As it has become increasingly clear that pandemic is only getting worse, I took inventory of spare PC parts in the closet and decided to build what I’m calling the Pandemic PC. Micro Center is my store of choice and I did an in-store pick up, masked and slightly terrified.
I already had RAM, power supply, and NVMe SSD (storage), so I had half the parts I needed. Supply chain shortages due to pandemic made acquiring the rest a bit of a nightmare. I actually had to create 3 separate orders because the site wasn’t showing parts were out of stock. Unlike orders at the grocery store, Micro Center does not substitute items.
I settled on a Ryzen 5 3400G, Asus Strix B450-F Gaming board, and a cheap NZXT case. The goal of this build was low power consumption, plenty of space for storage, and relatively silent operation.
This is my first build with AMD’s integrated graphics and I am quite impressed. The motherboard actually allows case fans to be spun down entirely unless heat hits a specified threshold. It’s been remarkably stable running Windows, but the eventual goal is a Linux-based replacement for the Windows-based server I’m currently running.
The 3400G has a 105 watt TDP and is unexpectedly strong when graphics are needed. When they aren’t, the machine is whisper-quiet. My biggest issue with the 3400G is that it only allows 4 SATA ports and even though the board has 2 NVMe slots, only the top one registers. The SATA compatibility was documented, but the NVMe limitation was not.