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Purple Build For a Friend; Feat. R5 2400G

TVwazhere

So my friend came to me because her laptop wasnt really doing it for her, and she wanted something slightly more powerful to run older games on but that didnt break the bank. So we came up with this $550 tower only cost PC

 

AMD R5 2400g (left currently at stock speeds)

Stock cooler

Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3 mATX motherboard

Corsair Vengeance LPS 8GB DDR4 3000mhz Ram (full speed achieved)

Crucial MX500 240GB SSD

Corsair CX450m PSU

Fractal Design Define Mini C TG

Bitfenix Alchemy Purple LED strip (the only company making these purple I guess) 

20180325_193753.thumb.jpg.181e9657d07286a8a7c7b10c1a1d3eda.jpg

This photo could probably have been cropped. Oh well. Sue me!

 

Prices were bought at opportune times (the case and PSU for example were on sale for $55 and $30 respectively) and I dont have a price breakdown since I dont actually recall the exact day I had her purchase everything. The motherboard was actually purchased from Micro-center by @Densetsu and had the BIOS flashed using a Ryzen 7 and discrete GPU, since this board does not come with the updated BIOS installed. NOTE if you're using an 2200G or 2400G and you buy a B350 motherboard you are likely going to have to have to either have the retailer you buy it from (best buy or FRY's for example) flash the Bios for you. If you're buying online, get an AMD boot kit from AMD to get the system working with your new APU. Or, just know someone who has spare Ryzen CPU's lying around and have him do it ;D 

 

We are working on trying to see if we can get mass storage from her father who has a bunch of older hard drives he's not using. If not we will get something for a bit more flexibility fir storing files.

 

I actually had my friend do a good majority of the installations, for example the CPU and RAM, but I took care of cable management and wiring and installation of the motherboard into the case. This way she can say she did the more important portions to make sure the system POSTed. I snuck the Bitfenix LED strip in without her really noticing because she was busy going on about people we know from high school.

20180325_194235.thumb.jpg.a31cdcbc2b97e8d096d84921a8f8ed58.jpg20180325_195828.thumb.jpg.1ddf11f7ca05ea0fa07bf1680b01e3da.jpg

 

Notes about the build I took exception to:

  • The AMD Stock cooler is awesome. I've known this from friends and reviewers, as well as seeing pictures and benchmarks, but I didnt have a real appreciation for how good this stock cooler is over the intel ones provided. It's so much beefier and the 92mm fans doesnt look like it's made out of paper. It idled around 1500RPM in the BIOS and I couldnt even hear it. It's one thing to be told how good it is but it's another to experience it in person

20180325_194625.thumb.jpg.2945d651db53e2b8f8bc9992cf877024.jpg

  • I didnt OC because A, haven't much experience with OCing let alone on Ryzen and B, it was getting late and I'd rather not hastily throw settings in and have the system be unstable for a week. I know the R5 2400 G should be able to hit 3.8ghz no problem, but it was getting late and I have work in the morning. Rather focus on it when I have more time.
  • The Bitfenix cable strip is.... Less impressive than the Cablemod variation. I used their Wide beam strips on the Blue Build Post Here which were A, available in longer sizes (60cm vs 30) and were brighter. Noticeably so. The previous build I used two 60cm strips to run almost all the way around the perimeter of the S340, and had to buy a few separate pieces to allow the strips to Dim. This time the LED's werent as bright, so while that wasnt necessary, it gives me more appreciation for the WideBeams. The only other thing to directly compare is the fact that Bitfenix is still using a molex connector instead of a SATA power connector, which means I had to use an entire Molex ribbon of cables just to power one device. Since this is a modular PSU, it would have been nice to omit that and keep the cable clutter down further. Other than those minor things, the LED strip was otherwise solid; it's the standard 4 pin design so it will work with any 4 pin connector you plug it into, it has a sticky backing thats magnetic and holds really well, and the cables are long enough to route through the case to the back but not too long where I had more than I knew what to do with, though, this being a semi-small mATX case, that doesnt bode well for anyone using a larger mid tower or full tower case. Plus it was the only one that I could find that was purple and actually designed for this application rather than general use LED's from amazon.
  • I finally got to work with a Fractal Design case....

