building a pc, need a lot of help

J

jimt91

Member
Hi, I've been wanting to get a new computer for awhile. I've decided I want to build my own, but I have no idea how or what to get and I have very little experience with anything computer related other than the basics(a little more than knowing how to turn it off and on). I did watch some youtube videos awhile back from newegg(i think) on how to put together the parts, but I'm still not very confident with it.

This computer will be for gaming, music, and movies. and my budget is about $1000. I need help going from here, any info you guys give me would be very much appreciated.
 
you will need a DVD drive (well not need, you can fully get by without one these days, as long as you have a 8+ GB flashkey to use) and windows 8. That will add ~$120 to the price. everything listed below comes to $992.

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147153
-Low priced, but well built. you can switch things around some to get a better case if you want.
Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128544
-Lowest you want to go. Below this and you are just buying junk components. The UD5H would be better, but not enough for the price difference in this build.
GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125441
-Nvidia. After the issues I have had with AMD, I can not recommend them anymore. A HD7870, should you wish to try one, should be equal or slightly better for about the same price. But you stand a 50% change of having boatloads of issues with AMD drivers.
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028
-I don't like it, but it is the lowest priced quality unit on the market. If you can, look at a HX or OCZ ZT. Something Fully modular. Cleans up the case really well, and fully worth the extra price.
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504
-Not worth the price, but it is the best performer for games right now. That said, you could likely go to an AMD CPU/Motherboard and GTX 670 and never see the difference at all.
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231519
-It is decent. I prefer and recommend Samsung over it, but the samsung is sold out right now. This will do the same thing though, for a similar price (about $10 more).
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148910
-2TB is a decent size these days. NOt really a better performer at a decent price.
HSF: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233029
-This is a better performer than what is usually suggested (the Hyper 212EVO), but is slightly more. The quality and performance is worth it though.
 
Or....

Mobo- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128545

CPU/RAM- http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1174396

GPU- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202010

SSD- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227801

HDD- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148910

PSU- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028

DVD/CD Burner- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

OS- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

Case- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139016

With the 7870, I was able to get you an SSD.

Without the OS/DVD Burner, it's under 1k, oh, the case come with FREE 16GB flash drive.

Hope this helps,GL!

Edit: With the $50 mail-in rebates, total cost is $950 without OS/Burner. $1070 with.
 
So how well will either of these systems end up running games? And the above listed would be all I need to have to start building? I can go a little over 1000, but I just wanted to keep it around there. If it means getting something that will perform better/last longer I don't mind spending a litttttle extra. I was also checking out the reviews and a lot of people say the motherboards listed stopped working a lot? I'm not sure how reliable it is to go by reviews, but I thought I'd ask what you guys think about that.

Thanks for all of this help everyone
 
Reviews are not at all reliable, unless it is from a professional review site. Both motherboards are from Gigabyte, who are hands down the most reliable motherboards manufacturer on the planet. Asus is also quite good. MSI is decent if you get the GD80. The others are just average.

Both would perform about the same. My build goes Nvidia (Cuda tech, and physx). He goes AMD. Personally, I don't trust AMD any more. If you do anything that is not gaming, you are into a world of issues on the drivers. Even gaming it can be a hassle to get them to work right. Nvidia works out of the door without issue assuming you have the right driver for the card (like don't put a x86 192.XX driver on 64 bit windows 8 running a GTX680).

His build has an SSD also, but I don't see the need for one. The gains in speed (in OS) is so minor that you are basically wasting money unless you need to restart 5 times a day. Most of the +s that is given for them are dependent on having 2 SSDs anyway. What I mean by that is, you don't get better transfer rates unless you are transferring from one SSD to another SSD, as you would still not be able to transfer faster than the HDD you are transferring to. On top of that, USB3/2 and firewire limit your transfer rates from HDD, let alone SSD. Game loading time seems to vary on the game. BF3 and SR3 on my drive load faster on my 7200 RPM HDD than they did off the SSD. Even when you get gains in load time, it is only a few seconds.

Case is personal preference.

RAM is RAM. If you're not getting Samsung RAM, then it is all one of 2 chips anyway. Samsung makes its own RAM (one of the reasons why their SSDs are so very good) and it is on the 30nm shrink of DDR3. Basically, Samsung is a step ahead. Most of the other brands, if not all of the other brands is a variant of Mircon 45nm and will perform about the same.

Otherwise, they are both basically the same.
 
