Spec Check Please!

[ChristopherP]

Hi All,

Helping a chap in the village upgrade his PC. By upgrade I mean mostly replace.

I don't do this as often as I used to, so wanted to check to see if the following list of components is A) compatible, and B) Represents best performance for the cost.

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X 8 Core AM4 CPU/Processor £217.00
GIGABYTE GA-AX370M-DS3H - AM4 DDR4 mATX Motherboard £62.27
16GB (2x8GB) 3000MHz Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 OEM £149.16
250GB Samsung 960 Evo PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive/SSD £ 85.83
TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 450Mbps N900 Wireless Dual Band PCI Express Adapter £ 24.49
Basket Total £ 538.74
Approx. Delivery £ 12.95
VAT £ 110.34
Total £662.03

I'll be reusing his existing Corsair 550w PSU & Graphics Card (Unsure what it is but it's fairly juicy and PCI-E so should work).

I'll probably pick up a low cost midi tower case to replace his old one. eBuyer sell the CiT Hero case for £15 and will do the job nicely. He already has Win10 and a licence for it.

I'll probably need to add a 92mm case fan in there.

Any thoughts before I hit the button? I think the equivalent Intel Core i7 system would be quite a bit more in terms of cost?

Cheers.

 

[ChristopherP]

Woops, also need CPU cooler. Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 PRO Rev.2 CPU Air Cooler should do for £16.

 

[Abarbarian]

Decent selection looks to me like it will all work. I would go for a better wi-fi card though. As an example,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-Archer-T9E-Wireless-Antennas/dp/B00TZJYRF6

Fast Wireless Speed
Wireless speeds up to 1900 Mbps with 1300 Mbps at 5 GHz or 600 Mbps at 2.4 GHz band. Backward compatible with 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi routers, supports 802.11ac, three times faster than standard Wi-Fi standards in a single stream. Easily upgrade the older laptop or desktop to the fast Wi-Fi technology. It’s a better choice for seamless HD streaming, online gaming and other bandwidth-intensive tasks.

You could check if the power supply is up to the job here just for peace of mind. I recon it will be.

https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

 

[muckshifter]

You could check if the power supply is up to the job here just for peace of mind. I recon it will be.

Seriously consider a 650min ... my GC needs upto 500W for itself.

 

[ChristopherP]

Decent selection looks to me like it will all work. I would go for a better wi-fi card though. As an example,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-Archer-T9E-Wireless-Antennas/dp/B00TZJYRF6

You could check if the power supply is up to the job here just for peace of mind. I recon it will be.

https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

Thanks. The biggest thing I wasn’t sure on was the RAM speed required by the CPU, I’ve read that the Ryzen chips thrive on fast RAM but it wasn’t clear what that meant in terms of what I should spec.

Real world what difference will he notice between the two WiFi cards?

 

[ChristopherP]

Seriously consider a 650min ... my GC needs upto 500W for itself.

I’m working on the assumption that the current PSU has been powering the current GFX so will be sufficient, and that an SSD will be more power efficient than an old school platter HDD, and the new CPU’s are probably more power efficient than a much older i5... therefore no point changing?

 

[TriplexDread]

You may have a point Chris, but what about if extra hdd's are fitted at a later date? Also a optical drive/burner for example?

The lower end cases tend to be a little more noisy in comparison to the more expensive. If you can't stretch to a better one then consider lining the cheaper one with some dampening foam. Or use what I do for cheaper cases and use a 12mm underlay with a good glue

 

[ChristopherP]

You may have a point Chris, but what about if extra hdd's are fitted at a later date? Also a optical drive/burner for example?

The lower end cases tend to be a little more noisy in comparison to the more expensive. If you can't stretch to a better one then consider lining the cheaper one with some dampening foam. Or use what I do for cheaper cases and use a 12mm underlay with a good glue

Current PSU also runs 2 optical drives!

I’m going to use the CiT Hero case - I’ve actually got one of these myself and I built a system for the mother in law into one. I’m really impressed by it - it’s not noisy at all, but then I guess this largely depends on what you have inside in the way of cooling. I have a CPU cooler and a couple of silent case fans and it’s barely audible but I take your point that it may be louder than the equivalent spec in a better case. I tried that noise supressing stuff in the past I think Akasa used to sell it and it wreaked havoc with my system temps!!

 

[TriplexDread]

Go with what you have if your happy pal. Easy to rectify it later on

 

[V_R]

Looks pretty good from here, though I am a bit out of touch with Ryzen stuff, I do agree with you however, apparently Ryzen loves fast RAM.

 

[ChristopherP]

Ordered.

I'm reading lots about the RAM defaulting to a slower speed with Ryzen chips, so will see what happens! What's the real world performance difference going to be between RAM running at 2166mhz vs the full 3000mhz?

@Abarbarian I took your advice and changed the network card. I went for a USB3.0 AC1200 one in the end as it was the same price. The TP Link Archer ones are an arse with their drivers, I have one in mine so am keen to avoid that issue again. The chap I'm building for has a network cable available so I'm not even sure how much use the WiFi will get!

I'm hoping this system is going to fly - with an 1800x, 16Gb of RAM and NVME storage it should be pretty quick.

 

[Abarbarian]

Ordered.

I'm reading lots about the RAM defaulting to a slower speed with Ryzen chips, so will see what happens! What's the real world performance difference going to be between RAM running at 2166mhz vs the full 3000mhz?

@Abarbarian I took your advice and changed the network card. I went for a USB3.0 AC1200 one in the end as it was the same price. The TP Link Archer ones are an arse with their drivers, I have one in mine so am keen to avoid that issue again. The chap I'm building for has a network cable available so I'm not even sure how much use the WiFi will get!

I'm hoping this system is going to fly - with an 1800x, 16Gb of RAM and NVME storage it should be pretty quick.

Good idea to go with the newer standard wi-fi. At least he will be future proofed and if it is used it will be pretty slick.
Real world difference in the ram would only be noticeable if you were doing something like video editing or such like.
Stick a NVME in any pc even an old Pentium and it will run like it is on rocket fuel.