GPU + CPU Advice needed

Associate
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Building my son a PC for his birthdays and looking for a little advice on which Combo would be better

Option 1 : Ryzen 3 3200G + RTX 1650S 4gb + 8GB DDR4 RAM 2400 MHZ (£305 combo)
msi a320m-a pro max motherboard
OR

Option 2 Ryzen 5 3400G + 16GB Ram at 3200mhz (8gb x2) (£280 combo)
GIGABYTE B450M DS3H

Looking for Overall performance Son wants to play games like Fortnight / Rainbow 6/ League of legends / Valorant / Warzone

open to suggestions on improvements

thanks in advance
 
Soldato
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i havnt got time to look more into detail as at work, but that looks a bit of a jumble of mismatched components.

first option, CPU with integrated GPU plus a Graphics card? i would look for a ryzen 2600 CPU, 8gb ram 2400, ryzen you should use 3000mhz + , 16gb preferable, A320 motherboards arent great,

option 2 might not cut it for warzone on integratged GPU,

would be better to get a B450 motherboard (MSI) Ryzen 2600 / 3600 or 2nd hand 1600/1700. RTX1650 or amd equiv , 16gb 3200 RAM. and make sure at least windows is installed on an SSD
 
Man of Honour
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The 1650 Super is way faster than the 3400G's IGP, though a Ryzen 3 3100 would be a better choice than the 3200G for this system. Is the 8GB dual channel or one stick?
 
Soldato
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OP
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Thanks for reply guys

SO build atm would be

CPU = Ryzen 3 3100 £100
M/B = msi a320m-a pro max motherboard £42
RAM = Corsair CMK8GX4M1A2400C16 Vengeance LPX 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4 2400 MHz £38
PSU = Switching Power Supply PSU 500W ATX with 12cm Silent Red Fan £31
GFX = 1650 Super GDDR6 version £145
SSD = ASENNO Solid State Drive 480GB £46
CASE = Pyro Mid Tower (he picked this 1) £40

Plan would be to upgrade the Ram with another 8gb stick in a few months thats reason i didnt pick 2x4gb

thanks again guys
 
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The motherboard has poor upgrade potential, if you care about that (i.e. the power delivery is not great, so I wouldn't want to put more than 6 cores on it and A320 has no official support for Ryzen 4000 / Zen 3).

Lacking dual channel will hurt gaming performance, especially with such slow memory. With faster memory (3000+) it may be acceptable, for the time being.

The PSU won't be a good one for that money, it might be enough (my guess is it'll be around 300 watts), but it won't handle many upgrades and I wonder about the build quality.

Never heard of the SSD brand (don't know if this is bad or good).
 
Associate
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Don't cheap out on the PSU - An extra £30/£40 is a lot less than the cost of replacing the whole system if it craps out with a bang
 
Soldato
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So...

Motherboard = Poor
RAM = not enough, to slow, and single channel
PSU = if its the one on forest river, complete trash, fire hazard, doesnt have a 6pin GPU connector, so you cant use a graphics card anyway
SSD = unbranded chinese crap , theres a kingston and crucial for a few £more
Case = Unbranded (CIT), should be ok, but probably built by children so dont count on it working or being straight or screw fixings out of alignment

the only thing on your shopping list any good is the GPU
 
Soldato
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So...

Motherboard = Poor
RAM = not enough, to slow, and single channel
PSU = if its the one on forest river, complete trash, fire hazard, doesnt have a 6pin GPU connector, so you cant use a graphics card anyway
SSD = unbranded chinese crap , theres a kingston and crucial for a few £more
Case = Unbranded (CIT), should be ok, but probably built by children so dont count on it working or being straight or screw fixings out of alignment

the only thing on your shopping list any good is the GPU
I gotta say I was impressed with the quality of unbranded/unknown SSD's, my friend has been running a cheap chinese drive for 3 years now and it's fine - sure he gets 350-400mb instead of 450-600mb/s of better drives but really can't tell difference for average user.
Also low quality cases can be good - not sure about that one in particular but there is plenty of £30-40 cases nowadays that do the job just fine - sure a £80 one is nicer to build in and has more expansion options but we're talking here about someone who would play games on iGPU or a budget £70 card in the past.
A razen 3100 with ANY motherboard and 16GB of 3200mhz ram along with 1650 is amazing value for money - only 3 years ago you'd have to pay 3x that for an 2core i3 with a 1030 and 8gb ram.
 
