07/25/2021

- blu ray
- clear side panel
- rgb of some kind
- bluetooth is more important than wifi

stuff I need to bring:
- thermal compound
- twist or zip ties
- monoprice velcro cable ties
- "ifixit" kit
- static discharger thing
- additional screwdriver

@Dr. Vey117#9699
this is the completed parts list :sunglasses: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/RaincloudTheDragon/saved/pdkrD3

so just a few notes:
- g2a windows of course, but that comes last
- i will direct your building of the machine but a PC isn't yours unless you install at least the CPU yourself. Dumbledore said that.
- I'll help you set up software stuff i.e. drivers, windows update, and steam library
- not sure if the power supply or motherboard comes with the two required SATA data cables, worst case scenario we run down to a store & grab some
- keep in mind that if you can find a cheaper monitor or a used one from the DI or your dad or whatever this can bring your overall price down quite a bit although you have to keep in mind input method just in case you need to buy a VGA adapter or sum, depending on the video card you end up choosing you may be limited to either hdmi, displayport, and DVI, or just hdmi and displayport. (I personally use an HDMI to VGA adapter from ONN; there are plenty of options for this scenario :yum::v:)
- I would HIGHLY suggest looking into this great deal for a used GTX 1660 6gb, the original card is worth about $230, and $180 is a great deal and also this card would be arguably better and for less (although I'm only 85% sure there would be clearance for it in the case) consider it before someone else buys it because this is a great deal https://www.mercari.com/us/item/m66173024620/
- had to use a wifiless motherboard (same as mine in fact, also note that this decision took off ~$100 from the budget)because all the ones with onboard wifi were far too expensive, so you can make the choice between the two usb adapters, one is wifi + bluetooth and the other is just bluetooth, wifi one just costs a tad more
- because your video card is better than mine I will pester you to run shaders on the server and test stuff out
- arguably this machine will be better than mine and will have cost you less :pensive: i need a job. or a 1660.

1/17/2022 (built 1/15/2022)

Tons of fun building this with and for a friend. One of the best parts was the motherboard. If I had to change a single thing, it'd be the case.

To start off, I've built or rebuilt 3 PCs with the 2600. Great processor for the price point, especially if you can nab a used one like we did here, as its price has fluctuated significantly since I first bought one in April 2020. (You can get one used for $100 if you're lucky, but it goes for upwards to $340 brand new. I had originally bought mine for around $270.) Despite my liking of the 2600, I have a bit of disdain for the Wraith Stealth. Having the AMD logo sideways was always a weird design choice, but I'd never tried to rotate it until now, and that was a bit of a disaster. Their current design is so close to a simple release of the decorative shroud on the top, to a click back in at a 90 degree rotation, but they decided to make the top shroud screw in, which means you have to remove the fan from the heatsink as well. If you don't ensure that the top shroud is mounted properly, you may accidentally snap part of it trying to screw it back in as I did. I should have been more cautious, but they could also have either made it easier to reorient the shroud (6 screws is ridiculous for such a small change), or just make it come in a non-sideways orientation in the first place to help the OCD crowd like me. In any case, at least my mistake didn't effect cooling. I also much prefer the Wraith Prism for its use of mounting brackets alone. So much easier to install and a lot more peace of mind when it comes to proper thermal contact, but the Stealth is still adequate and a good addition to come with this relatively low-priced processor. I was unable to check the processor's thermals due to software difficulties but I assumed them to be adequate.

The 2600 has a maximum ram bottleneck of 2933 mhz. This is only a problem if you don't know it or you're confused about your motherboard, or rather, if your motherboard itself is confused... The other two 2600 systems I've built, both sporting ASRock motherboards, were perplexed with this bottleneck. One of them was able to boot at the modules' rated speeds, and could even run games somehow, but would blue screen because the CPU wasn't capable, so applying it to manually run at 2933 did the trick. The other would bootloop even if it was manually told to use 2933 mhz. The auto setting selects 2133 which is less than optimal. (This issue may be remedied in a later chipset or revision of the boards in question. One was the A320M and the other the B450M, respectively. When I search for a replacement I'm less likely to choose ASRock for this and other reasons.) In this build, the Gigabyte B450 Aorus M did not disappoint. It immediately detected that the ram's max speed was 3200, but that the processor's bottleneck was 2933, and applied it immediately with no issues whatsoever. I was pleasantly surprised. All motherboards should be like this.

