£700 spec check please...and a few questions

Pipe & Slippers

Pipe & Slippers

Pipe & Slippers

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Joined
4 Jan 2004
Posts
1,414
Location
Finally, Swindon
I've recommended for my son:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600
MSI B450M Mortar Max (mATX)
Patriot Viper Steel 3600MHz (28800) 2 x 8Gb
Zotac 1660 Super
Gigabyte 480Gb SSD
Corsair CV Series CV 650
Kolink Sanctuary mATX Cube case

That lot totals £710.85

He can have an old monitor of mine (1920 x 1200) + keyboard and mouse, and get a 1TB hard drive from his brother, and plays FPS and flight sim
He can get a Windows key online

Can I have your thoughts on....
  • Is this a good spec for the money
  • Ideally he'd get a MB with wifi, but it seems a bit overly expensive to get a board with this functionality. I have a dongle he could use
  • Can't help but feel the PSU is a bit cheap
  • To save fannying around with cables, I'd prefer to get an M2 NVMe jobby in place of the SSD above - any recommendations ?
  • I heard that Ryzen loves fast RAM, hence the 3600 spec - is that necessary?
  • Case is up for grabs - he wants something smallish
  • I keep reading about updating MB bios to accept the newer cpu's - can I avoid this?
He's happy to get secondhand...and as I have access to the MM
  • 1070's go for around £170 - seems like a good way to save money
  • The MM has some G.Skill Trident 4400MHz 2 x 16GB for £70 vs the £74.99 above - any benefit?
and lastly, he wants to build it over Easter, so I thought I'd keep my eye open on the MM, grab anything suitable that becomes available, and then order the new parts in early April - does this seem like a sensible strategy?

Pipe

TIA
 
The Silverstone SST-PS15 is said to have good airflow.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £70.49 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​

Even better - find the non-RGB version (sold elsewhere) cheaper, and add some good 2x140mm fans at the front.

And ideally, find a front-to-back tower CPU cooler that won't hurt the airflow like the top-down stock cooler will (plus it'll be quieter and cooler anyway). Alpenfohn Brocken ECO Advanced and Arctic Freezer e34 are great budget choices. Though I'd be tempted by the pre-order price of the Scythe Fuma 2 (just £48). Latter unnecessary for a 3600 but it's not much more for a cooler that rivals the NH-D15. All of the mentioned coolers (except NH-D15) clear the RAM slots completely.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £116.67 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

The Fractal Meshify C Mini is also a good MATX case but more expensive and benefits from 2x140mm fans added at the front, on top of its price. It ought to be cheaper for what it is. There's nothing really special or expensive about it, just a well-designed budget case. Other than the ridiculous choice of foam masquerading as a "dust filter" at the front. Sure, it would keep dust out, but it's not exactly easily removable or cleanable and blocks air, so I got rid of it right away when doing a build with it.
 
500gb NVME
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £65.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

A decent and cheap option for the cooler. This one ships with the 8 and 12 core ryzens so can easily handle a 6 core, you might be able to get this cheaper on MM also as im sure many people will have upgraded to an aftermarket air cooler or AIO so theres probably a few of these knocking about, looks good also with the RGB.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £28.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

The 4400 ram will likely be a higher bin and will perform better than the 3600 stuff your looking at but it will need manually configuring as you dont want to run it at 4400, between 3600~3800 is the sweet spot for ryzen, that said if you dont want to manually set it up then the 3600 stuff will just be a set xmp and job done.

For the GPU a 1070 is a decent option as you get an extra 2GB of vram compared to the gtx 1660 super which is similar performance but a bit more expensive at around £200 that said if you can get a used gtx 1070ti for around £200 that would be a good option as its about 20+% more performance than the standard 1070 and was released about 16 months after the 1070 so theres a chance it will be a newer card.

The mortar max will be compatable out the box with no bios update required that said it still might be worth updating the bios as they have come along way since release with stability improvements, ironing out the bugs and also improving ram compatability.
 
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Thanks for the replies and suggestions

From what you guys are saying the wraith stealth included cooler is not the best
Perhaps I'll skip the MM 4400 stuff
I agree re a 1070ti but they seem to go for a lot more than £200 in the MM- guess I'll keep my eye out and hope for some desperate sellers!
 
Pipe & Slippers said:
Thanks for the replies and suggestions

From what you guys are saying the wraith stealth included cooler is not the best
Perhaps I'll skip the MM 4400 stuff
I agree re a 1070ti but they seem to go for a lot more than £200 in the MM- guess I'll keep my eye out and hope for some desperate sellers!
Click to expand...
The stealth is not great but would probably do the job for just gaming as the CPU isnt going to be at running full beans, that said it will be louder. I nicked my brothers prism for my 3600 as he got an AIO for his 3700x and its done an exellent job.
 
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