20180325_204226.thumb.jpg.98e9051192541cd5ea3289e6cafc25d2.jpg20180325_213824.thumb.jpg.757e2eee08e25414eea9bfd732cdc4e2.jpg

  • and I Fucking love it!!!   These cases are everything I wanted them to be. The thumb screws feel nice, all the thumbs screws are captive where appropriate, the PSU bracket is easy to use, the option between closed top and dust filters are easy to change out, the PSU filter from the front is ah-mazing, the chamfer along the PSU basement (the angle cut) looks really good and stands out against more very sharp filleted edged PSU basements of other cases, the included GP-12 fans are great case fans, there's foam on all panels including vibration foam edges on the TG panel, and of course, LEGENDARY CABLE MANAGEMENT. People have said in the past "Wow Tom You do such a good job with cable management" Yeah well, it's easy when your case does 95% of the work for you and you put a bit of effort into the last 5%. The S340 is good, But I think the Fractal approach beats the S340's design mostly due to velcro straps being more effective than the plastic clips. They're otherwise very similar and experience was the same when finding good cable paths. There are three (very minor) things that I noted as weakness in my eyes, but these are 100% opinion and to others these types of things might not matter. The first that I noticed was that the Stand offs are not pre installed. Fractal does give you all the ones you need and a nice adapter to screw them in, but this is the first case where I've installed them myself. Both of the previous cases I worked in were ATX, and so I dont know if it''s common for mATX cases to not install their stand offs or if this is a Fractal Design choice. I would have assumed everyone using this case would put in a mATX board, maybe mITX (which IIRC uses the same top left, top middle and middle left standoffs anyways). Dislike #2 and 3 both have to do with the PSU shroud, and both of these come from my experience with the S340. The first being that it has no SSD mounts on it to show off your storage. I do really like the version that has the SSD facing the front of the PSU rather than the top. I think that looks really slick and wish it was on more cases. Top mounts are good too, so I wouldnt have been too upset. But it's just nice to be able to show off the storage you have in your system since HDD's are ugly, and no one will see SSD's behind the mobo tray. This mounting method is very effective and space efficient, and for people who DONT want to show off their SSD's it can be convenient for cable management especially. The last is irrelevant to this build today, but there's no PCI-E power hole for GPU's. You can of course, use the lower vertical grommet on the motherboard tray or feed it through the removable PSU basement cover used for installing larger rads in the front (which actually would work pretty well on this case considering most GPU's will have the power connector hovering right above where that PCI-E Power opening would be anyways, unlike longer cases like the Enthoo Pro M TG which has the opening further away from where that connector would be, hence why they added a one of these openings) Again, these are very opinionated and had no real impacts on the build overall.

20180325_214609.thumb.jpg.0b2b10a6f48b043f1e19a827ff1b355e.jpg20180325_213718.thumb.jpg.7e011a5d1ccd4433520531342505effb.jpg

 

Conclusion:

 

Bad-ass. 10/10 Would recommend.

 

"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"- @Princess Luna

Make sure to Quote posts or tag the person with @[username] so they know you responded to them!

 RGB Build Post 2019 --- Rainbow 🦆 2020 --- Velka 5 V2.0 Build 2021

Purple Build Post ---  Blue Build Post --- Blue Build Post 2018 --- Project ITNOS

CPU i7-4790k    Motherboard Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI    RAM G.Skill Sniper DDR3 1866mhz    GPU EVGA GTX1080Ti FTW3    Case Corsair 380T   

Storage Samsung EVO 250GB, Samsung EVO 1TB, WD Black 3TB, WD Black 5TB    PSU Corsair CX750M    Cooling Cryorig H7 with NF-A12x25

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Aww yeah! #CaseDaddy unplebbing the plebs. One build at a time.

