Building Mom's Overkill PC!
Hey folks, Brian here.
In September, I built a new computer for a customer… my mom. She needed a new computer to open hundreds of tabs in Chrome with occasional video playback. I was given an unlimited budget, but I kept it under a $1000. Honestly, I probably could have picked up a Chromebook or a cheaper prebuilt machine, but I enjoyed building my own PC recently so much that I wanted to build another with a different set of components. Let’s get started!
First, I took out the motherboard, the B450 Steel Legend, and started building on top of the box. This motheboard is about $100 and looks good visually with its white and black camouflage and tasteful RGB lights. It doesn’t have a front USB-C header, but I didn’t want to spend $50 to a $100 more on a B5550 motheboard just for a port my mother probably wouldn’t use.
Next, I started to prep the CPU, an AMD Ryzen 3600X, which I got for around $200. It was actually cheaper than the more popular 3600. As usualy, I made sure to align the triangle on the CPU and the socket, dropped it into place, and pushed the metal arm down. Then I attached the meatier heatsink and just used the included thermal paste on the bottom rather than applying my own. This is just a glorified Chromebook after all!
Then I installed 4 8GB memory sticks with a grand total of 32 GB of RAM. This was completely overkill, since 16 GB would have been plenty. This was the cheaper RAM I was able to buy from B&H, because 3600 MHz was sold out. Nobody seemed to want white, but I figured it would go well with the Steel Legend. Finally, I didn’t seat one stick properly which gave me problems later… so take your time to seat your ram well!
For storage, I installed this 500 GB Crucial P1 NVME. It’s cheap and 500GB is plenty for Windows 10. I made sure to take off the sticker on the heat pad before screwing down the cover. Perhaps, using the first M2 slot was also important, but I admit I forgot to check. Come to think about it, this was the first computer I built with only NVME storage!
For graphics, I installed this Gigabyte 1660 Super with 3 fans to keep it quiet. This was also completely overkill for Chrome video playback… but now since you cannot find this video card on shelves anywhere, I’m feeling really good about purchasing this for $250 at the time. It’s got a simple and sleek aesthetic that I really liked.
In order to complete initial testing, I brought in my backup power supply, since everybody was talking about how expensive power supplies were during the pandemic. I’m sure I could have skimped on the GFX card and the extra RAM to get something sufficient and new though. Anyway, I hooked up the motheboard to the case and used the power button to give it a spin. After a couple failures to POST, I pushed down the RAM again and figured out that one of the sticks wasn’t seated properly.
Once the computer POSTED, I migrated everything to the case which was a Phanteks P400A that Gamers Nexus liked for its airflow through the front mesh. I like how you can also take the top off which makes it easy to build in and connect some of the power cables. Finally, I added a $30 WIFI card once I realized there was no Ethernet cable. So far it’s working well as a replacement to a USB Wifi stick that was tied to a lamp…
Anyway, I really enjoyed building this computer. I really like how the white parts like the case, motheboard, and room together. I also joked throughout the build about how useless the RGB lights are, but I found their glow oddly comforting...and the customer likes them a lot too! Now I’m thinking of blowing some cash on some fancy RGB fans myself!
Thanks for watching, see you later. Bye!
