After a half-year pause, the heading “PC of the month” returns, now with a new author. As before, three configurations for a different wallet. But based on the comments under the last article, the base build budget was reduced by using an almost free integrated graphics card. And in addition to games, I will also try to talk about professional and working scenarios for using computers. Comments on further improvement of the rubric are welcome.

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The material was prepared with the support of FSP, Patriot and Noctua.

Basic computer – $400

The eight-threaded Ryzen 3 PRO 4350G processor with an integrated Vega 6 graphics accelerator seems to have completely disappeared from sale. And its successor, the 5300G, is only available in pre-built PC builds. Therefore, you will have to pay a little more for the Ryzen 5 4600G with already 12 threads and Vega 7. The worldwide recommended price is $150, but in domestic retail this chip will most likely cost closer to $200.

Considering that Vega must be overclocked, the motherboard will be required with radiators not only on the side, but also on top of the processor socket. It is the upper mosfets that are responsible for powering the iGPU and the memory controller. By the way, if the boxed Wraith Stealth cooler can’t cope with overclocked graphics, then you can reduce the frequency of processor cores by several hundred megahertz in order to meet the heat limit of 65 watts.

Motherboards with VRM cooling usually come with four DIMM slots. This will allow you to spend the first time with a couple of 4-gigabyte DDR4 modules, so that there is a desired dual-channel mode, and in the future, increase the amount of RAM to 16 GB. Now you can buy any of the cheapest 2666 MHz sticks – all of them are almost guaranteed to overclock to 3200 MHz. Memory and iGPU overclocking requires a motherboard based on the B450 chipset.

In the case of a budget PC configuration, it makes no sense to invest in the B550 chipset, since the ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 bus is not supported by 4000G-series processors anyway. But paying just a little extra for an M.2 PCIe 3.0 SSD is worth it for the sake of more accurate cable management. Any PC case with at least one fan and a bottom-mounted power supply will do. The PSU itself is better to buy separately – start the countdown with models with DC-DC stabilization and an 80 PLUS certificate.

FSP Hyper 80+ Pro 550W is the brand’s most affordable power supply with the official 80 PLUS White energy efficiency certification. Efficiency reaches 85 percent thanks to active reactive power compensation APFC and separate stabilization of low-voltage DC-DC lines. Able to work only in 230-volt electrical networks, which, however, is not a problem in our area. All the declared 550 W of power are issued along the solid +12 V line, which allows you to power a video card with two 6 + 2-pin connectors. The circuitry is FSP’s own design, and the capacitors are Taiwanese high-temperature ones at 105 degrees Celsius.

Optimal Computer – $700

The new esports king and queen are the eight-thread Core i3-12100F processor and the Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card. Popular disciplines Dota 2 and CSGO are played on ultra graphics settings in 2K resolution with stable 144+ FPS. Trusting them, you will not be left without the latest AAA blockbusters, even if you can only play in 1080p at medium-high settings. In the case of a very heavy game, like the recent Cyberpunk 2077 or the upcoming Starfield, Fidelity FX Super Resolution smart upscaling technology will help out.

The main thing is that the RX 6500 XT video card communicates with the processor via the latest PCIe 4.0 bus, otherwise frame rate losses cannot be avoided. Fortunately, LGA 1700 motherboards, even with the base H610 chipset, are equipped with a full-speed PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. But the M.2 connector is limited to the third version of PCI Express. However, even the simplest M.2 NVMe SSDs are four times faster than their archaic 2.5-inch counterparts.

You can blame the Radeon RX 6500 XT, perhaps, only for the inability to hardware accelerate streaming and video editing. Even one and a half times cheaper, the veteran RX 560 has an H264 and H265 encoder. But there is still a compromise solution: pay extra for the i3-12100 processor without the F index, that is, with integrated UHD Graphics 730, and activate the hybrid graphics mode in the BIOS settings of the motherboard.

