Looking to build something small

Mtshaw113 · June 17, 2020

Budget (including currency): At the moment my brothers budget isnt concrete but the cheaper the better. Im thinking ~$700-800 if possible. He's already got peripherals, just a PC upgrade.

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: He doesn't do much PC gaming but would like to play KSP 2 when that comes out and some other newer games (hardspace shipbreakers comes to mind, possibly Satisfactory). But I'd say for the most part it'd be web browsing, video watching, and homework.

Other details: He's got a 1080p 60Hz dual monitor setup so GPU power doesnt need to be extensive per se. Also dont know when we're going to build this because of funds (may be this fall, holiday/black friday to get some deals). I was thinking it might be good to wait for the new RTX cards to come out so the 2000 series or 1600 series prices drop. He's upgrading from some hand me downs FX-6350 and dual 1050 Ti (I'm not even sure how those dual cards work precisely, might only be using one of them lol). I had the idea of upgrading the CPU to a FX-8000 but seems like a waste to not upgrade to Zen or maybe new Athlon (Dont know much about Athlon, are they any good compared to a R3 3000?)

I would like to try and make this as close to a console as possible in terms of size and noise. Not necessarily micro ITX small, I think micro ATX would be good. I've never built this small or used water cooling before but if liquid would be better than air cooled at this scale I'll give it a go (shouldnt be hard if its AIO, custom is too expensive for this I believe). He has a Hyper 212 EVO cooler that we could reuse if we go with a midtower case but he liked the idea of it being smaller and more easily portable, easier to fit on the desk, etc.

Also would like to have fast boot times and just good overall responsiveness. Needs Wifi on the mobo or a network card (is mobo wifi good enough or is a dedicated wifi card worth the money?) Thanks for any help.

RGB is not a priority, and with a small case I doubt there'd be a window anyways.

Jae Tee · June 17, 2020

Ksp can run on a ryzen APU no problem, so id suggest taking that route if ultra small form factor is your priority.

DailyProcrastinator · June 17, 2020

Welcome to the forum!

41 minutes ago, Mtshaw113 said:

Other details: He's got a 1080p 60Hz dual monitor setup so GPU power doesnt need to be extensive per se. Also dont know when we're going to build this because of funds (may be this fall, holiday/black friday to get some deals). I was thinking it might be good to wait for the new RTX cards to come out so the 2000 series or 1600 series prices drop.

TLDR but if not building soon all this current info is likely not going to relevant in a few months time. Also prior to a launch GPU prices rarely fall, especially when talking about Nvidia, they simply stop making current gen cards a few months prior, stock runs out, and then new gen is released, and as is there already is lower stock.

For the budget and use a powerful GPU is not really required plus it eats up of budget.

46 minutes ago, Mtshaw113 said:

I would like to try and make this as close to a console as possible in terms of size and noise. Not necessarily micro ITX small, I think micro ATX would be good.

So ITX and loud lol? Jokes aside I would definitely go ITX, mATX is quite a bit bigger when it comes to case options.

I'd look at something like this:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (12nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor	$101.00 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 120 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$74.98 @ Amazon
Motherboard	MSI B450I GAMING PLUS AC Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard	$210.61 @ Amazon
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$60.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Crucial P1 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$62.99 @ Amazon
Video Card	MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4 GB Ventus XS OC Video Card	$163.98 @ Newegg
Case	Silverstone SG13 V2 Mini ITX Tower Case	$50.22 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair CXM (2015) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	$74.99 @ Corsair
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$799.76
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-17 13:55 EDT-0400

The R5 1600 'AF' 12nm is actually part on the zen+ family (2nd gen Ryzen) and a very good buy, the 14nm R5 1600 is the original zen 1st gen Ryzen CPU. The case is a good budget option and very compact, but still relatively easy to build in. HERE is my build log with it.

In this particualr case a 120mm AIO is the best option as a tower cooler, and even the stock cooler will not fit.

More info on the CPU: