Critique My Build

[mgrinspan]

Hi all,

 

I'm about to buy the parts for my next build, going to be used for light gaming/browsing. The purpose of this thread is to find out if I'm doing anything horribly wrong, or buying something that's known to be problematic. Or really any last-second changes I can make for the better (with little to no added expense).

 

Here's the build, anything where the price is $0.00 is a part I already own.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($158.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - A320M-HDV Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory  ($67.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Case: DIYPC - DIY-F2-P MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (Purchased For $37.73) 
Power Supply: EVGA - BR 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $18.65) 
Other: Travelstar 5K1000 1TD 2.5" HDD (Purchased For $0.00)
Other: AMD - A6-9500 - to update BIOS 
Total: $323.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-13 23:23 EDT-0400

 

Thanks!

[Tom Cat]

A few Critiques for you sir or madam, 

First, I see a lot of off brand components, for example the HDD and the case. Get yourself a WD blue drive. A 1tb drive is only $38 dollars now. Next, I would invest in a better case like the H500 by NZXT. Also get a 1x8 stick of ram for future upgrades!

[brob]

Is the A9 already owned?

 

[Princess Luna]

Don't get A320 chipset motherboards, they are pure junk, if you absolutely must cheap up on it you still should get a b350.

 

It's not just about the overclocking, all A320 chipset based motherboards are completely junk for just 10ish dollars less than a b350, kills your upgrade path completely, in no way it's worth it.

[mgrinspan]

2 minutes ago, brob said:

Is the A9 already owned?

 

Assuming you mean A6? No, but AMD offers free loaner kits to upgrade your bios.

[mgrinspan]

6 minutes ago, Douglas The Duck said:

A few Critiques for you sir or madam, 

First, I see a lot of off brand components, for example the HDD and the case. Get yourself a WD blue drive. A 1tb drive is only $38 dollars now. Next, I would invest in a better case like the H500 by NZXT. Also get a 1x8 stick of ram for future upgrades!

I already own the drives, the case I got purely for the looks, and apparently Ryzen performs better with multi channel RAM. I don't have to worry about future upgrades as this PC isn't for me, the person who will own it will likely never need even 8.

[mgrinspan]

3 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Don't get A320 chipset motherboards, they are pure junk, if you absolutely must cheap up on it you still should get a b350.

 

It's not just about the overclocking, all A320 chipset based motherboards are completely junk for just 10ish dollars less than a b350, kills your upgrade path completely, in no way it's worth it.

I doubt the person who'll own this will ever need to upgrade it (maybe one day a video card), any other reason why the A320 is bad?

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, mgrinspan said:

I doubt the person who'll own this will ever need to upgrade it (maybe one day a video card), any other reason why the A320 is bad?

Every brand went full cheapening out on it, so it has the worse PCB, worse memory controller, worse VRM worse pretty every thing.

 

It is ridiculous how bad that board you picked and pretty much any A320 board is quality wise, you mentioned this is for someone, then all the more reason you shouldn't go with it, the last thing you want is getting a dead on arrival motherboard which is quite normal for these ones, or having it become an issue for you to troubleshoot with the person annoyed the PC won't work.

 

Not to mention it's nearly impossible to boot with memory at any thing higher than 2400mhz on these, so the 2800mhz memory is pointless, even if it's advertised to overclock memory despite being locked for CPU overclocking.

 

Certain cheapening outs are simply not worth it, the old sayin' 'cheap is expensive'.

 

This is at least my humble opinion, specially consider it's hardly more expensive for certain ans safety the system will function hardware wise for a good deal of time.

[mgrinspan]

4 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Every brand went full cheapening out on it, so it has the worse PCB, worse memory controller, worse VRM worse pretty every thing.

 

It is ridiculous how bad that board you picked and pretty much any A320 board is quality wise, you mentioned this is for someone, then all the more reason you shouldn't go with it, the last thing you want is getting a dead on arrival motherboard which is quite normal for these ones, or having it become an issue for you to troubleshoot with the person annoyed the PC won't work.

 

Not to mention it's nearly impossible to boot with memory at any thing higher than 2400mhz on these, so the 2800mhz memory is pointless, even if it's advertised to overclock memory despite being locked for CPU overclocking.

 

Certain cheapening outs are simply not worth it, the old sayin' 'cheap is expensive'.

 

This is at least my humble opinion, specially consider it's hardly more expensive for certain ans safety the system will function hardware wise for a good deal of time.

Are there any boards you recommend? I'm aiming for as cheap as possible since this PC is a gift.

[Jurrunio]

18 minutes ago, mgrinspan said:

Are there any boards you recommend? I'm aiming for as cheap as possible since this PC is a gift.

if anything, replace the CPU to a 2200G instead. 2400G is quite pricey for what it is and not very good value.

[mgrinspan]

8 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

if anything, replace the CPU to a 2200G instead. 2400G is quite pricey for what it is and not very good value.

I felt multithreading was worth the extra dollars (and Vega 11 vs 8 was a nice addition since there's no video card in this build). I know the 2200G is more bang for your buck, but I felt the 2400G was the minimum "bang" I needed in the PC.

[Jurrunio]

15 minutes ago, mgrinspan said:

I felt multithreading was worth the extra dollars (and Vega 11 vs 8 was a nice addition since there's no video card in this build). I know the 2200G is more bang for your buck, but I felt the 2400G was the minimum "bang" I needed in the PC.

that's ironic from someone opting for an A320 board instead of a B350 to say, I guess that's just me.

[mgrinspan]

38 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

that's ironic from someone opting for an A320 board instead of a B350 to say, I guess that's just me.

Sorry, I'm not very knowledgeable about motherboards, I just went for the cheapest compatible one I could find

[Jurrunio]

58 minutes ago, mgrinspan said:

Sorry, I'm not very knowledgeable about motherboards, I just went for the cheapest compatible one I could find

besides, why would you (or the one receiving the system) need 8 threads? 4 cores on the 2200g is pretty strong already, can handle a GTX 1060 as upgrade without much bottlenecks

[mgrinspan]

26 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

besides, why would you (or the one receiving the system) need 8 threads? 4 cores on the 2200g is pretty strong already, can handle a GTX 1060 as upgrade without much bottlenecks

I don't expect that this PC will be upgraded for a while (or ever), so I figure the extra threads should help it hold up in 10 years

[VEXICUS]

4 hours ago, mgrinspan said:

Hi all,

 

I'm about to buy the parts for my next build, going to be used for light gaming/browsing. The purpose of this thread is to find out if I'm doing anything horribly wrong, or buying something that's known to be problematic. Or really any last-second changes I can make for the better (with little to no added expense).

 

Here's the build, anything where the price is $0.00 is a part I already own.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($158.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - A320M-HDV Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory  ($67.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Case: DIYPC - DIY-F2-P MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (Purchased For $37.73) 
Power Supply: EVGA - BR 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $18.65) 
Other: Travelstar 5K1000 1TD 2.5" HDD (Purchased For $0.00)
Other: AMD - A6-9500 - to update BIOS 
Total: $323.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-13 23:23 EDT-0400

 

Thanks!

Build this instead....

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($98.79 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($69.71 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($70.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Case: DIYPC - DIY-F2-P MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (Purchased For $37.73) 
Power Supply: EVGA - BR 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $18.65) 
Other: Travelstar 5K1000 1TD 2.5" HDD (Purchased For $0.00)
Other: AMD - A6-9500 - to update BIOS 
Total: $295.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-14 04:17 EDT-0400

[mgrinspan]

@Jurrunio @vexicus365

 

Thank you for your suggestions, I've folded and will get a 2200G.

[mgrinspan]

"Final" build looks like this

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($98.79 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($69.89 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($70.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Case: DIYPC - DIY-F2-P MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (Purchased For $37.73) 
Power Supply: EVGA - BR 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $18.65) 
Other: Travelstar 5K1000 1TD 2.5" HDD (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $296.04
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-14 19:16 EDT-0400

[VEXICUS]

6 hours ago, mgrinspan said:

"Final" build looks like this

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($98.79 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($69.89 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($70.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Case: DIYPC - DIY-F2-P MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (Purchased For $37.73) 
Power Supply: EVGA - BR 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $18.65) 
Other: Travelstar 5K1000 1TD 2.5" HDD (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $296.04
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-14 19:16 EDT-0400

No, don't get that psu. It's pretty bad in quality.

Also the ASRock b450 pro 4 is a way better mobo

[MandoPanda]

Slight change.

 

Quote

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($158.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI - B450M PRO-VDH Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory  ($67.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00)
Case: DIYPC - DIY-F2-P MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (Purchased For $37.73)
Power Supply: EVGA - BR 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $18.65)
Other: Travelstar 5K1000 1TD 2.5" HDD (Purchased For $0.00)
Other: AMD - A6-9500 - to update BIOS
Total: $353.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-15 02:46 EDT-0400

 

[mgrinspan]

@vexicus365 @MandoPanda

 

What's better about those motherboards compared to the one currently in the build? 

(https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hpRzK8/gigabyte-b450m-ds3h-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-b450m-ds3h)

 

They seem to compare identically just looking at specs (with the exception of MSI's B450M PRO-VDH supporting 3466MHz), but they're all $10 more expensive. I know $10 isn't much, but I have a budget that I can't go over which is already pushed to the limit.

[MandoPanda]

8 hours ago, mgrinspan said:

-snip-

Gigabyte has a bad rep for poor power delivery. But since you will not be doing any overclocking, you should not have a problem. Live and die by the reviews. I perfer MSI, some people perfer ASrock. If you do go with the 2200g I reccomend you overclock. In that case, you should not go with the Gigabyte.

 

Note: my build has a 2400g hence the slightly higher price. What is your budget?

[mgrinspan]

13 hours ago, MandoPanda said:

Gigabyte has a bad rep for poor power delivery. But since you will not be doing any overclocking, you should not have a problem. Live and die by the reviews. I perfer MSI, some people perfer ASrock. If you do go with the 2200g I reccomend you overclock. In that case, you should not go with the Gigabyte.

 

Note: my build has a 2400g hence the slightly higher price. What is your budget?

I'm not sure if overclocking will be necessary yet, I'm guessing not. I'll probably just turn on XMP and call it a day. The budget is $310. I originally had the 2400G on the list but between the budget and people (pretty much anyone I asked) telling me it wasn't worth it I switched to the 2200G.

 

Build looks like this;

Spoiler

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  (Purchased For $105.56) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (Purchased For $74.63) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (Purchased For $75.68) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Case: DIYPC - DIY-F2-P MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (Purchased For $37.73) 
Power Supply: EVGA - BR 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $18.65) 
Other: Generic - 3 Pin Splitter Cable (for fans) (Purchased For $0.51)
Total: $312.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-16 09:38 EDT-0400

Note that everything is purchased but I can still return things if necessary, nothing is opened yet.

[mgrinspan]

@MandoPanda

 

Just checked PCPartPicker again and looks like NewEgg has the mobo you suggested for (slightly) cheaper than the one I got. So I've ordered that and will return the other one to Amazon. Thanks!