Anyone build a desktop lately?

[ChicosBailBonds]

My daughter and I are thinking about doing this as a project...her idea.  She's a bit of a gamer.

How frustrating?  How time consuming?  How difficult?  I like the idea of doing this, but also want to make sure we are successful at this.

[lurch91]

It's not that hard.  The time consuming part is loading all the software.

I normally buy my components from Newegg.com.  You can find cheaper prices possibly for individual items elsewhere, but I like being able to place one order instead of 10 little orders from unknown companies.

[🏀]

Dude, you're getting a Dell.

[lurch91]

And gaming is all about speed of components and latency, get a 500GB SSD (Samsung makes outstanding SSDs), 8GB of RAM and a video card with at least 1GB of RAM.  The better the motherboard the more flexibility you'll have for upgrading components down the line.

Oh, and if you have a Fry's close to where you live - they normally have very competitive prices with dozens of specials/bundles each week.

[mu03eng]

Not hard, my nerd brother builds new computers all the time as a hobby. I recommend the newegg site as well, good one stop shop for components.

If you guys can hold off a couple of months you can get some good hardware cheaper. Processors and graphic cards are about to release the next round of architecture(shouldn't be anything earth shattering) so the current stuff should be available at a discount by the end of the summer.

Lastly, can't echo enough the SSD recommendation from Lurch...more expensive then standard memory drive but much faster, quieter, and less likely to fail. I thought I saw a 1TB SSD drive out there some were a week or two ago, not sure how much though.

[lurch91]

Don't underestimate the easy of installation a good case can afford you.  If you have a Fry's, it's worth the trip to look them over in person.  You'll be require to cram your hands into very small and tight spaces with possibly sharp edges if you skimp and buy the wrong case.

[brandx]

Don't underestimate the easy of installation a good case can afford you.  If you have a Fry's, it's worth the trip to look them over in person.  You'll be require to cram your hands into very small and tight spaces with possibly sharp edges if you skimp and buy the wrong case.

Agreed.

The recommendations here are all good. Especially the SSD hard drive if speed is important. Get at least 8 GB memory - 16 doesn't hurt for a high end gaming machine.

The two time consuming elements are research of the parts and loading software.

Eng is right about the processor. Always buy one generation back for best quality/price combo.

Get a good sound card rather than relying on the onboard sound.

Finally, go to the websites for drivers for the motherboard, sound card, video card, etc. rather than relying on Windows to load them.

A good do-it-yourself will cost a little more, but well worth the experience.

[#UnleashSean]

Hello. Retired professional gamer here.

Don't bother with Newegg. It's no longer 2007. Finding great parts is much easier today. Pcpartpicker.com is the gift that all builders have ever wanted. It keeps a list of all your parts, so no more annoying bookmarks or trying to figure out if you are missing a piece. It also lists all top competitor sites and their prices with shipping included. Newegg, Amazon, Tiger direct, fry's etc are all listed. Pcpartpicker has just about every piece of hardware you can buy listed. It also lists the ratings, timings, mhz speeds on all hardware. Great site, don't build without it.

Now onto some actual computer things.

Building your own desktop will make it last much longer and at faster speeds then store bought. I still have one kicking from when I was 15. All 4gb of ram and its dual core processor still make it super fast for browsing the web and playing all but the newest games. So make your desktop built to last.

Go with 16gb of ram. We want this desktop to run in 5 years. Plus ram is cheap as dirt in this decade. I remember when I bought 4gb's for 110 dollars. Now most 16gb's are 50.

A 128gb/256gb ssd are fine. Don't pay overprice for the 500-1tb ones. These prices are dropping like crazy each year.

Buy a 2tb Hard drive. look into clock speed. This is very important. Buy between 7200-10,000 RPM. Any lower and you will see what bottlenecks most store bought pc's.

What to install on ssd/Harddrive? Install your OS (Windows), all your drivers, and the games she loves the most onto your ssd. You'll love the 13 second boot time. Install everything else onto the hard drive. Never download movies, and etc to the ssd. There is no point besides eating up space.

Going with an intel CPU, buy a NVIDIA GPU. AMD cpu? Radeon GPU.

Buy a nice self contained cpu cooler. Get rid of the stock fan. (https://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-cpu-cooler-h60cw9060007ww) <- example

What to cheap out on/not cheap out on:

Do not cheap out on:

Case. This is one that most people do cheap out on. Don't do it. You don't need to go buy the 200 dollar behemoth, but don't buy the 30 dollar green peace living case as well. Remember that this case is holding everything else. So it needs to have great airflow and plenty of space for you to put everything in nicely.