Man of Honour
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Hi and welcome to the forums. :)

That's a strange combination of components you have selected and there is some very good advice given already.

The most important one to address is the memory. Ryzen loves/needs fast memory. If you go with 2400mhz memory you will be crippling the CPU. For Ryzen you should be looking at 3200mhz DDR4 or faster and the tighter the timings the better.

The A320 motherboard is just too cut back and lacking in my opinion. I would be aiming at a minimum of a decent B450 board to get the best out of the CPU and memory.

Don't go with one of the CPU's with built in graphics when you are going to have a proper graphics card as well. The 3100 already suggested or even a 3300X would be a much better buy. Shopping around may even find you a bargain for £120 or less. Just remember that you can always change the CPU for a better one further down the line.

Cheap PSU, just no!! Saving money on the PSU is a false economy and should be avaioded at all costs. Buy cheap, buy twice has never been more true when it comes to psu's. A cheap one will have the lowest quality internals, be innefficient and will have vital safety features missing which means when it fails it will most likely take out one or more of your components with it. If your choice is indeed the one on Amazon then you couldn't have picked much worse than that. If you choose it based on Amazon user reviews then you are looking at things the wrong way when it comes to PSU's. All the average user can post in a review is if it works or not and if it's quiet or noisy. They won't have the expensive equipment required to properly test a PSU and certainly won't open it up to see the quality of the internal components so ignore user reviews completely when it comes to PSU's. You won't find any professional reviews on cheap PSU's such as this because at the end of the day they are garbage that shouldn't even be considered. Take the one you have selected for example (if it's the Amazon one). That so called 500w psu only has a pathetic 216w on it's 12v rail where the power is needed and to be honest I doubt if it would even manage that. A modern PSU should be able to deliver all or near enough all of it's power on the 12v rail(s). Add to that the fact that they are well known for exploding and killing other components and it should be avoided. Always buy a quality PSU and it will last you through several upgrades. Aim for one that is Gold rated and have a minimum of a 5 year warranty although 7 year and 10 year warranties are quite common these days. You have the Bitfenix Formula series at the budget end which would be the minimum Gold rated units I would recommend. If the budget is really tight get a good quality Bronze rated unit although there isn't that much of a saving over the Gold rated Bitfenix Formula's for a decent Bronze rated unit so personally I would bite the bullet and go Gold.

Cheap case. By all means get a cheap case, it's one place that is realistic to save money without having a big performance impact. In fact some cheap cases such as the Kolink ones on OCUK are very good and have some nice features. Ones to avoid would be cases that mount the PSU in the top and ones that have a single or no inlet fan and only a 80mm exhaust fan. If the one in your list is the CiT Pyro then it's not a bad case at all and has space for 3x 120mm at the front, 2x 120mm fans in the roof and a single 120mm fan at the rear. The PSI is mounted in it's own compartment in the bottom as well. Searching around can find it for £32 though.

Cheap SSD. Be careful with these Chinese SSD's. While they seem to be very good value for money they can fail quite quickly and often have to be returned to China and can take a long time or get lost in transit. If buying from Amazon make sure that it's sold by and fulfilled by them so that should a failure happen you only have to return it to them. For peace of mind I would rather stick with a known brand and you can get Sandisk, PNY, Western Digital (WD), Gigabyte and Kingston A400 480MB drives very close to the price of the Asenno.
 
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