I'd say up to $100 at the most, depending on how cheap I can get a decent power supply and the rest of the build. I've been looking and there seems to be a ton of great options in the $50-60 range, so that is where my expectation is at the moment for cost. I don't need an enthusiast case, and I also would like something a tiny bit smaller than my current case so I'm sticking to looking at mid-towers or less. I have even humored the idea of micro ATX as a possibility. My current case: LOL I'll also join along and do a pic of the inside of my disaster. Disclaimer: my cable management was always terrible, but I at least had them out of the way of the components for airflow sake, however i had a wad of cables stuffed in the 5.25 bay area out of sight, and it appears that the twist tie I had holding the cables to the top of the case came loose, and all the cabling has apparently fallen into view. What a mess. I'm a bit embarrassed.
Older cases had crappy cable management. My Lian Li and Antec P180 were both messes inside due to the poor cable management. I think you'll find that with a newer case and modular power supply, cable management is much easier.
What motherboard brands should I be looking at? I'm looking at AM4 boards and the reviews seem all over the place. My last two mobos were Gigabyte, but I'm certainly not attached to the brand.
Reviews got hosed up because AMD released early and the boards were half baked. Some bricked when updated. None supported any speed of memory beyond 2133. Here we are in June and I'd say the BIOS are finally good. Honestly, I think most any brand motherboard can be good. Maybe skip Biostar and Foxconn if they even make a board. MSI is the most expensive brand and what AMD sent out with every review sample. ASUS seems to be the most popular with the hardware review sites. ASRock seems to offer slightly more feature for the price. Fun fact. ASRock was actually part of ASUS a long time ago. It got split off, bought up, and then became a competitor to its parent company. Many consider the ASRock Taichi to be the very best board you can get but I don't think it's worth the price by a mile. Before you look at the brand you need to decide if you want an X370 or B350 board. Here are the basic differences. There are of course exception. For most people, the B350 is enough. I needed 6 SATA ports so I went with an X370. X370 Sli and Crossfire ~8 USB 3.x ports 6 to 8 SATA Intel Ethernet Higher numbered Realtek Audio chip Higher 8 to 12 phase power design (mostly irrelevant except for extreme OC) B350 Crossfire but no SLi ~4 USB 3.x ports 4 SATA Realtek Ethernet (probably irrelevant) Lower numbered Realtek Audio chip (probably irrelevant)
No, I considered going with Noctua, but went with a Zalman 9900 instead. Zalman was having major financial problems a few years ago, and you could get their stuff for dirt cheap prices for a time. As for motherboards, MSI, Gigabyte, and Asus all make great boards, but also have models that are duds from time to time. Read professional and user reviews, and pick based on the pros and cons of individual models. I've also been hearing good things about Asrock, but have no first hand experience with their boards.
The only reason as I can tell to get an x370 board is for Crossfire or SLI, but I'll just upgrade my GPU in a few years and stick with a single card. Should I save the money and get a B350 board?
Depends on what you need and the price. I knew I wanted at least 6 SATA so I got a X370. Even if you go the B350 route you can always add more SATA and USB3.0 later. SLi is the only thing you'd never have. I don't think you'd regret getting a B350. Anyway here is an MSI X370 for $110. Only for the next hour. B350s are about $80 to $115. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16813144043&cm_sp=
I'm not ready to buy yet, but that is a good strategy. I'll wait for an x370 board to go on sale and pounce.
Your rx480 is going for $700 new these days. Used are about $400. You could sell it on ebay and upgrade to a 1070. Or you could start mining Ethereum with it. People are making $200 a month with those now.
I just noticed that. Does mining ruin the card after a while? I don't know if I should be mining or selling. Mining has more appeal to me because I'm interested in the topic and would like to participate, but these cards will never be worth what they are right now.
I know some people that make good money mining. They can usually pay off a whole new PC build in a few months. At that point they may buy another and another until they have enough to generate a decent second income. That was one of the arguments people used to make about buying a rx480 over a 1060. The card was basically free if you mined for a few months. Looks like the new 570 and 580s have been sold out for a while. This happened with the old 290s as well. Does it wear a card out? Probably, but people mine with them 24/7 for years so I don't think it's a huger impact.
I'll look into it. Maybe I can ultimately turn my ancient tower into a mining machine if it makes money. The problem right now is my scale. I might be better off looking for another newer cryptocurrency that is still young and taking a gamble on it.
