 1TB SATA3 then! Thank you so much for the advice!! :DD

 

4 hours ago, Wotzit1980 said:

I've been looking at building a rig for Ableton/ DAW workload and have found that audio latency can be an issue with Ryzen if components are not matched well. It might be worth looking at 3600 ram with low cas values to ensure you don't get any issues, costs more but better than having to find out later and buy again.

I'm not sure if this changes anything or not, but I'm using external drivers with a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 2nd Gen for Audio I/O. If it doesn't, I don't think I can do 3600mHz anyway since my Motherboard caps at 3466mHz according to reviews :^((( I've read somewhere though that the sweet spot for the R5 3600 is 3000mHz, could definitely be wrong though since I'm a total noob :^(((

[Wotzit1980]

43 minutes ago, lenardmgtr said:

After scouting around, and the DeepCool Tesseract seems promising! It's bigger than the Smarter but I think I can make some space for it. I'll try to find a good-value 1TB SATA3 then! Thank you so much for the advice!! :DD

 

I'm not sure if this changes anything or not, but I'm using external drivers with a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 2nd Gen for Audio I/O. If it doesn't, I don't think I can do 3600mHz anyway since my Motherboard caps at 3466mHz according to reviews :^((( I've read somewhere though that the sweet spot for the R5 3600 is 3000mHz, could definitely be wrong though since I'm a total noob :^(((

Hi, my understanding is all Ryzen 3rd gen love fast ram up to 3733mhz after that point the infinity fabric (cpu internal + interconnect bus) can no longer keep and and to clock ratio changes and can give a performance problem.

So if your board will take 3466mhz then maybe stretch to 3200mhz ram. I'm still learning on this and watching reading loads because audio presents a second issue as the cas numbers also matter, ideally you need cl16 or lower.

My understanding is the issue comes if latency gets to high crackles and artifacts appear, particularly at lower buffer levels (below 256).

Also worth noting that there are fairly strong rumours that AMD are about to drop XT versions of 3600, 3800, 3900 CPUs with higher clock and turbo speeds. So if you can hang on you might be able to pick up the 3600X cheaper and spend the difference on quicker ram.

[lenardmgtr]

Hey all! Haven't built my rig yet but I've made some updates on some parts!

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• Motherboard: MSi B450M PRO-VDH MAX
• GPU: Gigabyte RX 570
• RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury RGB 16GB 3200mHz CL16

I've changed a few of my goals: I'm still going to be using this machine for music, art, and video creation; but I will also try to give myself better gaming performance. I don't exactly have enough money for a better GPU, so I wanna explore overclocking! I've been doing some research, but I wanna confirm if any of the following goals are unrealistic:

• Overclocking both my CPU and RAM with my chosen Motherboard.
• Cooling the overclocked CPU with a DeepCool Gammaxx GT.
• Powering my rig, with the overclocked CPU and RAM, with a Seasonic M12II-520 EVO Corsair CV650.
• Upgrading to a better GPU (i.e. GTX 1660 Ti or similar, might explore in overclocking this too) in the future and keeping the same power supply.

Thank you all!! :DD