First Time Builder Looking for Some Help

[Asterix3]

Budget (including currency): $1,500 (CAD) (not a hard limit, but would like to stay under if possible)

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Minecraft (ideally with Ray-Tracing capability), Civilizations 6

Monitors: 2 monitors, 1080p

Peripherals: None required, I already have keyboard, mouse, headset, monitors. May add speakers in the future, but not in this budget. Also, appearance is not important to me, I'm not planning to show off the case.

Why am I upgrading: Currently playing using my Lenovo ThinkPad T15 with reduced settings on both games and want better graphics and performance.

When: Would like to buy in the next 2-4 months.

 

I know graphics cards are nearly impossible to get at reasonable prices currently. Would it make sense to buy an old cheap card (assuming these exist?) and plan to upgrade when a better card is available?

 

I've done a bit of google searching, watched a few videos and played around on pcpartpicker to put together the parts list below, but really don't know much and would appreciate any tips/suggestions/corrections.

 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($234.50 @ Vuugo) 
Motherboard: *ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($58.62 @ Vuugo) 
Memory: *Silicon Power 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($99.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($138.50 @ shopRBC) 
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB XC GAMING Video Card 
Case: Cougar MX330-X ATX Mid Tower Case  ($54.05 @ Vuugo) 
Power Supply: *Cooler Master MasterWatt 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($46.42 @ Amazon Canada) 
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN881ND PCIe x1 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter  ($18.03 @ iSanek) 
Total: $650.11
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-16 10:01 EDT-0400

 

I understand that this is well under budget, but I'm not sure what is best to improve to improve performance. Also, graphics cards seem to cost a fortune.

 

Thanks for the help!

Ben

[Ya_Mi]

Power Supply could be way better, you could atleast buy Seasonic Focus Gold. Also Silicone Power has been around for quite a while, but i personally don't really trust their memory but its not like its bad no, but if you can get one from the like of Kingston, Gskill, or Corsair.

[YoungBlade]

If you mainly play Minecraft and Civ 6, and prices haven't gone down in the next few months when you build, a stopgap card makes a lot of sense. Both of those games are fully playable with quite low-end GPUs. The minimum for Civ 6 is a GTS 450 and I've played Minecraft on Intel iGPUs even weaker than the one in your laptop.

 

A Quadro K620 can be found pretty consistently for around $50 USD used on eBay, and would offer you better performance than your current Intel graphics - not amazing performance - slightly above a GTX 650 - but reasonable in those games. It should sell for around $25 in a normal market, so after you trade up for an RTX card, you're only out $25 if you want to resell it. Or you could give it to someone you know who needs a basic card, like to give a parent's old desktop a boost. Or you can keep it around for troubleshooting in the future. Because the card draws all its power from the slot and is small form factor, it's quite versatile.

[Asterix3]

37 minutes ago, Ya_Mi said:

Power Supply could be way better, you could atleast buy Seasonic Focus Gold. Also Silicone Power has been around for quite a while, but i personally don't really trust their memory but its not like its bad no, but if you can get one from the like of Kingston, Gskill, or Corsair.

Thanks! I'll look into your suggestions. I have done no research on PSUs and little on memory so just went with what pcpartpicker suggested in one of their default builds.

[Asterix3]

36 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

If you mainly play Minecraft and Civ 6, and prices haven't gone down in the next few months when you build, a stopgap card makes a lot of sense. Both of those games are fully playable with quite low-end GPUs. The minimum for Civ 6 is a GTS 450 and I've played Minecraft on Intel iGPUs even weaker than the one in your laptop.

 

A Quadro K620 can be found pretty consistently for around $50 USD used on eBay, and would offer you better performance than your current Intel graphics - not amazing performance - slightly above a GTX 650 - but reasonable in those games. It should sell for around $25 in a normal market, so after you trade up for an RTX card, you're only out $25 if you want to resell it. Or you could give it to someone you know who needs a basic card, like to give a parent's old desktop a boost. Or you can keep it around for troubleshooting in the future. Because the card draws all its power from the slot and is small form factor, it's quite versatile.

Thanks! This is very helpful. I'll keep an eye out for cheap Quadro K620s as a stopgap.

[AudacityTheEditor]

52 minutes ago, Asterix3 said:

Budget (including currency): $1,500 (CAD) (not a hard limit, but would like to stay under if possible)

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Minecraft (ideally with Ray-Tracing capability), Civilizations 6

Monitors: 2 monitors, 1080p

Peripherals: None required, I already have keyboard, mouse, headset, monitors. May add speakers in the future, but not in this budget. Also, appearance is not important to me, I'm not planning to show off the case.

Why am I upgrading: Currently playing using my Lenovo ThinkPad T15 with reduced settings on both games and want better graphics and performance.

When: Would like to buy in the next 2-4 months.

 

I know graphics cards are nearly impossible to get at reasonable prices currently. Would it make sense to buy an old cheap card (assuming these exist?) and plan to upgrade when a better card is available?

 

I've done a bit of google searching, watched a few videos and played around on pcpartpicker to put together the parts list below, but really don't know much and would appreciate any tips/suggestions/corrections.

