Building a Gaming PC! I'm super excited :)

[TheSchoolofAthens]

Hello everyone! I've always wanted to build a gaming PC - well since I was about 12 at least. I am actually wanting to use it for programming and design mainly, as that is the career field I want to get into, and gaming as a bonus. All I've ordered so far is a, may I say, bad ass computer case. The thing is a mammoth! I chose it for the features, which I can get into if you care to know, and its sheer size will last me for years to come up experimenting and upgrading. Here is a picture of it from the web (ft. random grown man):

 

I am so happy that I am finally building one. I am excited to get back onto Windows (as I've been on linux and while I LOVE Ubuntu, linux isn't made for graphic design or gaming, but it works great for development/programming, so I will run both!) and get into Adobe. If there is anyone reading this that is into computers, it would be great to talk to you!

 

[MrCapitalism]

I've built both of my last gaming computers.

[TheSchoolofAthens]

I've built both of my last gaming computers.

Awesome man! Do you have both still or was one an upgrade of the previous one? I'd enjoy some pics of it or stats about it! What got you into it?

[Koroviev]

Nice!! I ordered my last one from Cyberpower (highly recommended generally and cheaper than building your own) I've upgraded my PSU to 750 watt and am working on getting a second GTX 970. I definitely recommend getting larger case fans they push more air with less work and therefore last longer. Also, if you haven't found it already https://pcpartpicker.com/is usually a pretty good place to find cheap parts.

 

CAS:CyberPowerPC X-Titan 100 MID-Tower Gaming Case w/ Side-Window Panel (White Color)

CD:24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)

COOLANT:Standard Coolant

CPU:Intel® Core™ i7-4790K 4.0 GHz 8MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1150 (All Venom OC Certified)

CS_FAN:Maximum 120MM Case Cooling Fans for your selected case [+9]

FAN:Corsair Hydro Series H60 High Performance Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Single Standard 120MM Fan)

HDD:256GB Corsair Force LX Series SATA-III 6.0Gb/s SSD – 560MB/s Read & 300MB/s Write [+83] (Single Drive)

HDD2:1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Drive)

MEMORY:16GB (8GBx2) DDR3/2133MHz Dual Channel Memory [+100] (ADATA XPG V3)

MOTHERBOARD:ASUS Z97-K ATX w/ Intel GbLAN, 2 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1, 2 PCI, 1 x M.2, 6x SATA 6Gb/s [+3]

POWERSUPPLY:600 Watts - Standard 80 Plus Certified Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready

VIDEO:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card (Maxwell) (Single Card)
 

[Renaissance Man]

Rule 1! (Or really the only rule): Understand what each part does. Do your research.

 

Here's a website I used when building my computers: http://www.tomshardware.com/articles/?tag=components&articleType=review

They have great articles for noobs as well as great hardware reviews. There's one about diminshing returns when purchasing high end parts.

 

I built a gaming rig, something to play my games at max settings. Since you're using your rig for design and programming you'll want something similar. Here's my analysis on the important bits.

 

Case: Bigger is better (if you're a heavy computer user). Yes, technology get smaller over time. However, computers generate lots of heat and need something to keep it cool (ventilation, water cooling). Whatever you choose to keep it cool you'll need space, lots of it.

 

Hard Drive: Buy an SSD. Done.

 

SSDs are better than HDDs in every way possbile (no joke). Even if it only has 200 GB. They're expensive now, but the data transfer is so simple you'll be able to upgrade without having to reinstall everything.

 

CPU: Don't go too cheap. This is the brain of your computer and will need to last you a long time.

 

Motherboard: This part took me the longest to pick. They'll try to throw a bunch of useless peripherals at you. Do lots of research. You'll want your rig as future proof as possible and motherboards determine what you can/cannot put in your computer. I ended up having to make a second computer ground up because my case wasn't big enough and my motherboard didn't support newer graphics cards.

 

Memory: This is what lets your computer do the same tasks without working as much; Helping prolong computer life as well as keeping things fast. Personally I have 8GB (4GB x 2) and I would like to get more. 16 GB is a good place to start.

 

Power Supply: If you want a gaming rig understand the best graphics cards are big and use lots of power. If you want to be able to play all your games on ultra (totally worth it BTW) you'll need a power supply of at least 600 watts. Seeing that your case is big you may want to get a power supply that's modular as well.

 

Graphic Cards: This bad boy will take the load off your computer when playing games. You don't need more than one card (SLI/Crossfire) as long as the one you have is good. I'm not sure how much to suggest paying for this. This is probably the part you'll be upgrading the most; not because it dies on you rather the technology improves enough every 2 years or so to justify upgrading.

 

Essentially purchase your hardware with the knowledge technology is constantly improving and you'll have to upgrade certain parts cyclically.

