Posts by wiredotter14

If the price looks good, I’d grab this one.

To me, Corsair just feels more reliable when it comes to actually getting support during that 5-year warranty period.

The Hexa 550 w is pretty much the same thing—also a 5-year warranty—but since the price difference is tiny, I’d go with the Corsair just for the peace of mind regarding their support.

Or, if you're looking to save some cash, just pick one of those first two options New Guy posted.

P.S.

Honestly, all of them have more power than you actually need. Even if you decide to drop in a high-end GPU down the road, your build won't be pulling more than 300-350W, so you don't need to sweat it.

Sen fra my E6653 using Tapatalk

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

If you’re looking for dead silence or planning to push your CPU or GPU via overclocking, just grab this cooler.

The stock cooler gets the job done. You can do some light overclocking with it, sure, but expect it to get pretty loud.

So you're telling me a Kaby Lake Pentium Best Buy is the move? Fine. That's actually a decent little chip. You aren't going to find that kind of processing power on those cheap quad-core Celerons or whatever else is out there.

David Parker93 said:I was leaning toward buying everything brand new, but maybe I'll take a look at the used market instead.

If you're set on going new, an Intel Pentium G3930 should be plenty. It ought to handle HEVC if you're planning on playing HEVC encoded movies and stuff like that.

The reason I suggested used gear is because you've already got 8GB of DDR3 RAM sitting there, and buying more of that stuff isn't cheap right now.

Whether you grab a Pentium G4600 or a G4560, it’s basically the same thing.
It’s a solid pick for a Home Theater PC and fits your needs perfectly, but you’ll have to shell out for new RAM since I highly doubt you'll find a motherboard that still supports DDR3.

The LGA1150 socket is way cheaper on the used market, and you already own the RAM.

I don't know how you're planning to evaluate the CPU if those quad Celeron chips are soldered straight onto the board.

Processors and motherboards in that tier—think H81 paired with a Celeron G1820 or a Pentium—are all over eBay. You can find them easily under $167 just grab one and be done with it, whereas this other setup is way harder to come by.

Here’s what the ASRock support page says:

Supports DDR4 3200+ (OC) (AMD Ryzen CPU) / 2400 (A-series APU)

But on the ASUS X370TKE page that crimsonstag84 posted, it says:
* Support for higher than DDR4 2667 MHz may vary by CPU

Sure, things probably settle down eventually, but I’d rather go with the one claiming 3000+MHz support right out of the box—or at least the one that doesn't explicitly say it won't work.

I’d suggest this one:

https://www.newegg.com/amd-motherboards...rtar&results=2

It has a VRM heatsink, the support page doesn't make a distinction between APU and CPU, and most importantly, Linus Tech Tips used it in a review and everything was fine; it ran at 3200MHz (2x8GB).

Or a slightly pricier ASUS:

https://www.newegg.com/amd-motherboards...ime&results=81

Not 100% sure about the motherboard.
An X370 would work, though personally I’d aim for a better B350 model if possible.

Bronze rating is fine. It hits over 85% efficiency, and since this whole build is only pulling about 100-130W under load, it doesn't really matter much.
You could grab a Corsair CX550 instead. You don't need more wattage, it might just be slightly higher quality, but there isn't a massive difference and both come with a 5-year warranty.
Unfortunately, Newegg is out of stock on the CX450M or CX550M—the modular ones—so you'd be stuck with more cable clutter.

Linus Tech Tips might have more insight; he was digging into those B350 boards recently.

Ryan Hayes82, that Intel Core i5 from Newegg is an M.2 (SATA) drive.

Those Pentiums you're eyeing? They're closer to old Intel Atom chips than anything resembling Haswell architecture. Honestly, they're pretty weak—mostly just meant for cheap netbooks and stuff.

Look, if you grab something like $133, you're getting a board and CPU combo that'll actually outperform that Quad Celeron in most real-world scenarios.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/motherboard-listing-example

That 11W difference is negligible. You'll end up paying way more for an ultra-low power setup than you would for a used motherboard paired with a beefier processor. And what are you actually saving on your electric bill? Maybe $17 a year.

Since you’ve already got 8GB of DDR3 sitting there, you might as well grab a used motherboard with a Pentium or a Celeron. Anything with more kick than what you're running now or that low-power Celeron would be a win. Honestly, an extra 20W of power draw isn't going to matter in the grand scheme of things.

Timothy Kim60 said:I’d just grab a board with a VRM cooler; honestly, the price difference isn't even worth worrying about.

https://www.newegg.com/asrock-b450m-pro4/p/N82E168131442/
https://www.newegg.com/msi-b450m-mortars-series/p/N82E168131442/
https://www.newegg.com/gigabyte-b450-gaming-x/p/N82E168131442/

The last two would need an ATX case—maybe something like a Corsair ATX (since the Z1 Neo looks too cheap for an office setup).

Yeah, a VRM cooler is a good call.

