Help Me Build My New Computer!

GWC Community GWC Hive Mind
#1

After 6 and a half years of tweaks and numerous upgrades, I think it is finally time to replace my computer. I am looking to build my own this time around. I’ve never done it before but I know enough about hardware at this point to do it. I’m looking for some help on exactly what to get.
I’d like to make this a good gaming PC, one that can last for a while, but not get too insane about it. I’m hoping to spend less then $1000.

My philosophies on buying a computer is you should get the best processor you can, because that is the hardest thing to replace. Other upgrades like RAM and Video Cards are relatively inexpensive and easy to do. CPU is a bit more tricky. Going along with the CPU is the motherboard, which I also think should be top of the line.
At the same time I am trying to keep costs down. I have some hardware I can recycle from other computers, so I won’t be needing a monitor, speakers or CD/DVD drives.

I have never built a computer from the ground up before, so any general advice on the building process would also be appreciated.

To begin, what I need some hive mind advice on – The Processor and Motherboard.
The AMD Phenom II X6 looks like the best deal at the moment. Intel has i7, which is more expensive and looks almost exactly the same. Is there a noticeable difference in most resource intensive applications and games?

Other specific questions:
-AMD (ATI) vs. Nvidia – These two are constantly be going back and forth for the most powerful hardware. I’ve had ATI in the past, which have had good performance, but driver support which was OK at best. I have never had Nvidia, how is their driver and other support?
-Since I’m probably going with an AMD processor, do you guys know if there is any performance boost with AMD processor and AMD graphics card?
-Crossfire and SLI – Worth it or waste of money?
Loaded questions, I’m sure.

I’ll update you guys with my progress as I go. It might take some time as I have been insanely busy with work lately, but it will happen sooner or later.

#2

Hi there, built many a computer in my time.

A little philosophy
Graphics cards tend to be the most expensive part of a computer, unless you are going crazy with a massive cpu.
most games will run fine on a slow cpu as long as the graphics card is decent.
Decide on your brand of cpu, for gaming, anything over a quad core cpu realy isn’t going to give you that much extra performace (most games don’t even support dual cores) So if this is a gaming pc, get a quad core with a good clock speed, a motherboard that fits the cpu, 4gb(ish) of ram(carefully read what ram the motherboard supports) and spend all the extra cash on the best GFX card you can

-AMD (ATI) vs. Nvidia –

Nvidia cards are nice, your not wasting money if you get one and I love the drivers. However, for the same price you can get an ati card that will generally perform better, ati cards are fine, the drivers are a little “meh” and always have been.
ATI: better price : performace ratio
Nvidia: little more pricy for the same perfomance as ati but you pay to have a snazzy card.
(side note: Nvidia has cuda technology, which is good if you are a mad scientist/code cracker/simulating the brain functions of bees/amateur number crunching fanatic, otherwise it’s not going to be useful.)

-Performance boost with AMD processor and AMD graphics card?
a little, not worth going out your way to spend your money on just for this.

-Crossfire and SLI – Worth it or waste of money?
not worth it when building new system, might be worth getting a motherboard that has extra slots incase you want to upgrade later down the road, but just get one good card for now,

I can’t really reccomend any specific models of hardware as they are always updating and I don’t know the prices and avalabilityof things where you are, so have a look around and post back here what you are thinking of getting and I will gladly look at it and give my thoughts

#3

I am in awe of you guys who can actually build a computer. That’s magic to me. Way to go.

#4

Thanks for the reply!

Graphics cards tend to be the most expensive part of a computer, unless you are going crazy with a massive cpu.
most games will run fine on a slow cpu as long as the graphics card is decent.
Decide on your brand of cpu, for gaming, anything over a quad core cpu realy isn’t going to give you that much extra performace (most games don’t even support dual cores)

I agree with this to an extent. The graphics card is the single most important thing to how well a game runs. However, I would like to keep this computer for a long time. My current PC has a 3.2GHz single core processor, just about the fastest single core processor there ever was. At time time it was way faster then any game required. Since then, I have seen many games require faster processors, of which there are only multi-core. So while it may not be a question of how many cores are in the processor, it can be a question of fast a processor it is. Plus, maybe in the future games will start to use the duel/quad cores.
Take a look at this:
Comparison of 4-Core and 6-Core AMD processors.
You think the 4-core is better since it has a slightly higher clock speed?