[Snafui]

Two approaches:

If a complete build is needed I read the qualified vendor list (QVL) for the motherboard to see which parts are recommended. Then analyze the recommended parts to see if you should use that motherboard with those parts or choose another.

 

Or...

 

I wait for the announcement of the latest and greatest video card so I can then buy the previous generation for as little as 25% the original cost. When doing this I will use the QVL to check for video card first. I also find that most the parts for that generation are at a discount as well. You save a lot of money with this method.

 

I've been able to build a few computers doing this with no serious problems post assembly. In one case the amount of memory I had targeted for use would have cost a fortune according to the QVL; I chose a different motherboard and saved on the cost of the memory for the build.

[WorBlux]

Rule 1! (Or really the only rule): Understand what each part does. Do your research.

 

Here's a website I used when building my computers: http://www.tomshardware.com/articles/?tag=components&articleType=review

They have great articles for noobs as well as great hardware reviews. There's one about diminshing returns when purchasing high end parts.

 

I built a gaming rig, something to play my games at max settings. Since you're using your rig for design and programming you'll want something similar. Here's my analysis on the important bits.

 

Case: Bigger is better (if you're a heavy computer user). Yes, technology get smaller over time. However, computers generate lots of heat and need something to keep it cool (ventilation, water cooling). Whatever you choose to keep it cool you'll need space, lots of it.

 

Hard Drive: Buy an SSD. Done.

 

SSDs are better than HDDs in every way possbile (no joke). Even if it only has 200 GB. They're expensive now, but the data transfer is so simple you'll be able to upgrade without having to reinstall everything.

 

CPU: Don't go too cheap. This is the brain of your computer and will need to last you a long time.

 

Motherboard: This part took me the longest to pick. They'll try to throw a bunch of useless peripherals at you. Do lots of research. You'll want your rig as future proof as possible and motherboards determine what you can/cannot put in your computer. I ended up having to make a second computer ground up because my case wasn't big enough and my motherboard didn't support newer graphics cards.

 

Memory: This is what lets your computer do the same tasks without working as much; Helping prolong computer life as well as keeping things fast. Personally I have 8GB (4GB x 2) and I would like to get more. 16 GB is a good place to start.

 

Power Supply: If you want a gaming rig understand the best graphics cards are big and use lots of power. If you want to be able to play all your games on ultra (totally worth it BTW) you'll need a power supply of at least 600 watts. Seeing that your case is big you may want to get a power supply that's modular as well.

 

Graphic Cards: This bad boy will take the load off your computer when playing games. You don't need more than one card (SLI/Crossfire) as long as the one you have is good. I'm not sure how much to suggest paying for this. This is probably the part you'll be upgrading the most; not because it dies on you rather the technology improves enough every 2 years or so to justify upgrading.

 

Essentially purchase your hardware with the knowledge technology is constantly improving and you'll have to upgrade certain parts cyclically.

 

Rule 1 I agree with, there are a lot of gotcha's out there, having multiple eyes look over a build list is great to double check parts are compatible.

 

I disagree on the case philosophy. A smaller case can dissipate a lot of heat if properly designed. And it takes up a lot less room. A well designed case like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163222(which I've used) can accomadate a large cpu heatsink, a full sized graphics cards, a few full sized hard drives and an optical drive (the essentials) while still costing less than a well-designed larger case.  A smaller motherboard also saves you quite a bit. Seeing how motherboards tend to throw in everything but the kitchen sink (many have wireless integrated) you tend not need a lot of expansion slots.  The downside of smaller (micro as compared to standard ATX) is that it limits future upgrade options (1 graphics card vs 2, 4 DIMM's v 8) and you can stuff only about 1/2 as many disk drives into it.

 

Hard Drive: Yes SSD, but perhaps not all SSD's are equal. Right now at the consumer level I'm excited about M.2 drives that use NVMe rather than AHCI. The newly released Samsung Evo 950 bosts reads of 2500 Mb/s and writes of up to 1500Mb/s. (which is 3-5 times faster than you can get going through AHCI/ the SATA interface. The nut of it is only a few motherboards support booting off on M.2 right now. On the up side these are the chipsets that gamers rave about, and the motherboards have a dedicatied M.2 slot right on the motherboard. (Z97, Z170 or X99 chipsets) You can add m.2 expansion cards onto PCI 3.0 x4 headers, but you may have trouble booting. Anyways a good SSD will make a system feel much more responsive for the money vs anything else you go premium on.

 

CPU: These can be upgraded, but it's not always a sure thing. Sometimes pin layouts change between generations and you Motherboard may or may not get a firmware update to support the new generation.  A quad or hexa core Skylake or haswell-E is going to be the latest and greates option, but starting at 250 as well. But they will support DDR4 memory which is latest greatest as well.

 

Mother Board: Ya this is the foundation of your build. Try to match it to your case. If your case supports 8 hard drives and your motherboard supports 4, that could be a problem.

