Building A Desktop PC... (2 Viewers)

tommythecat

tommythecat

Flush
Joined
Nov 3, 2014
Messages
1,475
Reaction score
932
Location
Homer Glen, IL
I am planning on building a PC over the next month or so. My 10+ year old Dell (pentium III) is feeling every last bit of those 10 years. Not looking to go crazy as I don't need it for much. Just light web surfing and soon some audio editing.

The case I have chosen is this one from Corsair - low cost, plenty of space for cable management, lots of fan options, enough space for water cooling (maybe later)

The CPU I have decided on so far is this one - low cost for the performance, not a gamer so I don't really need a shit ton of cores

The motherboard I have picked is this one from Gigabyte - low cost for the performance, M.2 x4 for super fast SSD connection, plenty of USB 3.0 and Sata III ports

The power supply I plan on going with is this one from EVGA - efficient, fully modular, a bit overkill probably and I am open to suggestions

I haven't decided yet on my HDD or memory. I will be getting an M.2 SSD drive for my OS/boot drive. Optical drive will be later also. Video card will be chosen later also (if at all, not a gamer)

Any tech guys out there see any problems with my choices so far? Any potential hardware issues?

I have never built a PC from the ground up but have plenty of experience upgrading and installing new hardware. Looking forward to the challenge and having a PC without all the extra bloatware from a pre-built system.
 
tommythecat said:
The case I have chosen is this one from Corsair - low cost, plenty of space for cable management, lots of fan options, enough space for water cooling (maybe later)
Click to expand...

Corsair makes a fine case and this one has the holes that allow you to run wires behind the motherboard so that's good. If you aren't overclocking you don't really need water cooling through.


tommythecat said:
The CPU I have decided on so far is this one - low cost for the performance, not a gamer so I don't really need a shit ton of cores
Click to expand...

Not sure how intensive your audio editing will be, but I might lean towards the i5 quad-core myself. If your audio editing isn't that intensive (or the software you use doesn't take advantage of quad core) then the Intel i3 is still a plenty peppy processor


tommythecat said:
The motherboard I have picked is this one from Gigabyte - low cost for the performance, M.2 x4 for super fast SSD connection, plenty of USB 3.0 and Sata III ports
Click to expand...

I like Gigabyte, generally produce very stable boards.

tommythecat said:
The power supply I plan on going with is this one from EVGA - efficient, fully modular, a bit overkill probably and I am open to suggestions
Click to expand...


I'm glad to see you didn't jump onboard the PSU hype train and show up here with a 1200 watt PSU. 550W is plenty for your needs, and fully modular is great for cable management and airflow. I don't have much experience with the EVGA brand, but the reviews look promising (all 4's and 5's)

tommythecat said:
I haven't decided yet on my HDD or memory. I will be getting an M.2 SSD drive for my OS/boot drive. Optical drive will be later also. Video card will be chosen later also (if at all, not a gamer)
Click to expand...

I'd go with 8GB of RAM. SSD is nice, prices have finally come down to make their inclusion palatable. When you pick a storage drive that isn't SSD, make sure to avoid Seagate. They used to be my go-to but around the time they released 320GB drives their quality just plummeted. I'd lean towards Western Digital, they have been rock solid for me for years.

I don't think you'll need a dedicated video card since you aren't gaming. The built-in video from the motherboard should be just fine.
 
I know some of my choices are a bit overkill, but that is more for possible upgrade potential in the future (heavier audio editing/video editing).

8GB of RAM was what I was planning on along with a WD Black HDD. Though a lot of the more recent reviews of the WD Black drives are less than favorable. Have to look at the memory manufacturers as well and see how reviews for each shake out.

The Intel onboard video will be more than enough for my needs for now, and I have plenty of motherboard for a nice card if needed later.

Thank you for the insight Anthony! I will keep the i5 in mind. Depending on how much I spend on the other components I may go ahead and start with the i5.
 
tommythecat said:
I have never built a PC from the ground up but have plenty of experience upgrading and installing new hardware. Looking forward to the challenge and having a PC without all the extra bloatware from a pre-built system.
Click to expand...


FWIW, I didn't have any formal training either. Started with buying crappy store systems like at Sears I got a TriGem (some Korean manufacturer) and I had a Packard "Hell" at one point in the 90's. Then I'd add a CD-burner, then a video card, then a hard drive, then replace the CPU, etc. Eventually I had just done all the little parts on their own and knew how it went together.

I toyed around with overclocking years ago, but just with air cooling, adjusting voltages to the CPU, changing timing on the RAM, etc. But with systems so powerful and affordable now there isn't a ton of need to do it anymore.

I've never done watercooling, although I'm considering for my next build getting one of those pre-built Corsair Watercooling setups that are close-looped, more for aesthetics (will get a motherboard with lights you can program, all that fancy shit)
 
tommythecat said:
I may go ahead and start with the i5.
Click to expand...

I can't recommend this enough. The i3 chips are not bad by any means, and are plenty strong for general use. I think you'll find, though, that the jump from an i3 to an i5 is well worth the extra $70-$80 (where as the jump from an i5 to an i7 is rarely worth the investment for most people).
 
