Description
What's the PC for?
I built this PC for 1080p gaming, desktop computing when I work from home, and some photo editing when I'm feeling ambitious.
The "Why"
I started researching PCs a few months ago with my knowledge starting at the "What's a CPU?" level. I knew next to nothing. I wanted something fast (doesn't everyone?) that could handle light gaming and desktop computing. My five-year-old laptop was struggling.
I first bought a pre-built from Costco for around $1,400 CAD (please flame me in the comments) that had an i7-8700 and RX-580. This met my needs for a couple of months, until a friend pointed me to this site. I dug into my pre-built's specs a little more. Its 450 W power supply and graphics card temperatures regularly floating around 90 C made me a little uncomfortable. After watching some YouTube how-to videos and looking at plenty of similar builds at my budget, I bought my parts list, returned my Costco computer (props for the 90-days no-questions-asked return policy!) and gave a custom build a shot.
The Build
Goals:
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Keep my budget around $1,400 CAD
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Maintain the same level of CPU and GPU performance as the pre-built I was using; for example, don't downgrade from an RX 580 to an RX 570
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Stick to a white/black aesthetic as much as possible (Note on the photos: I don't have photo editing software on this computer yet. The white balance on my photos is a little off, which caused the RGB lights to appear blue-ish. This is what happens when you don't set your camera's white balance, kids!)
I won't dive deep on the parts list. Take a look if you're interested. I'd love to hear your feedback to see where I could've improved. Generally, I tried to keep my RAM fast-ish to complement the Ryzen processor. I also wanted an M.2 drive for fast boot times. I may have sacrificed some performance in exchange for aesthetics. For example, I likely could've bought faster RAM that wouldn't have been white. The 750 W power supply may seem like overkill, but I wanted some GPU/CPU upgrade potential in the future.
Conclusion
This was a great experience and something I'll definitely do again. Thanks to PC Part Picker and its users for providing much-needed knowledge and guidelines.
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