My Personal Build

Posted on by Michael Molenda

Why did I build a PC when I am a Mac Guy?

So, one can only build PC’s for others, well customers, for so long before you want one for yourself. That being said, this is partially an entry-level gaming system and also a system for me to reacquaint myself with VB and VBA and maybe something I haven’t done…

What is in your build, Mr. Mac Guy?

I used the following parts in my build:

Well, can we see your build?

Yes, you can.

Here is my case next to my soda can… It kinda cracks me up that when I removed the plastic over the “Raidmax” at the bottom of the case, the R came off with it. So now it says “aidmax”
A very reflective view into the clear side panel. This case does not feature RGB, but LED. I thought I could choose the color but haven’t figure out how… This case also features acrylic instead of tempered glass…
I wanted to use the braided cables for the main 24-pin power and 8-pin CPU power. I wanted all white to contrast with the darker components, but the motherboard butts up against the top of the case (unlike most other cases…) so the 8-pin cable has to run across the top of the motherboard and to the PSU. I am glad I had to get black to blend in here…
The Ryzen 2400G can game at 720 and 900p reasonably well, at least that’s what the generic benchmarks tell me. I have OC the CPU but not the GPU yet. I can get more performance from the GPU especially if I were to water-cool it or even a tower air cooler over the stock cooler… I am not getting a dedicated GPU just yet…
Here is my iMac and my PC side by side. Mac and PC living in harmony right next to each other. I am not switching to the PC (Windows) platform from the Mac (macOS) platform, but I am going to be a bit of both, but I am much more productive on macOS and that’s where I will do most of my serious work like video editing (whenever I get around to shooting my first YouTube video) and photo editing. The PC is for development and for gaming.

So, how much did it cost? Building PC’s can be expensive, right?

This build is a budget build. I won’t say how much I actually spent, but it is under 500 bucks for this build. The only part I didn’t buy specifically for this build was the SSD because I already had it laying around. Even if I didn’t and I had to buy one, I am sure that it would still be around the 500 mark. I did not include the price of Windows, which can be had for around 100 bucks. Windows 10 can be installed and function properly even without activation, but you lose the ability to do any personalizations to the OS AND the constant watermark on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. UGH!

Yes, custom built PC’s can be expensive but they can be affordable and budget but not lack any sort of performance.

Any final thoughts?

I am proud of this build. I am happy that I can get decent performance out the machine and on a budget.

Here are some generic benchmark scores for this particular build:

  • Cinebench R15 CPU: 845cb\
  • Cinebench R15 OpenGL: 65.98
  • Geekbench 4 Single-Core Score: 4310
  • Geekbench 4 Multi-Core Score: 13285
  • Heaven Benchmark Score (1600 x 900 at Medium settings): 1117
  • Heaven Benchmark Avg FPS (1600 x 900 at Medium settings): 44.3