So I'm going to be building PCs, but have very limited experience.

[Dat Matt]

Hey Guys

With next gen rolling round, I decide now is a good a time as any to start building PCs for myself and the missus. Problem is I've been brought up on Gameboys and rocks and whatnot so I've never really done anything like this before. I've done a bit of background reading and here's what I have essentially thrown together:


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£154.80 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£87.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£93.26 @ Dabs)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£123.71 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£71.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£61.40 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card (£134.00 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£25.98 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£81.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case Fan: Corsair CO-9050014-WW 62.7 CFM 120mm Fan (£23.00 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£125.62 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £996.89


Essentially I'd like to imaging £1,000 as a limit for the actual unit, and we can work out extras like OS, and Monitors later. With this in mind, is there anything that I should change about the above setup, or any recommendations that you tech-savvy people have?

If we get bitchin' PCs we might be able to play Farmville at medium settings. How exciting.

[Jinx]

damn

[Shauna]

I guess I should add here that a lot of stuff on this list is from vague recommendations via Facebook and also looking at big computer numbers.

If there's anything he has here that is needlessly over the top in regards to what a gamin' PC would need, feel free to shoot him down and tell him to look into a cheaper part. xD

We know nothing and will end up throwing money into a pit of despair at this rate. xD

[Dat Matt]

If golf has taught me anything, the higher the numbers the better!

[Spuuky]

Basically, I think you're over-buying the entire system. That's, what, $1600 in USD? I got my gaming PC for half that, although I'm sure there is some European price inflation that makes that impossible for you. Still seems pretty high.

I suppose the question is what are you trying to accomplish, precisely? For instance:

Do you need a 120GB SSD if you're also getting a 2TB conventional drive? If you're using the SSD just for the OS to speed it up, you don't need nearly 120GB. If you're using it to install a couple of games you play long-term, then it's better. 2TB of disk space is really rather massive; I have most of my (somewhat large) Steam library installed on a 1TB drive, plus a bunch of movies.

Do you really need a 3.5GHz i5 instead of a 3.1GHz one? The difference on Newegg is $220 vs $180 (both much less than 160 pounds, by my bad math). I doubt it, unless you know the games you want to run are really super-CPU intensive, like large-scale MMOs (MMOs in general are processor-heavy, whereas many other games might be RAM-heavier).

Do you need 16GB of RAM? What do you have that will use that much? Will 12 suffice? Will 8? (probably)

Do you need a "good" case? Does it matter? You can find cheap ones. All that really matters, to me, is that everything fits and has air flow, basically. Some people care about aesthetics, but that costs money.

Do you need a liquid cooling system? and separate case fan? Actually, you should always get the best cooling system you can buy, because it'll extend your PC's life significantly, so probably.

Do you need 760 Watts from your power supply, for that setup? Really unlikely. You only need a power supply that matches what you plan to consume. You only have 1 video card, and a pretty standard setup, I really doubt it will pull nearly that much, although I'm no electrician, probably the weakest area of my PC knowledge.

Your video card, though, is randomly pretty cheap. If you have that money to spend you're going to be better served reducing other stuff and paying more for the video card, I suspect. If you want a really high-end system that's where the money should probably go.

I vastly, vastly prefer wired connections to wireless ones but I don't know your home network setup.

Don't forget that you have to buy an OS, keyboard, mouse, and monitor. I know you mentioned them, but they aren't cheap (well... the OS could be free, and sure, you could spend $25 total on the keyboard and mouse, if you really wanted to). Monitors are pretty expensive, though, especially if you want a really good one.

And buy from somewhere with a good warranty process, because sometimes parts are just bad. I really like Newegg, but I don't know if they are UK-viable.

[Shauna]

This is pretty much the kind of advice we were looking for. Thanks a bunch.

