I've just ordered all parts for a media computer and they are arriving with the mail every day now! I wonder what advice and thoughts you more experienced people have on this build and my thinking behind it.
I started with the form factor and thought I'd save the Extended-ATX build for later and start with a Mini-ITX build. As I found Fractal Design's Era 2 case that was settled.
Choosing Intel or AMD. Is that even a choice?!?
The motherboard was tricky but luckily the amount of mini-ITX boards is not insurmountable. I wanted something future proof and have no needs for supersonic speeds so the AM5 socket and the B650E chipset felt like a reasonable choice. I got the AsRock B650E PG-ITX WiFi motherboard as it has DDR5 RAM PCIe 5.0 support.
Then came the really tricky one! Which processor? I thought a Ryzen 5 would be enough to not run hot but still being able to handle any media. I excluded any X variant as they sounded too aggressive. But the 8000G series, with graphics and all, that saved me some energy, not having to worry about a graphics card! I chose the 8600G with Radeon 760 as it felt more future proof than the "old" Radeon 740.
Regarding power I first thought I'll just take Fractal Design's SFX supply but Fractal were so honest and service minded they pointed out that the cable connector doesn't fit well into the Era 2 case, and they wouldn't recommend any 80 PLUS rating below Gold. A big thank you to Fractal Design!
Instead I went with the Corsair SF 750. But as I was contemplating the buy the prices suddenly went up and I desperately turned to another supplier. They happily sold it to me but then said it would take some time... This kind of behaviour upsets me! Have you experienced this? They could have told me, sorry, we've ordered it from Corsair and it will take X days...
RAM was another tricky one but I read somewhere that amount of memory is more important than speed and besides, DDR5 is fast anyway, so I ended up with Corsair's Vengeance DDR5 RAM, 2x32 GB. I've never had that much RAM on any computer! Must surely be more than enough for a media computer?
Hard drives. Things have changed since the days of the Amiga! My take on it: SSD connected with M.2. I actually bought an external USB/M.2 case for a TeamGroup MP44 1000 GB M.2 2280 SSD drive as my old external harddrive has started to not wanting to mount (I have to force it manually). I went with another identical MP44 SSD for the AsRock motherboard.
That's it! I hope. Any feedback is most welcome!
