PC Building

PC Building is another of my hobbies and I've built quite a few. This is my current daily driver, used for basic office tasks, surfing and 1080p gaming. It started life as a Ryzen 5 2600 in a Gigabyte B450M and has developed from there: 16GB became 32GB, SATA drives gave way to NVME, the 2600 was replaced with a Ryzen 5 5600X, now a Ryzen 7 5700X3D, and various GPUs came and went. The plan was for an all AMD PC with minimal RGB for a clean, cool and reliable build. This is the latest and probably final iteration as it's at the sensible limit of the AM4 platform. Here's the spec:

Ryzen 7 5700X3D

Previously there was only one option if you wanted the ultimate gaming performance on AM4: The 5800X3D. And this is the same CPU clocked slighter lower. Currently the 5800X3D is unobtainium for sensible money while the 5700X3D is available on AliExpress for around £130. With over 90% of the performance for a third of the price it's a no-brainer.

MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard

A good no frills board. I wanted something with two NVME slots and chose this simply because its layout and aesthetic suited the build. I put the system together and it fired up and ran stable right off the bat. Comes with built in wifi and Bluetooth (although you need a second PC or an ethernet connection to download the drivers). And the two SSD slots allow me to finally dispense with SATA drives.

Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3600 CL16

Good spec, low price RAM. 3600 CL16 is the sweet spot for the AM4 platform and I’ve never had an issue with Kingston RAM.

Crucial P5 Plus 2TB PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME SSD

This is my C: drive and it's a good, fast NVME with 2048 MB of cache. I was going to go with Samsung but was put off by possible firmware issues. This is usefully cheaper and has similar specs. Sits in the PCIE 4.0 slot and runs blisteringly fast. No complaints so far.

Sabrent Rocket Q 1TB PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME SSD

Previously my C: drive, now holds my documents, pictures, music and video folders. Still showing 100% health after three years. Sits in the PCIE 3.0 slot and is a good, fast drive.

PowerColor Fighter Radeon RX 6700XT GPU

Chosen because it fits nicely into the build. This is one of the more compact 6700XTs out there. A bit plain Jane with no RGB but then again it's one of the cheapest 6700XTs and performs the same as any other. I'm running a custom fan curve via MSI Afterburner which keeps it cool while gaming and near silent for anything else. This is my first Radeon GPU in quite a few years and I was initially nervous about moving away from Nvidia, but this has been absolutely rock solid with no driver or compatibility issues whatsoever.

Fractal Design Define Mini C TG

My favourite case of all time and the main reason that I’ve stuck with mATX for so long. Not as compact as some others but makes up for it with excellent build quality and superb cable management. A very easy case to build in with lots of dust filters and sound proofing for an ultra-quiet build.

SeaSonic CORE GM 650 W 80+ Gold PSU

I bought three of these a while back when they were about half of the current price. Quiet, efficient, high quality PSUs that have given us no problems and come with a 7 year warranty. I'm not sure I'd buy at the current ridiculous price but an excellent PSU nonetheless.

So where do I go from here? Well, nowhere really. My only logical upgrade path is to start again on the AM5 platform but my current use doesn't justify that expense, so I'll be sticking with this system for the foreseeable future.