So I bought a new PC, well rather Megan lent me the money to do so, well half the money!

On Sunday I built the new machine, you can check out how I built it later in this post with a video we made of the build.

So let’s take a look at what went into the machine.

  • CPU:- AMD Ryzen 5 3400G
  • CPU Cooler:- GameMax Gamma 500 ARGB
  • Motherboard:- Asrock X570 Steel Legend
  • PSU:- GameMax RGB 550w Modular 80 Plus Gold
  • Memory:- Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 2 x 8GB DDR4 3600
  • SSD:- Crucial P1 1TB x 2
  • Wi-Fi & Bluetooth:- Intel 7265 M.2
  • Case:- Kolink Aviator Gunmetal
  • Case Fans:- upHere PWM 120mm Rainbow x 5

A few compromises were made, the PSU was a little less powerful than I wanted 750w was my target to give me room to get a powerful graphics card eventually, but the budget restricted me to 550w. But given the kind of graphics card I am initially thinking of getting, this should be plenty powerful enough.

The case fans are set to a simple rainbow pattern, but that’s cool, they cost me £34 for six, so I am happy with that. Eventually the plan is to fit a proper controllable Corsair system in to the machine, but these will be perfect for now.

Because I do a lot of media heavy stuff with the podcast, I had wanted to go with 32GB of RAM, however the budget didn’t allow for that, so I have gone for 16GB now, with a plan to upgrade within the next year.

But these are all things are either purely cosmetic and are easily upgraded or added to in time when budget allows, in the meantime it’s gonna do me awesomely.

They memory was originally going to be Adata XPG Spectrix D60 RBG 2 x 8GB DDR4 but delivery turned out to be an issue and despite it being next day delivery when I ordered it, it would actually be mid October before I got it, so that was cancelled and a replacement ordered.

The case was picked specifically created because it had a 5 1/2 inch external bay, which is use for my Blu-Ray writer, and I actually still need that.

A salvaged windows key was purchased which was nice and cheap. And due to an ordering mixup, I have two NVMe SSDs instead of a single one, so plan is to use one for my O/S and most used programs and the other for games.

A couple of bits were taken from my old computer a 1TB HDD which contains my documents and stuff I am working on, a separate 2TB HDD which currently is used as a game drive, and the BRD drive of course. I also took the 2TB external HDD which is used to store my music on and plugged it into this.

The first lot arrived on Saturday, over five separate deliveries all from Amazon, three came with Amazon delivery folk, the case came with DPD and the CPU cooler came with the dreaded Hermes. Because our Hermes man doesn’t like ringing the doorbell, I ended up putting a sign in the door asking him to make sure he rang. As it was I was lucky as was loading the dishwasher when he pulled up so was able to grab it off him quickly.

The motherboard arrived on Sunday after taking a trip from Spain, along with the memory. I must admit to getting very worried as the memory took until 5am to ship, but luckily it just shipped from the Darlington fulfilment centre.

I did forget to order a set of antennas for the Wi-Fi adaptor and ordered them early Sunday morning.

The Build

The build took place on Sunday evening, the original plan was to prepare the case with the PSU and case fans the night before, but alas, my hands were not cooperating with me to do that!

I started off on Sunday morning by preparing the case, so I fitted the case fans, installed the PSU and moved over the drives from my old PC to this one.

The first thing we discovered, is that the interior has been significantly redesigned, it now has a PSU basement and the wiring for the USB sockets and case functionings is a lot better and no longer looks like it might get in the way of any ports on the top right corner of the motherboard.

It did mean that I was losing out in the RGB aspect of the fan, but it does mean that I was going to make sure it was pulling cool air from outside the case into it, thus making sure that it lasts longer. The original spec had no filter at the bottom so it would have had to drawn air from inside the PC.

Once the motherboard and memory arrived, I was able to crack on with that, and it was very fun.

First things first I fitted the CPU, being very careful with it, then I installed the memory, M.2 SSD and M.2 Wi-Fi module.

Lastly on the motherboard I fitted the cooler, the reason I did that last was because it’s fairly big and bulky and I didn’t want to have to work around it when fitting the other stuff.

Then I slipped the board into the case, and screwed it in, followed by attaching the necessary power and data cables.

Initially it didn’t POST, turns out the PSU isn’t capable of supplying the extra 4 pin CPU power supply. I know this is only really needed if I plan to seriously overclock the CPU, which I don’t but it was annoying.

So after removing that power connector, we were able to get the PC to POST successfully, and it runs very nicely. I did take the opportunity to turn the CPU cooler round so that we could see the lovely RGB lights.

Windows was installed via USB media, which I smartly prepared the night before. And when that was set up, I then connected up the extra HDDs one of which I smartly downloaded all of the drivers and other software I wanted as well.

But you can take a look at the build process hopefully later this week as I did video it all.

I did my best to make this the most attractive PC I have ever built, and with actual cable management to minimise dust issues.

The second M.2 drive arrived Monday along with the Wi-Fi antennas, so they were fitted then and as such are not on the video. I also had a spare 300GB HDD which I normally use as a scratch drive, I struggled to figure out how it went in the case on Sunday, but figured it out on Monday.

I also had a 2TB HDD, which I tried to fit, but it seems the drive is knackered and the PC refused to POST with it plugged in.

Future Plans

Short term, I need to make a couple changes to the desk, first, I need a under desk keyboard tray, because I use so much of my desk space for painting.

