Need some advice on building an Intel MicroATX build for coding work.

[Crow846]

Finally after 10 years my AMD build is finally failing and I need to buy a new pc.
For the past 4 years I have been doing the main work on my "trusty" Lenovo flex and the home PC was more of a relic sitting on my desk.
But as I don't really trust my Lenovo notebook, I want to buy a micro ATX build which will be used 90% for office work and coding and 10% for playing some old games.

My main requirement is a proper SSD M2 drive (970?) that will make things snappy and RAM which will be able to hold a LOT of open tabs.. (32 vs16)
As for the case I will buy a simple, black Micro ATX case from cooler master. with no LEDs!..

I will gladly take any suggestions about what CPU should I go for (I7 or I5?) And which Chipset I should buy on the Motherboard?
I was using AMD for the past 10 years and I am not feeling of buying AMD again.

For GPU I am using 1050TI and for now I will keep it.

Thank you all in advanced

 

[Johan45]

Not sure why you're resisting AMD this time around. Ryzen has really put them in the game, neck and neck with Intel and typically less power-hungry (good for micro builds) with more cores/$
Having a budget and core count would really help. Going from FX you're going to be amazed at the speed of things these days.

 

[DaveB]

From your usage and the fact that you're keeping that old 1050 Ti it appears you should go for a 6C/12T budget build. For the i5-10400 build in my sig, the CPU, motherboard and 32GB DDR4 only cost me $330 including shipping and tax. Not that you appear to need it, but a 10C/20T i9-10900 at my local Microcenter would have only cost another $170. Right now AMD builds are more expensive, and Zen 3 has had a lot of issues to deal with.

 

[Crow846]

The AMD FX chip held well for the past 10 years but from my experience with AMD, they usually lack proper support for some other technologies (such as Thunderbolt )
Or on my old pc a proper support for SSD. Also I am little worried about legacy support on the new Ryzen chips.
I just don't see any profit from buying Ryzen CPU over i7 or i5. Maybe just saving few $. but is it worth it?

Also will I have any issues with MiniATX vs MicroATX? And which miniATX should I go for? as they sold at a higher price then normal ATX.
I really want that tiny case build that will take much less space then my cooler master 690II case.

From your usage and the fact that you're keeping that old 1050 Ti it appears you should go for a 6C/12T budget build. For the i5-10400 build in my sig, the CPU, motherboard and 32GB DDR4 only cost me $330 including shipping and tax. Not that you appear to need it, but a 10C/20T i9-10900 at my local Microcenter would have only cost another $170. Right now AMD builds are more expensive, and Zen 3 has had a lot of issues to deal with.

Isn't 750W PSU an overkill for non SLI systems?

 

[DaveB]

Isn't 750W PSU an overkill for non SLI systems?

Yes, I use an EVGA 450W PSU.

 

[Woomack]

I recommend picking something higher quality/efficiency like the Gold/Platinum series but ~550W. Corsair, EVGA, Enermax, Seasonic ... the list of good PSU is quite long nowadays. These units usually run cooler and are semi-passive with passive mode up to 50% load (or depends on temps).

Btw. Intel runs cooler than AMD if you pick 6 core CPUs like mentioned i5-10400 or 10500 or non-K 8 cores. Soon will be 11400/11500 that should perform a bit better (in about 2 weeks in stores). On the other hand, if you want 10+ cores then AMD will be cooler because of their power management and lower TDP.

It's not really so obvious that a mini ITX or micro ATX build will be smaller than ATX. If you compare a typical micro ATX PC case then it's almost as large as a typical mid-tower ATX case. Larger ITX cases are also not much smaller than micro ATX or ATX. This is because most modern PC cases don't have HDD/ODD cages or anything additional. There is space for a PSU and spots to mount 2.5" SSD. Often it's not even used as if you want fast SSD then you take M.2 installed on the motherboard.
If you have enough room and won't move your PC more often then stick with micro ATX or ATX. As far as I like ITX builds then they usually cost more and you may have some problems if you won't plan the whole build right. Micro ATX motherboards are usually inexpensive and cheaper than ITX and ATX. There are exceptions as always.

