Just built my first PC in 14 years - Suggestions for best CPUs with integrated GPUs for an upgrade or maybe 2nd build

[roxics]

That's not entirely accurate, because my girlfriend of 17 years is a PC user/gamer. So I've helped her upgrade her desktop a couple times. But I've been predominantly a mac user for the last fourteen years. I used a PC at work until the beginning of 2018, but not since then. So it's been almost seven years since I've really used Windows and it'd definitely taking some getting used to. Feels claustrophobic not having a way to zoom out and see all my open windows. I had to remind myself that using windows is mostly about jumping from one full screen app to another using the taskbar. I'm so used to hitting the middle mouse button and seeing all my open windows and then selecting one. Plus so many other little things that are missing.  

I used to build PCs back in the day, from 1998 to 2010 when I switched over to mac for my home machines. So I decided to assemble a machine from her old parts, some of my old parts I still had around, and a couple new parts. As a result I'm running an i7 3770 with 24GB a new 512SSD and a GTX 570 (I'm not a gamer) on Windows 10. Out of pocket it only cost me $89 for the new power supply and SSD. So pretty cheap for usable machine.
Seems to be working fine and would probably do me just fine, considering up until February I was working off my 2012 Mac Mini until it died on me. Then switched to my 2017 MacBook Pro as my desktop. But I wanted an actual desktop, and for years have been considering building a PC again, just because I'm tired of Apple taking away all upgradability on their machines and don't want to pay $200 for an extra 8GBs of ram. It's insane. Apple has been losing its mind over the last decade.

BTW I'm aware I'm running an odd number of DDR3. Considering  I often run with 200+ chrome tabs open, plus other things. So I'll take the memory over the speed for right now. Although I'll probably grab another stick soon to bring it up to 32GB. The max this MB can take. 

Anyway I'm considering building another machine. At least that's the plan. Something more modern and probably Win11. I had also considered a MiniPC since I like the small size, low noise, and low power consumption. Especially being used to a Mac Mini and a MacBook for fourteen years now. This PC I just assembled is loud and every time I hear it I can just imagine my already expensive electric bill going up. That said, I like the ability to upgrade and  overall I think it's probably more cost effective to build a computer in just a regular ATX style case. Just due to economies of scale on part costs. But I'm not really sure what kind of new machine to build, or even if I should right now. I might just be fine with this one for a bit.

Primarily I'm doing video editing and casual web stuff. Including some website builds.
This post is more about just sharing my story than anything, but I'm also open to suggestions on some new hardware for that possible new machine.
Just keep in mind I was using a quad core i7 from 2012 with 16GB of RAM and integrated Intel graphics for all of this stuff (and also as a Plex server on the same machine) on my 2012 Mac Mini up until February without any issues. So I'm not looking for a  $500+ GPU. In fact that's about what I want to spend on the whole system. Ideally something south of $1000 and closer to $400-700. Keeping in mind I don't really need two PCs, so I can just used the parts from this one if need be.

If anything I'm more interested in modern CPUs with the best integrated GPUs and building a system that is efficient. With the possibility of adding a dedicated GPU in the future if I feel I ever need it.  I am open to MiniPCs possibly, but again, the ability to upgrade would be nice.
 

Thanks

     

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 22/09/2024 at 12:33, roxics said:

Feels claustrophobic not having a way to zoom out and see all my open windows. I had to remind myself that using windows is mostly about jumping from one full screen app to another using the taskbar. I'm so used to hitting the middle mouse button and seeing all my open windows and then selecting one. Plus so many other little things that are missing.  

Linux can help you there. If you are so used to Mac, I think Linux would be a better translation then Windows, but that's my opinion.

Be known with the RAM, unless they are EXACTLY alike and in pairs of 2, they won't be in dual channel. You say you don't care about speed? You should.

As for CPU, your best bet is AMD 5000/7000 series. Their integrated GPU (G series) is quite good. Alough, those CPUs take DDR4 and DDR5 respectively.

[roxics]

On 22/09/2024 at 13:47, Mindovermaster said:

Linux can help you there. If you are so used to Mac, I think Linux would be a better translation then Windows, but that's my opinion.

