Wanted to get rid of a pesky dual core i3-7100 for the R5 2600X. Had to throw in a few more dollars for a new motherboard, but it was worth it.

Anyways, this isn't my first build. Simply reused parts from my last build for this one. As a 17 year old, it's hard for me to secure a job, so I couldn't do much to my build except getting a few things I've been wanting, like the Carbide 400C, since I was only called in to work for a week. Only had around $450 to play with. Thank you Micro Center for having one in the clearance section for $30. Couldn't be happier with the purchase.

So, on with the parts

I've been wanting to join team red for a good while now since my i3-7100 wasn't exactly up for the things I've been wanting to do, like editing videos in Vegas. By the time I was ready to switch to a Ryzen 5 1600X, Zen 2 was right around the corner. Waited for that, and my God am I happy with this processor. I can finally keep Plays.TV open without making my games stutter. Tried streaming with it and it's performance is just as expected with those 6 cores and 12 threads: Superb.

The motherboard I kinda cheaped out on, but can't really blame me. Didn't have much money to work with. Besides, I'm pretty sure I wasn't going to use the features that ships with the new chipset. I do love the aesthetics of this board. The brown PCB on the Z270 I had before this was incredibly boring to look at compared to the color neutral gray this board has. And the RGB is a nice touch.

On with the memory. You know, before I built my first computer, lots of people said 8GB was more than enough for gaming. and in some cases, they were right. Maybe the games I was playing were poorly optimized, but my RAM usage would be in the 90s a lot. So I picked up another 8GB kit and now I'm glad I have the headroom to keep a tab of Chrome open in the background. Thanks Crucial! In all seriousness though, 16GB is probably the minimum now, unless you're willing to close up some programs to free up some memory. Games are starting to use more and more memory as far as I can tell.

The storage is pretty straight forward. An SSD for the OS and a few programs, and two HDDs for mass storage. My experience with this SSD has been great. Love the boot up time. As for the HDDs, both have lasted me over 3 years and no sign of breaking down. WD is definitely worth getting.

I know people have probably cringed at an MSI Gaming X 1050 Ti, but I managed to pick up this 1080p powerhouse for $160 at Micro Center last year and I'm still very happy with it. I still plan on getting a 1060 or better, since I know it's bottle necking the R5. But it still crushes all the games I play at 1080p high and sometimes even ultra in Killing Floor 2.

The Carbide 400C is a case I've been wanting for a pretty good while. A much bigger upgrade from the Thermaltake V3 I had before it. Love the cable management in the case, as well as its looks. Hooked up another intake fan onto the front alongside the one that came with the case. It's extremely quite and couldn't be happier.

Anyways, that's all I've got to say. Any criticism is appreciated! If you read through all of that, cheers!