I don't know what your budget is but this is the computer I built for my accountant to use at my shop. She just runs quickbooks which needed a lot of ram for how big the program and files were so I put 16 gigs in. I wanna say total build was around 800 or so.

 
For standard, run-of-the-mill but reliable memory, I'd look at Crucial. We've used them at work for the better part of a decade, and their failure rate is next to nothing. I'd also consider Corsair or Kingston. You don't need the upgraded models - e.g. Corsair Vengeance. Those are good, but overkill for your needs and sometimes the newest high-performance modules sacrifice stability and long-term reliability in the name of speed.

I hear good things about G.SKILL and A-Data memory, but I have limited experience w/them.
 
I went the lazy way this time and picked up an Alienware X51R3 with the cheapest 3.5" hard drive and memory. I got the i7-6700K CPU and GTX960 GPU which has 3 display ports for my triple monitors. No need to daisy chain them now I had a $277 credit that Dell gave me for screwing up my last order so it didn't break the bank.

big_alienware-x51-r3-side-panel-off2.jpg.jpg big_alienware-x51-r3-ssd-and-pcie-riser.jpg.jpg

That's a custom PCI-E X20 riser and slot on the motherboard. 16 lanes for the GTX960 and 4 lanes for the SSD.
The 3.5" drive is coming out and getting replaced with the 2 Samsung 850 Pro SSDs that I picked up a couple of months ago.
 
Tommy said:
I'm upgrading an X51 system I just bought. The Samsung 950 pro is the best PCI-E SSD on the market right now.
Click to expand...

This is the M.2 SSD I was thinking of using for my boot/OS drive

The 950 pro is sweet, but too expensive for now.

Psypher1000 said:
For standard, run-of-the-mill but reliable memory, I'd look at Crucial. We've used them at work for the better part of a decade, and their failure rate is next to nothing. I'd also consider Corsair or Kingston. You don't need the upgraded models - e.g. Corsair Vengeance. Those are good, but overkill for your needs and sometimes the newest high-performance modules sacrifice stability and long-term reliability in the name of speed.

I hear good things about G.SKILL and A-Data memory, but I have limited experience w/them.
Click to expand...

I have had good luck with all those manufacturers except A-Data. Though it was with an A-Data thumb drive that I had a bad experience.

Psypher1000 said:
I can't recommend this enough. The i3 chips are not bad by any means, and are plenty strong for general use. I think you'll find, though, that the jump from an i3 to an i5 is well worth the extra $70-$80 (where as the jump from an i5 to an i7 is rarely worth the investment for most people).
Click to expand...

I think I will buy a processor last. That way I will know exactly what I can spend.

Anthony Martino said:
FWIW, I didn't have any formal training either. Started with buying crappy store systems like at Sears I got a TriGem (some Korean manufacturer) and I had a Packard "Hell" at one point in the 90's. Then I'd add a CD-burner, then a video card, then a hard drive, then replace the CPU, etc. Eventually I had just done all the little parts on their own and knew how it went together.

I toyed around with overclocking years ago, but just with air cooling, adjusting voltages to the CPU, changing timing on the RAM, etc. But with systems so powerful and affordable now there isn't a ton of need to do it anymore.

I've never done watercooling, although I'm considering for my next build getting one of those pre-built Corsair Watercooling setups that are close-looped, more for aesthetics (will get a motherboard with lights you can program, all that fancy shit)
Click to expand...

Same thing for me WRT upgrading older systems and whatnot. I have probably done all the steps to building a PC just not all at once.

If I go ahead with watercooling later it will be totally for aesthetics. Unless you go with a full custom loop there is not a lot of difference between All-In-One water coolers and high end fan/heatsink combos.
 
Mr. Cheese said:
I don't know what your budget is but this is the computer I built for my accountant to use at my shop. She just runs quickbooks which needed a lot of ram for how big the program and files were so I put 16 gigs in. I wanna say total build was around 800 or so.
Click to expand...

Trying to keep it in the $500-$600 (not including windows) area. I have a good monitor already so that helps. I can get more bang for the buck with an AMD build, but I have been using Intel since the beginning and they haven't given me a reason to stray.

I like what you put together. That thing will be future proof for a while if it stays being used for only accounting stuff.
 
tommythecat said:
Trying to keep it in the $500-$600 (not including windows) area. I have a good monitor already so that helps. I can get more bang for the buck with an AMD build, but I have been using Intel since the beginning and they haven't given me a reason to stray.

I like what you put together. That thing will be future proof for a while if it stays being used for only accounting stuff.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I love my AMD's. My home rig is about 6 years old with an AMD phenom 2 quad core processor. Still plays any game I've wanted to play and handles Photoshop etc. But to each their own!
 
Mr. Cheese said:
Thanks.