You ask what we are trying to accomplish, and that would be to build a half decent PC. We really have put that base list together from a patchwork of recommendations, and we have no real idea of what is overbuying or what is actually necessary. I will happily admit I am a PC component noob. xD

But this will give us a bit to think about. :3

[Dr Unne]

Don't skimp on monitor + mouse + keyboard. Those are the things you're going to interact with for hours every day. It's nice to be comfortable while you're doing it. I'd rather skimp on internals a little and get good externals than vice versa, personally.

For example why bother with a good video card if your monitor sucks? I got this monitor recently: Newegg.com - ASUS VG248QE Black 24" 144Hz 1ms (GTG) HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight LCD 3D Monitor Height&pivot adjustable 350 cd/m2 80,000,000:1 Built-in Speakers because it supports 1080p at 120hz with low input lag, and it's a good size for me when I'm sitting 2 feet in front of it.

Definitely you don't need water cooling and stuff like that. You need a good CPU and a good video card if you're playing games, that's about it. Make sure your power supply can handle everything you plug into it. Make sure your stuff physically fits in the case like Spuuky said. Make sure your motherboard is compatible with the CPU and video card you buy.

My PC has 12 GB RAM and I don't need that much. I don't have an SSD. I have a 5-year old 2.67GHz i7 CPU. I can still run most games on high enough settings to look better than my PS3.

[Dat Matt]

I have re-jigged the list:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£163.75 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£39.92 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£57.30 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£59.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£49.99 @ Maplin Electronics)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£61.20 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card (£134.00 @ Amazon UK)
Wired Network Adapter: Intel EXPI9301CT 10/100/1000 Mbps PCI-Express x1 Network Adapter (£28.99 @ Dabs)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£81.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case Fan: Corsair CO-9050014-WW 62.7 CFM 120mm Fan (£23.00 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£48.02 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £761.30


As before OS, Monitor, Mouse and Keyboard are not listed as I would likely by them separately. We more reasonable now?

[Shauna]

Thanks for the advice! We have managed to cut down the price a fair bit going over everything and cutting out the stuff we didn't really need.

I don't really know very much about motherboards, though, it's probably the only thing that I wouldn't know where to go with it - is it better to get a more expensive one, or is the main thing about them whether they will work with the other components?

[Jessweeee♪]

You mostly want to consider compatibility with other parts, you're good on that it looks like. You could skim a bit more by getting this case:

Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (FD-CA-CORE-1000-USB3-BL) - PCPartPicker United Kingdom

But I have that case and I can tell you that there is exactly enough space for your micro motherboard and your video card (which I also have, it's great btw!), so if you prefer something roomy for more airflow then don't listen to me.

[Spuuky]

The motherboard needs to be compatible and have as many slots and ports as you need, basically. Other than that, you aren't going to see much performance impact at all, although some brands might be more 'reliable' (less prone to failure) than others.

And that wired network adapter is more expensive than the wireless one. That's really a determination to make independently of the PC. How stable, fast, and reliable is your wireless? Can you reasonable cable to your modem/router? etc. I was just stating my preference before.

[Shauna]

The router is on the other side of the house, so I imagine we'd be going for a wireless one for the moment. Mr Shauna just really wants a wired one for increased stability. Our wireless is stable enough though, wish I could say the same about the actual internet service we receive. ._.

[Dat Matt]

But I have that case and I can tell you that there is exactly enough space for your micro motherboard and your video card (which I also have, it's great btw!), so if you prefer something roomy for more airflow then don't listen to me.

I will probably get a bigger case, but how is the airflow in yours?

The router is on the other side of the house, so I imagine we'd be going for a wireless one for the moment. Mr Shauna just really wants a wired one for increased stability. Our wireless is stable enough though, wish I could say the same about the actual internet service we receive. ._.

lol 2MB/s

[Jessweeee♪]

It's alright, once I figured out how to organize the cables just right. Nothing ever exceeds a healthy temperature. I wouldn't want to overclock my cpu though, not that I ever have a need to.