Be known with the RAM, unless they are EXACTLY alike and in pairs of 2, they won't be in dual channel. You say you don't care about speed? You should.

As for CPU, your best bet is AMD 5000/7000 series. Their integrated GPU (G series) is quite good. Alough, those CPUs take DDR4 and DDR5 respectively.

Linux would be great, but doesn't run the Adobe suite. I need Premiere Pro support. As much as I've talked about getting away from it and going to Resolve, I just can't make that leap full time and need backward support for older projects.
 
As for ram. I'm trying it out. Right now its feels fine, like I said I'll either add a stick, but more likely I'm just going to upgrade CPU/MB/DDR4/5 anyway, so I'm not worried about it for now since I'll need new ram anyway. If I do keep this machine as is and it becomes an issue, I'll pull the one stick out and drop it to 16GBs. 

I thought AMD chips didn't have integrated GPUs like Intel does. I know their cheaper CPUs do, but do all of their CPUs have them now? I know that wasn't the case a few years ago. 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 22/09/2024 at 13:26, roxics said:

Linux would be great, but doesn't run the Adobe suite. I need Premiere Pro support. As much as I've talked about getting away from it and going to Resolve, I just can't make that leap full time and need backward support for older projects.
 
As for ram. I'm trying it out. Right now its feels fine, like I said I'll either add a stick, but more likely I'm just going to upgrade CPU/MB/DDR4/5 anyway, so I'm not worried about it for now since I'll need new ram anyway. If I do keep this machine as is and it becomes an issue, I'll pull the one stick out and drop it to 16GBs. 

I thought AMD chips didn't have integrated GPUs like Intel does. I know their cheaper CPUs do, but do all of their CPUs have them now? I know that wasn't the case a few years ago. 

There are many Linux alternatives. It may not be EXACTLY like Adobe, but pretty dam like it.

As for AMD, Only the G-Series have GPUs inside the CPU. As seen here:

 

[roxics]

On 22/09/2024 at 14:36, Mindovermaster said:

There are many Linux alternatives. It may not be EXACTLY like Adobe, but pretty dam like it.

As for AMD, Only the G-Series have GPUs inside the CPU. As seen here:

 

Lol No it needs to run Premiere Pro. My business counts on it. It can't be like Premiere Pro. 

Thanks for the info about the CPUs.  

[Mockingbird]

On 22/09/2024 at 11:26, roxics said:

Linux would be great, but doesn't run the Adobe suite. I need Premiere Pro support. As much as I've talked about getting away from it and going to Resolve, I just can't make that leap full time and need backward support for older projects.
 
As for ram. I'm trying it out. Right now its feels fine, like I said I'll either add a stick, but more likely I'm just going to upgrade CPU/MB/DDR4/5 anyway, so I'm not worried about it for now since I'll need new ram anyway. If I do keep this machine as is and it becomes an issue, I'll pull the one stick out and drop it to 16GBs. 

I thought AMD chips didn't have integrated GPUs like Intel does. I know their cheaper CPUs do, but do all of their CPUs have them now? I know that wasn't the case a few years ago. 

All AMD processors on the current AM5 socket have integrated graphics.

  

On 22/09/2024 at 11:36, Mindovermaster said:

As for AMD, Only the G-Series have GPUs inside the CPU. As seen here:

That is incorrect.

Edited September 23 by Mockingbird

[Mockingbird]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($249.00 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($34.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO B650-S WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($139.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory  ($83.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Black SN770 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($72.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design Pop Air ATX Mid Tower Case  ($49.99 @ B&H) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM750x SHIFT 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular Side Interface ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $720.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-09-22 22:44 EDT-0400

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 22/09/2024 at 21:35, Mockingbird said:

All AMD processors on the current AM5 socket have integrated graphics.

  

That is incorrect.

Care to explain yourself? Why do the 5000 and 8000 have G-Series?

[adrynalyne]

On 22/09/2024 at 22:49, Mindovermaster said:

Care to explain yourself? Why do the 5000 and 8000 have G-Series?

