First time building PC (1 Viewer)

[Rbonus012]

Well I moved to a new place and finally am able to build a dedicated office/gaming setup. With that being said I am going to embark on building my own PC as opposed to a pre-built. Never done this before but have been doing a bunch of research and YouTube watching lol. Here are the parts I have bought.

Anyone have useful insight before I start. Common mistakes or useful tips/tricks?

 

[Lil Tuna]

 

[JeepologyOffroad]

Nice card. Can you put lego together? If so then you are good to go.

 

[Rbonus012]

Nice card. Can you put lego together? If so then you are good to go.

my dumbass wanted an all white build so of course I’m paying for it lol. My main goal was to build around the ASUS 3090 Strix. It’s an absolute beast and I got a smoking deal on it.

 

[skylines]

Daaaamn thats gonna be a boss set up.
1) ground yourself on the case metal before you start handling components
2) put the first ram stick in the first slot, and then skip a slot and put second stick in the third slot (usually anyway)
3) have thermal compound for the CPU? i usually don't trust the pre applied stuff but idk if it really matters
4) have fun playing around OCing stuff (also I often find RAM timings are not optimal and you can adjust in bios to make better).

 

[ReallyGoodUsername]

@sheikh617

 

[Rbonus012]

Daaaamn thats gonna be a boss set up.
1) ground yourself on the case metal before you start handling components
2) put the first ram stick in the first slot, and then skip a slot and put second stick in the third slot (usually anyway)
3) have thermal compound for the CPU? i usually don't trust the pre applied stuff but idk if it really matters
4) have fun playing around OCing stuff (also I often find RAM timings are not optimal and you can adjust in bios to make better).

Yeah that was another think I’m going to need to figure out. Most of my research finding tell me all the preset setting for most the parts are only a fraction of what they can really do. Definitely going to want to play around to get the full potential.

Thanks for the other tips as well! Will definitely use them.

 

[Irish]

Nice card. Can you put lego together? If so then you are good to go.

^This^ My boys & I built our first gaming PC a couple of years ago, the most nerve wracking part is installing the chip with all those delicate pins (and even that is pretty easy). Only other thing I would offer is to try and pre-plan your cable management, otherwise you may be assemble / dis-assembling / re-assembling pieces multiple times.

I found this thread helpful: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/pc-build-help.61646/

 

[Rbonus012]

^This^ My boys & I built our first gaming PC a couple of years ago, the most nerve wracking part is installing the chip with all those delicate pins (and even that is pretty easy). Only other thing I would offer is to try and pre-plan your cable management, otherwise you may be assemble / dis-assembling / re-assembling pieces multiple times.

I found this thread helpful: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/pc-build-help.61646/

Cables and plug-in stuff in seems like the most annoying/frustrating part. I’m hoping it’s intuitive where stuff goes but might be the most time intensive part.

 

[Irish]

Cables and plug-in stuff in seems like the most annoying/frustrating part. I’m hoping it’s intuitive where stuff goes but might be the most time intensive part.

It wasn't really intuitive for me lol. I think it largely depends on the box you get and how much you care about how clean the system looks. My box was really well designed to hide cables, I just didn't realize it at first.... It took about 3 tries to get it looking sharp.

 

[buzzmonkey]

It's a lot easier than the old days. It's pretty damn hard to plug anything in wrong. For ventilation, try to keep cables clear from the heat generating parts as much as possible. Most cases now let you run them under the boards. Ground yourself as mentioned above, especially if working in a carpeted room. Install the CPU, RAM and SSD to the board before you mount it to the case. It's just easier. If you're using an AIO liquid cooler for the CPU and/or GPU and you plan to mount it vertically, mount it with the hoses coming from the bottom of the radiator, not the top. This avoids and air from running through the heatsink, will help the motor last longer and should shave a few degrees of your max temps.

 

[HaRDHouSeiNC]

I built that like 8 years ago
Now the side won’t open

I haven’t booted it up in months

I use a $600 laptop and an external HDD

You slowly just devolve into what works and is easy and works

I used to root android phones too

Jesus who cares now
Just give me something working and easy

 

[FestiveKnight]

I’ve built 5 PCs just in the last 2 years helping friends a bunch and for my wife. Here’s some thoughts in no order

1. Go slow and don’t be afraid to pause and read manuals or look up videos. There’s nothing that can’t wait 5 minutes while you figure it out correctly
2. The power supply goes upside to how you might think it should (just check the manual, these can be unintuitive)
3. Have a plan for what you’re going to do with all the extra bits and bobs that come in every box before you start. I’ve taken to coming to these things with a bunch of baggies and a label maker. Every box will have some amount of extra crap
4. It’s actually pretty hard to break something but it’s easy to get something wrong (like position of ram sticks). So be ready (emotionally) to have something go wrong and read manuals
5. Take your time when screwing things in, it’s very easy to over tighten and damage things, just go slow.

