Need build advice (long post sorry)

[Anakha]

Good Morning Anandtech forumites,

Well it is morning in South Africa...

My current PC is the good old i7-2600K Sandy Bridge paired with a ASUS PBZ68-V and 16GB of Corsair RAM with a Nvidia GTX 760 and a standard Samsung 750 SSD plus a couple of mechanical drives. All this sits in a Cooler Master HAF 932 I think the case model is.

The goal of my new build is to reduce the size of the case to something that can sit on a desk and to be as near to silent as possible because there are the odd occasions that I need to leave the PC running over night. This PC will be mainly used for gaming as well as Photoshop and Lightroom use paired with some video encoding. My budget is not too much of an issue, it is more the parts availability that would be the issue. I am not looking at replacing the GPU just yet purely because of the massive shortage in my country of both AMD and Nvidia, so this will be bought at a later stage. Onto my idea of a build and my struggle points:

• Case: Corsair Air 240.
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700x.
• Mobo: No particular order of preference: ASRock AB350M Pro4, MSI B350M Mortar and ASUS Prime B350M-K
• RAM: No idea, need some guidance as to what would work with this Ryzen stup?
• Cooling: So I want to go for a liquid cooling setup that when the PC is idling it is whisper quite but as the load increases it ramps according to the temps. I have not had that much experience in liquid cooling except for a Corsair H110i (cant remember the full spec name) and I am not impressed the with the software so ideally I would like to avoid Corsair.
• Fan controller: Do I really need it or is software better these days?

I do not have a preference when it comes to brand as long as the build is quite and I can do my gaming, photo editing and video encoding I will be a happy man. The only reason why I have the Ryzen listed above is because I hear it is a great all rounder whereas Intel seems to be better in gaming but loses in multitasking, is that correct?

The boards, I really do need help with. I want great sound, USB3 aplenty and a premium look and feel. I just don't know about the Realtek audio on them and if it would be rather worth my while investing in a Creative (cant get in SA, so import) or ASUS solution?

As for the case and the reasoning behind the idea. Well it is a small case that would fit nicely on my desk and can accommodate a liquid cooling solution easily in the front. In saying that if anyone has a better idea please suggest .

Oh and for the love of all that is holy in the FSM land the build does not need all that bling and lighting. I don't need the room lit up like a Christmas tree at night.

So yeah any suggestions? Better to change to mid-atx to get better goodies on board?

 

[lehtv]

Corsair Air 240 is not that quiet, it has holes everywhere and no noise insulation, and the stock fans are pretty mediocre. Cooling performance is okay. But at 34 liters it's as big as some ATX cases while taking up more space on the table than a tower case. Can you link to some shops so I can have a look at what's available?

Why not the Ryzen 1700 not-X? Performance is practically the same but it costs less and you get a fairly decent air cooler with it for stock use. OC headroom is the same - the 1700X may have slightly better MHz/VCore on average but you're likely to reach the same MHz regardless. Do you intend to overclock?

As for RAM, Corsair LPX 2x8GB 2800/3000/3200 should work fine.

I highly recommend against liquid cooling if you want a setup that is properly quiet when idling. Just buy an air cooler and leave the CPU fan at a low speed, it will be fine for a stock or slightly OC'd Ryzen 7. With a liquid cooler, you have to contend with pump noise (which may seem minor but will definitely stand out in the middle of the night and with all fans a low speeds). Typically the stock fans supplied with liquid coolers are noisy - of course, you can replace them with quieter ones, but then you get practically no performance advantage over air cooling and you pay even more of a premium.
Some good ones: Thermalright Macho Rev. B / Direct, Thermalright True Spirit 140 Direct, Arctic Freezer i32, Scythe Mugen 5, Noctua anything.

You don't need a fan controller, and you don't need software either. Unless by software you mean BIOS in which case that's all you need. Even your current board has fairly good fan controls.

Finally, the sound - there's nothing wrong with Realtek audio, I suggest going with a board using the S1220A codec. What sort of sound setup do you have? Typically, that's the biggest bottleneck to sound quality. If the Realtek doesn't satisfy you after making sure your audio setup is not the bottleneck, then go ahead and try a sound card or even an external amplifier that takes optical signal from your mobo.

What about the power supply? What display do you have? And how large is your Samsung 750 EVO SSD?