I've always been curious about mining, but end up shying away from it due to the energy costs. Maybe if I was 19 years old and lived in a college dorm where I wasn't paying the electric bill I would mess around with it.
Digital currency is a bit like stock. Its value goes up and down and people have to do the math to see if it's worth the price of a card and power. This sudden rise in Etheruem prices is why all the AMD cards sold out. Nvidia cards are less effective at mining but I guess at this price people are starting to use them and still turn a profit. This site list the cost of equipment and how long it takes to recover the cost. It takes 34 days of mining to recover the cost of a $200 480. I suppose at $400 it's take over 2 months to earn that back. Total yearly gain minus the cost of electricity is still $2125. It's not much money for a whole year but it also doesn't seem like a lot of work. Of course there are risks involved. People have had their coins stolen and the value could always plummet to $0. https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/#/equipment
I ran my system specs and electrical rate through a calculator, and it estimates that running the ethereum algorithm on my system would cost $0.25 per day. That is pretty negligible cost for me to eat.
A decent deal on the NZXT S340. This would be on my short list for budget mid towers. 3.5 HDDs go in front. SSDs go on top of the PSU box. No 5.25 bays. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16811146190
I was looking at a Masterbox Lite 5. My only concern is I like the front panel but it looks like it would scratch easily. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119322 Speaking of which, I just sold my Macbook Air. Regardless of anyone's opinion of apple, good or bad, their products retain a ton of value. So I can actually start buying parts for the new build! But I have some questions. The first is case recommendations. Please. My only criteria is I don't want a full tower, and I want a power supply cover, especially if the case is windowed. Second, I'm going to get a Ryzen R5 1600. The 1700 is $90 more for 2 more cores, but I don't think its worth it for me in my budget The quad core chips from Intel and AMD don't seem worth it to me with the direction the industry is going. The 1600 comes with a Wraith cooler, which I've read is actually pretty decent, so I can save money not buying a CPU cooler. I figure I can always upgrade the cooler later if I need to. If I buy a cheap air cooler, most require me ordering AM4 brackets from the manufacturer and I've heard some people have issues getting them, so this would save me hassle not having to buy a cooler. Does anyone think this is a bad idea? I'm going to probably get a B350 board, unless I find a deal on an X370 board the day I decide to order. My third question is system memory. What brands should I be looking at? Which should I avoid? Do the LEDs on some modules make them faster, like stripes on a Civic? Haha. The last thing I'll need is a power supply, but we already talked about that, so I'm going to see what I get the best deal on in the 600-700W range. I'm going to start putting a plan together ASAP. I'm really excited. I didn't think this would happen until later this year.
I'll go over my opinion of the Ryzen CPU stuff again. The 1600x has a base clock speed of 3.6GHz and a multi-thread boost to 3.7GHz. In single thread applications, it can boost to 4.1Ghz. If you overclock it the CPU it loses all boost speed and will remain at the speed you set it to. So if you OC it to 3.8GHz, all cores will run at that speed all the time. The 1600 has a base clock of 3.2GHz and an all core boost speed of 3.4GHz. Single core boost speed can reach 3.7GHz. Most every 1600 can be OCed to 3.7GHz and even 3.8GHz on the Spire cooler. That matches or beats the multi-thread performance of the 1600X and is why people say the 1600 is the better value. The 1600X doesn't really OC any higher than the 1600. If you don't plan to OC the 1600 I'd suggest you go with the 1600X and get a Hyper 212 EVO cooler with it. The total price difference is only $64. The Spire cooler performs surprisingly well and is very quiet. Mine could handle 3.8GHz but temps would get into the 70s under a torture test. 3.7GHz is very doable with the Spire. I swapped the Spire for my Truespirit 120 which is probably 30% larger and I got a 10 degree improvement. I'm not really sure if buying a better cooler than the Spire is worth while. The heat curve on Ryzen is insane after 3.8GHz and even a $80 air cooler wont get you past 3.9GHz. My water loop is pretty damn good and even it will hit 70 degrees at 4.0GHz. The 1700 is an interesting choice. I didn't see the need for it myself but your situation may be different. The Spire cooler that comes with the 1700 has a RGB led ring which is actually pretty sexy. Here is my board with the original non-RGB Spire on it. It was a nice black and white theme. Even the memory has white LEDs.
That is the X370 killer board, right? That was one of the possible boards I was looking at. What is your opinion of the board?