Building a PC for my use.

[ThinkPad560X]

I decided to want to build a PC again. Haven't in so many years and the ones I did were for someone, or I built to sell. I am just staying in the very basics and the classic. Plus budget isn't really high, like $500 over time wise. I was looking for an old White ATX build your tower like from late 90s early 2000s but resellers of those were used obviously. But they were selling them for around $200 to $300 and they were dirty and broken. So, I searched online, and most cases are flashy with RGB lights and side windows to see the setup and expensive if want a high end case. I like my plain old basic black IBM towers. Not to flashy but looks professional. I found this case for $54.00 new on Micro Centre. And is the cheapest case to buy. Thermaltake V100 Mid Tower, All black. It even has 2 drive bays for a Blu-ray if added. May just throw in a CD/RW/DVD drive I have laying around for now.

For the motherboards on Micro center or BestBuy I am looking at are

MSI - PRO Z690-A DDR4 Socket LGA 1700 USB 3.2 Intel Motherboard - Black
or the
MSI - B550 GAMING PLUS (Socket AM4) USB-C Gen 2 AMD ATX GAMING Motherboard PCIE Gen 4 - Black

Doing research, they are both DDR4s and the Intel Supports 12,13 and 14th Gen. I don't follow much on AMD but did research and AM4 is now replaced with AM5 with DDR5 support. So, the AMD board is last gen but still a little cheaper. These are the cheapest boards on their sites and wanting to stay with buying new over used, as I want to have this build built with all new parts. Keyboard and mouse included.

Depending what motherboard I get, it will factor what graphics card I want. if it is Intel then I will keep with Nvidia like I had with other machines and if the AMD board then I will go AMD.

For PSU I was thinking of a 700W as I don't do heavy gaming. Probably the newest game I have right now is Cyberpunk 2077 with DLC. Most games I have are way older than this and can play on Core 2 duos
For now if I get motherboard and PSU, It will have a 1TB or 2TB NVMe drive and not sure what integrated graphics these boards have but will be enough to get it up and running.

And this time I am going to keep this built tower for my use and upgrade it if need be over time.




(I guess for $50 more MSI - MAG B650 Tomahawk WIFI (Socket AM5 LGA 1718) USB 3.2 AMD Motherboard - Black)

[axur-delmeria]

AM5 is a bit expensive, but gives you a lot of upgrade potential. The new Ryzen 8000G APUs have relatively powerful graphics, with the Ryzen 7 8700G's built-in Radeon 780M within spitting distance of a GTX 1650. Probably not enough for Cyberpunk 2077 though.

IIRC most budget AM5 builds make use of the Ryzen 5 7500F, a cheap 6-core CPU without graphics.

[ThinkPad560X]

Looking at the motherboards I listed, MSI - Z790 GAMING PLUS WIFI (Socket 1700) USB 3.2 Intel Motherboard - Black DDR5. I am debaiting if I should get a DDR5 system or just stay with DDR4 as my demands are not that high, but if went with DDR5 then it would be future proof for years. Also though, the Intel 14th gen 1700 socket is the last gen that supports 12th, 13th and 14th Gen Core i series, Pentium and Celeron before Intel releases a new socket type where as AMD's AM5 just came out and will support new chips for a few years from now.

As said my highest game I play is Cyberpunk 2077 with the upped requirement of the DLC. All my other games play fine and are not really that demanding. And still play great on a Intel Quad Core 2 and 1st/2nd gen Core i. Fallout 3, New Vegas, Fallout 4, Bio Shock, Metro Series, GTA 3 - V, Diablo, Resident Evil series.
We live in a time now where CPUs and RAM are good enough. Even maxed out 5th and 6th gen Core i systems still run great for today. But it really comes down to the GPU and the more intense games. I am running a Nvidia GeForce 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6 and it plays cyberpunk fine. My monitor "DELL" is only 1080p and fine with it. Plus it is the one that came with my Dell desktop I bought new at the end of last year. I don't know if I am going to go that far into buying a monitor too but. I know that there is some nice gaming monitors out there. But I think I will just focus on the tower build.

[RealBlackStuff]

I don't want to be unkind, but your signature is absolutely useless and unreadable, plus the last line is too long for 'regular' display.

[ThinkPad560X]

It is all the ThinkPads I own. It wouldn't allow me to add anymore commas to space them.

[RealBlackStuff]

Easily solved: sell a few!

[ThinkPad560X]

I did sell a few how many years ago. ThinkPad s30, Transnote, 700T, 700C, 3 701CS, 755CD, 360C, 760X, 600, 555BJ, WorkPad Z50. I use to repair with IBM, So I have a lot of parts I got to keep. My list isn't including the Dell laptops and the 4 Apple laptops. There is also lots of IBM desktops ranging from Tower, desktop, SFF, USFF and the all in one IBM NetVista X40 and X41. and Dell desktops mostly Optiplex and Precision and Apple such as Macintosh SE all in one, Quadra 700, G4 tower, G5 tower and Mac Mini. I stated in one of my post that I am done collecting. I just wanted to build a PC again instead of upgrade one of my machines with a newer motherboard. With this case I will just upgrade this and leave the original boards in the other PCs. The best part is all these PCs are in compact storage and put away and don't have to see them until I want to take one out.