Daughter wanted a new PC for a long time. She likes PC games and I wanted to get her a Steam machine initially (and had ~$800 set aside for it), but when it will release we have no idea so far, and I had some spare hardware left after upgrades so decided to try to build something "Steam machine"-like myself.
It went pretty nice so decided to share with you guys, check it out.
Configuration:
Case: Silverstone Technology SUGO 14 - $114
Case fans: 2x Noctua NF-A14 PWM - $50
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9S - $70
PSU: Corsair CX550F RGB - free (spare hardware, ~$66)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 - $130 (had a spare Ryzen 7 1700 and managed to get ReBar working on it, but decided to get 5 5600 for a major performance boost)
RAM: Patriot Viper Steel DDR4 RAM 16GB (2X8GB) 3600MHz kit - $150
Motherboard: GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX AMD AM4 ITX - $162 (bought Used - Mint, had some adventures with it)
GPU: ASRock Challenger ARC B580 12GB - free (spare hardware, ~$310)
Storage: Samsung 980 1TB NVMe M.2, MZ-V8V1T0B/AM + Samsung 870 EVO 500GB SATA - free (spare hardware, ~$300 + ~$200)
OS: Bazzite
Total: $676 w/o spare parts, ~$1500 full with spares
Some notes:
Case is a very nice one, good thick metal and with decent finish on edges - I got zero cuts or scratches while assembling the whole thing. Manual suggests to install PSU with fan facing right side (you can see it like this on first photos). However, ASRock Challenger ARC B580 has a pass-through radiator with exhaust window on the top, and when installed in such case, if PSU fan is facing right side then PSU block an airflow for it. So I had to rotate it so that PSU fan will face GPU.
This case is expected to be used as a positive-pressure one, so I've set up the airflow like this:
Primary airflow loop: One 140mm fan set for intake on the right side, creates a flow to CPU. CPU cooler passes air through to the rear, where second 140mm fan exhausts hot air.
Secondary airflow loop: air is sucked in by GPU on left side, then hot air from GPU is divided roughly in half, one half is mixed up in primary airflow loop and exhausted via rear fan, second part is sucked in by PSU fan then exhausted to the top.
Noctua NF-A14 140mm fans are great, BTW, totally exceeded my expectations. Airflow they create is very decent and I really like the sound - even on high RPMs these sound sort of like a wind gusts outside the house instead of typical fan whining.
Overall thermals went great: ~40C on both CPU and GPU while idle and ~60C on both under heavy load, which looks just fine from my perspective.