Former builder now out of touch requires assistance

Faustus

Faustus

Faustus

Soldato
Joined
20 Mar 2007
Posts
5,413
Help required from some of you more knowledgable people. I used to do my own PC builds but haven’t done any since I got my Mac in 2010.

My neighbour is aware I used to build my own and has talked me into building a PC for use by himself and his wife. Problem is I haven’t really kept up with the advances in PC technology so really need some advice with some of the components.

This will be a bog standard build as my neighbour has no interest in playing games etc. so it will just a general purpose desktop. However, my neighbour doesn’t want everything to be bargain basement so a bit of future proofing is desirable.

I have no issue with building it but I am completely out of touch with motherboards and PSU’s etc. For the CPU I’m thinking an i5 either SkyLake or Kaby Lake though not sure which model? The real issue having looked at Overclockers webpages are the huge choice of mobo’s - were do I start? For the initial build and probably in the longer term I am going to rely on integrated graphics as a GPU would be overkill. The neighbour really likes the Prodigy M MAT Cube Case, so it will have to be micro-ATX mobo. Noise is another issue – my neighbour suffers from tinnitus so a whisper quiet PSU is essential. Given the smaller case I was thinking about a modular PSU but which to buy? Power wise I think a 500 watt would be plenty.

I’m fine choosing the storage and DDR4 RAM and my neighbour already has the monitor keyboard and mouse.

So to sum up help needed with which model of CPU, Mobo, PSU and have any of you used the Prodigy case and if so did you have any issues that I may have using it with this simple build?
 
Danny75 said:
An SSD in the system would be more important than an i5 CPU for general purpose usage. KabyLake Pentium (2 cores/4 threads) + SSD is going to feel a lot faster than i5 4 cores + HDD. SSD will also be quieter than HDD as the OS/programs drive which is constantly working. Maybe that's one advance you already knew of, but you didn't mention drives so thought I'd mention that. There are exceptions of course - gaming, video encoding, photo/video editing and so on. But regular tasks of this sort wouldn't really classify as general purpose, the build would rather be geared towards such specific usage. The occasional task of this kind would still be ok with Kaby Pentium (its onboard graphics also fine for general usage).

The BitFenix Phenom (ITX or M-ATX) is even quieter than the Prodigy. Plus the powder-coating on them looks more elegant than the regular paint job on the Prodigy, FWIW.

Other than that, you may want to invest in an aftermarket cooler to keep things even quieter (something along the lines and price of a CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO/X, or Raijintek Aidos, or Cryorig M9i, would be more than enough). If you do, I would recommend low-profile DDR4 RAM to avoid clearance issues.

You'll have to make sure the PSU doesn't exceed the max PSU depth of the Prodigy.

As far as silent PSUs go, I believe (might be wrong) that this is currently the cheapest with "ECO Mode" (fan doesn't spin at all until a certain wattage is required):

My basket at Overclockers UK:


​

That isn't to say there aren't quiet PSU's for below that price, but in the long-term the Eco Mode feature guarantees that the fan won't get noisy with time (because it will never spin up at all without a powerful GPU to stress it).

And finally, the motherboard should have at least 3 fan headers to run all the fans included (including stock or aftermarket heatsink fan). And that way you can easily tune them. Most will, anyway.

HTH.
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Thanks for the info, it's moved things on and is quite helpful. Re: SSD, yes that's one area where I am up to speed if you'll pardon the pun. I already use a SSD/HDD combo in my Mac. Re: the mobo which is where I am struggling a bit. Are they all very similar or is one make better than the other as the prices appear to vary wildly. Apart from getting the right socket version it all appears a maze after that.
 
Having spent some considerable time today watching case builds and reviews on YouTube I'm minded to go with the Corsair Carbide Series Air 240. This case appears to be well constructed with plenty of cable management built in whereas the BitFenix Phenom and Prodigy cases appear to be lacking where cable management are concerned. The PSU mentioned by Danny75 appears to be a good choice.

That just leaves a mobo which can accommodate Skylake and Kaby Lake CPUs.
 
Acme said:
Never build a PC for a neighbour. Every time it goes wrong they'll be on your doorstep, until the end of time.
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I dont know how the hell I've been talked into it. I made a casual remark must have been at least eighteen months ago and next news the chap's asking me to build him a system this weekend.

I'm hoping he doesn't take it any further, I'm trying to keep out of his way. If he doesn't mention it again then I won't bother either. Mind you if he doesn't take it any further I may build it for myself as my Mac is 6 years old and I expect the new upgraded Mac's will cost a kings ransom when they are announced later in the year.
 
I decided on a new build for myself, went with most of the parts mentioned in the thread - Corsair Carbide 240 case, KL i5 CPU plus the cryorig cooler and EVGA supernova 550w - MB is an Asus H270M with 16 gigs of RAM running W10 Pro - it's certainly fast and very quiet which is a bonus.

I think the only thing to drive me to distraction was the Asus bios UI. Generally pretty unresponsive to mouse or keyboard inputs. When clicking on EZee fan control and set to use the wizard, it did work fine, however, the screen completely locks up when trying to save and exit from that module. Plenty of other posters report this has been the same for years. Took me at least 10 attempts before I managed to get out of the page without incident.
 
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