"ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com" (ita97)
01/23/2018 at 18:34 • Filed to: computerlopnik
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"ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com" (ita97)
01/23/2018 at 18:34 • Filed to: computerlopnik | 1
| 8 |
After many years of not really gaming and a year or two with a reconditioned original Xbox One, I found myself wanting to get a wheel and build some kind of a sim set up and not really wanting to commit further to consoles. The old laptop I’d been using at home from 2011 was way past its prime, so I’d been slowly figuring out the gaming build I wanted to put together. My hangup the last six months has been the price of gpu’s (f-you, miners!). Despite my strong aversion to buying a prebuilt machine, I thought I should at least look around locally as due diligence before I started ordering parts (I was thinking an I3-8350k/Z370 mini ITX-build with a 1060). I’m cheap, so my target was 1080p on modern titles with an upgrade path down the line. Because I’ve not had a desktop since 2006ish, I’m starting from scratch with the whole system.
What I found, and unexpectedly came home with, is a prebuilt Dell “gaming” Ryzen 7 1700x, 16gb, 1tb 7200 hdd, usb 3.1 machine with an RX580 8gb and open pcie 16 slot and crossfire capability down the road for less than $800 after the sale price and 10% veteran discount. I also picked up a 27" 1080p, 75hz freesync monitor to go with it for $150. With our current insanity meaning that the gpu sells for $500+ alone, I couldn’t build a comparable machine from parts for $800. It should do fine for 1080p gaming now.
Before biting, I had to really dig around to decide if the machine was something with an upgrade path. While the board is a proprietary thing, it does have standard atx connectors, pinouts and PSU form factor, so there should be an upgrade path from the oem 460 watt one. With the 16gb of 2400mhz DDR4 on a singe dimm, there is no dual channel for now, but there can be at 32gb someday down the road. The RX580 seems to do what I want now, and freesync seems sweet coming from 720p/1gb vram laptop graphics of 2011. It does have two open M2 slots, and it supports NVME as a boot drive. There are also plenty of open SATA3 ports for anything I’ve got planned.
What I don’t like:
The psu is not even bronze rated. The cpu cooling solution could be better, and the one system fan it has is a cheapo. I don’t know if the case would really support a crossfire set-up in terms of cooling, even if the board can run it.
Plans:
Enjoy it. Also, this morning I ordered a 240gb M.2 NVME drive to put windows on as a boot drive. I’ll have to decide if I want to do a clean install or just image the existing drive. I can get a windows 10 enterprise license from work, but I’m struggling to think of a planed use case for me where this would be an advantage over the windows 10 home OS on it now. It actually didn’t come with nearly as much bloatwear as I feared it might, and I took most of it off last night. I might keep one or two of the Dell utility programs. The 1 tb hdd will work fine for storage, and I’ll probably pick up another SSD to put programs and more frequently used files on down the road. If and/or when RAM prices drop, I’d be tempted to pick up a matching 16gb stick for dual channel even though that would probably be for vanity as much as anything else. I’ll likely pickup a better case fan and add an additional one, although nothing so far seems to run all that warm. I need to do some better cable management than they did.
Car Content:
This is money that really should’ve gone towards the racecar, but I decided a decent computer is something that I actually use everyday.
Final Thoughts:
I’ll also have to stop by the storage unit on the way home and pull out my desk that had been put away for placing the house on the market and showing it. I’ve been told the dining table is not an acceptable computer desk, and those are the kind of household decisions I never argue with. I feels like a did okay for around $1000 all in, but we’ll see over the long run. As for that 1700x, I can certainly browse will all the tabs open. Excuse me while I go extinguish my wallet. It seems to have burst into flames.
winterlegacy, here 'till the end
> ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
01/23/2018 at 18:45 |
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Glad you picked up Ryzen. Spectre is doing Intel no favors in terms of performance, and Zen itself has future compatibility - if AMD does what they usually do, which is make a plus version of your socket, you should be able to drop your Ryzen processor straight into an AM4+ board and be able to fully enjoy it from there as you continue to upgrade.
Mercedes Streeter
> ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
01/23/2018 at 19:02 |
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*High Five* You’ll love the Ryzen! My 1300X rocks any game I throw at it better than its direct competitor, the Core i3-7100.
You paid roughly the same price I did for better overall performance. A SSD would really make it sprint!
My own thoughts:
- Ryzen CPUs come with a pretty beefy (compared to what you have in there and to what Intel is willing to give/sell you) cooler...why Dell decided not to you it is beyond me.
- If you can, get another case fan!!!! That little CPU fan and the cheapo case fan will have your CPU throttling in no time.
- The PSU should be okay provided you have the PC in a power strip. I’m not surprised Dell cheaped out but it shouldn’t cause any fires so long as you’re careful.
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ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
> Mercedes Streeter
01/23/2018 at 19:08 |
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I really wasn’t planning to buy a computer yesterday, but I after I saw the price and figured out what the board was I decided I couldn’t pass it up.
I was baffled by the CPU cooler, too. I would’ve been just fine with the wraith cooler. I’ll have to measure and see if something like a cryorig H7 will fit and feed into the case fan. It looks like 92mm fans are what fits the case, so I’ll probably order a couple of noctua pwm fans for it. I figure the PSU will do for the time being.
Funktheduck
> Mercedes Streeter
01/23/2018 at 19:34 |
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I was looking at building a cheap gaming computer and the 1300x caught my eye. If I’m not mistaken, the AMD compatible boards can use any of the Ryzen line, right? As in if I bought one and installed a 1300x and down the line wanted to update down the line with (making up a number) a 1550x, that work work?
David Baker
> ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
01/23/2018 at 19:34 |
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As far as reliability goes. I’ve been buying Dell desk/laptops exclusively dating back to my Pentium 4 system bought in 2001. All still work except the laptop I dumped a beer directly into years ago. Also Dell will negotiate if you call them, I’ve negotiated great deals everything. Still on my 2014 laptop (i7, 16GB ram), Dell always offered discounts on the phone if you played hardball, don’t know if this applies today.
TFSIVTEC drivesavolvo
> ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
01/23/2018 at 21:13 |
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These fit in most stock cases but no PWM, although you can always upgrade the actual fans down the road.
TheTurbochargedSquirrel
> ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
01/23/2018 at 22:09 |
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It’s rather annoying that buying a pre-built is a better value than building one yourself. Stupid miners.
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ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
> TheTurbochargedSquirrel
01/23/2018 at 22:59 |
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Indeed. If had a just wanted a work station/browsing/productivity machine I could’ve bought this for $800, threw the RX580 8GB on ebay for $500 by it now and watch it disappear instantly. Then throw in a GT 1030 for $80 and have a Ryzen 7/16gb machine for about $400.