My PC Build
In this article I walk you through each component that I picked for my PC build. My goal was to build a small form factor PC to casually game on every now and then but without compromising on quality hardware. You shall see in this article that the best possible hardware was picked for this budget. If you also have a similar desire or requirement, I hope this article helps you.
Case — Fractal Design Ridge
From the get-go, my ideal PC build was a small form factor, having looked at the ASRock DeskMeet, LiamLi H20 and Fractal Design Ridge, I finally chose Fractal Ridge. Fractal is a Sweden-based computer case designing company. Their cases are unique, have a very Nordic look to them in my opinion which I appreciate. I picked Fractal Ridge because of how compact the case is, has a very console-like look to it and mainly the ability to accomododate it on my side-table. And Ridge was the only one available in white which earned bonus points on the score card. And let’s be honest, the case is really beautiful. The case has the ability to allow the user remove all panels for installation, the case has ample room for SSD expansion, case supports GPU cards up to 330mm and also ships with a PCI-E 4.0 riser. Overall, a great case.
GPU — RTX 4070 Founders Edition
The star of the build is RTX 4070 FE. Released less than a month at the point of writing this article, this card marks a milestone with its affordable vs performance ratio chart. This is the first card running on the Ada Lovelace architecture that is not only affordable but also promises a decent performance with those 5888 CUDA cores. The card was ordered through Nvidia’s website and arrive after a week since the order was placed. The founder’s edition does have some fancy collector packaging to it. The card has 12GB of VRAM available. Also, this is the first 40-series card that is reasonable sized.
CPU — i7 13700F (16 Cores — 8P + 8E)
Intel with their 11th-gen architecture introduced efficiency cores which help take on lighter tasks with less power requirements rather than running on a core that would otherwise need more power. This holds true even for 13th-gen processors. In this case, I went with a 65W Intel chip that does not include integrated graphics as I was already going to get the discrete GPU. A key reason here to go with 65W TDP is to make sure the case can cool and make sure the CPU is able to perform at its best without any thermal throttling. The CPU is able to remain under 65C even under heavy load which really good.
CPU Cooler — ID IS-55
I choose to go with a non-stock cooler mainly because of the larger heatsink and fan which is a key player in keeping my chip cool even under heavy load. Amongst all the low-profile coolers available at the time of this writing, ID IS-55 was not only the best performer but also most compatible with the components I had picked. As low-profile coolers are notoriously hard to work with given their clearance and breath of the heatsink.
SSD — Samsung 980 PRO
I went with PCIe gen5 m.2 SSDs and my personal favorite is Samsung, my last 4 SSDs have always been Samsung and thus have made me form a trust on their quality and performance. Also, I am a fan of their PRO line of SSDs. I went with a two-drive configuration so most of the data shall live on a second drive so that in the event of a corrupt OS I have the freedom to be able to quickly restore my OS without loss of any data.
RAM — Corsair Vengeance DDR5 64GB
I went with Corsair Vengeance as they support Intel XMP for future overclocking. However, given the case and how close everything is, I may not really overclock the modules if their performance is satisfactory.
Motherboard — ASRock Z790M-ITX WiFi
All the parts came together on a Z790 board. The reason to get this particular board was due to it’s support for all the latest generation interfaces: PCI-E 5.0, DDR5, PCI-E Gen4 SSD and support for 12th/13th gen CPUs. Also, this motherboard has WiFi already built-in.
PSU — Cooler Master V850 SFX
As you can see in the final pictures, the SFX cooler is very well aligned and fits in snug inside this case. I went with a 850W capability PSU due to the parts in this build. One of the things that I really appreciate about this PSU is that the given cables were appropriately sized for a small form factor case taking into consideration as to how close all the components are going to be. Thus, cable management was fairly straight-forward and easy.
Final Product
Overall, I really appreciate how compact and powerful this build is given it’s size. This was a fun build! Thanks for reading!