I love my AMD's. My home rig is about 6 years old with an AMD phenom 2 quad core processor. Still plays any game I've wanted to play and handles Photoshop etc. But to each their own!
Click to expand...
How long have you been using AMD? I have literally zero experience with them hence my affinity with Intel. I remember several years ago problems with one of their lines, but not sure which one. I think it was more of a QC issue and not the chip architecture itself, but I don't remember exactly.
 
tommythecat said:
How long have you been using AMD?
Click to expand...

I've used AMD chips in builds as far back as 2000. When it comes to value for the dollar, Intel can't hold a candle to AMD's performance; for general computing, few users have any actual need for Intel chips. Some more discriminating consumers look at things like heat generation, power consumption, etc (not sure which manufacturer bests the other in these categories these days)., and others have specific applications where Intel CPU's simply perform better. It's more than likely that for what you're doing, you won't be able to discern a difference in performance if you were to run similarly spec'd chips side by side - but you would see a difference in the sticker price.

You shouldn't have any hesitation to use AMD chips in your home build.
 
tommythecat said:
How long have you been using AMD? I have literally zero experience with them hence my affinity with Intel. I remember several years ago problems with one of their lines, but not sure which one. I think it was more of a QC issue and not the chip architecture itself, but I don't remember exactly.
Click to expand...

I've been using them for about 10 years. Never had an issue with any of them. I'm really impressed with the 8 core in the new build (about 6 months old). You get alot for the money with AMD IMO.
 
Looks like I will have to spec out a similar build with AMD components. Thanks guys for the vote of confidence in AMD. When I was looking at them before I was interested in their APU's. That may be a better option for me also since I wasn't planning on a discreet graphics card (for now at least).
 
Happy to help. The processor I used for the shop computer has like 2k+ reviews with 5 out of 5 eggs so not a bad place to start your build :).
 
I can only speak of Intel vs AMD in a gaming environment. And while AMD chips are good, Intel has been smashing them soundly for gaming platforms since the Sandy Bridge platform was released.

I like Tom's Hardware Hierarchy Chart here for comparing different CPU's from each manufacturer:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html
 
The last time I built an AMD system was when the Athlon FX-55 came out. At the time I think it edged out Intel slightly for gaming performance. Intel has pretty much been ahead ever since for both gaming and business use.
Got the X51 hooked up today. Multi-tasking. ;)

20160112_223157.jpg
 
Tommy said:
What features? USB-C, Thunderbolt 3?
Click to expand...
USB 3.0 - but more than just 2 on the back and one header on the board for the case
M.2 - not a huge deal as I can use a PCI-E M.2 card as a substitute
SATA3 - more than just 2 ports on the board
HDMI - a lot of the boards I have looked at don't have a video port on the board

When I do find a board with enough SATA3 ports it only has one USB 3.0 header and 2 3.0 ports on the back. Or I find a board with 4 3.0 ports on the back, but only 2 SATA3 ports and no video port.

Some of this is overkill for my current needs, but I want to have enough space to keep the thing future proof (for my needs) for quite a while.
 
I'd definitely get a board that has at least 1 Thunderbolt 3 port which includes USB-C. That port is very versatile. (can do video out too) ASUS boards have always been accommodating for me.
 
I would try to get an i5 for ~60 usd more, one with hyperthreading and the latest integrated graphics. Also if you don't have the need for a lot of storage I will go with SSD only, in december I got the Sandisk SSD 480GB for 109usd
 
tommythecat said:
It seems like Intel is packing way more features into their boards for the price.
Click to expand...

You may have to splurge a little more on the motherboard now to get everything. You can always upgrade ram, video card, and HDD/SSD later.
 
Last edited:
Casamada said:
I would try to get an i5 for ~60 usd more, one with hyperthreading and the latest integrated graphics. Also if you don't have the need for a lot of storage I will go with SSD only, in december I got the Sandisk SSD 480GB for 109usd
Click to expand...

All the 2.5" SSDs are dropping in price now since m.2 FF SSDs are becoming more popular, especially with laptop users.

This is sick! 4x PCI-E m.2 SSDs plus 1x 2.5"

alienware 17 r3.jpg
 
Tommy said:
You may have to splurge a little more on the motherboard now to get everything. You can always upgrade ram, video card, and HHD/SSD later.
Click to expand...
That's just it...even with the high end AMD boards I am sacrificing a lot compared to an Intel board. For example here is a board that is comparable to the one I have listed in my OP.

OP board - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128862

AMD Board - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132255

That is a pretty big price difference. All my savings with an AMD CPU would be wasted in the price of a comparable mobo.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Register

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Similar threads

Rbonus012
First time building PC
Replies
22
Views
765
PlayerADK
PlayerADK
raingg
Building a set
Replies
8
Views
531
Tonysquander
Tonysquander
mconn116
Building a Budget Set?
2
Replies
36
Views
2K
GreekRedEye
GreekRedEye
JMC9389
Calling Computer Specialists: Need a new laptop, how does this HP one look?
2
Replies
44
Views
1K
dpeks13
dpeks13
SoupHQ
Need help with a Design / Ideas
Replies
11
Views
576
Kensco
Kensco
Back
Top Bottom