It’s easy to build something to play great 2011 games, but I want to have something to play great 2014 games! :smiley:

Video card, leaning towards AMD, but I need to do a little more research.

(side note: Nvidia has cuda technology, which is good if you are a mad scientist/code cracker/simulating the brain functions of bees/amateur number crunching fanatic, otherwise it’s not going to be useful.)

Sadly, I am not, as awesome as that sounds. :stuck_out_tongue:

-Crossfire and SLI – Worth it or waste of money?
not worth it when building new system, might be worth getting a motherboard that has extra slots incase you want to upgrade later down the road, but just get one good card for now

I like this idea a lot, I’ll probably go with it.

Thanks again for the reply. I probably wont actually be buying anything for a few weeks since I have gotten real busy again, but I do plan to do more looking/researching.

#5

the 6 core will probably have just a slight tiny advantage, but not enough to compensate for the extra cost, between those two, the quad core is by far the better choice.

#6

It’s only a $70 difference, which seems pretty minor in comparison to the entire cost of the computer. I guess we’ll see.

#7

So long as you properly ground yourself and don’t do anything foolish. You can think of building a pc like putting together a giant snap fit model. Everything connects or is screwed in. My first true computer was a Mac Plus. All one megabyte of memory and no hard drive. Now to get it to 1.5 mb it required a bit adventurism inside the box. Torx wrenches box spreaders and all. Then once ya had it open you had to slide out the Main Board to clip a transistor to make it work. That is without touching the exposed power supply or the charged CTR tube.:eek: After doing that, what we do now to build or fix PC’s is kids play.:smiley:

P.S. Much safer to.

P.P.S. Now if you want to consider me a god I’m good with that to.:D:p

#8

So long as you properly ground yourself and don’t do anything foolish. You can think of building a pc like putting together a giant snap fit model.

Yeah, that’s a good way of thinking about it. If you have ever ordered a custom built PC from Dell or whomever, its not really all that different. You just get to choose the actual piece of hardware rather then just what specs it has.

P.P.S. Now if you want to consider me a god I’m good with that to.

When someone asks you if you are a god, you say, YES!

#9

One very important step to remember. Use Arctic Silver thermal compound on the cpu and heatsink. A thermal pad may work but for best results use the compund.

#10

Do not try to cut corners and use toothpaste…

#11

Use Arctic Silver thermal compound on the cpu and heatsink. A thermal pad may work but for best results use the compund.

Yeah, this is the one thing that sounds kinda tricky, I’ll see when it gets closer. I think I may even have somebody who can help me out when I get the stuff.

Do not try to cut corners and use toothpaste…

Agreed. :smiley:

#12

For the thermal paste, less is more. You will feel like you should be squirting a bunch onto the CPU because you have a bunch, but seriously, smaller than a grain of rice. Spread it thin with a credit card or something, preferably one with a low balance.

#13

I5, nvidia 460, 4gigs ram, everything else is gravy

#14

regrding CPUs/Heat sinks, thermal compounds etc, most CPUs (at least in europe anyways) come with the combined heat sink/fan arrangement, either already in place or in the same box - the thermal compound is on the bottom and the whole big (and I mean big some of these CPU fans are frakking huge) thing all clipped together, just a quick small turn of four hand screws and it’s secured to the motherboard.

If you’re concerned about static sensitive components then get youself a little home made earter thing, just wrap some copper wire around your wrist and clip it to a gorund, ideally the metal leg of the table you’re working on.

You’ve mentioned video but not audio, audio surround can be as important as video in establishing gaming mood. If you can go for an m/b that has a fibre optic out, that way you can, as well as sandard spears, wire the thing in to a proper dolby/dts sound system.

With video , what’s your set up, is it a PC with dedicated monitor or are you thinking of slotting it in to your existing den/home entertainment subsystem, if the latter (and even if not for future considerations) try getting a video card with an HDMI out, I’ve got my most powerful PC wired in to my 40" LCD tv via HDMI, turns your sitting room/den/lounge in to a game centre plus you could pop a blu ray in and save yourself some shelf space for the player in a future upgrade, may even enable you to get around those pesky region locks :stuck_out_tongue:

If you have further questions I build and maintain servers/PCs as part of my job, get as technical as you want, I’ve probably done everything short of actually soldering components on to the board (not done that in about twenty years).

Don’t be scared, it really does all snap together, a final word of warning, make sure the case you are installing the motherboard in fits it prooperly, the last thing you need is being unable to install the video card becuase the riser for it is too close to the Power Supply unit and the large chip fan won’t let you plug it in.