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For those of us who love this sound

"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"- @Princess Luna

Make sure to Quote posts or tag the person with @[username] so they know you responded to them!

 RGB Build Post 2019 --- Rainbow 🦆 2020 --- Velka 5 V2.0 Build 2021

Purple Build Post ---  Blue Build Post --- Blue Build Post 2018 --- Project ITNOS

CPU i7-4790k    Motherboard Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI    RAM G.Skill Sniper DDR3 1866mhz    GPU EVGA GTX1080Ti FTW3    Case Corsair 380T   

Storage Samsung EVO 250GB, Samsung EVO 1TB, WD Black 3TB, WD Black 5TB    PSU Corsair CX750M    Cooling Cryorig H7 with NF-A12x25

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  • 2 months later...

Does it need updating the BIOS after installing Windows? Because PC Part Picker thinks that it needs updating.

There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

 

 

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You could just get a single SATA to molex 4 pin lead to save having a whole molex lead in the build, they are reasonably cheap from Amazon and such.

Please quote my post, or put @paddy-stone if you want me to respond to you.

Spoiler
  • PCs:- 
  • Main PC build  https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/2K6Q7X
  • ASUS x53e  - i7 2670QM / Sony BD writer x8 / Win 10, Elemetary OS, Ubuntu/ Samsung 830 SSD
  • Lenovo G50 - 8Gb RAM - Samsung 860 Evo 250GB SSD - DVD writer
  •  
  • Displays:-
  • Philips 55 OLED 754 model
  • Panasonic 55" 4k TV
  • LG 29" Ultrawide
  • Philips 24" 1080p monitor as backup
  •  
  • Storage/NAS/Servers:-
  • ESXI/test build  https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/4wyR9G
  • Main Server https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/3Qftyk
  • Backup server - HP Proliant Gen 8 4 bay NAS running FreeNAS ZFS striped 3x3TiB WD reds
  • HP ProLiant G6 Server SE316M1 Twin Hex Core Intel Xeon E5645 2.40GHz 48GB RAM
  •  
  • Gaming/Tablets etc:-
  • Xbox One S 500GB + 2TB HDD
  • PS4
  • Nvidia Shield TV
  • Xiaomi/Pocafone F2 pro 8GB/256GB
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 4

 

  • Unused Hardware currently :-
  • 4670K MSI mobo 16GB ram
  • i7 6700K  b250 mobo
  • Zotac GTX 1060 6GB Amp! edition
  • Zotac GTX 1050 mini

 

 

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On 6/10/2018 at 10:34 PM, captain_to_fire said:

Does it need updating the BIOS after installing Windows? Because PC Part Picker thinks that it needs updating.

PCPartPicker is technically correct. Some boards have the BIOS update already (AsRock notably advertised "ryzen 2000" compatibility) but this isnt a guarantee. It might now be more common to find since March when this build was completed but I'm not sure.@Densetsu was the gentleman who did the BIOS update for me (I found a good deal a micro center in NY and he bought it in store and sent it up to me after he flashed it) It depends on the exact motherboard I believe, but I do not think you need to install Windows to upgrade the BIOS. Just a CPU that will allow the board to POST. Of course, if you wait for the B450 boards you wont even have to worry about this issue at all.

"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"- @Princess Luna

Make sure to Quote posts or tag the person with @[username] so they know you responded to them!

 RGB Build Post 2019 --- Rainbow 🦆 2020 --- Velka 5 V2.0 Build 2021

Purple Build Post ---  Blue Build Post --- Blue Build Post 2018 --- Project ITNOS

CPU i7-4790k    Motherboard Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI    RAM G.Skill Sniper DDR3 1866mhz    GPU EVGA GTX1080Ti FTW3    Case Corsair 380T   

Storage Samsung EVO 250GB, Samsung EVO 1TB, WD Black 3TB, WD Black 5TB    PSU Corsair CX750M    Cooling Cryorig H7 with NF-A12x25

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5 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

You could just get a single SATA to molex 4 pin lead to save having a whole molex lead in the build, they are reasonably cheap from Amazon and such.