Medium term the plan is to add a discrete graphics card, I only need something that can handle 1080p gaming with a little streaming, so current thinking is something like an XFX Radeon RX570 8GB, MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Super or perhaps a MSI Radeon RX5500 XT 8GB or similar, that would do me just right, but if budget allows, I will spend a bit more.

This will then allow me to upgrade the processor to something a lot more powerful, which will be nice. The current processor was picked to allow me to initially go without a discrete graphics card.

The memory is gonna go up to 32GB , might seem overkill, but I want to do a lot more video work for the podcast. And I also want to add a proper video capture card as well to make streaming from consoles a lot easier, as well as making it so I can grab a DSLR for making video content.

And a big possibility for me is the addition of a soundcard. I know that soundcards are kinda redundant these days but I am a podcaster, and I need good sound quality. If the sound on the motherboard is good, I will stick with that, but in the back pocket the possibility of upgrading to a decent Creative soundcard is there.

But What About The Old PC

The old PC is well, a bit sore and sorry looking, but I have replaced the BRD drive with a plain Blu-Ray drive, cleaned it out, cleared it off and reinstalled Windows and a few other bits of software and it’s going to go be used by Megan’s mum for her paperwork. And being an early learning practitioner she has a lot of complex paper work to do, and my old machine will be perfect doing that for her.

So on Sunday morning before touching the new build, I took that apart, cleaned it out, put it back together in a much tidier set up. I then formatted the OS drive and gave it a clean install of Windows 10, along with giving it a Charlie Bears wallpaper for her.

As I had a spare RGB fan from my build, I decided to give her that, so I fitted that to the front and now she gets a lovely little light show when it’s in use.

What I Am Modelling

I started by having a little rest after the long hard job of painting Mortarion, and built the two starter warbands for Beastgrave, Grashrak’s Ravagers and Skaeth’s Wild Hunt.

And I also built the Azyrite Ruins from Warhammer Mortal Realms plus a set of Spirit Hosts I got with them as well.

The first models I painted were the Nighthaunt character models that come with Soul Wars, although these were actually from Mortal Realms.

I painted up a Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed, a Spirit Torment, Guardian of Souls and Lord Executioner. My Nighthaunt scheme isn’t particularly sophisticated, but I am happy with it.

I then began work on the Adeptus Titanicus Titans, doing a total of five of them. A Warbringer Nemesis, two Reavers and two Warhounds, along with a Vulcan Megabolter for a Reaver.

Was very slow going but I managed to complete two Reavers Titans early Wednesday morning.

I was also finally able to finish off the priming of the Zone Mortalis terrain!

Be Wednesday night I finished the Warbringer Nemesis Titan and the two Warhounds.

So what does this leave my painting plan looking like for this week?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. 2. UCM Ships (4 Cruisers, 4 Frigates, 6 Corvettes, 2 Destroyers)
  3. Death Korps of Krieg Command Squad x 5
  4. Millitarium Tempestus Drop Force Imperartor x 5
  5. Palanite Enforcers x 10
  6. Stormcast Eternals Vanguard-Hunters x 5
  7. T’au Stealth Team x 3
  8. Blood Ravens Hellblasters x 15
  9. Grashrak’s Ravagers & Skaeth’s Wild Hunt
  10. T’au Strike Team x 10 & Sniper Drone Team

What I Am Reading

Been giving The Doom of Fallowhearth by Robbie MacNivan a read, and I am rather enjoying it.

What I Am Playing

Tonight I got 6 games of Coup in with Lindsay and Megan when we went to Meeple Perk for our tea, we each won two games each.

Video games wise, I had a little play on a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and a quick game of Carcassonne but that’s about it.

What I Am Backing

Just the Remebrancers of the Australius Ultima Sector which features me as a card!

What I Am Cooking

For Friday wing night, I made Whiskey BBQ wings in the slow cooker. I had intended to make them bourbon wings, but we were mysteriously out of bourbon.

The accompaniments were not great however, Lindsay experiment with the mash, making it in the microwave, it was not very nice if I am honest.

And the other side was courgette fries, which I really disliked due to the big differences in texture, my autism reared it ugly head big time!

Megan did thicken the sauce the wings were cooked in as a sort of gravy, which was really nice, but it’s not pictured here.

On Saturday I made Smoky Pork and Boston Beans, was very nice, but next time I am going to make the beans an actual mix of beans rather than just cannelloni beans

And I cooked it in the Dutch oven covered, but the sauce was quite thin, so if I leave it uncovered next time hopefully the sauce will thicken a little.

We served it with corn bread for the real American taste!

What I Am Spending

Obviously all the gear for the PC build!!!

My foam for Beastgrave arrived, and well ahead of schedule, so that allowed me to build the models from the core set at long last and add them to my painting plan.

I also picked up a cheap set of bookends, just to secure the books on my top shelf in the office and stop them falling down all the time.

I won something, a copy of Legends of Zelda: Links Awakening for the Switch, but I already have a copy of this!!!

But that’s alright as I traded it in and bought Super Mario 3D All-Stars instead, which is brilliant as I have been wanting to get that. That was delivered on Monday.

I also did a swap with my pal Kev, we wanted each other’s tin plates from our Warhammer Mystery Box that we got from Half Moon Bay, so I sent him mine, he sent me his!

I also saw a killer deal for a pack of four smart plugs on Amazon, normally I go for TP-Link Kasa, but these had a £25 off voucher allowing me to pick them up for just under £15.

This allows me to smart up the bedside lamps and fan in mine and Lindsay’s room, leaving one spare for the Christmas tree, because that season is close approaching.