The only reason why I have the Ryzen listed above is because I hear it is a great all rounder whereas Intel seems to be better in gaming but loses in multitasking, is that correct?

Yes.

 

[Anakha]

Corsair Air 240 is not that quiet, it has holes everywhere and no noise insulation, and the stock fans are pretty mediocre. Cooling performance is okay. But at 34 liters it's as big as some ATX cases while taking up more space on the table than a tower case. Can you link to some shops so I can have a look at what's available?

Some local shops I assume? We have takealot and Landmark PC's as well as wootware and rebeltech. All links should take you to the chassis page.

Why not the Ryzen 1700 not-X? Performance is practically the same but it costs less and you get a fairly decent air cooler with it for stock use. OC headroom is the same - the 1700X may have slightly better MHz/VCore on average but you're likely to reach the same MHz regardless. Do you intend to overclock?

Honestly, the only reason why I put the X version up is because the kid in me likes the X . Overclock will only come into the equation a little further down the years, pretty much like how my current build has survived.

RE Cooling, as I mentioned new to liquid cooling so thanks for the feedback. I am more than happy to stay with air especially if I can get it close to silent.

RE Audio, its the one hangover I carry over from the early Realtek days. I am by no means a audio fanatic. My current speakers are standard fair, its the nice Sennheiser headphones that I enjoy the audio through. So yeah if Realtek is good then I am more than happy to stay with them.

PSU, I knew I forgot something! The most important piece of the puzzle as it were. So I was thinking of something along the lines of the be quiet range: Dark Power 750W or Straight Power 10. I don't think more than 700W is going to be needed, no crypto mining going on here.

I have a Samsung 24", it was on special so I thought why not. SSD is a 250GB and I am happy with it, I don't see a need to upgrade just yet.

 

[UsandThem]

With the money you save by skipping water cooling, and going with the 1700 (non X) which comes with a good cooler, you might consider jumping up to a 500 GB SSD (or even a NVMe drive like the 960 EVO). Of course the pricing in your country determines which is the better route. The down side to your current drive is 250 GB fills up very fast, but I guess if you don't put much data on it, it will do the job.

ALC1220 is nice, but it all depends on how well the motherboard manufacturers implement it. On mid-range and higher boards, they isolate the audio from the rest of the PCB, use shielding and high-end Japanese caps, amplifier, etc. You will have to read the reviews of the motherboards you are interested in to see which ones do it right. Some hardware review sites simply mention the specs, but there are a few that really test the audio. An example:

https://www.eteknix.com/asus-z170-maximus-viii-hero-lga-1151-motherboard-review/10/

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/72...ero-intel-z170-motherboard-review/index4.html

The Be Quiet PSUs score well, but there are also several other good units. It comes down to what pricing is in your country. EVGA G2 and G3, Corsair RMx, Seasonic Prime, Focus+ (new line just launched, but looks real good), plus several other series they make. Thermaltake makes some solid mid and high end units. There are more to choose from, and those are just a few off the top of my head. I usually just use http://www.jonnyguru.com to read PSU reviews. Also, you don't need a 750w unit unless you are going to SLI cards. A quality 550w - 650w unit will be plenty.

 

[lehtv]

Any 8-core Ryzen will have excellent longevity due to the high core count. Ryzen's OC potential isn't significant enough though to make a difference to longevity. Where your 2600K had OC potential of more than +30%, Ryzen overclocks by about 5-10% depending on the model. The non-X ones are by far the best value overclockers given their lower price and lower stock clocks. All you get with the X is higher stock clocks and a small chance at some extra MHz that won't make any difference.

Some case options:

Corsair Carbide 330R
- front facing ports
- noise absorbing materials
- dust filtered
- you may want to replace the two stock fans

Corsair Obsidian 550D
- similar features to 330R but with 3 fans
- may be a bit better quality given that it's in the higher end Obsidian product range

Cooler Master Silencio 652
- front facing power button, ports on the top
- noise absorbing materials
- dust filtered
- includes three good quiet retail fans (Silencio FP120)

 

[Anakha]

@iehtv thank you so much for guidance in the silence direction . I am definitely liking the both options with a dust filter and will more than likely lean towards the Silencio 652 . I will also start researching bigger boards and maybe go for the more premium chipset. I really like how AMD keeps to the same socket design for a longer period of time so the potential for an upgrade on CPU is more likely.