Budget Ryzen 9 Build

[YoungBlade]

Budget (including currency): $500 excluding CPU, GPU, and storage

Country: United States

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Programming/development, gaming, and streaming of coding and gaming

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):

 

This build is for a friend of mine. The GPU was already acquired via the Newegg Shuffle ($380 XFX Speedster RX 6600XT) and myself and a third friend are subsidizing the CPU purchase. Storage drives are coming from the previous computer (1 TB Samsung 980 NVMe and 2 TB HDD).

 

The 3 of us took time yesterday to talk over options. The original plan had been to do a drop in upgrade to a 3900X on an A320 board with the plan to upgrade the board later, but another friend heard about that project and offered to chip in the money to go up to the 5950X, which required basically a new build to accommodate. And my friend is paying for the other parts.

 

Basically, just trying to make sure we didn't overlook anything. It's an interesting challenge to make a cheap Ryzen 9 build, but this is what we came up with. How did we do?

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MLvK68

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($749.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240L RGB 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($79.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI B550-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($124.95 @ Amazon)
Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($116.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P360A ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.98 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($64.98 @ Amazon)
Total: $1215.89 $466.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-10-20 08:11 EDT-0400

 

[da na]

You don't quite need a 5950x... a 5900x would be just fine and a 3900 would be fine as well. However if you think it's needed, sure go for it. 

[YoungBlade]

Just now, Mel0nMan said:

You don't quite need a 5950x... a 5900x would be just fine and a 3900 would be fine as well. However if you think it's needed, sure go for it. 

It was a free-to-him upgrade. The original plan as said was for me to subsidize his purchase of a 3900X for $399, but another friend of his offered to chip in the $350 extra for the 5950X.

[mr fobs]

Just now, YoungBlade said:

It was a free-to-him upgrade. The original plan as said was for me to subsidize his purchase of a 3900X for $399, but another friend of his offered to chip in the $350 extra for the 5950X.

The 5900x is better for gaming than the 5950x is, but if you need the extra cores, then go for it. You can find 3900x and 3950 x on sale sometimes at newegg and amazon.

 

EDIT: I see your reply now oops

[YoungBlade]

Just now, mr fobs said:

The 5900x is better for gaming than the 5950x is, but if you need the extra cores, then go for it. You can find 3900x and 3950 x on sale sometimes at newegg and amazon.

It was going to be a 3900X, but the upgrade was subsidized

[KKLawrence]

1 minute ago, YoungBlade said:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MLvK68

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($749.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240L RGB 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($79.99 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI B550-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($124.95 @ Amazon)
Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($116.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P360A ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.98 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($64.98 @ Amazon)
Total: $1215.89 $466.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-10-20 08:11 EDT-0400

 

I like the Motherboard, RAM and case! Very good choices there. With cooling, I'd personally go for the Arctic liquid freezer line, as they perform great and are inexpensive as well. And they outperform the Cooler Master ML series by a lot.

Also I'd aim at a better PSU, maybe something for a little more money, but I think it's fine.

Nice Idea and great job, altough it is probably one of the most unbalanced rigs I've ever seen haha

[Herman Mcpootis]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($0.00) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid LC240E RGB 76.4 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($67.41 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI MPG B550 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($144.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Neo Forza FAYE 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($99.99 @ Newegg Sellers) 
Case: Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: MSI MPG A-GF 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $472.37
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-10-20 09:29 EDT-0400

[YoungBlade]

2 hours ago, KKLawrence said:

I like the Motherboard, RAM and case! Very good choices there. With cooling, I'd personally go for the Arctic liquid freezer line, as they perform great and are inexpensive as well. And they outperform the Cooler Master ML series by a lot.

Also I'd aim at a better PSU, maybe something for a little more money, but I think it's fine.

Nice Idea and great job, altough it is probably one of the most unbalanced rigs I've ever seen haha

Well, the A320 board with bare PCB DDR4-2400 CL17 RAM and a random 500W not-even-80-Plus PSU being given a 3900X would probably have been even less balanced!

 

Do you have any recommendations for a PSU? It seems like most of the ones that are noticeably better are $100+.

 

Is this particular 240mm Liquid Freezer cooler the one you'd recommend? https://smile.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Liquid-Freezer-All-One/dp/B07WSDLRVP/

 

1 hour ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($0.00) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid LC240E RGB 76.4 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($67.41 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI MPG B550 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($144.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Neo Forza FAYE 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($99.99 @ Newegg Sellers) 
Case: Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: MSI MPG A-GF 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $472.37
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-10-20 09:29 EDT-0400

Is there any particular reason you recommend these parts instead? The motherboard, for example, was one I considered except that it costs more while also lacking 2.5G Ethernet.

[Herman Mcpootis]

1 hour ago, YoungBlade said:

Is there any particular reason you recommend these parts instead? The motherboard, for example, was one I considered except that it costs more while also lacking 2.5G Ethernet.

they both have the same gigabit lan controller so i'm not sure where you got 2.5G from, the PSU and motherboard are better built than the ones you picked.

[YoungBlade]

19 minutes ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

they both have the same gigabit lan controller so i'm not sure where you got 2.5G from, the PSU and motherboard are better built than the ones you picked.

The Amazon listing has it with 2.5G LAN: https://smile.amazon.com/MSI-B550-PRO-ProSeries-Motherboard/dp/B089CZSQB4/ref=psdc_1048424_t1_B08KJJLJXZ

[Herman Mcpootis]

11 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

The Amazon listing has it with 2.5G LAN: https://smile.amazon.com/MSI-B550-PRO-ProSeries-Motherboard/dp/B089CZSQB4/ref=psdc_1048424_t1_B08KJJLJXZ

The comparison chart says gigabit, and MSI's own page says gigabit.

[KKLawrence]

13 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

Well, the A320 board with bare PCB DDR4-2400 CL17 RAM and a random 500W not-even-80-Plus PSU being given a 3900X would probably have been even less balanced!

 

Do you have any recommendations for a PSU? It seems like most of the ones that are noticeably better are $100+.

 

Is this particular 240mm Liquid Freezer cooler the one you'd recommend? https://smile.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Liquid-Freezer-All-One/dp/B07WSDLRVP/

Oh yes, an A320 board with a 3900X - a wonderfully missbalanced combo haha!

 

For PSU's, look for a 750w unit on a discount, like this one: Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 750W 80+ Gold SLI/Crossfire Ready Ultra Quiet 140mm Hydraulic Bearing Smart Zero Fan Full Modular Power Supply 10 Year Warranty - PS-TPD-0750FNFAGU-1 - Newegg.com

 

Yeah you got the cooler! Thats the one that performs very good because of it's thickness. And it has very good fans. So not the biggest AIO but because of thickness and fans very good cooling capacity.