Build of the Week: Mar 23, 2025
- Tomiax
- Mar 23
- 7 min read
First, you may have noticed that I skipped last week's Build of the Week post. I apologize. It was a busy Sunday for me, and a busy week prior. By the time I had the opportunity to sit down and write I had lost the mental energy that I normally put into these posts. Secondly, what have I been up to? Everything from teaching the 16yo how to drive to learning to deal with a 2yo who has already learned to talk back.
I notice that she has my phone. "Hey, that Daddy's phone!"
"No! It's MY phone!" Her retort is short and to the point.
"Give that back!" Demand I. "NOOOO! HA HA HA HA!" She shrieks as she runs away with it, and then throwing it when she's about to get caught. Man, it's a good thing I have an excellent case on it.
Of course, the 16yo did give me quite a scare on the road as well. I asked, "if you ever need your headlights, do you know how to turn them on?" Instead of just answering, he stopped paying attention to the road so that he can go searching for the switch as he began drifting across the yellow line towards oncoming traffic. I think I managed to keep my cool pretty well, putting a hand on the wheel and reminding him "keep your eyes on the road". I later explained that I was asking in case he ever did need them, not suggesting that he should go looking for the toggle immediately, and that in future situations like that the safest thing to do is find a place to pull over before searching around.
Aside from these harrowing adventures, I've also been talking to a friend of mine at work about system design and building, and he decided to design a system all unto his own, partially motivated by an exploding laptop. He had a budget to work with, and wanted something that would perform well in gaming. Ultimately, I think he did a good job selecting parts - maybe with some room for improvement - and that's what we'll be looking at this week. Keep in mind that the prices listed for components are based on availability found at the time of writing the post. Prices are in the hands of the mentioned retailers, may vary, and are based on Canadian Currency in a Canadian market. The admin of this website might earn a commission whenever links that lead to Amazon are used to make purchases, but these links do not affect the final price to the consumer. Furthermore, we will still always link to the lowest price we found. Remember to add taxes and shipping to these prices when budgeting, and consider cost-saving strategies like waiting for sale prices or finding used parts.
Parts List
My friend didn't necessarily go with the lowest prices on all the parts, but went with the convenience of trying to order as many of them at one time from a single source. Therefore, some of the Amazon prices presented are not necessarily going to be the lowest prices I found today, which is what I normally do. Instead, I'm going with the Amazon option on some of them simply because that's what my friend did. Although I would normally aim to minimize total cost, I do also see the merits and convenience of ordering from a single source when you have already worked well within your budget. My friend achieved working well within his budget by finding highly performing parts from a slightly older Zen3-AM4 platform supporting DDR4 memory, and by timing his purchase for when a good number of the parts were on sale.
Zen3 architecture fitting an AM4 socket
16 threads
Boosts to 4.6 GHz clock speed
Unlocked for further overclocking
Currently $236.91 @ Amazon
Reputable brand with reliable and well reviewed product line
360mm radiator with LED fans and LED display on pump
Currently $107.91 @ Amazon
Capable of overclocking, which is a benefit to the unlocked version of the CPU:
Might be a benefit if he comes into games or applications that are more demanding
Not the absolute best motherboard for overclocking, but a solid choice on the budget he had
Four RAM slots
DDR4 up to 4400 MT/s
Up to 128 GB
Three M.2 Drive slots
The SSD selected is not M.2 in this parts list, but he has one at home already and the selected SSD later is for a little extra storage
Onboard network connection options:
1 GB/s ethernet
Wi-Fi 6E
Currently $179.91 @ Amazon
Good overal RAM
32 GB is a great sweet-spot capacity for today's gaming
With a transfer rate of 3600 MT/s, CL18, and first word latency of 10ns, this is fast RAM, especially for DDR4 standards
Didn't pay for fancy displays on the RAM, instead leaving the bells and whistles to the CPU cooler and case fans
Easy and relatively inexpensive to upgrade later if he regrets that decision
Currently $99.99 @ Amazon
Reliable and well rated storage from a reputable brand
Larger storage might have been worth it because additional capacity usually isn't too expensive, but:
He already has an M.2 drive that he plans to use with the build
Changing or adding additional storage later is usually not too expensive or difficult
Currently $68.31 @ Amazon
This is one part that he didn't order at the same time as the rest
I think he's changing his mind and going with a Radeon option instead:
RX 7600 XT has;
16 GB VRAM instead of 12 GB
higher clock speeds
about the same price
Not sure at this time, but the RTX 3060 is in the list he initially sent me
Currently $469.99 @ newegg
A well balanced case with:
Simple, clean aesthetic
Open panoramic view of the internal build
Good airflow
Room for some larger components
Somewhat compact mid-tower form-factor
Currently $243.00 @ Amazon
Was on sale for a better price when bought
Fully modular for easier cable management
System requires approximately 349 W
A 80+ Gold efficiency supply capable of 750 W has enough room to run efficiently and power future upgrades and addon components
Corsair is a reputable well-reviewed brand
Currently $179.99 @ Amazon
Altogether, building this PC right now mostly from Amazon would cost about $1586 before taxes, and about $1824 after taxes. He had a budget of $1500 before taxes and, with a couple of the parts that were on sale a week ago that aren't now, he managed to get in under that limit. He plans on gaming at 1080p, and I don't think he should encounter any trouble doing that. Although the AM4 platform isn't the most recent for AMD, it is recent enough that there is still some room to grow and upgrade the system over time. Plus the ability to overclock the CPU will prolong the relevance of the system as well.
Additional Thoughts
When I built my system about ten years ago, I encountered a problem I hadn't foreseen: After four hours of intense labour terminating at 4am to assemble the system, it simply would not boot (excitement was the only reason I started the build at midnight after getting home from work because it was my first time build). The blinking little orange LED light on the motherboard indicated an issue with the RAM during the initial boot. It was only after delving into another 10 mins of research that I found out my motherboard would only support my DDR4-3200 RAM after a BIOS update. My only work around was to get some sleep while I waited for one of my tech-savvy friends to be awake so I could borrow a more basic stick of RAM and get my build going and update the BIOS. So, you can imagine the sheer terror I felt when I was reviewing my friend's parts list and discovered that his selected motherboard only supports his selected CPU after an update. On top of that, he hadn't noticed or planned for this potential (remember now that I mentioned some room for improvement in the introduction). Further, I don't have a CPU handy that his motherboard supports out of the box. That makes helping him set up his build the way that my other friend was able to help me with my RAM issue ten years prior impossible! Fortunately for all parties involved, things have changed since I did my build a decade ago.
First, the proprietary software on the motherboard that runs it isn't officially called "BIOS" (Basic Input/Output Software) anymore. It's officially called "UEFI" (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) now, and it includes better performance and more advanced features affecting things like security and optimizing efficiency of linking parts. Second, and unlike the one in my desktop, a lot of newer motherboards come with the ability to have their software updated before any serious system building begins. The UEFI can be flashed via USB drive before the installation of any CPU or RAM on some of these newer motherboards, and this feature is becoming more common each year. So, after scouring his selected motherboard's user manual for information, I found that this is fortunately one of those motherboards where we can flash the UEFI (or the manual actually refers to it as a "UEFI-BIOS" on this particular specimen) before the build gets started. What a relief!
Conclusion
With the parts mostly all on order and expected to arrive in April, my friend and I are excited to assemble and try out this build together. We look forward to seeing it crush the games that he likes to play on his 1080p monitor. If I get his permission, I'll record our building process, successes and struggles alike, and come back to update with pictures and performance reviews!
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