Ryzen 5 gaming build

[Melonize]

Hello people,

I bring questions and I am open for suggestions on this build intended for a family member on Christmas (a long way ahead but I'd rather know now than later):

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 1400 (I've also considered the 1500X.)
• 1 x ASRock AB350M Pro4 (Doesn't really follow the modest aesthetic but its one of the ones that were suggested in a couple of posts.)
• 1 x 2x8GB Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black (Single/Dual Channel) (Don't know why the webpage says "for Skylake" in the product title, I hope it works for Ryzen.)
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti D5 4GB
• 1 x Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 120 (Almost forgot to include it.)
• 1 x 240GB WD Green SSD (I'm not sure how good this SSD is; I just chose it because its WD. I might end up going for a 120GB SSD and maybe of a different brand.)
• 1 x 1TB WD Blue HDD
• 1 x Corsair CX500M 80+ Bronze (I already have one from a previous build. Also, the "M" version is no longer available on the website i'm using.)

I'll answer some of the recommended questions:

1. Budget and location: Everything needs to be purchased in the UK. I don't mind buying components from different stores like Amazon UK, Overclockers UK etc. but I want to reduce the number of deliveries and number P&P charges, so I would prefer to purchase most the stuff from Scan which is close enough that I can collect from store. Now onto the budget, I would like to try and keep the budget to £800 but I don't mind going slightly over or under; if the budget was wildly over £800 then I would have to consult with the other people that are also paying. In addition, we plan to purchase the parts in late November/early December.
2. Aim: This build is going to be a gaming PC with the following attributes:
   1. Modest aesthetic - No racing stripes and flashing RGB LED strip lights or fans, sorry.
   2. Long life with overclocking capabilities on the CPU - I think I got the overclocking right with the choice of CPU and motherboard.
   3. Mini-tower with support for mATX form factor and 5.25" drive bay - the giftee has a marital partner for which they share a room, so they may be expected to move their PC from bedroom to lounge in the evening and vice versa in the morning. Also, the giftee will be playing some old titles which may not have digital versions (apart from pirated copies), hence the 5.25" external drive bay being required.
   4. Be able to support quite a few newer, more demanding titles (as well as old titles) - I'm really not sure what sort of game they might play but one of these is going to be a space sim game for which I cannot mention its name (lest we lose the element of surprise) in which the CPU and GPU mentioned above will sit between minimum settings and recommended setting on Steam according to what I could extrapolate from Passmark. For additional clues, this title has some history in the space sim genre, is not in early access and has multiple DLC (for which we probably won't purchase).
3. Monitors: For the moment, we will give only one monitor. I would prefer to buy a 1920x1080 monitor for the giftee but we may end up hand-me-downing a 1366x768 Samsung monitor (the giftee's resolution standards are pretty low anyways) as we are currently pushing the budget.
4. Peripherals: Same thing as the monitors, I would prefer to buy a better mouse and keyboard but we may end up hand-me-downing a keyboard and buying a cheap mouse. I would like to install Windows 7 but I'm struggling to find reliable sellers on Amazon without having to pay a fortune, so I won't mind giving into Windows 8.1 (the giftee is already familiar with this version) or Windows 10. Also, we have headphones sorted already.

The questions I wish to ask:

1. If you didn't notice, the case on the list above has no external 5.25" drive bay (unless I'm wrong); I'm struggling to find a good one that fits the parameters and I need some suggestions.
2. For the power supply, has there been many cases of faultiness leading to a fire hazard in the Corsair CXM models?  I had some suspicion that there was some severe risk of fire in the CXM models but after checking online there is nothing I could find explicitly stating such a thing except that some parts of the CXM models used cheaper brands than the other Corsair models, but I just want to make sure. Update: I've written these questions before including the component list and noticed that CX500M is no longer on the website I'm using but the CX500 is; hope this doesn't mean anything.
3. How likely is the water cooler above going to leak? One of the people paying had heard many reports of leaking water cooling solutions (in general) ruining the motherboard and other components, I said that it was most likely a custom solution not assembled properly and that the it would be very unlikely that good AIO water cooler would leak... but I have been wrong.
4. I'm still persistent on getting a good value-for-money mouse and keyboard, but it still needs to follow the modest aesthetic (so no mice with big, moody men engulfed in flames printed on the front) and that is where I'm struggling since how can you not get a mouse with big burly men on the front? No, I'm joking. I haven't tried many peripherals, so I haven't got much experience on what is a good peripheral and what is a bad peripheral bar knowing that some brands are more akin to having good peripherals than other brands. Similar is true for monitors, but the pricing seems a bit more ridiculous to me.