I agree with Wolfe on the SSD part.
Get a solid 1TB HDD and you won't be disappointed.
I'm running on a spare PC right now with a 1TB Seagate Barracuda and I'm only 1 second behind my friend on a Corsair Force GT 120GB when loading maps in BF3.
I would beat him by 1-2 seconds on my rig in my signature.

Personally I've never had any issues with AMD cards.
I've had 4870 X2, 5770 (also Crossfire), 6870, 6950 and a really old one I can't remember (x1900 XT I'd say, but pictures on google doesn't look like it)
I've also had 9800GT and GTX 460.
In my experience though, AMD cards tend to be a better value.
 
Sure. You're not having any trouble with AMD. What drivers are you running? 11.6 I assume? Thise are the only ones that will run DX9 without crashes with a 6970.

Better value, that is BS. But okay.
 
wolfeking said:
Reviews are not at all reliable, unless it is from a professional review site. Both motherboards are from Gigabyte, who are hands down the most reliable motherboards manufacturer on the planet. Asus is also quite good. MSI is decent if you get the GD80. The others are just average.

Both would perform about the same. My build goes Nvidia (Cuda tech, and physx). He goes AMD. Personally, I don't trust AMD any more. If you do anything that is not gaming, you are into a world of issues on the drivers. Even gaming it can be a hassle to get them to work right. Nvidia works out of the door without issue assuming you have the right driver for the card (like don't put a x86 192.XX driver on 64 bit windows 8 running a GTX680).

His build has an SSD also, but I don't see the need for one. The gains in speed (in OS) is so minor that you are basically wasting money unless you need to restart 5 times a day. Most of the +s that is given for them are dependent on having 2 SSDs anyway. What I mean by that is, you don't get better transfer rates unless you are transferring from one SSD to another SSD, as you would still not be able to transfer faster than the HDD you are transferring to. On top of that, USB3/2 and firewire limit your transfer rates from HDD, let alone SSD. Game loading time seems to vary on the game. BF3 and SR3 on my drive load faster on my 7200 RPM HDD than they did off the SSD. Even when you get gains in load time, it is only a few seconds.

Case is personal preference.

RAM is RAM. If you're not getting Samsung RAM, then it is all one of 2 chips anyway. Samsung makes its own RAM (one of the reasons why their SSDs are so very good) and it is on the 30nm shrink of DDR3. Basically, Samsung is a step ahead. Most of the other brands, if not all of the other brands is a variant of Mircon 45nm and will perform about the same.

Otherwise, they are both basically the same.
Click to expand...

I completely disagree. Once you go SSD, you'll never go back. Having an SSD over a mechanical HDD is night and day, period. With an SSD, you can boot in seconds, and launch programs instantly. Boot times with an SSD over a mechanical HDD can be up to a minute apart, that, over time, can led to days, weeks, months saved in time by just having an SSD.

OP- FYI, i'm not saying that an SSD is an necessity, but are great to have, and why not? With the 7870 over the 660ti (Same Performance for $80 less), you can get something nice for yourself.

But in the end, it's your money/build, choose wisely and GL!
 
tech savvy said:
I completely disagree. Once you go SSD, you'll never go back. Having an SSD over a mechanical HDD is night and day, period. With an SSD, you can boot in seconds, and launch programs instantly. Boot times with an SSD over a mechanical HDD can be up to a minute apart, that, over time, can led to days, weeks, months saved in time by just having an SSD.
Click to expand...
TO the bold, not true. Maybe for you, but I see harly any difference once the machine is booted. Running a Samsung 830, the machine boot times are still plenty slow (about 4 to 5 seconds faster than my 7200RPM drive).

You say programs launch immediately. Good. They do on a good HDD too. So you are saying the SSD should the the same thing for $100+ more. That makes a lot of sense.

It is statements like the above that lead me to get a SSD, and it is ststements like the above that is complete BS. Besides boot times, you get little difference. Certainly not worth the price just to save 5 seconds. You can not do much with that anyway. And to have an extra hour of use you would have to restart 720 times a day, or once every 2 minutes. a at 5 times a day, you get about 25 seconds extra time. in a year that is 152 hours, which is small compared to the 525k hours in the year.

Having used a SSD for months over many OSs, I can not recommend wasting money on one unless you restart a lot. The performance is not there.
 
wolfeking said:
TO the bold, not true. Maybe for you, but I see harly any difference once the machine is booted. Running a Samsung 830, the machine boot times are still plenty slow (about 4 to 5 seconds faster than my 7200RPM drive).

You say programs launch immediately. Good. They do on a good HDD too. So you are saying the SSD should the the same thing for $100+ more. That makes a lot of sense.

