s wrote:
My nephew is 14 and living in another state who wants to build his own
computer.
I sent following YouTube videos for him to watch and learn how to do it.
Build a PC - Step-by-step
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhX0fOUYd8Q
Beginners Guide - Build a PC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVmcD8v3vR4
How To Build a $500 Gaming PC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFyhn6seoow
The idea is to assemble a basic PC using which he can do homework, learn
new topics etc.
Would the following parts be compatible to buy, assemble?
https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master...dp/B0785GRMPG/
https://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-C...dp/B014W3EM2W/
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barra...dp/B07D99KFPK/
https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-360...dp/B07STGGQ18/
https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Venge...dp/B07RM39V5F/
https://www.amazon.com/XFX-Radeon-13...dp/B06Y66K3XD/
https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-TUF-X570...dp/B07SXF8GY3/
I would appreciate any suggestions
Thanks
I agree with John McGaw. Find a tiny SSD for a boot drive.
Backups or other materials (call this secondary storage) should
go on a spinner.
If a person has no other desktop computers, they don't really
have a lot of secondary storage. And the owner should develop
good backup habits, to handle the bugs that the 2020 "rolling release"
world brings with it. You can't rely on the OS settings to be
doing anything right (the settings can change on their own),
so it is up to you to apply whip and chair to maintain some
level of control of your three-ring circus.
If configured right, the backup drive can also be set up to
be a boot drive (for emergency boot). For situations where the
computer stopped booting on the SSD ("Windows Update" indigestion).
For Windows 10, the SSD could be as small as 45GB and you
could get by with that. You don't have to spend a lot of
money on it if you don't want to. At the 128GB level,
some SSD drives do that with a single flash chip inside.
*******
Q300L user manual.
http://us.coolermaster.com/xresserve...400073262.html
Looks like it has room to install one spinning drive (on a mounting plate),
plus multiple SSD drives. It almost looks like the HDD mount is on the
back of the tray, whereas SSD drives are on the back and the front
of the tray. HDDs are "stable on six axis", the compass points,
so can be mounted that way. I slide drives in and out of the computer
all day long, so such an arrangement (bolting to tray) would make me crazy :-)
If you use the machine for any sort of Technician Machine (like,
backing up a friends hard drive to your hard drive), having
two trays for drives would be a minimum. Buying external enclosures
is an unnecessary expense. But, I suppose this borders on a
"life style issue" as much as anything else. The case "meets a
minimum requirement".
Generally, I find with computer cases, that you can easily enter
from one side, but if maintenance involves visiting the front
(via glass door) or the back (rear mounted items like HDD),
you can do that if the PC is sitting on a table, but other
seating arrangements for the PC make this more difficult.
The absolute worst case you could be buying, would be a scissor case,
where it has a hinge on the bottom and the two halves fold open.
Pure misery.
The PSU is on the bottom of the computer case. The very last row of
pictures in the "manual", shows the PSU is mounted upside-down, which
means the intake fan is facing upwards. This is only a problem in the
following scenario.
The case is porous on top. If you rest a Coke on the top of the machine,
and you happen to spill the Coke, Coke liquid is now entering the PC.
It pours downwards. If finds the (slowly spinning) PSU intake fan. Coke
is splattered around line voltage components in the PSU.
One poster, when I described the potential problems caused by
"porous on top PCs", mentioned, "yeah, when I spilled some water
in there, the PSU made a sizzling sound". And that would be for
a PSU mounted the normal way, at the top of the PC, with
fewer ways for liquid to get inside! It's for this reason, that
either the individual has great discipline (never rests a drink
on the PC), or, select a case where fluids don't find a way to do that.
This is why all my PCs here have flat metal tops, for "shedding
behavior". Yes, I know that mounting a radiator under the top
of a PC is all the rage now, so I understand why they're porous
on top.
Fabrics which collect dust, need to be cleaned every three months
or so. At least in this case, the condition of the fabric material
is easy to check visually. Many cases hide the dust filter behind
a door, and you have to be Houdini to get it out and clean it.
(That's because the dust filter comes out the bottom of the PC
via a slot down there.)
There is no place in the PC for an optical drive, no way to play
a CD someone brings over. (More expense buying a USB slim to
retrofit.) Many people don't care about this. Fine.
There's nothing wrong with the case as such, and the above is a
"nuisance-factor analysis".
*******
PSU - check that cable length is sufficiently long, to reach from
the PSU bay, to the various electrical loads. The back mounted
HDD plate, might need an extension cable. Since the PSU is
upside-down, the loom will be exiting close to the mobo tray
and back surface of the PC. Not a problem, just a comment.
The PSU could charge an iPad, if the PC is "soft-off" and
not S3 Sleep (usual +5VSB limits). The +5V is weaker than I
would like, but then there's no large collection of drive bays
either, to load it down. I like PSUs to be ready for anything,
and 3.3V 20A and 5V 20A are the minimum I use here. There is also
a combined power limit on the two rails, and if that was 100W
in a crappy example, then really only one rail could be fully
loaded. On modern PCs, I don't expect the chipset load or drive
loads, to make generous ratings there necessary any more.
Now that the PSU has all-shrouded cables and all the wires
are black in color... it's pretty hard for me to be measuring
these loads with my clamp-on DC ammeter to check them. All-black
wire is an abomination.
The PSU has two PCIe connectors, so that part is as ready
as you would like. All the rest of the determinations, depend
on what components you add to the PC.
*******
https://outervision.com/b/PFGmMG
One problem with that power calculator, is it doesn't give a
breakdown of individual cards. The RX 580 could be 185W or 12V 15.5A.
The CPU, it would all depend on whether it's overclocked, or
whether the TDP is correct. (On Intel processors, the power
shoots above TDP by a fair bit if AVX is being used.) That
suggests they're allocating 12V @ 10A for the CPU (subtract
hard drive currents from the calc). Whereas Newegg lists
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 as 65W TDP. The outervision.com calc could
be a little bit on the high side on the +12V. It might be 24 or
25 amps or so.
Load Wattage: 439 W +3.3V +5V +12V
9.5 A 11.3 A 29.3 A
--- 88 W --- 351 W
I monitor my PC with a Kill-O-Watt meter, so I have
a good idea how close to the max power it runs. It
managed to draw 250W the other day, running Prime95 and
some AVX code in there, and the video card would add
180W if I were to run Furmark. Since my VCore should
be overheating at 250W, I didn't leave that running
for too long :-) I think the nephews build will be
substantially lower and well behaved. You have to go
out of your way, to attempt to tip over this setup.
*******
Motherboard - X570 is fan cooled, with what could be a
40mm custom fan or similar. Tail of video card
runs across the top, so the cooling design
cannot afford to be too tall.
If the fan fails... the young builder is
going to be learning a thing or two about
retrofitting a heatpipe cooler (and the one
I have in mind is likely not in production now).
On a fan failure, this might be beyond my
pay scale to fix (no materials).
If it used a standard 40mm square or 60mm square
fan, then I'd have no argument with the design.
As you can swap the square ones.
*******
Paul