 

Memory is the easiest thing to upgrade. 8GB is plenty for most tasks, 16 in a 2x8 Package will give you a lot of headroom.

 

Power Supply: The second most important part for longevity of the build. Not only is power rating important, getting a name brand that is certified 80+ efficient of better assures you of a good quality supply.

 

Graphics: There's a sweet spot in the mid-upper range for price/performance. A good rule of thumb is to spend as much as you did on the CPU, and certainly not more than twice that. The best graphics card in the world is still limited in practical performance by how fast the CPU can send instructions and data.

 

But this is just one philosophy to buy at the upper side of performance  and upgrade 2-3 times over 4-5 years. If you make a graph on hardward with the X axis being money spent and the y axis being additional everyday performance per dollar spend, you'd be being stuff at the peak or just right of it.  (Typically 1000-1300 dollar builds with 200-400 dollar upgrades)

 

The thing about this graph though is left of the peak there are two phases, on the far right each additional dollar increases performance per dollar at an increasing rate. Then you hit and inflection point and each extra dollar still increases performance per dollar but at a decreasing rate.  The other school of thought tries to pick at this inflection or just right of it. Typical builds here are 600-800 dollars with maybe a 100-200 dollar upgrade. These would have a practical life of 2-3 years as a decent gamer. Pick parts a few generations old, consumer rather than enthusiast parts.  Your replacement a few years from now built with the same philosophy will be at least as good the peak performer would have been 2-3 years ago.

[Koroviev]

Turns out I'm getting a new work laptop as well thought I'd share:

1 MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 4K-053 Gaming Laptops

    15.6" 4K UHD+ (3840x2160) LG IPS Glossy LED backlit LCD

    nVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 192bit w/6.0GB GDDR5

    Built-in Steelseries Backlit Keyboard - Programmable Multiple Color Variations

    Intel Core i7-6700HQ Processor (2.6~3.5GHz) w/6M L3 Cache - 4 Cores - 8 Threads

    Stock Dry Thermal Compound

    16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4L/2133MHz Dual Channel Memory

    256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 AHCI Solid State Drive (up to 2150MB/s Read/1200 MB/s Write- 70K IOPS Write/90K IOPS Read)

    1TB SATA III 6Gb/s 7,200 RPM Hard Drive

    M.2 Killer Wireless-AC N1525 ac/a/b/g/n + Bluetooth 4.1 Combo Card (Max speed: 867Mbps)

    Smart Li-ion Battery 6-Cell  (4400mAh 49Wh)  

 

http://www.powernotebooks.comusually has some good deals if you're looking to be mobile.

 

If you can, hold out a couple weeks for skylake

 

P.S. yeah I have an awesome job

[TheSchoolofAthens]

Turns out I'm getting a new work laptop as well thought I'd share:

1 MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 4K-053 Gaming Laptops

    15.6" 4K UHD+ (3840x2160) LG IPS Glossy LED backlit LCD

    nVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 192bit w/6.0GB GDDR5

    Built-in Steelseries Backlit Keyboard - Programmable Multiple Color Variations

    Intel Core i7-6700HQ Processor (2.6~3.5GHz) w/6M L3 Cache - 4 Cores - 8 Threads

    Stock Dry Thermal Compound

    16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4L/2133MHz Dual Channel Memory

    256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 AHCI Solid State Drive (up to 2150MB/s Read/1200 MB/s Write- 70K IOPS Write/90K IOPS Read)

    1TB SATA III 6Gb/s 7,200 RPM Hard Drive

    M.2 Killer Wireless-AC N1525 ac/a/b/g/n + Bluetooth 4.1 Combo Card (Max speed: 867Mbps)

    Smart Li-ion Battery 6-Cell  (4400mAh 49Wh)  

 

http://www.powernotebooks.comusually has some good deals if you're looking to be mobile.

 

If you can, hold out a couple weeks for skylake

 

P.S. yeah I have an awesome job

That sounds like a sick laptop! I won't have a laptop like that until I am swimming in money - one day though haha. I like how MSI's typically look. The logo makes me think of the Ferrari or Lamborghini of laptops. Also, keyboards with customizable LED colors make me hnnnnnnng.

[Alan C.]

SSDs are a must-have. One SSD will outperform two HDDs in RAID 0.

[efioptv]

Im in the process of building my first desktop too. In the past, ive only been fixing my relatives' computer or take apart laptops to fullfill my curiosity. Now that ive actually saved up money for it, i can build a desktop that will play everything i wanted in the past. Also it will really motivate me to create work im studying design btw.

 

As for buying prebuilt, i think its a bad idea. Since they will put in cheap parts...for example ibuypower. I looked at the r9 390 and seems like they will put in a stock ome straight from amd instead of those third party ones...