Sister asked me to build a pc for her (updated list)

TheITDad

I appreciate all the feed back I have gotten and I have taken some of the advice.  I changed the CPU to the Ryzen 5 3600, dropped the m.2 storage down to 250 just to run the os and maybe a few favorite games and added a 2tb spinning drive.  Couldn't find anything "in stock" with a decent cache on the spinning drives so that drive is subject to shopping around because I felt like a 10tb drive was just a tad overkill for this build.  Also the good point of her not having a good monitor for all this led me to drop to the 2060 super.  Now with all these Changes and shopping for some deals over the next few weeks I believe I can get her everything here for barely over 1k and that should allow her to buy the monitor listed and stay right at the 1200 range for her total.  For now I just straight up dropped any extra cooling for her CPU outside the stock wraith cooler as she will pretty much do zero OC unless I do it and I will hold off till she has the money to drop on a decent 240mm AIO set up.  I wanted to keep the power supply the same to leave that easy upgrade path without re-wiring to much and when going for the purchase I will be checking out to see if I can find a good CPU/motherboard combo sale going on as long as I can at least keep x470 and up for some future proofing.

CPU: (1) AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6GHz 6 Core AM4 Boxed Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler ($159.99 EACH)

Motherboard: (1) Gigabyte X570 UD AMD AM4 ATX Motherboard ($139.99 EACH)

RAM: (1) Crucial Sport LT 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 PC4-24000 CL15 Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit BLS2K8G4D30AESB - Gray ($74.99 EACH)

Case: (1) NZXT H510 Tempered Glass ATX Mid-Tower Computer Case - Black ($69.99 EACH)

Power Supply: (1) Seasonic USA Focus Plus 750 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power Supply ($119.99 EACH)

Video Card: (1) ASUS GeForce RTX 2060 Super ROG Strix Triple-Fan 8GB GDDR6 PCIe 3.0 Video Card ($419.99 EACH)

M.2 SSD: (1) WD Black SN750 250GB SSD 3D V-NAND PCIe NVMe Gen 3 x 4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Drive ($62.99 EACH)

Hard Drive: (1) Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA III 6Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 EACH)

Thermal Compound: (1) Performance PCs Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Thermal Grease  - 1g ($11.99 EACH)
Monitors: (1) Acer Nitro VG240Y Pbiip 23.8" Full HD 144Hz HDMI DP FreeSync LED Monitor ($149.99 EACH)

Total: $1,259.90

PowerSpec_MikeW

This is a good build for your budget. Having stated that you want it to be easy to upgrade down the road, reaching for the PSU and motherboard with the X570 chipset is a great move. Seasonic is top notch when it comes to power supplies. X570 with the Gen4 PCIe will give you a lot of time with that board.  If you were going to change anything, a better board. Factor in the bundle discount and there are a few MSI and Asrock boards available at the top of your price range.

CKnight

Couple of changes I would suggest.
1. change out the Ryzen 7 2700x to a Ryzen 5 3600. The 3600 is faster even with fewer cores.
2. I the power supply is overkill. could save some money by dropping to a 500-550 watt unit. Powerspec is good. My 2080ti overclocked is running on a powerspec 750w. Been good for over a year.

3. as for the SSD. Get a 256mb m.2 just for a boot drive "Install OS in it" and cache. Get a 1-2 TB Seagate drive for mass storage. Mechanical drives are WAY faster when they do not run the OS. This si give you lots more storage with no noticeable loss of speed.

4. Water cooling. This is not really needed unless you plan to overclock. if you still want water just cause its cool =P then I suggest nothing less than 240mm of rad per component. 120mm will heat up pretty good unless you put a high rpm aka loud fan on it. 240mm will have 2 fans and you can run them nice and silent while running colder than a passive air cooler.

Good luck!

PowerSpec_MichaelB

CKnight said:

Couple of changes I would suggest.
1. change out the Ryzen 7 2700x to a Ryzen 5 3600. The 3600 is faster even with fewer cores.
2. I the power supply is overkill. could save some money by dropping to a 500-550 watt unit. Powerspec is good. My 2080ti overclocked is running on a powerspec 750w. Been good for over a year.

3. as for the SSD. Get a 256mb m.2 just for a boot drive "Install OS in it" and cache. Get a 1-2 TB Seagate drive for mass storage. Mechanical drives are WAY faster when they do not run the OS. This si give you lots more storage with no noticeable loss of speed.

