My first AMD build

gluon

Shame on me, but it took me 44 years to leave Intel and finally go for an AMD build. My goal was to upgrade my old desktop which lacked some CPU power to properly run some more CPU intensive games, or otherwise be able to run multiple background tasks while gaming without stutters.

As a secondary goal, I wanted to be able to compile Rust code faster and therefore an 8 core CPU was ideal. That said, I don't play AAA games and my main use case are sim racing games from 2014 - 2020 with modest requirements. Therefore I went for a conscious build, without just getting the fastest and most expensive hardware, which is just another way to say I'm poor.

After doing a lot of research I concluded that for 1080p sim racing the AM4 platform and the Zen3 architecture were the sweet spot both in terms of performance and price. Here are the main specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming B550M PLUS
RAM: 2 x 16GB TEAMGROUP Memory D4 3200 CL16

My AMD build

kon

Do you still have the image? It not showing here anymore 🙁

gluon

Just edited the post with a new link. Nothing fancy, but I liked the assembly, especially that big air cooler, which was always the bit I used to dread. My first proper build since 2015, so I was a bit rusty (no pun intended). That said, it went super smooth as nowadays they seem to design the spring-loaded screws and brackets in a better way.

It used to be that I had great trouble getting the first screw threaded. Maybe this was specific to Noctua 10 years ago, but you had to apply huge pressure on the first screw before it reached the thread on the bracket. It almost felt like you were crushing the CPU. Nowadays, at least with this Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE V2 I had to apply exactly zero pressure initially. The spring-loaded screw instantly touched the thread on the bracket and gripped with no effort.