For iGPU, of course, you need more RAM and always in dual-channel mode. Motherboards based on the H610 chipset are limited to 3200 MHz for DDR4 and 4800 MHz for DDR5. The second option is immediately dismissed because of its unjustified high cost. The main thing is not to forget to force the BIOS menu to select the synchronous mode of the memory frequency to the frequency of the Gear 1 processor bus and, if desired, disable the Power Down Mode memory power saving.

Patriot Viper Steel DDR4-3200 is a “gaming” or, more correctly, overclocker RAM from the American company Patriot Memory. It is now customary to call overclocker RAM with a built-in XMP auto-overclocking profile at the touch of a button. Hynix chips of the C-die generation are hidden under the metal radiators, protruding above the textolite by only 1 cm. Compared to the common 3200 MHz JEDEC profile, Viper Steel’s timings (delays) have been reduced from 22-22-22-52 to 16-18-18-36. But the supply voltage also increased from 1.2 to 1.35 V. Fortunately, the same voltage is enough to manually overclock the memory to 3600 MHz, and if you’re lucky with a particular whale, even up to 3733 MHz.

Progressive computer – $1200

Until the 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600 processor without the X index made it to local stores, you have to significantly overpay for only a 200 MHz higher-frequency X version. But the Zen 3 architecture and the large 32MB L3 cache are definitely worth it. Although this processor is equipped with a cooler, the temperature and noise will be beyond comfort. We advise you to look for a cheaper Tray-version of the processor, and buy a tower-type cooler.

It is better to take the motherboard in pair with the 5600X already on the B550 chipset. Such motherboards and VRM are more powerful, and the PCIe bus for a video card and a solid state drive is already the fourth version. If you’re a database programmer, it’s worth shelling out for an ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 SSD. Moreover, not so much linear speeds are important, but random access to small files, which is measured in IOPS.

The countdown of video cards, perhaps, should start with the GeForce RTX 3060. Of course, 12 gigabytes of its memory for games is clearly in excess – even the older 3060 Ti is content with 8 gigs. But for video editors, especially those who use Adobe After Effects and DaVinci Resolve, a large amount of video memory will definitely come in handy. With the reference frequency formula, the RTX 3060 consumes 170 watts of electricity and generates about the same amount of heat. Another 10 – 20 W more TGP for models with factory overclocking.

But in any case, video cards up to 200 W are considered moderately hot and energy-hungry. Even a medium-sized Mini-Tower computer case with at least a pair of fans, one for intake and exhaust, is suitable for them. A power supply unit with an honest 500 watts will also be enough. We recommend a similar case and power supply for all three PC configurations from this article – you buy it once and then upgrade all other components without any problems.

Noctua NH-U12S Redux is a slightly simplified version of probably the most versatile cooler in the Austrian brand’s lineup. The number of tubes has been reduced from five to four, and the self-stabilizing SSO bearing has been downgraded from the second to the first generation. Also, a tube of thermal paste was removed from the package (it was applied to the cooler base in advance), a second pair of fan brackets and a metal nameplate with the Noctua logo. Fortunately, none of the above is a critical loss – on the contrary, a reasonable cost optimization. Otherwise, this is still the same narrow tower that does not conflict with high RAM, as well as a fan with a noise level of less than 25 dB and an operating life of 150,000 hours.

In the next series…

In a month, we’ll talk about the low-profile Radeon RX 6400 graphics card for building a computer in a thin case. At the same time, consider the existing formats of compact power supplies: SFX, TFX, Flex and Pico. Let’s compare the budget eight-thread Core i3-10105F and Ryzen 3 4100 processors. Or is it better to immediately pay extra for the 12-thread Ryzen 5 4500? Will its PCIe 3.0 x8 bus be enough for a GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card that already requires the fourth generation of PCIe? And of course, we will discuss the advisability of buying the flagship Ryzen 7 5800X3D with an L3 cache increased to 96 MB. Let’s think about how it is better to cool it – air or water. Suggest abstracts for the next article in the comments.