Katey's 1st PC build.

MichaelHalpin

I put this parts list together and am looking for some advice.  Basic (inexpensive) 1st build. I am buying the components and having my 14 year old figure the rest out on her own to assemble her first PC. She is a user but has never built her own yet. Thanks for any feedback.   https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/custom-pc-builder.aspx?load=da9740cd-9b02-4c95-9d8a-3e833e8c2459

PowerSpec_MikeW

Greetings @MichaelHalpin

A few things I would point out here. With an H470 board, the 3200Mhz RAM is a waste. Maxmimum supported RAM speed is 2933. It'll have a section in the BIOS to enable XMP to Auto, but you can load the profiles above 2933. So effectively, the XMP profile on the RAM is incompatible. If it has another one within that range, it'll load it, but it's likely to default to the highest JEDEC profile. I'm not sure what that is, but it's probably going to be DDR4-2666 or 2400.

You've got a lot of drives. I'd go for a single 512GB NVME drive and drop the rest. It's an easy upgrade down the road, and 512GB is a decent amount of space. Also, the i3-10100 includes a stock cooler, you don't need the Thermaltake CPU cooler. Take that money and upgrade your board to the ASRock Z490 Pro4. You'll be able to load the XMP profile and hit 3200 on the RAM.

Any other funds left over, I'd throw into your PSU. You don't need much wattage for what you're building, but it's going to create problems later on if you try to upgrade this system. Particularly if you decide to add a GPU to it. If that's not the purpose, I would still suggest a better, more efficient unit. If you might upgrade the GPU, then better to do it now, rather than having to upgrade the PSU when you do.