7000 desktop series and higher have iGPUs. Below that it needs to be a G series. 8000 series are all G series as far as I know. 
 

AMD has never been good with logical naming. 
 

 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 23/09/2024 at 01:33, adrynalyne said:

7000 desktop series and higher have iGPUs. Below that it needs to be a G series. 8000 series are all G series as far as I know. 
 

AMD has never been good with logical naming. 
 

 

I looked at this last night. Apparently, the F-series do not include a iGPU. Might just be a lower power CPU.

https://computercity.com/hardware/processors/amd-ryzen-am5-cpu-list

[tsupersonic]

Are you in the US and close to a MicroCenter? If so, their bundles are competitively priced and often deals can be had. But these bundles/priced are available in store only 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 23/09/2024 at 08:26, tsupersonic said:

Are you in the US and close to a MicroCenter? If so, their bundles are competitively priced and often deals can be had. But these bundles/priced are available in store only 

Sadly, yeah.. They still running that free SSD deal?

[tsupersonic]

On 23/09/2024 at 11:29, Mindovermaster said:

Sadly, yeah.. They still running that free SSD deal?

I don't know - I don't have a Microcenter anywhere close by. I see their bundles pop up on slickdeals quite frequently.

[roxics]

On 22/09/2024 at 22:44, Mockingbird said:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($249.00 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($34.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO B650-S WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($139.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory  ($83.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Black SN770 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($72.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design Pop Air ATX Mid Tower Case  ($49.99 @ B&H) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM750x SHIFT 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular Side Interface ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $720.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-09-22 22:44 EDT-0400

Nice. Thanks for the clarification. I like your motherboard suggestion, especially all the USB3 and above on the back. 
It got me looking at a variant of it at Microcenter that is a bit more expensive with less max ram (not an issue for me) but does have more PCI express and SATA connections, which might be handy for me. 
https://www.microcenter.com/product/659669/msi-b650-p-pro-wifi-amd-am5-atx-motherboard

On 23/09/2024 at 09:26, tsupersonic said:

Are you in the US and close to a MicroCenter? If so, their bundles are competitively priced and often deals can be had. But these bundles/priced are available in store only 

I do. About seven miles away from me. Was just there last week. It's where I bought the power supply and 2.5" SSD for this current PC.
Yeah definitely their bundle deals can save a lot, I've been keeping an eye on those. Just looking for one with the right combination at the right price. 

[hellowalkman Reporter]

On 22/09/2024 at 23:03, roxics said:

Primarily I'm doing video editing and casual web stuff. Including some website builds.

On 22/09/2024 at 23:03, roxics said:

If anything I'm more interested in modern CPUs with the best integrated GPUs and building a system that is efficient.

How about a Ryzen 8700G? It is a powerful 8-cored Zen 4 CPU with integrated Radeon 780M iGP with 12 CUs (CUs = sort of like GPU cores). You can pair it up with DDR5 6000 CL30 AMD EXPO memory and get excellent performance overall.

It's currently $260 at Microcenter and $269 at Amazon.

Performance-wise the CPU is about equal to an i5 13th Gen but the integrated graphics is much, much better at gaming (~3x better)) and decent for video editing and other things as well. And it is also very efficient. Even a 350-watt PSU will be more than enough.

 

[roxics]

On 24/09/2024 at 10:44, hellowalkman said:

How about a Ryzen 8700G? It is a powerful 8-cored Zen 4 CPU with integrated Radeon 780M iGP with 12 CUs (CUs = sort of like GPU cores). You can pair it up with DDR5 6000 CL30 AMD EXPO memory and get excellent performance overall.

It's currently $260 at Microcenter and $269 at Amazon.

Performance-wise the CPU is about equal to an i5 13th Gen but the integrated graphics is much, much better at gaming (~3x better)) and decent for video editing and other things as well. And it is also very efficient. Even a 350-watt PSU will be more than enough.