If you have anything extra to say about some of the items mentioned above or want to point out a fatal flaw in my master plan then go ahead.

 

Many thanks.

[PCGuy_5960]

1 minute ago, Melonize said:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 1400 (I've also considered the 1500X.)

Get a Ryzen 5 1600, it costs a bite more than the 1500X, but it's quite a bit better

2 minutes ago, Melonize said:

• 1 x 2x8GB Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black (Single/Dual Channel) (Don't know why the webpage says "for Skylake" in the product title, I hope it works for Ryzen.)

NOOOOO! Get 3000MHz DDR4, it makes a huge difference with Ryzen

[KuJoe]

3 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Get a Ryzen 5 1600, it costs a bite more than the 1500X, but it's quite a bit better

There are no current games out there that will take advantage of more than 4 cores, the 1500X is the best option if the only purpose for the PC is gaming. My 1500X performs the exact same in terms of FPS as my 1700 does.

Edited July 16, 2017 by KuJoe
Quote didn't show up.

[Damascus]

I would drop the liquid cooler and get a 1600 instead, the stock cooler is good enough to overclock quite well and the all around better CPU is worth it.

[PCGuy_5960]

1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

There are no current games out there that will take advantage of more than 4 cores, the 1500X is the best option if the only purpose for the PC is gaming. My 1500X performs the exact same in terms of FPS as my 1700 does.

Yeah, but it cost only $30 more and you get 2 more cores and 4 more threads, IMO it's worth it

[KuJoe]

1 minute ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Yeah, but it cost only $30 more and you get 2 more cores and 4 more threads, IMO it's worth it

Worth it for what? Spending an extra $30 for no improvement in performance is not worth it IMO. If the PC is only going to be used for gaming, take that $30 and spend it on dinner and you'll get more out of that dinner than you will out of a 1600.

[stealth80]

7 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

There are no current games out there that will take advantage of more than 4 cores, the 1500X is the best option if the only purpose for the PC is gaming. My 1500X performs the exact same in terms of FPS as my 1700 does.

there actually is let me find the thread I did quite a while back

 

 

[Bananasplit_00]

5 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

There are no current games out there that will take advantage of more than 4 cores, the 1500X is the best option if the only purpose for the PC is gaming. My 1500X performs the exact same in terms of FPS as my 1700 does.

there are quite a few that do. hell even CS:GO does! almost all stratigy games and quite a few sims do too. its true that most games are optimised for quadcores but that dosent mean that there are NO games that arent.

 

2: dont get the CX500, its pretty shit. the CX450M is a MUCH better buy.

3: no clue but honestly get an air cooler instead. 120mm AIOs dont really make much sense in most cases and if you get the R5 1600 over the 1500x then you get a quite good cooler with it already.

4: i know jack shit about this stuff lol.

[Brooksie359]

7 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

Worth it for what? Spending an extra $30 for no improvement in performance is not worth it IMO. If the PC is only going to be used for gaming, take that $30 and spend it on dinner and you'll get more out of that dinner than you will out of a 1600.

That simply not true anymore. Dx 12 scales to 6 cores and give good performance increase from 4 to 6 core cpus. As far as trends go I would imagine more and more games will find benefits from 6 core cpus meaning it will be worth it to get the 1600.

[KuJoe]

14 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

there actually is let me find the thread I did quite a while back

 

 

I'm glad things have changed so much since I researched this a few months back.

[stealth80]

8 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

I'm glad things have changed so much since I researched this a few months back.

it aint all games for sure, but improvements are there