My First PC Build

Posted Jul 12, 2025 Updated Jul 15, 2025

By Joel Marte

2 min read

Objective

In March of 2023 I decided to build a PC because my laptop was showing its age and I was getting into PC gaming. I wanted a build with a small form factor, sleek/minimalist, AMD CPU, iGPU (initally at least), good enough to do some gaming, be reasonably quiet and cost no more than $1000. These are vauge criterias but that was my starting point with what I wanted and knowledge at the time. I did not know where to start so I did some research and found some great resources and tips.

Hardware

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor	Purchased For $135.00
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-L9x65 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler	Purchased For $64.00
Motherboard	Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard	Purchased For $189.99
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory	Purchased For $49.99
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	Purchased For $138.94
Storage	Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	Purchased For $149.99
Video Card	EVGA XC GAMING GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 12 GB Video Card	Purchased For $170.00
Case	Cooler Master MasterBox NR200P Mini ITX Desktop Case	Purchased For $131.00
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GM 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply	Purchased For $89.99
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 11 Home OEM - DVD 64-bit	$0.00
Case Fan	Noctua A9x14 29.72 CFM 92 mm Fan	Purchased For $26.00
Case Fan	Noctua A9x14 29.72 CFM 92 mm Fan	Purchased For $26.00
Case Fan	be quiet! Shadow Wings 2 38.5 CFM 120 mm Fan	Purchased For $16.89
Case Fan	be quiet! Shadow Wings 2 38.5 CFM 120 mm Fan	Purchased For $16.89
	Total	$1204.68

Different Fan configuration

Config. 1

Config. 2

Config. 3

Final Config

Ultimately, this configuration gave me the best results. I was concerned the exhausted heat from the GPU would be a problem but it did not affect it as much as the other configurations. May look into water cooling when upgrading CPU in the future.

Resources

hobbies

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.