First self build in years...

[ChristopherP]

I had an old Media centre PC that wasn't used much. It got a bit ropey, overheating etc.

So yesterday, I decided to give it a bit of a refresh and use the bits that are still decent (PSU, Hard Drives, maybe the Graphics Card too), bin the Motherboard and CPU, try and sell the (very nice and quite pricey) ATX Media Centre case and have a new fairly decent spec desktop in my study.

I've moved the Mac mini into my AV cupboard in the living room, connected it to my AV receiver and installed AirServer onto it so that I can Airplay mirror from iPhone/iPad/Macbook wirelessly from the sofa when we have guests, or have Spotify running etc (the AVR has this built in but the GUI is a bit 1980)

I've got the following bits coming today. I realised just how out of touch I was when ordering up these bits. It must have been at least 5-7 years since I last properly messed around with the insides of a PC.

Item: Gigabyte AB350M-HD3 AMD Ryzen B350 Socket AM4 Motherboard
Item: CIT Hero MATX Midi Tower Case
Item: Arctic F12 Silent (120mm) 3-pin Case Fan - Qty: 1
Item: Cooler Master SickleFlow 120 Blue LED Fan - 120mm, 2000RPM - Qty: 1
Item: Gelid Solutions Silent 9 92mm Quiet Case Fan - Qty: 1
Item: Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 2400mhz 1.2v Standard Dimm - Qty: 1
Item: Windows 10 Home Box pack Flash 32/64-bit - Qty: 1
AMD Ryzen 5 Quad Core 1500X 3.70GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail
StarTech 22-in-1 3.5 inch USB 2.0 Front Bay Internal Multi Media Memory Card Reader - Black

 

[V_R]

Will be a good system that Chris. Ryzen is performing well by the looks of it.

What GPU are you using?

 

[Ian]

Nice work . I'd be really interested on your thoughts on the Ryzen 5 - it looks like it's a great value chip.

Will that be your main PC now?

 

[ChristopherP]

Will be a good system that Chris. Ryzen is performing well by the looks of it.

What GPU are you using?

Do you know what, I have no idea what it is it's been so long! The motherboard has built in GPU which I'll fall back on if the one in the media centre isn't compatible.

 

[ChristopherP]

Nice work . I'd be really interested on your thoughts on the Ryzen 5 - it looks like it's a great value chip.

Will that be your main PC now?

In honesty, I'll probably still use the MacBook sat on the sofa most evenings. The desktop will be for where I need to sit down in front of a bigger screen or need something with a bit more grunt - photo editing etc.

 

[ChristopherP]

Do you know what, I have no idea what it is it's been so long! The motherboard has built in GPU which I'll fall back on if the one in the media centre isn't compatible.

Just checked... it's a Radeon HD 5850 1Gb

 

[ChristopherP]

...Although looking at the age of the card I'm wondering if the onboard might actually be better... Just going back through my emails and I took delivery of it in January 2010 so it's over 7 years old!

 

[V_R]

I'd have thought a dedicated card would be a bit better purely as its got its own VRAM, higher clocks etc despite its age.

 

[ChristopherP]

I'd have thought a dedicated card would be a bit better purely as its got its own VRAM, higher clocks etc despite its age.

Maybe I'll benchmark it... with and without...

Good point.

I guess it would run quieter, cooler and more efficiently without it. I don't do any gaming any more so that's not a factor.

Be tidier too, the 5850 requires 2 separate additional power cables to run it which I could remove from the modular PSU if not needed!

 

[V_R]

That's true, some fair points. It would be interesting to see the difference.

 

[ChristopherP]

That's true, some fair points. It would be interesting to see the difference.

Well, we're up and running - just installing updates etc. Will post results!

 

[ChristopherP]

So...

Took out the video card and plugged monitor into the onboard.... nothing.

I wonder if the board relies on the CPU for graphics, and the particular chip I bought doesn't provide this feature... It did say on the CPU box 'discrete graphics card required'

I may have to pick up an SSD or NVME storage... the machine seems to lag a little when the 8 year old HDD's are working overtime, even if I did RAID0 them.

 

[Ian]

An SSD (even a tiny one for just the OS) would be worth it - they make such a huge difference .

Yep, the motherboard will use integrated GPU on some CPUs (or APUs). I don't think the current gen Ryzen has integrated graphics yet, although models coming later this year will.

 

[ChristopherP]

An SSD (even a tiny one for just the OS) would be worth it - they make such a huge difference .

Yep, the motherboard will use integrated GPU on some CPUs (or APUs). I don't think the current gen Ryzen has integrated graphics yet, although models coming later this year will.

So gone are the days where if a motherboard had integrated GPU then it was entirely done by the motherboard! Shows how out of touch I am!

I think i'll probably end up buying one of these - http://www.ebuyer.com/766047-samsung-250gb-960-evo-m-2-ssd-mz-v6e250bw and lose the old HDD's - everything is stored on a NAS anyway so I only need storage enough to run Windows & a few apps etc.