I went with the ASUS because the motherboard's support page claims it handles 3200MHz RAM speeds for both AMD Ryzen and AMD Ryzen APU, whereas this Gaming 3 one says 3200MHz for AMD Ryzen but only 2400MHz for the AMD Ryzen APU.

Regarding the installation, I’ve dropped off a few laptops for cleaning at this shop in D.C.
http://www.servislaptopa.com/

They charge for $50 cleaning.
A buddy of mine took his laptop in for a cleaning too, and they just popped in the CIA he brought along while they were at it, so you can count on that kind of thing happening. When they swap out the thermal paste and clean the hardware, the CIA just gets slotted in.

I put together a build that offers solid future-proofing, especially regarding your work.

The AMD Ryzen 5 2400 handles multitasking well and should perform decently in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Having 16GB of RAM is a smart move for Adobe since 8GB is the bare minimum.
It includes an SSD with a 5-year warranty and a 2TB hard drive.


That’s $1875 plus that monitor

https://www.amazon.com/search?q=Q3279VWF
$564
=$2439

Micro Center should be able to assemble this for free, including a BIOS update on the motherboard to ensure it accepts the AMD Ryzen 5 2400G.
I checked the motherboard's specs—it supports the 2400G and 3200MHz memory.

You're getting a powerful PC. You can always slap a dedicated GPU in later if you need to, but for light gaming or running programs that utilize OpenGL, the Vega graphics on the AMD Ryzen 5 2400G should be plenty.

You could build it much cheaper:
Go with 8GB of RAM instead of 16GB and pick slower RAM.
Use a 1TB HDD instead of 2TB.
Swap the AMD Ryzen 5 2400G for an AMD Ryzen 3 2200G (similar, but lacks HT and has weaker graphics; for the long haul, the 2400G is way better because of HT).
Pick a cheaper motherboard and case.
You could save over $333 there if necessary, but I think this setup is fine. Personally, I'd cut costs on the case or maybe the RAM first—it's not a disaster to grab 2x4GB now and just add another 2x4GB later since the motherboard has 4 slots.

Timothy Kim60 said:My bad, I assumed you had 8GB. In my opinion, maybe around 700-$267

@wiredotter14/">@@wiredotter14

Selling an older PC is a grind. It took me about 2-3 months just to move mine, and honestly, it was easy. Yours might go for somewhere north of 1000, maybe $400, and you could probably snag $133 for the GPU—maybe even push for 500 if you try.

Tenks, I'm selling the GPU immediately back home in the States; I'll list it here on the marketplace too and see if anyone bites.

I'm not in a huge rush to sell the PC; it's sitting here with me in Germany. That's what I was thinking anyway—hopefully someone needs a rig with a pro GPU, since that card should fetch about $30-50.

Dell HP ProLiant Server
i3 3220
2x4GB DDR3 1600MHz
ATI FirePro V4800 1GB GDDR5
500GB HDD
CD/DVD drive
LTO Tape drive 😛

As a standard PC? Not worth it. The specs just don't justify the price.
---------------

CLUB3D Radeon HD 7850 2GB GDDR5

That beeping is probably just standard behavior. It likely can't find a bootable hard drive, so it's cycling through to see if there's a disc in the drive.

Bottom line: "boot device not found" usually points to a failing hard drive or a dead CIA.

First thing you should do is check the drive's health.

https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

A "good" status doesn't guarantee everything is fine, but it's a start.

I've seen this on plenty of machines. Most of the time it's the drive itself, though it could be a motherboard issue.

Yeah, you're right. An AMD Ryzen 3 2200G or even an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G is a solid way to go, especially if you pair it with a decent 31.5" AOC monitor later on.

I’m running a 31.5" myself just for movies and it's great. Honestly, going back to a smaller screen feels wrong now—plus, 1440p looks killer when you're watching 4K content.

Thumbs Up for Robert Rodriguez2's

Personally, I'd swap out that suggested SSD for this one—fits the budget better.

Also, if gaming isn't really the priority here, just grab a GT 1030 and put that extra cash toward a higher-end monitor instead.

https://www.amazon.com/example-ssd-link

I’ve got five fans running in my old Corsair Airflow series case.

Intake: one up front, one down by the PSU.
Exhaust: two at the top, one in the rear.

I keep them all hovering around 700-750rpm, except for one that stays at 1000rpm because it won't go any lower.
It actually performs better than just running two fans at max speed—plus, it's way quieter since noise is basically dictated by your loudest fan.

But honestly, this only works if you’re actually tweaking individual speeds to keep things quiet.
Running three or more fans at full blast (1200+rpm) is just overkill and obnoxious.

When I crank them all to the limit, my GPU temps drop by maybe 5 degrees under full load. It's pointless, though. At those speeds, the GPU fans barely even ramp up from their minimum (around 33%), making the whole rig louder for zero actual gain compared to just letting the GPU fan run at 45%.

Maybe check out some other retailers. I think this is pretty much the only one in that price range offering a 5-year warranty.

https://www.amazon.com/ssd-disk__194...b-25__57344571

If nothing else is available, you could always try a WD Green or something similar.