CPU and GPU: These are the most important pieces to a gaming pc. As such these are usually the two most expensive pieces. It's been two years since I built my last one, last I checked I7's were the best cpu's.

CPU cooler: As stated above, get a nice self contained water cooling cpu cooler.

What is possible to cheap out on (IE don't if you have the budget not to)

Motherboard: Make sure it can handle your cpu chipset and your RAM's timing and size. You can go cheaper on these if you like. The more expensive ones have more SATA connectings (for ssd's/hdds) more usb's and are capable of running multiple GPU's. If you are not planning on having these, there is no shame in going for a lower tiered motherboard.

Power supply: Get one that can power your pc. Don't fall for any gold plated bullcrap. Make sure that it has a power connector for your gpu (you'll most likely buy one that needs its own power supply). More expensive ones have Modular connectors so you can take out cords you don't need which will make your case more tidy.

What TO cheap out on:

Optical drive: Were in the last years of cd's, dvd's and blue ray for most of the world. The computer world has already almost completely moved on. Anything you will be installing will come off the internet or flash drives. Very few things are still done via optical drives. Even installing your OS is more readily done via a flash drive into a 3.0 USB. a couple minutes > 45 minutes. Don't bother on even buying one unless you really want to be that old stubborn guy.

Sound cards: Unless your an audiophile don't bother with one of these. Most headphones/speakers run off usb now anyways.

Other things:

Monitor: Your building a gaming pc. You'll now be running games at 200+ fps, compared to the newest consoles with render games at around 30 fps. Most tv's have a 30hz refresh rate. Basic computer monitors usually render at 60 hz refresh. Buying a 144hz refresh rate monitor makes games look much crisper. These are on the pricey side ($200-300) but feel great. Buy a BenQ or an ASUS if you want to join the upper echelon of pc nerds.

Headset's, mice, keyboard's ect.. . If your girl is a gamer, don't leave her hanging with a ball mouse or a walmart bought electronics. For a mouse I'd recommend a Zowie Fk1 or FK2 (Fk1 bigger hands, fk2 smaller) for headphones either a hyper X cloud (1 or II) or a steelseries 5HV... (whatever number their at now). Keyboards are not as big of a deal, but a mechanical one feels much nicer then a membrane keyboard. Buy from steelseries, rubber ducky, or logitech.

Stay away from Razer headphones and keyboards. They are inferior over priced products with gimmicky things that make cool colors. Their mice are not to bad and the deathadder was actually my go to mouse back when I was professional level (They made the only left handed mouse model).

As for a mousepad: http://www.amazon.com/SteelSeries-Heavy-Gaming-Mouse-Black/dp/B000V7ARAU?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00 Buy this. It's used by a large majority of professional CS players and will last for years. It's also very cheap at the current moment, only $7.50. It will last for YEARS

[Jay Bee]

Your tiny hands will help in this venture. Good luck!

[Blackhat]

What do you recommend the configuration be if it's going to be used to watch massive amounts of porn?

[lurch91]

Get a good sound card rather than relying on the onboard sound.

The onboard sound has come a long way on the last 15 years.  There's no reason to buy a sound card anymore. Using onboard sound may cost you a few cpu cycles but that will only translate to 1-2 fps now a days.  When you're running 100+fps, that's negligible.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Don't underestimate the easy of installation a good case can afford you.  If you have a Fry's, it's worth the trip to look them over in person.  You'll be require to cram your hands into very small and tight spaces with possibly sharp edges if you skimp and buy the wrong case.

We were at Fry's on Sunday for about an hour, that's what spawned part of our efforts on this project.

Appreciate the advice.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Your tiny hands will help in this venture. Good luck!

Don't have tiny hands, but doesn't matter as the tremors make it hard to do anything like this anyway.  Had a bunch of bloodwork done again today for that one....getting old is a blast.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Definitely won't skip on the RAM, I have 32GB on my machine and learned long ago with all the photo editing and movie work that RAM was the cheapest way to happiness.

[Skitch]

What do you recommend the configuration be if it's going to be used to watch massive amounts of porn?

Save the trouble and just go to Raynor

[Benny B]

What do you recommend the configuration be if it's going to be used to watch massive amounts of porn?

