Gonna build a new PC. (Halp)

[Vin+ 3,121]

At least I think I am. I dunno. Finally gonna pull the trigger soon since I'm gonna have the money for it. Been looking at pre-builts lately, but they either seem lacking in some way, or were more than I'm looking to spend. (though when I was pricing stuff out a few months ago, what I was looking at wasn't cheap either...)

 

I know a few of you have built your own. I guess I'm looking for recommendations. Parts you like, parts you'd stay away from, good/bad brands, etc.

 

A few months ago I was reading part reviews on Tom's Hardware and whatnot, but it's all pretty overwhelming stuff for the most part.

 

Halp.

[Cherry 1,302]

What's the point of a good PC if you don't have internet

[Vin+ 3,121]

Physical copies of games will probably cease to exist and everything will go digital two days after I get the computer probably.

[theMileHighGuy 656]

I refuse to help because I don't believe this is actually happening.

 

[Vin+ 3,121]

[theMileHighGuy 656]

What's your budget?

[theMileHighGuy 656]

I built a ridiculous PC.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ypg86h

[Vin+ 3,121]

That's perfect. I'll take it.

 

 

Budget is between $700-$900. Don't really want to spend more than that, and I'd prefer to stick to the lower side of the scale.

[theMileHighGuy 656]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rPzncf

 

idk if you need a monitor or not :/

 

The only place you're going to save a lot of money is video card. I just don't want you to get into spending that much money on something that's not gonna be kosher a year or two from now.

[Vin+ 3,121]

Yeah, that's a key thing.

 

Shouldn't need a monitor or any other peripheral stuff (it'd be nice, but I'm not gonna spend money on it).

 

I'm not really looking to be a full-on member of the PC master race playing things on ultra. I just wanna be able to play stuff at a reasonable level (and not have to upgrade after a year.).

[theMileHighGuy 656]

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/rsurish377/saved/#view=R2c8TW

 

Dropped to 2x 4gb ram sticks instead of 2x 8gb... not as future ready but will do fine for a long time.

 

Dropped the fancy CPU cooler, it should come with a stock fan cooler that should be fine.

 

Traded out for a cheaper PSU that still got 5 star reviews.

 

GTX 960 instead of 970. It's not nearly as good but it's well over $100 less.

[Vin+ 3,121]

[Vin+ 3,121]

How good/bad is Windows 10?

[theMileHighGuy 656]

Windows 10 is awesome, I'll certainly never go back. If you have a copy of 7 or something that you can use though, use it... and then upgrade for free.

[Vin+ 3,121]

So here's where I am at, so far. I'd like to shave a little more off, but I'm not sure I can unless stuff goes on sale (yeah, I don't need a BD drive, but I want one.) I think I'm going to need to double check the wattage elsewhere because I think I'm going to need a different power supply (that GFX card seems to be a big draw from what I've seen.

 

Also, is there any advantage to using two smaller sticks of RAM compared to one big one?

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DtJg8d

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Maybe I am crazy, but you can easily knock money off with a different processor. I remember getting my 6 core AMD processor for like 125 bucks and it was rated 5 stars (or eggs as I got it from newegg).

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/22qPMp

 

If you really want, you can drop that an extra 30 bucks and get a 90 dollar quad core AMD processor instead of the 6 core I picked out. I also just copied your video card, because a lot of people get pissy about video cards. Add $15 to mine for the wireless adapter that I was way too lazy to add to my list for some reason.

 

But then don't add it back because I think you should totally save yourself an extra 15-20 by ditching Windows 10 for Windows 7. At the very worst, you upgrade... and save yourself money.

And you can easily skimp on RAM for the time being. I would still go with at least 8, but RAM is by far like the easiest thing to upgrade / install.. So just to get something together now, getting less isn't like the worst thing possible. Also, i don't know if anyone else had this issue, but man I hated installing my CPU. Trying to clasp it down and secure it onto the MB was some of the scariest shit ever. Had to use so much force, I really thought I was about to snap the motherboard into pieces. Ha

Also, I like looking at everyone's case preferences. Haha. Don't call the fire marshal on me or whoever it is you would call for unruly cord behavior.

 

Edited February 14, 2016 by Favre4Ever

[Vin+ 3,121]

Yeah, the processor that I've got in there is there because it's all shiny and chrome new. Same with the motherboard. That doesn't necessarily mean better, but new is nice, right? (Also, motherboard shopping is the absolute worst.)

 

I don't know where to find Windows 7 for cheap (and actually buy it). The reasonable stuff on Amazon says it's for refurbished stuff and then doesn't come with a product key.

 

I know nothing about PowerColor as a brand, but the price seems right and the card seems to be good. I dunno.

 

And I am absolutely frightened about putting it together. I've seen far too many stories about bent pins and parts DOA and parts breaking after a short period of time. The nature of the beast, I guess, but it's not comforting at all.