The ram itself is decent for its price, but was concerningly difficult to remove from its plastic casing. I've never dealt with ram being so tightly packed in its plastic. No problems installing.

We went with the trusty Crucial P1 500gb for the boot drive, and for once I got to use a motherboard with a built-in NVME heat spreader. Again, this mobo is great for its price point, even without wireless networking. I would have preferred a used drive with more storage to replace the 1TB (you can get a used 3tb for the same price no problem) but new hardware with warranties are always nice.

Aresgame makes some pretty adequate PSUs for great prices. This is the second one from them I've used. Who needs modular when you can run a 2070 Super on a $34 PSU? Great for smaller budgets as long as you're willing to deal with a lack of modularity. I wish I had done this with my first build. On the topic of the 2070 super, our Zotac card was detected to be too big for this case by PCPartPicker, but it fits just fine in the top PCI slot and if the drive cage was removed it could fit on the bottom as well. If it weren't for my disdain for this case, I would try to get this fixed so it displays properly on the site, but I will soon provide many details on why anybody hoping to build an MATX Mini Tower system, especially with an optical drive, should steer quite clear of this case.

What a great build. I sure hope the case is just as good...

The Deepcool Matrexx 30 MATX Mini Tower case is the most egregious display of design inadequacy I have ever seen. It looks just fine for its price, and we chose it because it had an optical drive bay. This was the biggest mistake of the build and I'll describe why, extensively. If you want only my final thoughts, read my final paragraph.

First off, cable management and simply the ability to fit your cables where any other case would allow you to is a nightmare. They could very easily get away with an additional quarter inch and it would mean a world of difference. I don't see why MATX Mini Towers tend to squeeze from the back panel so much and leave it to the panel itself to jut out from the case, it's frankly unnecessary. It doesn't need to be that much bigger to be manageable.

The drive bay is serviceable. I appreciate the amount of options it supports. I will be contrasting this case with a more competent, albeit more expensive case for the same standard, Fractal Design's Focus G Mini, which I've built in previously. This case, in comparison, has only two 3.5" drive bays, though the caddies it comes with create a superior mounting experience.

The rear PCI features three classic bend-and-break covers and one regular, cheap cover with no holes. I would prefer all or at least two of them to be like the first. It's just a waste of resources and leaves the rear coverless if you need to experiment with mounting in multiple slots.

This case does not know how to agreeably function with the MATX standard. The standoffs to the far right of the motherboard were not installed in the case, I found this odd but I quickly realized that the designers of this case were not prepared for the user to install a MATX board; the cable management holes to the right fall UNDERNEATH the motherboard and are utterly blocked by it. This forces you to either route the cables through the hole behind the sata SSD mount further to the right, or to forget routing them through the back entirely, which would be far easier but obviously not pretty. If the SSD mount didn't have this hole, you would be required to use the ugly option. At least you could fit the side panel on with no trouble. Additionally, there is only one small port next to the PSU for routing its cables, though this is hardly its greatest flaw. There are approximately zero routing holes on the top despite there being space for them. Your CPU power cable will float in your case and there's really nothing you can do about that beyond creating your own modifications.

This case has less than stellar airflow. I observed other reviewers saying they were completely unable to mount a fan to the front and thus being required to resort to messy tactics and case modding to mount, but I didn't have much trouble myself. I believe you would have to cut the front panel in order to install a fan or two in the front to show off RGB better, but I'm not entirely sure what other users were encountering or attempting with their fans. I'm fairly certain mounting two 120mm fans at the front is possible yet difficult and they really could make that easier. There is plenty of space for two additional fans to be mounted on the top. I have no idea why they didn't opt to just cut some holes in the top, especially considering they didn't have to worry about blocking the nonexistent cable routing holes. A common theme with this case is that the design does things it has no space for, and doesn't do things it does have space for. The Focus G Mini has this additional mounting space and two 120mm fans can be mounted on the front with none of the struggle or confusion. It even has a great mesh and dust filter. It's a far easier MATX Mini Tower case to build in, and while I'm not without my gripes with it, it's still vastly superior.