Dont cheap out on:

Monitor - Golden rule of porn applies... bigger is better, and there's no such thing as too big.  42" minimum (the diagonal of the monitor, that is).

Firewall Software - Especially if you're storing a bunch of recordings on your HDD. Don't want to end up with any ransomware.

Cheap out on:

Keyboard - it's impossible to clean between the keys, so consider it a disposable item to replace regularly.  Resist the urge to simply wrap it every time in polypropylene... it kills the moment and the keys just don't feel the same.

Speakers - No need to broadcast anything to the world.  A basic pair of earphones will do.

[rocky_warrior]

Definitely won't skip on the RAM, I have 32GB on my machine and learned long ago with all the photo editing and movie work that RAM was the cheapest way to happiness.

Agreed that ram is important, but these days an SSD is the cheapest way to happiness - as ram and processing are plentiful, but disk access is still the bottleneck.

[Blackhat]

Dont cheap out on:

Monitor - Golden rule of porn applies... bigger is better, and there's no such thing as too big.  42" minimum (the diagonal of the monitor, that is).

Firewall Software - Especially if you're storing a bunch of recordings on your HDD. Don't want to end up with any ransomware.

Cheap out on:

Keyboard - it's impossible to clean between the keys, so consider it a disposable item to replace regularly.  Resist the urge to simply wrap it every time in polypropylene... it kills the moment and the keys just don't feel the same.

Speakers - No need to broadcast anything to the world.  A basic pair of earphones will do.

Giddy up! 

[lurch91]

We were at Fry's on Sunday for about an hour, that's what spawned part of our efforts on this project.

Appreciate the advice.

Many cases have removable mobo  (motherboard) trays.  They are a DREAM, I would highly recommend one of those and a case with 2 locations for case fans to create a nice cross-flow.

There really isn't a premium on the higher capacity SSD's anymore.  The price is pretty  linear.  Go with at least 200GB+ SSD and a 2TB HDD.  The buffer size on the HDD's now a days are huge, minimizing the need for a 10,000rpm HDD, a 7200rpm HDD will perform almost as fast.  If she's REALLY into gaming, you could buy a 32/64GB SSD to use for virtual memory/a swap drive.  Nothing like loading a level 2-5 seconds before anyone else your playing online with, may seem small but in many games that's a difference maker.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Air cooled vs liquid cooled?


Opinions?


She loves the idea of colored liquid cruising through this thing, but I'm feeling the cost and benefit may not be worth it.  Honestly don't know.

[lurch91]

Do you plan on over clocking the CPU or video card?  If you dont, liquid cooled is a waste of money - unless she just wants it for the "coolness" factor.

If at stock speeds, a good after market CPU cooler and some good thermal grease (not the stuff that comes with the CPU or the cooler that comes with the CPU) will be more than adequate.  Even over clocking by 10-30%, most air coolers will do the trick easily.

[4everwarriors]

Don't have tiny hands, but doesn't matter as the tremors make it hard to do anything like this anyway.  Had a bunch of bloodwork done again today for that one....getting old is a blast.

Wait 'til da old Grandstaff goes south, hey?

[Badgerhater]

If you are not into building it yourself, but still want the advantages of a custom-built machine, the owner of Milwaukee PC is a Marquette alum who has a fine local business.

[Hards Alumni]

If you are not into building it yourself, but still want the advantages of a custom-built machine, the owner of Milwaukee PC is a Marquette alum who has a fine local business.

Charges waaaay to much.

I build every couple of years.  It's terribly simple. 

I would like to echo the SSD (solid state drive) sentiment, but I'd suggest putting windows on it, and only the 'current' game or two that is being played.  I have my SSD with Windows, and then a 1tb HDD for storage. 

32GB is way too much RAM.  16 is probably fine, but make sure the mother board (mobo) can expand to 32.

This is why using PCPartpicker.com is essential.  It allows you to make sure everything is compatible.

I'd go at least 2gb on the video card, and on top of that I'd recommend a Nvidia 970 gtx, which is 4gb.  Will last a while and it's very popular for a reason. 

Aim for an Intel processor, and not an AMD. 

Don't do a water cooled system.  They're not necessary, and if she wants something fun get some light up fans for the case!  Be sure to get some zip ties to make the organization nice inside... also make sure your power supply is big enough to handle all the parts.

If you have any other questions drop me a PM.

[#UnleashSean]

Charges waaaay to much.

The 100 dollar charge on a reformat is ridiculous. 30 seconds of work.