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

It's not really that bad. Most of it is pretty straight forward, unless you have some ridiculous kind of build. Just don't snap your motherboard like I almost did and don't set it on fire or anything.

[Vin+ 3,121]

[Thanatos 2,847]

I'll jump in here, I suppose. I built my computer about four years back.

 

Favre is correct, IMO. AMD processors are, generally speaking, way cheaper and still do the trick unless you are a super hard core 4k kind of gamer.

 

As far as putting it together, well, I followed this video guide my first time putting mine together.

 

This is also a good test to see if you're really ready to build a computer. If you cannot follow what he is talking about in these three videos, you need to brush up on your computer knowledge before you actually try a build.

 

Part 1: The Parts

Part 2: Building the PC

Part 3: Installing Windows and Shit

 

As far as parts advice, try to identify which part is going to be your bottleneck: Your first part you will need to replace- sometime in the future- that won't be cheap or easy.

 

Generally, this comes down to the CPU, the Motherboard, or the Graphics card.

 

Reason this is a nice thing to figure out is because if you have any extra money left over, you know which part you will want to upgrade first.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Thanatos

[theMileHighGuy 656]

The motherboard and CPU installation can be a bitch, like Favre said. That's why I love the ASUS TUF boards like that Sabertooth 990FX R2. I have the first generation of that board, and I have put it through HELL and it's still top notch. I got thermal paste down inside the pinholes for the CPU, like a lot of it. I thought it was fucked, and I would be getting a new one, but just for shits, I took it out into the garage and propped it up, and then sprayed it with contact cleaner for about 25 minutes. Completely soaked it. Let it dry for like an hour popped everything back in and it fired up and has been working since. ASUS hardware is amazing.

 

I've never heard of PowerColor, but that card has fine reviews so it can't be bad. If you're ever wondering about how cards (esp of different brands) stack up against each other, just type (card name and model) vs (card name and model) into search and one of the first links will be a gpuboss link that will compare them for you. Same goes for CPUs.

 

As far as ram goes, 2x 4GB sticks of Ram will give you virtually the same performance as 1 8gb stick. Getting larger volume sticks though is a good idea because it will make it easier to upgrade in the future (and keep the ram you have). Most midrange mobos will only have 4 slots. I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you get less than 8gb of ram total. When I built my most recent PC several years ago, I got 4x 2GB sticks, and I wish I would've just gotten 2x 4gb sticks, because now I can't upgrade to 16gb without getting all new ram.

 

 

LOL at the firemarshall Farve. My machine is a completely jerry-rigged mess.

 

 

My case is about 10 years old now. It's an Ultra brand case, but it has been through 3 builds now. I just really like it because it's solid metal construction, and I never needed to buy a new one. I don't have optical drives, but I can't access the front of it anyway because of the way I have it sitting up in my cabinet. I disassembled the power and reset switches and rerouted them to the back, and cut holes out of a rear grate and super glued them in.

 

I cut out the optical drive rack. I have 3 500gb hdds striped together in raid 0, and put them where the optical drives would go in a hdd rack I made myself, out of cardboard. My main 1tb hdd sits underneath them in its own holder. (The original hdd rack was welded in in front of the bottom case fan, but I had to cut it out to fit my new video card in)

 

I have a gtx 770 2gb gfx card in the first PCIe slot. For some reason I've been trying to figure out for months, it won't run H1Z1, so I have my older gtx 560ti underneath it. Whenever I want to play H1 I have to swap the monitor HDMI to the other card, and disable the 770 in device manager.

 

 

Whenever I get enough money for a new computer, I'll go all out with a new case, I just haven't seen anything that really screams to me. I'd really like to try a hard-pipe liquid cooling design next. These Phanteks Evolve cases are incredibly dope. http://phanteks.com/Enthoo-Evolv-ATX.html By the time I'm building a new pc though they might be out of production lol.

Edited February 15, 2016 by theMileHighGuy

[Vin+ 3,121]

Ordered everything last night. Should all be here by next Wednesday (because I'm cheap and didn't want to pay for expedited shipping.) Also ordered XCom 2, which could've been a mistake since it's not even put together yet, but whatevs.

 

Now to wait for the inevitable price drops on everything and the sadness that will follow.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Vin

[Thanatos 2,847]

How much you end up spending for it, and what's your build look like?

[Vin+ 3,121]

Pretty much this, http://pcpartpicker.com/p/QwmZsY , with a different wireless adapter.

 

Shipping and everything came out to around $860, minus XCom. Got a couple rebates I need to send in too.

 

Buyer's remorse is gonna kick in here in a couple days, but only until it arrives.

 

I hope.

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Why did you end up going with the big name and super expensive processor, if you don't mind me asking.

 

EDIT: I did just notice, however, that you got a badass case Solid decision making skills on parts that don't matter as much to your wallet or build.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Favre4Ever