The front panel's features are average. I really like its buttons, they're more satisfying to press and may even be higher quality than the Focus G's buttons. The power LED is just fine as well. The HDD LED is not only red, but it's on the reset button. This is a bizarre choice. It really makes it seem like there's something wrong and may even prompt an inexperienced user to press the reset button. The Focus G, by contrast, has a separate indicator light in white, as is more common.

The front panel's cables are completely connected to the front panel. I have never seen this and it's not preferable. I don't like the idea of pulling the front panel off and having all the cables come with it. Again, Fractal's Focus G Mini avoids this crisis entirely. The mesh in the front hardly qualifies as a dust filter and if it weren't for the lack of airflow, you would be very worried about how dusty this system would become. It is visually pleasing though. What's not visually pleasing is that the inadequate design of this case in being completely unprepared for the MATX standard causes the 24-pin of your motherboard to prevent the optical drive from being mounted without jutting out of the front of the case a good inch or two. This is the most embarrassing aspect of this case's design. The entire reason we picked it was because it was the cheapest, most good-looking case for the MATX standard that had a 5.25" drive bay. What we didn't know was that this was a sad display of an attempt at an MATX case. This case needs an additional 1-2 inches out the front if you need both an MATX board and an optical drive. The only solution to this failure is to either modify or replace the case. Again, the Focus G Mini succeeds in that it sports two 5.25" bays with the ability to mount it on the upper or lower bay. (In that case, my fans were obstructing the drive if it was mounted from the top, but I could mount it on the bottom with no problems whatsoever.) This case only allows the lower bay, which perplexes me, because then it doesn't need the standardized double bay in the first place. I'm even fairly certain it would have the space if it had a hole to be mounted in the top bay, especially considering there aren't any fans or cable routing holes to obstruct it, though again, that's hardly a good thing. It almost makes me wonder if they intended you to only install some sort of front panel modification into the 5.25" bay. Regardless, a standard optical drive is impossible to fully insert into this case, is unable to be screwed in without jutting out even more, and even pushes back the mess of front panel cables that really should be separate from the removeable front panel and routed to the side into the back in the first place. Again, this case loses out to the Focus G Mini and probably a plethora of other cases that *actually* abide by the MATX standard.

I may look to design a 3d-printed modification that adds an additional inch or two to allow the drive to be mounted properly. If so, I will update on how it went. It may be more trouble than just getting a better, more suitable, more competently designed case.

The Matrexx 30's only saving grace is its side panel. It's tempered glass with thumbscrews. That and its size are its only victories over the Focus G Mini, which is larger and has a less than stellar acrylic side panel.

An ITX board could potentially remedy many of the issues I've outlined, but there are far too many good ITX cases out there to deal with the other pains of this case. For a similar price point or perhaps $10-20 more, you could get a case with none of these torturous issues and just as much prettiness. My Focus G Mini from Fractal, for around twice the price, has some of the same issues but again, is vastly superior. There are likely to be a plethora of options that are even better and more worth your money, but I use this example because it's the only other MATX Mini Tower case I have experience with. Many others who have built in this case say that you are getting what you paid for with this case. I disagree strongly. This case is cheap, but there are cheap cases created with cheap materials that have a fraction of the headache that comes with this one. In my eyes, a cheaper case shouldn't be lazily designed, but rather created from cheaper materials, not supporting as many features, or coming with less accessories. Purchasing a cheap case shouldn't result in features literally failing to function as intended or parts that are intended to be used in the case being unable to be installed without creating significant difficulties for the installation of other parts. I contend that this case is too expensive for its design quality. It would be more worthwhile to purchase if it entirely removed the optical drive bays. I would rather build in a cheap case with less features than in a cheap case with horrendously botched and dysfunctional features. Again, I don't see why competent manufacturers can't create a case with good design fundamentals for gamers or other users on a budget. It certainly goes to show that when you pay for a part, you must pay for good design and well-implemented features first, and visual impressiveness second. **In conclusion, no matter how low your budget is, if you are trying to build an MATX Mini Tower PC, it is worthwhile to spend a little extra to get a case that successfully abides to standards and implements its features properly. The price point of the Matrexx 30 is not worth the difficulties you will encounter building in it, not by a longshot.**

Thanks for reading and I hope you found my extensive and long-winded description informative. I am considering converting this into a video.