 

[kaida]

Consider the order in which you do things. For example, I suggest mounting the CPU and heatsink/fan (also gives you something to hold onto) before putting the motherboard into the case. Same goes for RAM, SSD, etc.

Think about how your cables will be routed as some may go behind the motherboard tray. If your motherboard has a seperate I/O shield, remember to install it on the case before the motherboard goes in.

Think about how your airflow will go. Read about positive vs negative pressure and decide where your case fans (I think I see some included at the front of the case?) will go and which way they will face.

Some folks like to plug everything in outside of the case and powering it up to make sure everything works before putting it in the case.

 

[Machine]

I use to build my own, there is too thin of a margin for me to do it any more, the gap in savings is smaller than my lazyness is worth

@Anthony Martino has built a few notable rigs.

 

[sheikh617]

Oh hi Mark.

Building be easy. The wiring and cable cleanup is easily the hardest part. Everything clicks in together. Wiring the fans and AIO to run perfectly can be tricky because you’re either controlling it with software or doing PWM for the CPU to control it all based on temps. Best of luck; your build is very close to mine

 

[Colquhoun]

Is this water cooled? That’s the only thing I don’t feel comfortable messing with.

 

[Anthony Martino]

Well I moved to a new place and finally am able to build a dedicated office/gaming setup. With that being said I am going to embark on building my own PC as opposed to a pre-built. Never done this before but have been doing a bunch of research and YouTube watching lol. Here are the parts I have bought.

Anyone have useful insight before I start. Common mistakes or useful tips/tricks?

View attachment 979717

Hard to tell what PSU you have, looks like an Asus one?

I don't have any experience with those, big fan of EVGA power supplies. You can get custom cables for them from CableMods or other vendors that route better and look nicer

This was my most recent build for my wife before the great graphics card shortage hit

 

[spartan037]

One thing no mentioned here. Expect to cut yourself plugging wires in. Its a tight fit for power and restart cables on the MB. Getting cut is a right of passage. It makes you a true builder. Also I would consider getting a couple more fans for the inside because the stock fans that the CPU, GPU, & AIO might not be enough for cooling or airflow.

 

[Okku]

That's gonna be a sick setup! I built my PC with my dad years ago probably (freshman year of high school). It's not a beast, but I upgraded the graphics card and the processor after that initial build. I believe it was a 2060 GTX that I put into mine to play MW2, BO2 and some other PC games with higher than 50 or so FPS and that was a major help. I've got maxed out RAM too for all of the videos that I'm making. Still kicking well. That would be maybe 8-9 years ago now. I mainly watched, but I've had multiple buddies build PCs. Have fun and excited to see the outcome!

 

[pltrgyst]

Jeez, all this fuss. All you need is an Intel SDK-85 with a hex keypad, 16K ram, and a 13" b&w monitor....

 

[Anthony Martino]

And a dot matrix printer!

 

[PlayerADK]

Well I moved to a new place and finally am able to build a dedicated office/gaming setup. With that being said I am going to embark on building my own PC as opposed to a pre-built. Never done this before but have been doing a bunch of research and YouTube watching lol. Here are the parts I have bought.

Anyone have useful insight before I start. Common mistakes or useful tips/tricks?

View attachment 979717

Building my PC was the absolute most fun I'd had in a while - it's an amazing experience!

Nothing that you haven't already likely found on YouTube, but:
- graphics card LAST
- if you can, liquid cooling radiator on the TOP on your box tends to be the most efficient, but just make sure that you position it so any bubbles in the lines/radiator go anywhere except the cooler itself. For a better explanation:

- again, it's everywhere on youtube but for dual channel RAM you need to have them in every other slot. ( slot1-ram, slot2-empty, slot3-ram, slot4-empty) OR (slot1-empty, slot2-ram, slot3-empty, slot4-ram). If you put them right next to each other you might as well only have 1 stick as it won't improve performance)
- just be cognizant of fan direction, there's debates on what is better but it's pretty insignificant as long as you have an intake and outtake.
- your AIO will likely have pre-pasted thermal paste on it, that's totally fine to use but some folks like to strip that clean and put something high-quality on there. Totally your call

most importantly: have fun I reallllly loved building mine!