PC Master Race

I would personally just get a nice air cooler for ~50€ and use the rest of the budget for an alternative improvement. I might also consider a slightly cheaper case. I might also consider saving a bit more money on the power supply by going with gold over platinum.

An extra €100 to your CPU would do a world of good.

Also I might consider using a more reputable NVMe drive. Maybe from that cooler/power supply money. A more reputable PCIE 4.0 drive with meaningful dcache would serve you well.

Also you may consider higher clocked RAM. If you are using an iGPU faster ram makes a world of difference.

I have a bias to “function over form” pc building so your values may differ here. My two cents.

I'm old school, I wouldn't spend a bunch on a liquid cooler unless I was going to overclock and do random high intensity stuff with it. I use a Noctua fan and never have issues, and I've got a chunky GPU in a pretty small case too. Still, fun setup! I hope you have a blast! Make sure the motherboard is flashed to the latest level for the CPU, or that you have a way to get that done, like a friend with an older CPU you can hijack for an afternoon. I had to do that with my first Ryzen. The store lent me an Athlon for a deposit.

It looks like you have an SFX power supply listed, and from what I'm seeing that case can use a regular ATX size one. Unless there's a requirement I'm not noticing, you could spend about half as much and get a pretty much equivalent ATX unit, especially if you drop down to 80+ gold from platinum - you probably won't notice a huge difference unless electricity is extremely expensive where you live.

Personally, I too would look at air coolers instead of an AIO - for the price difference on those two parts you're starting to get close to doing an older used GPU now instead of later. Asus says 130mm clearance which isn't enough for to the biggest of tower coolers, but more than enough space for air without any real thermal compromise - especially on AMD. If you have the stock cooler that came with the APU it's at least worth trying before spending a bunch, you might be surprised - the AMD coolers are pretty ok right now.

Here's the thing, you can afford a GPU anyway:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/zftcvj

Or if you're really determined that you want/need liquid cooling, you should get the newer Liquid Freezer III as another commenter mentioned, then to stay under the total you posted drop the GPU to the RX6600. Or you could check the used market for better options but I don't have familiarity with deal hunting there.

On first glance, looks like a functional ITX build. I built mine in an NR200 with the 5600G while I waited for GPU prices to come down. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by what you can do with just an APU.

Some things to consider with an APU-only build:

• Look into adjusting the Infinity Fabric speed. Your performance will be directly tied to it and the RAM speed. See MemTestHelper.
• Do you have case fans? Even if it's a mesh case, you'll still need to remove heat out the back or top.
• Will that cooler fit? Does the case have appropriate mounting points? Will you be able to route the hoses the way you want?
• Do you need a liquid cooler at all? The 5700G is a 65W tdp processor, so it can be cooled with a variety of coolers, like a Scythe Big Shuriken 3 or a Noctua L12S, and you can often save money by considering air cooling options (plus, no chance of leaks).

Pretty good setup, decently balanced and good cost-effectiveness.

I do want to ask though - why water cooling? Based on my understanding, your setup does not produce enough heat to really require watercooling (unless you really want sub-50C under load). My understanding is that a decent tower cooler is much more reliable and nearly as effective as a 240mm AIO.

Regardless, I don't necessarily even think you need a tower cooler - I have an R5 5600 and RX 6800 combo in a sub-10 L case (Geeek A50 Plus), and I'm cooling it just fine with a small-form-factor cooler (ID-Cooling IS-55). Actually, I got by just fine with my stock cooler (Wraith Stealth), I just upgraded because there was a good deal on the IS-55 cooler.

I think the 5700G comes with the same Wraith Stealth stock cooler, so I think it could be worth trying out the stock cooler first before you pull the plug and buy a 3rd-party cooler. Even if you're not satisfied with it, at least it'll give you a frame of reference for how much better you want your cooler to be. After all, you could always just replace the cooler any time if you're not happy with it

Depending on your needs in the future, I will probably think of swapping the CPU for a newer version, as 8600G for example and swap the liquid cooler with normal if not mandatory. Keep in mind that 5700G is using an end of life socket and your upgrade opportunities will be more limited. Even 8500G will give you more fps, but I think 8600G is a better deal, as it upgrades the APU significantly and you will have almost double the fps compared to 5700G.

Additionally, I will think about what GPU you might want to install in the future and change the PSU for a slightly more powerful version, as you might end up having to swap it once you decide to buy a discrete GPU. Here my recommendation is to go with 850W but again it all depends on your future plans.

Another consideration is that the mini ITX case might have difficulties with more powerful GPUs as they grew in size considerably and probably the new gen will keep the trend.

You can't always trust online PSU estimates (as far as how many watts you'll need), it never hurts to calculate it yourself I've got a 9th gen Intel board (MSI) with a 10th CPU and a Radeon RX580 running on a 400 watt power supply (EVGA), my biggest concern is overtaxing the poor thing 😀

Thats a shitton of money to spend on integrated graphics. I got a 6900xt + 7600x around christmas ended up spending around $1200

I'm no super guru -- I last put together a PC in 2021 -- but this all looks fine to me. You'll be able to upgrade to a dedicated GPU once you feel constrained by the integrated graphics, and that's pretty much the only thing I'd worry about.

Artic is replacing that cooler with a newer model. Try to get a good deal on the previous version or swap to the new model.

I'm just repeating what many others have already said, but for this setup you really don't need a liquid cooler. A simple air cooler would more than suffice and would save you like $100-$120. Additionally, it looks like you're paying a premium for an SFX power supply when an ATX power supply would fit. SFX power supplies are super cool in that they can pack so much power in a tiny size. But you wouldn't benefit from that in this case.

After changing the above, perhaps you could then fit a decent GPU into your budget.

Thanks everyone for the feedback and replies! Much appreciated.

I'll take a closer look at my pcpartpicker list and update it with the suggestions. I'll probably end up dropping the liquid/water cooling and just get an ATX power supply (vs a SFX power supply).

🙏 😁