True, but in all honesty, having the extra ribbon wasnt too bad. PSU basements are so nice for that! :) I just really dislike molex in general, if it was my personal build I  probably would have done just that!

"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"- @Princess Luna

Make sure to Quote posts or tag the person with @[username] so they know you responded to them!

 RGB Build Post 2019 --- Rainbow 🦆 2020 --- Velka 5 V2.0 Build 2021

Purple Build Post ---  Blue Build Post --- Blue Build Post 2018 --- Project ITNOS

CPU i7-4790k    Motherboard Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI    RAM G.Skill Sniper DDR3 1866mhz    GPU EVGA GTX1080Ti FTW3    Case Corsair 380T   

Storage Samsung EVO 250GB, Samsung EVO 1TB, WD Black 3TB, WD Black 5TB    PSU Corsair CX750M    Cooling Cryorig H7 with NF-A12x25

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4 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

PCPartPicker is technically correct. Some boards have the BIOS update already (AsRock notably advertised "ryzen 20009" compatibility) but this isnt a guarantee. It might now be more common to find since March when this build was completed but I'm not sure.@Densetsu was the gentleman who did the BIOS update for me (I found a good deal a micro center in NY and he bought it in store and sent it up to me after he flashed it) It depends on the exact motherboard I believe, but I do not think you need to install Windows to upgrade the BIOS. Just a CPU that will allow the board to POST. Of course, if you wait for the B450 boards you wont even have to worry about this issue at all.

Thanks. Also about that random BSOD your friend is experiencing, is it due to GPU drivers?

There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

 

 

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1 minute ago, captain_to_fire said:

Thanks. Also about that random BSOD your friend is experiencing, is it due to GPU drivers?

The initial research I have done seems to be related to AMD drivers, but a lot of the errors were for dedicated GPU's not integrated. I'm not sure if it's significantly different from  one to the other, but thats what the error brought up there. I know I updated the drivers before I left... Maybe they were just unstable? I'm not sure. I usually suck when it comes to troubleshooting software and firmware :P I'll let you know if I come across anything abnormal or if it just was a drivers update

"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"- @Princess Luna

Make sure to Quote posts or tag the person with @[username] so they know you responded to them!

 RGB Build Post 2019 --- Rainbow 🦆 2020 --- Velka 5 V2.0 Build 2021

Purple Build Post ---  Blue Build Post --- Blue Build Post 2018 --- Project ITNOS

CPU i7-4790k    Motherboard Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI    RAM G.Skill Sniper DDR3 1866mhz    GPU EVGA GTX1080Ti FTW3    Case Corsair 380T   

Storage Samsung EVO 250GB, Samsung EVO 1TB, WD Black 3TB, WD Black 5TB    PSU Corsair CX750M    Cooling Cryorig H7 with NF-A12x25

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5 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

The initial research I have done seems to be related to AMD drivers, but a lot of the errors were for dedicated GPU's not integrated. I'm not sure if it's significantly different from  one to the other, but thats what the error brought up there. I know I updated the drivers before I left... Maybe they were just unstable? I'm not sure. I usually suck when it comes to troubleshooting software and firmware :P I'll let you know if I come across anything abnormal or if it just was a drivers update

Thank you very much

There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

 

 

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1 hour ago, TVwazhere said:

True, but in all honesty, having the extra ribbon wasnt too bad. PSU basements are so nice for that! :) I just really dislike molex in general, if it was my personal build I  probably would have done just that!

Yeah, me too with the hate for molex connectors, never did like them, especially when the pins come loose when unplugging sometimes... and they can be a real bitch to get apart sometimes too, I hate them with a passion and won't have them in any of my personal PC builds. At least they are getting much rarer nowadays as a requirement, some fan hubs and such still use them, but I just find an alternative that has SATA power instead.. I am also a fan of some  SATA splitter cables.( eg 1 to 4 ) to help clean up a build. Recently used one in my main PC changeover to a fractal 804 for my 4x4TB HDDs, made it a much cleaner look and allowed me enough leeway to take the HDDs out without unplugging cables and stuff.