Of couse if you’re prepared to wait a few months and are driving to the meet up, or are in the vicinity of weirton, WV or Manhester, New Hampsire ylou can just bring the stuff along in March and I’ll put it together for you in return for a small (i.e.large) drink.
PM me or I’m phazecast on skype, feel free to add me and call me up, I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have.
Phaze
on the “owner of 5 PCs (one defnct) comprising a netbook, the lappy this is being typed on, one office/podcasting/recording pc and one honking great dual core AMD tha tcan rip and compress a full dvd in an hour” ID

#15

Thanks for the replies guys.
Yet another issue of driver problems with my ATI HD3650 is slowly pushing me away from them. Nvidia owners, how is their driver support and general software support in general?

You’ve mentioned video but not audio, audio surround can be as important as video in establishing gaming mood. If you can go for an m/b that has a fibre optic out, that way you can, as well as sandard spears, wire the thing in to a proper dolby/dts sound system.

I plan to keep the current speakers I have for now, which are pretty good.
Sound card, I had not really thought about yet, but probably any medium-high calibur card will do.

With video , what’s your set up, is it a PC with dedicated monitor or are you thinking of slotting it in to your existing den/home entertainment subsystem, if the latter (and even if not for future considerations) try getting a video card with an HDMI out, I’ve got my most powerful PC wired in to my 40" LCD tv via HDMI, turns your sitting room/den/lounge in to a game centre plus you could pop a blu ray in and save yourself some shelf space for the player in a future upgrade, may even enable you to get around those pesky region locks.

For now its just going to be hooked up to a standard monitor, but yeah, and HDMI plug is definitly something to keep in mind for the future.

Sadly, I do not think I can go to the meet-up, but I think I will be OK as far as the assembly goes. Plus, meet-ups are for drinking and partying, PC building needs steady hands. :smiley:

If anyone is interested, Tweak guides has a good detailed article on hardware purchasing that I plan to read through:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Hardcon09_1.html

#16

I had ATI cards for 10 years, I frakking hate them. I’ve had 2 completely burn out and others just frak up in general. Never going back

#17

i have to say i hate my ATI cards too…

#18

I’ve had an HIS brand ATI 4670 in my HTPC that’s been on for well over a year with no issues. Now I don’t game on it but it plays back all the TV and HDTV and Blu-ray and DVD watching we do.

#19

My turn to jump in. Yesterday, I found out Intel is releasing their newest chipset/cpu Tuesday. I’m suffering information overload from all the crap I’ve read to catch up. AMD also has a new line coming out in a few months, but I’m partial to Intel.

That said, in 70-90% of the benchmarks, Intel newest line (i5-2500K, i7-2600K) performs admirably against Intel’s previous top model line (980X) for a third or a quarter of the price. I’m talking $200 to $300 vs $1,000 for the 980X.

Here’s a review with extended details:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested

Specific gaming benchmarks (Dragon Age: Origin didn’t see as much improvement compared to other games. ): )
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/20

I was ready to buy pieces to assemble an Intel 1366 based system for about $1400, but looks like I’ll stave off obsolesce a bit by waiting a few days if not another month.

#20

If it helps, I was planning on getting an EVGA 470 video card. I not partial to AMD vs Nvidia as much as I am Intel vs AMD. For your price range, you can go lower. I missed what resolution you plan to play games at.

This might be helpful for deciding video cards though:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-radeon-hd-6870-geforce-gtx-570,2834.html (the 470 didn’t make the cut this month though)

I read some of you complaining about ATI. Sometimes the board manufacture can make a big difference. Some ppl get Sapphire cards and the like to get the highest model at the cheapest price where they might be served better buy getting an EVGA (for Nvidia) or XFX (for AMD/ATI) card with lifetime (or double lifetime for XFX) warranties from a slightly lower model. Like getting a GTX 460 with a lifetime warranty instead of a cheap GTX 470. You might pay a bit more for slightly lower performance, but can you put a price on piece of mind?

Edit: My opinion is crossfire and SLI are a waste of money. I personally would be better serve with one good card opposed to 2 (or more) medium/mediocre ones. A few years down the line, I could change my mind and drop in a second card for more improvement or getting a later card. Buying crossfire or sli right off the bat is not something I’d recommend, because I did that 4 years ago and I suffered for it.