 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($234.50 @ Vuugo) 
Motherboard: *ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($58.62 @ Vuugo) 
Memory: *Silicon Power 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($99.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($138.50 @ shopRBC) 
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB XC GAMING Video Card 
Case: Cougar MX330-X ATX Mid Tower Case  ($54.05 @ Vuugo) 
Power Supply: *Cooler Master MasterWatt 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($46.42 @ Amazon Canada) 
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN881ND PCIe x1 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter  ($18.03 @ iSanek) 
Total: $650.11
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-16 10:01 EDT-0400

 

I understand that this is well under budget, but I'm not sure what is best to improve to improve performance. Also, graphics cards seem to cost a fortune.

 

Thanks for the help!

Ben

If I would upgrade anything, and seeing as you have quite a lot of room left in your budget - not to mention there are 3060s and 3080s on the market again for less than MSRP, and waiting a couple of months should allow prices to return moreover. I would upgrade the CPU first. Aim for at least a Ryzen 5 3000, 5000 if you can manage to squeeze it in. Yuo'll want those high clock speeds, and Civ 6 is CPU intensive moreso than GPU intensive, I believe, so having those higher clocks and core counts will help. Your initial CPU pick was good, but I would aim for an improvement on that first.

 

https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-5-3600xt-ryzen-5-3rd-gen/p/N82E16819113653?Description=AMD ryzen 5 3000&cm_re=AMD_ryzen 5 3000-_-19-113-653-_-Product&quicklink=true

Here is a Ryzen 5 3600XT with a much better boost clock, and even a bit cheaper than your initial find. Start from there and look around a bit more, there's a 3600X as well that boosts as high as 4.4GHz 1-2 cores as opposed to the 3.9 you had previously. 

 

That has a TDP of 95W, and the 3060 has a TDP of 170W. A good rule of thumb I've always followed was add the TDP of your CPU and GPU and then double that. 95+170 = 265W, so honestly your 550W should be plenty.

 

Other than that, everything seems pretty good - unless you're looking for an upgrade path, in which case I would change the motherboard too allow something like more expansion slots or something like that, but that's ultimately up to you.

[curiousmind34]

Just now, AudacityTheEditor said:

 

 

https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-5-3600xt-ryzen-5-3rd-gen/p/N82E16819113653?Description=AMD ryzen 5 3000&cm_re=AMD_ryzen 5 3000-_-19-113-653-_-Product&quicklink=true

Here is a Ryzen 5 3600XT with a much better boost clock, and even a bit cheaper than your initial find. Start from there and look around a bit more, there's a 3600X as well that boosts as high as 4.4GHz 1-2 cores as opposed to the 3.9 you had previously. 

 

240 US, this list is in CAD. r5 3600 costs 265 CAD over there iirc

[Herman Mcpootis]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-10400 2.9 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($218.00 @ shopRBC) you can use the iGPU for now until stock arrives.
Motherboard: MSI MAG B460M BAZOOKA Micro ATX LGA1200 Motherboard  ($129.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Memory: Silicon Power XPOWER Turbine 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($99.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Storage: ADATA XPG GAMMIX S11 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($139.99 @ Amazon Canada) much faster for the same price.
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox NR400 (w/ODD) MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Power Supply: Antec NeoECO Gold ZEN 600 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  ($62.05 @ Vuugo) 
Wireless Network Adapter: EDUP EP-9636GS-BL PCIe x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax Wi-Fi Adapter  ($46.62 @ Amazon Canada) 
Total: $756.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-16 11:08 EDT-0400

[Asterix3]

On 7/16/2021 at 10:58 AM, AudacityTheEditor said:

If I would upgrade anything, and seeing as you have quite a lot of room left in your budget - not to mention there are 3060s and 3080s on the market again for less than MSRP, and waiting a couple of months should allow prices to return moreover. I would upgrade the CPU first. Aim for at least a Ryzen 5 3000, 5000 if you can manage to squeeze it in. Yuo'll want those high clock speeds, and Civ 6 is CPU intensive moreso than GPU intensive, I believe, so having those higher clocks and core counts will help. Your initial CPU pick was good, but I would aim for an improvement on that first.

 

https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-5-3600xt-ryzen-5-3rd-gen/p/N82E16819113653?Description=AMD ryzen 5 3000&cm_re=AMD_ryzen 5 3000-_-19-113-653-_-Product&quicklink=true

Here is a Ryzen 5 3600XT with a much better boost clock, and even a bit cheaper than your initial find. Start from there and look around a bit more, there's a 3600X as well that boosts as high as 4.4GHz 1-2 cores as opposed to the 3.9 you had previously. 

 

That has a TDP of 95W, and the 3060 has a TDP of 170W. A good rule of thumb I've always followed was add the TDP of your CPU and GPU and then double that. 95+170 = 265W, so honestly your 550W should be plenty.

 

Other than that, everything seems pretty good - unless you're looking for an upgrade path, in which case I would change the motherboard too allow something like more expansion slots or something like that, but that's ultimately up to you.

Thanks! Good point re Civ6 needing CPU over GPU. I'll look to spend some of the extra budget space on upgrading the CPU and possibly the motherboard.

[Asterix3]

Based on comments above I've modified my build. Any tweaks I should look to make?

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($349.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($219.00 @ Amazon Canada) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($99.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Storage: *ADATA SU655 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($59.99 @ Amazon Canada) 
Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB XC GAMING Video Card 
Case: Cougar MX330-X ATX Mid Tower Case  ($54.05 @ Vuugo) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($97.50 @ Vuugo) 
Total: $880.52
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-18 16:14 EDT-0400