5b1fe3fae65ca_Inked2018-06-0716_19.59_LI.thumb.jpg.724f5585909ef1e4d1f2533492010f5a.jpg5b1fe3ffe35e6_2018-06-0716_19_32.thumb.jpg.071a6a53b4670e3f81c3d14ae06c15b9.jpg

 

I'm annoyed that I didn't have a spare decent 120mm for the exhaust, so had to use that one instead. Also annoying that the exhaust for the main chamber is only 120mm fitting as I have quite a few 140mm fans I could have used.

The Inwinn Polaris 120mm fans on the front are really nice though and give it a lovely touch as well as nice cooling. I know the cooling is waaay overkill, but this sits in an alcove/media centre and having more cooling like this allows it to be quieter cooling also.

Please quote my post, or put @paddy-stone if you want me to respond to you.

Spoiler
  • PCs:- 
  • Main PC build  https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/2K6Q7X
  • ASUS x53e  - i7 2670QM / Sony BD writer x8 / Win 10, Elemetary OS, Ubuntu/ Samsung 830 SSD
  • Lenovo G50 - 8Gb RAM - Samsung 860 Evo 250GB SSD - DVD writer
  •  
  • Displays:-
  • Philips 55 OLED 754 model
  • Panasonic 55" 4k TV
  • LG 29" Ultrawide
  • Philips 24" 1080p monitor as backup
  •  
  • Storage/NAS/Servers:-
  • ESXI/test build  https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/4wyR9G
  • Main Server https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/3Qftyk
  • Backup server - HP Proliant Gen 8 4 bay NAS running FreeNAS ZFS striped 3x3TiB WD reds
  • HP ProLiant G6 Server SE316M1 Twin Hex Core Intel Xeon E5645 2.40GHz 48GB RAM
  •  
  • Gaming/Tablets etc:-
  • Xbox One S 500GB + 2TB HDD
  • PS4
  • Nvidia Shield TV
  • Xiaomi/Pocafone F2 pro 8GB/256GB
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 4

 

  • Unused Hardware currently :-
  • 4670K MSI mobo 16GB ram
  • i7 6700K  b250 mobo
  • Zotac GTX 1060 6GB Amp! edition
  • Zotac GTX 1050 mini

 

 

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Actually scratch that about the regret for the fan, I just remembered after looking at the pics that I DID find a 120mm maglev fan from corsair, lol :D

 

Please quote my post, or put @paddy-stone if you want me to respond to you.

Spoiler
  • PCs:- 
  • Main PC build  https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/2K6Q7X
  • ASUS x53e  - i7 2670QM / Sony BD writer x8 / Win 10, Elemetary OS, Ubuntu/ Samsung 830 SSD
  • Lenovo G50 - 8Gb RAM - Samsung 860 Evo 250GB SSD - DVD writer
  •  
  • Displays:-
  • Philips 55 OLED 754 model
  • Panasonic 55" 4k TV
  • LG 29" Ultrawide
  • Philips 24" 1080p monitor as backup
  •  
  • Storage/NAS/Servers:-
  • ESXI/test build  https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/4wyR9G
  • Main Server https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/3Qftyk
  • Backup server - HP Proliant Gen 8 4 bay NAS running FreeNAS ZFS striped 3x3TiB WD reds
  • HP ProLiant G6 Server SE316M1 Twin Hex Core Intel Xeon E5645 2.40GHz 48GB RAM
  •  
  • Gaming/Tablets etc:-
  • Xbox One S 500GB + 2TB HDD
  • PS4
  • Nvidia Shield TV
  • Xiaomi/Pocafone F2 pro 8GB/256GB
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 4

 

  • Unused Hardware currently :-
  • 4670K MSI mobo 16GB ram
  • i7 6700K  b250 mobo
  • Zotac GTX 1060 6GB Amp! edition
  • Zotac GTX 1050 mini

 

 

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