maximumpc.com JUN 2019 MAXIMUMPC 71
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OUR AIM WAS to piece together a machine for under $1,000, but
we rolled in at $25 over this (although prices are in constant flux,
so that may have changed by the time you read this). There are
plenty of ways to stay under this budget, though, from halving the
memory on offer to using a stock GTX 1660 Ti, as opposed to this
overclocked version. The more enterprising among you may wish
to give a Linux-based OS a shot—don’t let us tell you what to do
(except for in the steps below, of course).
To store everything away, we’ve got a budget case from
Phanteks, the Eclipse P300. Inside that, we’re throwing in an X470
Aorus Ultra Gaming motherboard from Gigabyte, supporting a
Ryzen 5 2600 processor. Its six cores mean this PC will still be
able to handle more demanding software, and like most Ryzens,
the chip comes with its own AMD-branded Wraith Stealth cooler,
enabling us to save a few of our precious gold coins in the pricing
department. These coolers aren’t flashy, but they’re relatively
efficient and—more importantly—compact, making them good for
smaller builds like this.
That’s not all we’re plugging into this mobo; two sticks of G.Skill’s
Flare X RAM give us 16GB of memory at 3,200MT/s, plenty for the
vast majority of games and applications. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
is front and center, of course. There’s only a single storage drive
in this build—an Adata Ultimate SU800. Packing half a terabyte of
storage, this chunk of plastic and silicon is a great budget option,
making it a good choice for OS booting, while still being capable
of squirreling away plenty of those big games. Lastly, this build is
powered by a Corsair CX450 PSU. There was no need to go flashy
on the power supply—prices have jumped up a little lately, so
sticking with something simple was the way to go.
CONSIDERING ITS PRICE, the Phanteks Eclipse P300
is a tasty little case to work with. Stripped down, it’s a
minimalistic affair; the side panels (one metal and one
glass) can be removed by hand, thanks to their chunky
thumbscrews. The front panel pops off with a little
exertion to reveal the HDD cage, though we won’t be
needing access to that for this particular build. The PSU
shroud is solid, which will keep the visible guts of this
build nice and tidy. The metal side panel can be a hassle
to fit back on, however, because it has guidance clips that
need to latch into nine separate slots before it can be
screwed in. The easiest way to do this is to fit the panel
into the bottom three slots first, then line up the top before
sliding it along toward
the front of the case.
These thumbscrews
are rather unlikely to
go back in with just
your thumbs, so a
screwdriver might be
needed here. The P300
also comes with a
Phanteks 120mm fan
fitted at the rear—we
got our grubby mitts on
another one for a few
dollars, and screwed it
in at the front.WE START WITH THE MOTHERBOARD outside the case.
This X470 is a quality mobo, laid out simply, with no fancy
thermal guards, and little in the way of the usual “gamer”
motifs. If you don’t have a dedicated test bench for PC
building, setting it atop the box works just fine for this
step. Ryzen CPUs are easy to install, manageable even
by the mos t junior of builder s: Jus t lif t the cl asp, c aref ully
place the processor on to the socket, and lower the clasp
back into place. Be sure to line up the highlighted corner
on the CPU with the one on the motherboard, indicated
by a small triangle. If you’ve elected to use an M.2 drive,
we recommend installing it at this point as well, although
as these tend to demand a premium over SATA drives,
we’ve decided to go the cheaper route here.THUMB WARS DARK KNIGHT RYZES
INGREDIENTSPART STREET PRICECase Phanteks Eclipse P300 $50Motherboard Gigabyte X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming $125CPU AMD Ryzen 5 2600 $165CPU Cooler AMD Wraith Stealth N/AGPU MSI Gaming X GTX 1660 Ti $310Memory 16GB (2x 8GB) G.Skill Flare X @ 3,200MT/s $171PSU 450W Corsair CX450 $45Storage 512GB Adata Ultimate SU800 $60OS Windows 10 Home 64-bit $99Tot al $1,025OVER A GRAND