Building my own Tower PC
TLDR
Built my first computer.
I realized that my current laptop, an ASUS Q55LF, is about 7 years old. I’ve used it for almost everything, like playing games, my projects, etc. I couldn’t even play any games like Fortnite, League of Legends, GTA5, etc without any lag.
I’ve changed my Surface twice (Surface Pro 3 in 2015, Surface Pro 6 in 2018) and was my go-to device for taking notes and programming, but I wanted something that was more powerful – something that could handle games, PhotoShop, many virtual machines. So it was either purchase a gaming laptop or build my own PC…
I based my build off of Logical Increment’s Superb build. Since COVID was happening, lots of PC parts were out of stock and prices were up. Thankfully I found most of my items on sale through /r/buildapcsales.
PC Build and Specs
Below is my PC build. The parts were bought from Amazon, Newegg, and BestBuy.
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor | Purchased For $179.94 |
| CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4 CPU Cooler | Purchased For $0.00 |
| Thermal Compound | Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut 1g 1 g Thermal Paste | Purchased For $0.00 |
| Motherboard | Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard | Purchased For $204.71 |
| Memory | G.Skill Aegis 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory | Purchased For $118.51 |
| Storage | Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5” Solid State Drive | Purchased For $0.00 |
| Storage | Western Digital Black NVMe 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive | Purchased For $130.91 |
| Video Card | EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB KO ULTRA GAMING Video Card | Purchased For $328.63 |
| Case | Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case | Purchased For $100.57 |
| Power Supply | EVGA 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply | Purchased For $107.93 |
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts | ||
| Total | $1171.20 |
I was able to get some things for free because they were gifted to me by my friends for my birthday! The total MSRP of all items would be about $1600, so I was able to save about $400. I kept a spreadsheet to markdown the timeline of when I bought all of the items and built the PC. I started looking at PC parts May 19 and purchased all of the parts on June 14. The day I powered on the PC was July 11, 2020.
-LW