If you want a fast SSD then it depends if you want to spend more on a PCIe 4.0 SSD or can live with a 3.0 version. It won't make any special difference as even though sequential bandwidth is significantly higher in benchmarks, then in real-life usage what counts more are random operations and these are not so much different. If the price is similar then PCIe 4.0 is a better option.
There are many brands that make good SSD nowadays so you can pick Samsung but you can also find something from WD/Sandisk, ADATA, Corsair, Silicon Power, Sabrent, or some others.
I have WD SN850 in one PC, Silicon Power US70 in another, and Samsung 970 EVO in an additional test rig. On my laptop is Kingston KC2500 and Crucial P5. All of them run without issues and are fast.

 

[Crow846]

@Woomack, Notes taken and I will take a look at small ATX cases. I am looking for this mini PC look.

And I ran into an issue finally. I was looking at i7 10700KF and a lot of reviews said that you should get 3600Mhz DDR4 RAM so it will run perfectly.
But all the mother boards I'v seen this far only support up to 2933Mhz. with Asus gaming TUF up to 3200Mhz.
All of them still won't support 3600Mhz. What am I missing here?
How can I get 3600Mhz support or at least 3200Mhz for a reasonable price?

Edit: all ATX cases come the same standard size, so they are too large for me.
Back to Micro ATX cases or even mini if needed. They are much smaller.

 

[Nebulous]

I just upgraded from an i7 7700K to a Ryzen 7 5800X. My 7700k was bulletproof for the past 5 years. Tho for what I primarily use my pc for is gaming with the occasional office work, it started to show it's age in certain games.

Last AMD rig I had was an FX55 during the socket 939 days. Ever since then I've been an Intel fanboy. For me it was strictly raw clock speed 1st followed by cores 2nd. When my time to get a new upgrade came up, I did my research and for the best dollar per performance the Ryzen was the best deal. I wanted to stay with intel, but I got fed up with them and their 2-5% performance increase over the last sockets and the cost wasn't worth it. Not to mention I shot myself in the foot by jumping on a dead socket 6 months later. I was stuck with the 1151. I had thought the next chip upgrade would have given me new life for the 1151. Come to find out intel's new chip (8700K/9700K) would not work on a Z270 board which meant I had to buy a new board (Z370) to use a new chip. I couldn't justify paying a premium for that, that's why I stayed with intel's from Z97 all the way to Z270. Any increase performance wise was a waste of money for miniscule of increase.

Right away I can see the performance increase going from my old Z270 rig to the X570. I'm still tweaking, but so far I'm at 4.8Ghz and this thing is crazy fast. Hopefully it'll last me 5+ years.

 

[DaveB]

@Woomack, Notes taken and I will take a look at small ATX cases. I am looking for this mini PC look.

And I ran into an issue finally. I was looking at i7 10700KF and a lot of reviews said that you should get 3600Mhz DDR4 RAM so it will run perfectly.
But all the mother boards I'v seen this far only support up to 2933Mhz. with Asus gaming TUF up to 3200Mhz.
All of them still won't support 3600Mhz. What am I missing here?

The lower-end chipsets, H410, H470 and B460, only support up to 2933 for an i7 or i9 CPU. You need a Z490 or Z590 for unlimited DDR4 support. The cheapest Z590 at Newegg is the ASRock Z590M Phantom Gaming 4 for $130 after rebate. Getting a Z590 will allow a future update to a Rocket Lake CPU that supports PCIe 4.0. The ASRock supports up to DDR4-4600 for comet Lake and DDR4-4800 for Rocket Lake.

 

[Crow846]

Okay, I did found the Z490 Motherboard.
But what is the difference between 2993Mhz ram vs 3600Mhz for Intel 10700K?
I searched for some benchmarks but I couldn't find an answer. they all say that for some software it makes a difference but for Intel CPU it won't change much.
The question is. should I buy advanced Motherboard with 3600Mhz of ram or not?

