Starting to build a new system after years.

[DWD1961]

EDIT: I think I will go with a mATX case that can accept a regular ATX MB, and get the best of both.

It's been a long time guys. I'm wanting to build a mATX system with a mATX case.

Alternately, if the size of using a ATX board and a mid tower isn't that much difference size wise, I could do that.

What cases are the highest rated for fit finish and usability? Hot cases came from Cooler-master (the old 840 Stacker, for one), Rosewill (Thor), Thermaltake, and a couple others I can't remember. I want to stay with quality in these areas:

Specs

--Mainly for gaming.
--Fit a gaming card of some sort, probably AMD
--Room for a wifi card and BT 5.0 (Unless that is standard now in desktop boards)
--Preferably able to handle 230mm fans or 200mmand at least one 120mm exhaust. I like positive airflow so there is more pressure in the case, so it isn't sucking air in from the other areas,and bypassing my main inlet filter.
--Enough USB ports for peripherals, like mic and wireless keyboards, mice.
--Nice fit and finish.
--Fit a normal ATX power supply.

That's about it.

Thanks to all again.

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

--Mainly for gaming.

IIRC, Intel CPUs are still best for most gaming. However, the gap is much narrower with the AMD Ryzen 3000 (Zen 2) series. If budget dictates and/or you're using some other app that could use the extra cores/threads AMD gives for the money I wouldn't hesitate to go that direction.

--Fit a gaming card of some sort, probably AMD

Any reason why AMD for the GPU? Nvidia is often better, if a bit pricier. What resolution do you plan to play at?

--Room for a wifi card and BT 5.0 (Unless that is standard now in desktop boards)

Many mainboards include WiFi/BT. If not, add-in PCIe cards are typically x1 so they'll fit in any free slot. There should be USB options as well.

--Preferably able to handle 230mm fans or 200mmand at least one 120mm exhaust. I like positive airflow so there is more pressure in the case, so it isn't sucking air in from the other areas,and bypassing my main inlet filter.

I don't think I've ever seen a quality 200+mm case fan. Probably better to look at getting 2-3 120/140mm fans.

--Enough USB ports for peripherals, like mic and wireless keyboards, mice.

Rarely an issue these days. PCIe expansion cards and hubs are still options of course.

--Nice fit and finish.

Off the top of my head: Lian-Li, Fractal Design, Corsair (I haven't looked much at cases lately).

--Fit a normal ATX power supply.

Rare is the mATX or larger case that doesn't fit an ATX PSU. Only a few use the smaller SFX size. Any reason why you believe an ATX PSU is a requirement?

 

[mda]

We need more info to really give you specifics but the following can make for a decent starting point

Fractal Meshify C
Ryzen 5 3600
B450 Mortar Max
2x8 GB 3200 DDR4 RAM
Seasonic Focus+ 550w
You can get something like an ASUS Add in board for wifi and BT
GPU depends on your target monitor and games
SSD (the inlands get a lot of love around here)
1-2TB HDD for games

 

[DWD1961]

IIRC, Intel CPUs are still best for most gaming. However, the gap is much narrower with the AMD Ryzen 3000 (Zen 2) series. If budget dictates and/or you're using some other app that could use the extra cores/threads AMD gives for the money I wouldn't hesitate to go that direction.



Any reason why AMD for the GPU? Nvidia is often better, if a bit pricier. What resolution do you plan to play at?



Many mainboards include WiFi/BT. If not, add-in PCIe cards are typically x1 so they'll fit in any free slot. There should be USB options as well.



I don't think I've ever seen a quality 200+mm case fan. Probably better to look at getting 2-3 120/140mm fans.



Rarely an issue these days. PCIe expansion cards and hubs are still options of course.



Off the top of my head: Lian-Li, Fractal Design, Corsair (I haven't looked much at cases lately).



Rare is the mATX or larger case that doesn't fit an ATX PSU. Only a few use the smaller SFX size. Any reason why you believe an ATX PSU is a requirement?

Thanks very much for your detailed response:

--Case Fan: BitFenix Spectre Pro 230mm (They have the quite, top line bearing in them, Fluid Dynamic, and I researched the hell out of bearings before I bought them. I wanted the quietest I could get with a long lifespan. Ran that for a year before I quit, and never had an issue. I also have two 230mm fans that came with the Rosewill THOR v2 case--again, never any noise or problems with them. That's what got me interested in them. They move TONS of air at lower RPMs than the 120s. I do use the Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm and like them very much also. I have about four of those laying around.

--AMD/Intel: I always liked AMD stuff, and their driver GUIs were always good, but I like iNtel also. The newest drivers I installed for my old Power Color card look like Playskool with advertisements. Very amateurish and "kid" like, and looks like a phone app interface. I hate it, so that is no longer the case. I was told here that for the price to performance ratio, AMD is the word right now using the 2700x CPU and MB boards.

--Cards: As long as I have room for them. I will be using wifi to game with. I know I should pug it directly in, but that isn't possible right now. I have an older plug PCI in wifi card, but it doesn't have BT. I tested it for latency, jitter, and speed vs direct cable connection and got the same stats. So I guess it will be ok. I mean it wasn't introducing any input lag that I could find.

--Case:I remember those names with Li being very high end.

