APC_Australia_Issue_442_June_2017

BUILDING ON A SOLID CORE
The Ryzen 7 1700 may sit at the bottom of the current Ryzen stack, but it
still boasts eight physical cores, and is capable of handling 16 threads at
once — it’s still designed with heavy lifting in mind. That makes it a fine
bedfellow for high-end parts, but what if your needs are less demanding?
Or your bank balance less gregarious? That’s where this month’s build
comes in. We wanted a machine that would deliver where it counts, but
wouldn’t cost the Earth, so we’ve chosen components that offer good value
for money, while still helping with overall performance.
One of the first choices is on the motherboard front. We've already
reviewed a handful over the last two months, and the Prime X370-Pro was
one of the more affordable X370 models, but it still has plenty of features
on offer. Likewise, the memory landscape isn’t fully formed yet, which
means we don’t quite know the best kits to recommend right now, so we’ve
picked a kit that has served us well previously.
Given that we want this machine to be an all-rounder, we’ve opted for
an ASUS RoG Strix RX 480 to provide the graphical grunt. It’s a great card
for 1080p gaming, with smooth frame rates in all the latest games. The fact
it boasts 8GB of onboard memory means you should have room for games
going forward as well.
Note that, after feedback, we now include the cost of the OS in our builds,
although you’re free to choose whatever OS you want.
PARTS LIST
PART
CASE ANTEC P9 WINDOW $129
MOTHERBOARD ASUS PRIME X370-PRO $239
CPU AMD RYZEN 7 1700 $450
MEMORY
GPU
16GB (2X 8GB) CRUCIAL
BALLISTIX SPORT LT
ASUS ROG STRIX RX
480 8GB
STREET PRICE
$182
$379
PSU CORSAIR CX500 $85
STORAGE 1 SANDISK ULTRA II 240GB $140
STORAGE 2 HITACHI ULTRASTAR 2TB $255
COOLING BE QUIET! PURE ROCK $45
OS WINDOWS 10 $179
TOTAL $2,083
"Given that we want this machine to be an all-rounder, we’ve
opted for an ASUS RoG Strix RX 480 to provide the graphical
grunt. It’s a great card for 1080p gaming, with smooth frame rates
in all the latest games. The fact it boasts 8GB of onboard memory
means you should have room for games going forward as well."
EASY MOUNTING
1
Air coolers tend to be easier to install than their water-based
brethren, because there isn’t a radiator on rubber tubes to wrestle
with. You do need to watch your fingers on the fins, though, as they
have a tendency to shred your fingers in the tight confines of a case
— so we recommend installing air coolers outside of the case. AMD’s
new chips use the AM4 socket, which boasts a similar mounting
bracket to the previous generation — a bar stretches across the
bottom of the cooler, which you lock into place using lugs on the
brackets. Throwing the locking bar over gives you a secure cooler
that’s easy to release when you need to. The Be Quiet! Pure Rock even
comes with a thin layer of thermal paste in place on the underside.
Connect the fan, and you’re good to go.
MOTHERBOARD POINTS
2
The Antec P9 is a spacious case to work in, with lots of room for
routing cables. This means you don’t have to install the power supply
before everything else. We reached for the motherboard first, noting
that the case didn’t have all the mounting stand-offs installed by
default — they’re in a small box, with more cable ties, paper washers,
plenty of screws, speaker and more cables. These are easy to screw
in place, and as this is a full-sized mobo, we recommend installing
them all. Don’t forget to install the ATX backplate before securing
the mobo, though, otherwise you’ll have to unscrew everything
again. Installing memory before sliding the mobo into place is good
idea, but you should just have room to add/remove sticks if you have
nimble fingers.
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