Building my daughters first PC

[inflames]

So my daughter started high school this year and asked if she can have a PC in her room. She usually uses my machine in the living room for schoolwork in the past and gaming. She currently plays Roblox and tomb raider games.

I don’t won’t to spend a huge amount on it, but with the potential to upgrade later if needed. I honestly don’t mind buying used components to save some money. Haven’t done a massive amount of research into this yet, that is now starting and hoping to get some good ideas from fellow forum users.

Needs to be a small case, as she doesn’t have a large desk so would need something like a The Metis Plus - RAIJINTEK’s or a silverstone Sufi SG 13.
CPU a ryzen 3
A SSD
GPU I am thinking about upgrading my Rx590 so I will use that in hers. But if I don’t I was thinking about something like a RX6500 or a 1050.
Ram and power supplies I haven’t really thought about yet.

 

[Tetras]

I think this spec meets what you asked for (I assume there is room for this PSU, it is less than the req length, in theory):

Phanteks AMP 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply - £74.99
Raijintek Metis Plus Aluminium Mini-ITX Case - White - £54.95
WD Blue SN570 1TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3B0C) - £74.98
Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey - £89.99

Gigabyte A520I AC (Socket AM4) DDR4 ITX Motherboard - £104.99
AMD Ryzen 3 4100 Quad Core 4.0GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail - £89.99

Grand Total: £502.19 (this is assuming that you use the box cooler)

I must say though, the Ryzen 3 CPUs don't perform very well against the i3-12100 (review, game comparison starts at around 6:00) and right now, you can get a Ryzen 5 5500 (GN review) for under £120 or a Ryzen 5 5600 (what I'd suggest, because it is a full-fat Zen 3, 6-core CPU, with PCI-E 4.0 support) for £150.

ITX is also not ideal, because it can limit the size of PSU, CPU cooler & graphics card you can fit and restricts your motherboard choices.

Intel M-ATX alternative (the motherboard would support an i5, THG said it will run higher spec CPUs (review), but I'd not be keen on the VRM temps and it will throttle them sometimes outside of gaming):

Phanteks AMP 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply - £74.99
Lian Li Lancool 205 Midi-Tower Case - White Window - £65.00
WD Blue SN570 1TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3B0C) - £74.99
Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey - £89.98

Intel Core i3-12100F 3.30GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail - £109.99
Asus Prime H610M-A D4 - Intel H610 DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard - £105.95

Grand Total: £534.10

I'd avoid a 1050 new, because they are priced far too high for such an old card, but fair enough if you can get a good price used.

The RX 6500 is a weak card, the launch day reviews are pretty bad and I wouldn't expect that level of performance to last long. I'd recommend the PowerColor RX 6600 OCUK have for £260 as a minimum, or maybe buy yourself a 6700 for £300 as an upgrade to the 590.

 

[Journey]

I don’t won’t to spend a huge amount on it, but with the potential to upgrade later if needed.

Get something AM4, with a 5600G and no dedicated GPU for now then you can add something sensible later down the line. It's only for school work and a few easy to run games.

 

[dfour]

socket 1700 is the only socket that allows any true upgrades at a later date outside of the same series of chips (am4)

M-itx buld using the stock cooler but you can use a tower cooler up to 160mm in this case,

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Raijintek Metis Plus Aluminium Mini-ITX Case - Black Window (SKU: CA-03E-RT) = £52.99
• 1 x Asrock B660M-ITX/ac - Intel B660 DDR4 Mini-ITX Motherboard (SKU: MB-18M-AK) = £134.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (SKU: MY-0AK-TG) = £49.99
• 1 x Phanteks AMP 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-09Q-PT) = £74.99
• 1 x WD Blue SN570 500GB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS500G3B0C) (SKU: HD-588-WD) = £49.99
• 1 x Intel Core i3-12100F 3.30GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AS-IN) = £109.99

Total: £472.94 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

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[Haz123]

Is always good when I am busy and see a thread after dfour so I can just agree with his choices.

One thing I will add so you can think about your choices. The RX590 is a 225w card so that is a lot of heat that will be dumped into a small case so make sure the exhaust fan is up to the task. Both the 6500 and 1050 use a lot less power but they have poor performance and are just not worth buying. The RX6600 that Tetras recommends is a decent lower power choice and will work fine in a B660 mobo that is full pcie 4.

 

[dfour]

according to the blurb on the Metis plus you have a 120mm in the front and can add a 120mm on the top so that should help.