--PSU: About 6 months before I quit in 2013, I bought a really nice fanless 500wt power supply. Kingwin Stryker fanless at 80 PLus Platinum, and will do continuous at 600wts at one step lower in efficiency. I can't find it on his site anymore, but Jonny Guru reviewed it. https://www.jonnyguru.com/

His testing method is objective. He said that PSU I got was top notch and actually produced by Super Flower. Everything was in or over spec with it. He gave it a top rating and he almost never does that because the testing doesn't warrant it. He hooks all PSUs up to load testers and tests them like that in ambient and then puts them in a hot box with a heater and heats them up. lol Then loads them so you get ambient and hot efficiency read outs. The guy is pretty amazing. Also, no Playskool bullshit on his site. It's for professionals, not the phone type app mentality, i.e., no pictures everywhere and clicky baits. I don't know anyone else doing what he does to actually test PSUs.

"For testing power supplies, a SunMoon automated power supply load tester and a Weibo PF1211 are used. The Weibo reads the Volts, Amps, Watts and Power Factor on the AC input of the power supply. . .The SunMoon load tester can dynamically load a power supply at the push of a button. The SM-268 model shown on this page has five memory settings and the ability to manually crank up the amperage while the power supply is already up, running and loaded.

I will actually program the loads each time I am given a different power supply to test. The loads are based on the overall capability of whatever power supply I’m looking at.
The SunMoon load tester can dynamically load a power supply at the push of a button. The SM-268 model shown on this page has five memory settings and the ability to manually crank up the amperage while the power supply is already up, running and loaded. . ."

"Now to calculate efficiency. Let’s say we have a power supply plugged into the Sun Moon and it says it’s pushing 300W. Now I’ll take a look at the PF1211 and see how much wattage I’m getting from the mains. If it says 500W, I divide 500W by 300W and come up with 60%. This would mean the power supply is running at 60% efficiency. The PF1211 also tells me my power factor as well."
Testing Methodology: https://www.jonnyguru.com/testing-methodology/

--Video: 27" at 1080 for the foreseeable future, or 1920 x 1200.

 

[DWD1961]

We need more info to really give you specifics but the following can make for a decent starting point

Fractal Meshify C
Ryzen 5 3600
B450 Mortar Max
2x8 GB 3200 DDR4 RAM
Seasonic Focus+ 550w
You can get something like an ASUS Add in board for wifi and BT
GPU depends on your target monitor and games
SSD (the inlands get a lot of love around here)
1-2TB HDD for games

Argh yeah I want to keep this down in price as much as possible, that's hwy I am looking at the Ryzen 2700x. Forinstance, I'd much rather have a lower end CPU that doesn't bottle neck the vid card, but will last a few years or more. I can take that saved cash and upgrade the card.

I'm going to be playing at 1080 on a 27" ish monitor for the foreseeable future. Any more resolution makes the environment too small on a 27" for me. Kinda like running 1080 on a 15" laptop gets pretty small.

 

[FlawleZ]

You can scale your desktop UI in Windows 10 easily if using higher resolution like 4K or 1440P. Unless you're trying to play at competitive frame rates with 144hz monitors, the difference between the Ryzen CPUs and their comparable Intel counterparts is pretty negligible. The real difference is in price and platform longevity. AMD is expected to release even the next gen Ryzen 4000 cpus on AM4. Intel is going to change sockets on you nearly every generation.

 

[DWD1961]

I did need to ask, is 16GB RAM enough these days, or at least a good starting point?

 

[DWD1961]

You can scale your desktop UI in Windows 10 easily if using higher resolution like 4K or 1440P. Unless you're trying to play at competitive frame rates with 144hz monitors, the difference between the Ryzen CPUs and their comparable Intel counterparts is pretty negligible. The real difference is in price and platform longevity. AMD is expected to release even the next gen Ryzen 4000 cpus on AM4. Intel is going to change sockets on you nearly every generation.

Yeah I really hate how they change the socket every damn time. Ridiculous. I guess they need to sell more chip sets. It's a prescient point.

I have my desktop scaled up some on my 17" laptop running1080. I just have the fonts a little bigger, but when you start scaling everything you run into problems with fonts not fitting and desktop program frames intersecting with each other. I have to go into program properties after messing with font sizes and override high dpi scaling for some programs. Also, if you are making the program GUI larger, it kinda defeats the purpose of having more desktop space, to a degree.

As far as gaming goes, if the screen is running a too high resolution, then characters and things you have to interact with are harder to hit. Same goes for aiming. I remember in Counter Strike, old school, we would run in 800x600 mode because that way everything was so big you couldn't miss LOL. Graphics looked terrible, but that mid section of character half a block away looked like a barn door.

Anyway, yes, I'm suing my old 60hz ASUS 2ms 25.5 inch panel now. Damn thing is really heavy compared to today's monitors. Anyway, when panels finally shake out to 144hz standard, then I'll buy one of those in 27/32" models. And I do want to be able to have a high FPS to fully use the 144Hz RF rate. So, 27" at 1080/1200 is my target resolution for the foreseeable future. You know, I get having a 80" TV and playing games with it, but if you put a 27" 3' from your face, the screen is bigger than an 80" at 15 ', so that bigger ever bigger screen thing doesn't make any sense to me, especially when I have my rig set up so I can play with my monitor 2' in front of me while reclining--lol.