 

I think you were kind of reading my mind. I was actually looking at the 8600G last night and this morning and started looking at the 8700G today as well. Although it's about $100 more than the 8600G.
I'm not sure how either of these compare to the Intel i7 from my 2012 Mac Mini or my 2017 15" MacBook Pro. But if they are more powerful than either of those or the 3770 I've got in this current PC, then I should be just fine for video editing. 
That said, I've heard that these AMD APUs don't have any hardware encoding ability in Premiere Pro. So that concerns me a bit. Although I do prefer software encoding for quality. The option is still nice. Though that can be added with a dedicated GPU.

All of that said. This morning I kind of got mildly obsessed with the idea of a Mini ITX build after watching this video (below).
65 watt. Small form factor. Upgradable components. The ability to add a GPU later if wanted. The only downside being the price of ITX stuff. Seems a bit high. But I could see myself spray painting a case like that electric blue or bright green or hot pink or something. Maybe a muted color like pumpkin orange or camo/fatigue green.  I spray painted my first PC case electric blue back in 1999. Inspired by the old Silicon Graphics Indy machines of the mid 90s. Especially since I had a 20" SGI Trinitron monitor at the time.  
I'm not into LED lights all over computers, but colored cases I'm down for.

As for gaming. I'm not really a gamer. I do have a PS4 slim I'm pretty happy with, that I rarely touch. Still have five unopened games I bought years ago. Only 30% of the way through Tomb Raider which I started playing at the end of 2019 or beginning for 2020. I do have Cities Skylines on my Macbook Pro and open that up every couple years and play for about an hour or so. Again, not very often. But, it would be nice to have the option to be able to casually game if I want. Ideally with the graphics performance of my PS4 slim, which I'm guessing either of these APUs can probably do. Maybe not. I don't know.

The vast majority of my time would be spent doing web browsing/videos/music listening and video editing when I need to get some work done. By video editing I mean Premiere Pro typically 1080p H.264 footage with the occasional 4K footage I get from clients or I shoot myself. My 2012 Mac Mini i7 could handle most of that just fine. It was a bit sluggish with some of the 10bit 4K footage I got from clients on occasion but my 2017 MacBook Pro handled that just fine. 

Other than those two things, I typically use my machine as a Plex server for my girlfriend and I to watch movies in our house on occasion. 
My biggest thing is that I've got a lot of external hard drives and while I won't hook them all up to this one machine at once, especially if I have multiple machines again, the ability to hook up maybe six of them would be nice. So having a lot of USB 3 ports is kind of necessarily. Kind of. I'd love to get away from using all these USB hubs. I know that's basically impossible with a Mini ITX system. But I do already have all the hubs so I could just keep going that route. It has worked for my Mini and Macbook for all these years. So in that case I need at least four USB 3 ports on the back. Five would be a bonus.     

 

 

Edited September 24 by roxics

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Nice video. I love ETA Prime. He reviews a lot of mini computers. Mostly  about retro gaming, but he does a few AA games.

[tsupersonic]

On 24/09/2024 at 14:17, roxics said:

I think you were kind of reading my mind. I was actually looking at the 8600G last night and this morning and started looking at the 8700G today as well. Although it's about $100 more than the 8600G.
I'm not sure how either of these compare to the Intel i7 from my 2012 Mac Mini or my 2017 15" MacBook Pro. But if they are more powerful than either of those or the 3770 I've got in this current PC, then I should be just fine for video editing. 
That said, I've heard that these AMD APUs don't have any hardware encoding ability in Premiere Pro. So that concerns me a bit. Although I do prefer software encoding for quality. The option is still nice. Though that can be added with a dedicated GPU.
 

Compute wise the 8600G or 8700G will run circles around your ancient hardware. You can check passmark to compare the various CPUs. Your Mac Mini uses a laptop based i7 CPU anyway so it’s not powerful compared to your 3770. 

[hellowalkman Reporter]

On 24/09/2024 at 23:47, roxics said:

I was actually looking at the 8600G last night and this morning and started looking at the 8700G today as well. Although it's about $100 more than the 8600G.

For $100 more you get around 20-25% more CPU performance and 30-35% more iGPU performance. So it depends on whether you want that extra bit on the 8700G Or not.