Ryzen 5 APU Build (Need help)

DozySlumbers · February 22, 2018

Hello, I'm new to this forum and I need some help for building a budget Ryzen APU build, since at this point in time graphics card prices over here at my place are ridiculously expensive, that's why when the APU came out, it seemed to be a viable option for me to push on with my build. I've been saving up for some time now and I been through some research with the parts I would need, looking at reviews and so, but I would also like to know opinions of others.

Budget

I come from the Philippines so my currency will be in Philippine Peso (PHP) but for conversion rate to USD, at this moment it's 1$USD = 52PHP. My budget for the complete build would be around 35,000-40,000PHP or 673-769$USD, this budget includes the graphics card, and additional RAM as well for a later upgrade which I will discuss later on in the list.

Purpose/Aim

I will be using this build for content creation purposes, since I am an aspiring artist in the field of graphic design, and I am a student taking up a Multimedia Arts course. I will also use the build for gaming. For content creation/art use, I will be using Adobe software (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere, etc.) as well as some 3D modeling software such as Maya. Other software I will use may be small stuff that I use for digital drawing, such as PaintTool SAI, or Manga Studio. As for Gaming, I wish to be able to play games such as Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto V, Fallout 4, Mad Max, Battlefield 4 and 1, Assassin's Creed (starting from Unity and above my laptop couldn't handle it), Watchdogs 2, and probably some others I may not have mentioned. I would be okay with 1080p or 720p with medium or high settings with these games. Hopefully to run at least 30fps, above is better.

Monitor/Peripherals

I do not have enough to add a monitor to my list to buy, the only display I will have for this build is a Samsung TV (I forgot how big but it's not that big, 21 inch i guess?) and using the HDMI cable to output display. Yes I am aware, I am an aspiring graphic designer but don't have a proper screen for getting a wide range of colors which is necessary, but it will be possibly for a very later on upgrade, it may not be on the list but please feel free to suggest a good budget monitor for me that has the wide range of colors, if asked for what would be my budget for a good monitor later on, I'll say around 150$USD, I would pay a bit further more than that given a better option.

Peripherals on the other hand, I already have a cheap multimedia keyboard here, and I use a wireless A4Tech mouse. I might buy a better keyboard in a very later upgrade, possibly a mechanical keyboard one (possibly Cherry MX Blue switch ones) and a mouse as well, nothing too fancy for that perhaps since I'm not too much of a hardcore gamer, just something that's neat and gets the job done is good enough.

Why build this?

My laptop rocks a 3rd gen Intel i5-3337U at 1.80GHz, with an Intel HD Graphics 4000 integrated graphics, 6GB of RAM, and 750GB of HDD storage. My laptop is an Asus X550CA, and I've been using it for almost 3 or 4 years now, it already shared its ups and downs, such as well, the battery already failed on me twice and replaced it twice, and recently it died again (as in 0% battery level). While I could run most of the software I stated above, it eventually would slow down, especially when working on 3D models in maya. Games on the other hand, I often play the modern games at the lowest possible settings and still rocking only 20FPS and below, with the worst being Mad Max which was always on less than 10FPS at the very lowest settings. This laptop is not really for gaming or any heavy workload of Adobe software, that's why I decided to build my own desktop PC instead.

My List of PC Components:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2400G

Motherboard: MSI B350M Pro-VDH -OR- MSI B350M Mortar

Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 4GB DDR4 2400MHz CL14 -OR- G.Skill Aegis 4GB DDR4 2400MHz CL15 (single modules, x2 of these to make 8GB worth of memory)

Power Supply: EVGA 500BV 500watts 80 Bronze -OR- Corsair VS550 550watts 80 White -OR- ThermalTake Smart SE 530W 80+

Chassis: Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 3.1 -OR- Aerocool Quartz Red TG

Additional Case Fans: Cooler Master SickleFlow X 120mm 2000RPM -OR- NZXT FN 120RB 120mm

Future Upgrade List:

Graphics Card: Palit GTX 1050 StormX 2GB -OR- Palit GTX 1050Ti StormX 4GB -OR- Zotac GTX 1050 Mini 2GB GDDR5 -OR- Zotac GTX 1050Ti Mini 4GB GDDR5

HDD: 1TB/2TB WD Blue -OR- 1TB/2TB Seagate Barracuda (I already have a Samsung EVO 250GB SSD lying around here that's why this is for a future upgrade.)

RAM: Additional 2x4GB of RAM from my initial 8GB RAM, whopping a total of 16GB worth of RAM to populate all 4 DIMM Slots on my chosen motherboard.

The rest of these items are things I have not yet researched into much since they will be very much a very late upgrade.

-Liquid Cooling (Closed Loop)

-Monitor

-Keyboard

-Mouse

I would like to ask for comments and suggestions about this list and my overall build, or anything, recommendations or so. Thanks in advance!

Jurrunio · February 22, 2018

You will want a better PSU that lasts long. These units are only as good as their warranty periods.

Tier 3 or above.

DozySlumbers · February 22, 2018

36 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

You will want a better PSU that lasts long. These units are only as good as their warranty periods.

Tier 3 or above.

Whoa I noticed all of those in my list are on the bad side of these tiers. Based on this tier list of PSUs and from the local stores here at my place, I may probably opt for a Seasonic G-Series or S12G or Focus+ Gold, BeQuiet Straight Power 10, Corsair CSM ones, or FSP Aurum CM

Most of the ones higher than Tier 3 are a bit too much already, like 750watt or 1000watt PSUs, I think as far as I know, 500-550watt PSUs is enough for my build. Unless perhaps it needs a bit more of room for the upgrades.

Thanks for the heads up