Help w/ build

KaleEN · October 15, 2022

Budget: 600€ (euro)

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Visual Studio 2022,

Additional Info: I plan on using an AMD 4700s Desktop Kit w/ a RX 550 for the PC (as it already has ram and everything, no RGB stuff either, which is a plus for me)

Hi LTT community,

This is my first PC build so I am as new to this as can be :p

What wattage should my PSU be? And what is the "80+" rating?

Would the mITX board fit in a mATX case? mITX cases are way too expensive...

And finally, will this build even be any good? I just need a good coding PC which won't take up much desk space as I need to have a large notebook for college.

Thank you!

mariushm · October 15, 2022

mITX < mATX < ATX ... so a mITX motherboard will fit in a mATX or ATX case.

The wattage of the power supply doesn't really that much, as long as it's more than what the components need. A power supply only produces as much power as the components demand. This being said, you don't want to go overboard and get a 1000w power supply when your computer only needs 300w because you're just throwing money out the window.

You'll find that the sweetspot is around 500-650w - you don't save much more money by going lower wattage, and it's better to go for a higher quality model, instead of going for a less quality model that can do more watts.

80+ bronze, gold are all an indicator of how efficient the power supply is - 80% bronze means that power supply should be at least 80% efficient. 80 gold means the power supply should be at least 90% efficient.

Basically, if the components in your computer consume 100 watts, that means those 100 watts are at least 80% of what the power supply actually takes from your AC outlet... so the power supply would consume 100% x 100w / 80% = 125w

In theory, a gold efficiency power supply should be of slightly better quality, because you need more efficient more modern components to achieve that efficiency, BUT IT'S NOT A GUARANTEE.

You can't go just by the 80plus gold or bronze or whatever sticker, there can be perfectly shitty 80plus gold power supplies out there.

For reference that 4700s consumes maybe up to around 50-60w , the motherboard (onboard chipset, audio, network etc) maybe 10-15w, the RX 550 video card maybe 30-50w, ram would consume maybe 5w, a SSD consumes 2-3 watts ... so in the above configuration your system won't consume more than 150-200w, making even a 500w power supply more than enough. But, considering the small price difference between a 500w and a 650w, you may want to go for more in case you'll eventually upgrade the video card to a more powerful one.