Yeah. Never done it before - reading tuts and the like I’ll get all this under control at some point or other.
Anyway.
Looking to build a nice new machine for me and Mr Suggestive. Haven’t got the foggiest clue on parts or anything. Need help with that.
I would prefer to keep the price at around £600, but more than willing to go past that if needs be. I don’t care about Crysis graphics or shit like that. I just want to play TF2 on high with fraps alongside. He just wants to—I don’t bloody know.
If you have never done this before; don’t try it. You need to start small, like upgrading. Building a new computer without any previous PC modification experience is a disaster waiting to happen.
Maybe 10 years ago, but with the abundance of tutorials out there, is it really that difficult? You’re not really at risk of damaging anything unless you try to force parts into the wrong sockets or something.
Regardless of what people will inevitably tell you or what brands they will suggest, parts are mostly a personal/price preference. They will most likely perform their stated purpose and become obsolete in 2-3 years when new stuff comes out and it’s time for another upgrade.
Take a look at some of the DIY kits on Newegg…there are some that would fall within your price range and have enough power to run most modern games reasonably well, and this saves you from having to sort through thousands of power supply units, etc, to find the one that is best suited for the rig you’re building. Of course, these are only starter kits, so you still have to add your own GPU and additional storage if necessary, but it’s a good place to start. Even if you don’t like certain elements of the kits you can use them as a springboard for creating your own list of parts, or at the very least to use as a price guide. One thing the DIY kits don’t include that you should really have is an anti-static wrist strap…pick up one for $3 when you buy everything else so you can assemble everything without worrying about ESD damage.
If you don’t have a copy of Windows on CD, or another suitable method of installing the OS on your computer, you should factor the cost of a Windows distribution into your budget as well, unless you plan on acquiring that through other means…
What kind of mentality is that? You gotta start somewhere, right? Part of learning is making mistakes. And like Rabid said, with lots of comprehensive tutorials and forum help available, how hard can it really be? With a bit of patience and persistence, and a willingness to learn, I’m sure you’ll be able to build your own system from scratch.
Um, what? Did you just read the first 10 words? I said he needs to start small with upgrading instead of jumping straight into building a whole new PC.
Edit: I can kind of agree with what the fellow monkey said, though.
Intel i7 930 (extremely overclockable) with custom cooling, ATI mid-range videocard and triple channel DDR-3 1600 MHz memory combined with an x58 motherboard will run TF2 at maximum without any problems - it’s not the cheapest solution but it will perform really well. When going for ASUS mobo’s, make sure to change the B2B timings as they are defaulted to 0 which causes computer lock-ups.
Try a building website, select your own parts and they’ll do it for you. That is, if you don’t want to build it yourself. If you want to build it yourself then… I don’t know. I wouldn’t, I don’t know shizz about that.
If u live in the US try this, they’ll build ur comp for u and they’re prices are pretty good. If ya wanna build it yourself then get your parts from here.
Also, before you buy many people on this forum (or any forum for that matter) can give pointers. Post a list of components and we can tell you if something is not compatible, or if we know of a better component for a similar price.
On Newegg, you can put together a “wishlist” and make it public. (Plus it has very good prices for all components; you can cross-check with other websites like Tiger Direct or Zip Zoom Fly if you like)
The basic things are:
-The motherboard is the “hub” that connects everything. You’ll be alt-tabbing back here for each component to make sure each part specification matches with what the motherboard supports. ie, PC8800 memory goes with a PC8800 motherboard or higher. A 740-socket CPU goes with a motherboard that has a 740 socket. etc
-The video card basically decides gaming performance. It’s the most common bottleneck. Currently, you can expect to spend around $100 on it for good performance. (used to be $200, but we’ve run into this “graphical bottleneck” where no one notices improvements)
-Remember that things like the CPU and motherboard are hardest to replace. Memory and GPU can be upgraded or replaced later without, say, reinstalling the operating system.
If you don’t live in the US I guess newegg isn’t really an option then… last time I checked (and I check that pretty often ) they don’t ship outside the US/Puerto Rico. It’s still a nice place to learn about parts and prices anyway.
It’s pretty straight forward to build a PC to be honest. At the moment a popular choice at the forum I regularly visit is:
intel i5 750
P55/LGA1156 Motherboard
4GB DDR3 RAM
something from ATI 5 series of graphics cards (5770 for resolutions up to 1680x1050 then 5850/5870 for anything higher)
Windows 7 64 bit
Samsung F3 1TB HDD
You still need to pick a case and PSU. For more help check out the forums at https://www.buildyourown.org.uk/forums. The community there are so helpful and were fantastic when I had problems with my build.
Monitor - I’d recommend the Dell 2209WA, a quick Google will show you that this is an excellent 22", has an e-IPS panel, great response time, etc.
Processor - Definitely go with an i7, although which one is up to you and your budget. Low end - i7-750. Mid-to-high end - i7-930. Which you choose will affect your upgrade capabilities in the future (the 750’s platform, Socket 1156, isn’t as upgradeable as the 930’s, which is Socket 1366).
Case - That looks okay.
Motherboard - Depends which processor you choose, the newer Socket 1366 boards support SATA6 and USB3, which is a bit of future-proofing for your system.
RAM - Again, this depends on the processor and motherboard you choose. Corsair XMS series is good, but which type you get depends on the processor. 750 = dual channel RAM, so you’d get 2x2GB. 930 = triple channel, so you’d get 3x2GB.
GPU - The 5770 is fine if you don’t need excellent graphics, and it should be able to power a 22" monitor well enough.
Hard and optical drives are fine (although the price difference between a 500GB drive and 640GB drive is only $5-10US, so you may want something bigger, again for future-proofing).
Power Supply - I’d recommend a Corsair or PC Power and Cooling PSU, and 700 watts should be fine for this hardware. Once again (seeing a pattern here?) it depends on how much you can spend, how much you want to future-proof your machine, and whether you plan to add drives or another GPU later, or overclock your CPU, etc.
Hope that helps a bit, let us know if you have questions.
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) they don’t ship outside the US/Puerto Rico. It’s still a nice place to learn about parts and prices anyway.