I don't need support for PCIe 4.0 as I am not planning on upgrading this pc in the future. I will just a buy a new PC with the specs I will need in the future.
I am tempted to buy the I7 10700K with 3600 32GB RAM so I could upgrade the GPU when the prices will come down a bit. but I hardly believe I should.


Edit: Those are the 2 options I have for the build.

Intel Core i7 10700KF
Gigabyte Z490M
TEAM Delta 3600 CL18 2X16
--------VS---------
Intel Core i5 10600KF
Gigabyte H470M DS3H
Corsair 3200 CL16 2X16
-------Rest------------
CoolerMaster Hyper 212
Samsung SSD 1.0TB 970 EVO Plus
ANTEC PSU 500W Neo ECO GOLD
CoolerMaster MasterBox NR200P

 

[EarthDog]

If you're going 3600, make it cl14...or 16 at least. 3600 cl18 is 'slow.

 

[Crow846]

The store only sell 32GB at 3600 with CL18.
I have no idea why. They don't have CL14.
Should I take the 3200?

 

[DaveB]

The store only sell 32GB at 3600 with CL18.
I have no idea why. They don't have CL14.
Should I take the 3200?

It only matters if you're going with the i7/Z490 combo, the i5/H470 combo only goes to 2933. I used G.Skill DDR4-3600 16-18-18-19 memory with my Ryzen 9 3900X/B450 combo. It only ran a few dollars more than CL18, but I was only using a 2 x 8GB set.

A CL14 2 x 16GB set or DDR4-3600 is very expensive, $330 at Newegg and out of stock. CL16 2 x 16GB sets are around $200 while CL18 sets start around $170.

So for a 2 x 16GB set of DDR4-3600, I would forget about CL14 as it is too expensive and hard to find.

 

[Crow846]

What about amd ryzen 7 3800x CPU?
It is cheaper for me then the Intel I7 10700K because of the cheaper Motherboard for the AMD.
I read some benchmarks and they are almost the same.
Should I consider it for the MiniITX build?

Also which Chipset supports the Ryzen 7? will B550 support it? I have no idea what generation the Ryzen cpu is.

 

[EarthDog]

Ryzen 3/5/7/9 doesn't tell you what generation the CPU is (but is more of a designation of SKUs within a generation). The numbering does... 1000 series, 3000 series, 5000 series, with the 5000 series the latest.

B550 and X570 supports the 3000 and 5000 series.

 

[Crow846]

Thanks, I see now.
What about the performance? Should I consider it to the 10700K?

The issue is, I want a miniITX case. But mini ITX boards are quite rare and expensive.
So for Intel CPU I could only find a very expensive motherboard.
For Ryzen 7 3800X the mother board is almost half price.

It the 3800X is a good buy today (03 2021)? if so, then I will take one.

BTW the RGB led are getting on my nerves. every single component is sold with RGB which pump the price but I will never use them. So WTF?


Also is the Noctua NH-U9S a good cooler for the new Ryzen? or a dual rad water cooler is a must?
No over clocking what so ever but hot ambient..

 

[EarthDog]

Yeah... $260 is your entry price this second...
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=Z490+ITX&N=8000&Order=1

Honestly, I'd hold off and go 5000 series if you don't want to go Intel.

TBH, the price difference isn't that much if you consider AMD...

 

[Ben333]

I run 32 GB (4x 8 GB) of 3600 MHz CL18 RAM. I don't think it is slower... or much slower than CL 16 3200 mhz. Could be wrong, but my benchmarks all look really good. Ideally I would not have gone with CL18, but at the time I bought the first pair of sticks my kit was < $70 so it was a no-brainer.

 

[EarthDog]

It's more of an on paper thing, but there are performance differences.

 

[Crow846]

Honestly, I'd hold off and go 5000 series if you don't want to go Intel.

TBH, the price difference isn't that much if you consider AMD...

Personally I don't see much profit from going with the 5000 series.
What am I missing?
Sure the single thread performance are better but by not that much.

BTW Newegg prices are insane!!! My local dealer is selling at much lower price. The AMD 7 5800 cost me almost $100 less.