4. Water cooling. This is not really needed unless you plan to overclock. if you still want water just cause its cool =P then I suggest nothing less than 240mm of rad per component. 120mm will heat up pretty good unless you put a high rpm aka loud fan on it. 240mm will have 2 fans and you can run them nice and silent while running colder than a passive air cooler.

Good luck!

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for the great suggestions! The Ryzen 3000 series is definitely worth the investment if gaming is the main concern as the massive IPC improvement from 3rd gen greatly improved gaming performance as a whole. You also touched upon using the SSD as a cache, which is a fantastic idea since AMD included a caching feature in their StoreMi software. 

@TheITDad If your sister doesn't currently have a gaming monitor, it might be worth factoring that into the budget. Pairing a high end graphics card like an RTX 2070 Super with a 60hz non-gaming monitor will definitely have a negative impact on your sisters overall gaming experience. If you have to drop down to an RTX 2060 Super in order to add a gaming monitor to the budget, I would say it's worth the investment, especially since you can get 144hz FreeSync panels for as low as $150 these days, which now work with Nvidia graphics cards.

I would also recommend exercising caution with QLC SSD's. While they are great for fast, cheap storage, their durability is not as strong as SLC, MLC or even TLC flash. If you plan on storing important files on this drive, I highly recommend backing your data up frequently or investing in a smaller, more durable SSD and use a larger spinner like @CKnight suggested.

PowerSpec_MichaelB

TheITDad said:

CPU: (1) AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6GHz 6 Core AM4 Boxed Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler ($159.99 EACH)

Motherboard: (1) Gigabyte X570 UD AMD AM4 ATX Motherboard ($139.99 EACH)

RAM: (1) Crucial Sport LT 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 PC4-24000 CL15 Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit BLS2K8G4D30AESB - Gray ($74.99 EACH)

Case: (1) NZXT H510 Tempered Glass ATX Mid-Tower Computer Case - Black ($69.99 EACH)

Power Supply: (1) Seasonic USA Focus Plus 750 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power Supply ($119.99 EACH)

Video Card: (1) ASUS GeForce RTX 2060 Super ROG Strix Triple-Fan 8GB GDDR6 PCIe 3.0 Video Card ($419.99 EACH)

M.2 SSD: (1) WD Black SN750 250GB SSD 3D V-NAND PCIe NVMe Gen 3 x 4 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Drive ($62.99 EACH)

Hard Drive: (1) Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA III 6Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 EACH)

Thermal Compound: (1) Performance PCs Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Thermal Grease  - 1g ($11.99 EACH)
Monitors: (1) Acer Nitro VG240Y Pbiip 23.8" Full HD 144Hz HDMI DP FreeSync LED Monitor ($149.99 EACH)

Total: $1,259.90

This updated list looks fantastic. I am sure your sister will enjoy the gaming experience given how well rounded this system is. The RTX 2060 Super is plenty fast for the vast majority of 1080P games and she will be able to enjoy them at a much higher, buttery smooth framerate thanks to your choice in monitor. Do make sure she enables G-Sync compatibility mode in order to get the best experience: https://www.microcenter.com/tech_center/article/10968/how-to-enable-nvidia-g-sync-compatible-mode. 

Also keep in mind that you will need ASUS's Aura Sync software to control the RGB LED's for that graphics card if she wanted to customize them. 

Your choice in SSD is definitely more durable and I think she will appreciate that in the long run. If you can swing another $17, you can get double the capacity: https://www.microcenter.com/product/607730/wd-black-sn750-500gb-ssd-3d-v-nand-pcie-nvme-gen-3-x-4-m2-2280-internal-solid-state-drive.

Also remember that your component pricing does not reflect the bundle discounts. You will save $20 on the motherboard since you are bundling it with the CPU, and you will save another $5 on the SSD since you will be bundling it with a CPU or motherboard. That will shave another $25 off your total price which will get you down closer to your original budget. 

As @CKnight mentioned, you could also go with a cheaper power supply as your component selection won't consume much power. The 750W SeaSonic PSU will definitely allow for upgrades, but if you needed to save money in the meantime, you could easily get away with a 500-600W PSU.

Best of luck with your sisters build!