It is statements like the above that lead me to get a SSD, and it is ststements like the above that is complete BS. Besides boot times, you get little difference. Certainly not worth the price just to save 5 seconds. You can not do much with that anyway. And to have an extra hour of use you would have to restart 720 times a day, or once every 2 minutes. a at 5 times a day, you get about 25 seconds extra time. in a year that is 152 hours, which is small compared to the 525k hours in the year.

Having used a SSD for months over many OSs, I can not recommend wasting money on one unless you restart a lot. The performance is not there.
Click to expand...

Even without the speed, you get reliability, noise free, heat free, and less power consumed.
 
most of that is true, and useless in a desktop. I will agree, when I was running it in a laptop it was quite useful. Made the battery last longer (on average about 10 minutes over the 7200 RPM it replaced). Temps, I can not testify to that as teh 830 does not output temps using HDDTEMP addin like the HDDs do (Can't pull smart status ether). Reliability is to be seen. It is a couple months old and still working, but I will not say it has been more reliable until it is 6 years old and still running, as that is where most if not all my HDDs last till. World go back farther, but I don't have an IDE port to test the older drives.

Don't get me wrong. SSDs have their place. But there is not need to make sensationalist claims to sell them. I don't believe that the desktop is the place for them. A decent 7200 RPM HDD will be neat to silent, low power (in the grand scheme of the computer), and fast enough to run the system. Gaming, you really do not want an SSD anyway, as they do not load much faster if any faster than an HDD depending on teh game. On my system, BF3 loaded about a second at most faster than the HDD.
 
wolfeking said:
most of that is true, and useless in a desktop. I will agree, when I was running it in a laptop it was quite useful. Made the battery last longer (on average about 10 minutes over the 7200 RPM it replaced). Temps, I can not testify to that as teh 830 does not output temps using HDDTEMP addin like the HDDs do (Can't pull smart status ether). Reliability is to be seen. It is a couple months old and still working, but I will not say it has been more reliable until it is 6 years old and still running, as that is where most if not all my HDDs last till. World go back farther, but I don't have an IDE port to test the older drives.

Don't get me wrong. SSDs have their place. But there is not need to make sensationalist claims to sell them. I don't believe that the desktop is the place for them. A decent 7200 RPM HDD will be neat to silent, low power (in the grand scheme of the computer), and fast enough to run the system. Gaming, you really do not want an SSD anyway, as they do not load much faster if any faster than an HDD depending on teh game. On my system, BF3 loaded about a second at most faster than the HDD.
Click to expand...

I do agree, it's NOT an necessity, but good to have if you got the extra money to spend.

But since it's a gaming rig(NOT for multitasking and work load, which SSD would be better), I quess you could drop the SSD, and go for an 7950, which would smash any game out.
 
Oh wow a lot to take in here, thanks for all of the responses guys. I was wondering what about the operating system, cooler, and sound car? Also I'm not sure how to install drivers and such, but I'd assume that'd be an issue to deal with after it's built?

I'm having trouble understanding the difference between parts, for example I couldn't tell a good PSU/HDD/etc from a bad one. I just want to make sure I am getting all the right things before I think about ordering anything. All the parts are getting confusing, so many options and I'm completely clueless about it all :confused: hah, but you guys are doing a wonderful job of helping so far.
 
Okay, the OS you buy when you buy the parts. Just grab windows 8 64 bit and you will be fine. Cooler, is a bit of a ... complicated option. Use a Xigametk (sp?), or phanteks and you will be fine. A lot suggest CoolerMaster, but I find their product to be low performing and low quality. Sound card, you don't need unless you have decent speakers. Well, it would help a lot with any speakers, but to get a good sound card would be 1/5th of your budget at a minimum, so just use the integrated for now.
Drivers, You get them from the component site and install like any other program. Chipset drivers come from Intel, rest of them come from motherboard site, and GPU drivers come from ati,amd,com (I think it might just be amd.com now) or nvidia.com/page/home.html and just download the latest for your card (11.10 for AMD, 310.XX for Nvidia (iirc) )

PSU: There are a few that are decent quality. It would take longer to list them that is feasible. Best is to just pick a budget, and we can suggest you a good one.
HDD: Samsung, Seagate, or Western Digital. You want 7200 RPM and SATA. Anything from these companies will do fine.

Do you need us to go over the rest of the parts too?
 
Well the speakers I have are connected to a subwoofer and are pretty loud, not sure if that'd make a difference? When ordering, should I just go off the list you gave me for my build + a cooler and windows 8 right?
 
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