I did it!

Renzore101

Renzore101

Member
Greetings computer forum, I just wanted to let everyone know that I have finally succeeded in building my first rig! I have been creeping around computer forum for a long time but I am glad to have finally got a chance to do a build. Breaking into the IT field at the same time as well as being a full time college student does not always leave me much time to enjoy it, but I really enjoyed the process and I am afraid upgrades and such will be come quite the addiction. :D
 
I absolutely agree with you, I am getting some student loan money in the next couple weeks which I plan on putting towards an i5 4670K most likely unless I decide to go with an i7 but I do not think it will be worth the extra 100$ or so. In addition to that, my budget was very tight a week ago when I purchased the items for this build. I am at right around 550$ in total cost for the build.
 
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Congratulation on your first build. I find building often frustrating though very satisfying, and the knowledge gained is valuable skill if you want to keep your hardware fairly current.
 
jevery said:
Congratulation on your first build. I find building often frustrating though very satisfying, and the knowledge gained is valuable skill if you want to keep your hardware fairly current.
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I agree with that, the most frustrating part, to me, was probably the fact that the gfx card eliminated two HDD bays and I had to move the HDD to get it installed where I wanted it. Cable management is also kind of a nuisance with my current, non-modular PSU. Having just taken the A+ certifications I do feel like I finally got a chance to test my skills, and I feel like it definitely helped me out along the process. I had a lot of fun for sure, upgrades coming soon!
 
spirit said:
Yes it is but it's a year old now. The 4690K came out the other month with the Z97 boards.
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Oh, I gotcha. Let me ask you this then, if you notice my sig, what priority would you put on my upgrades? I am 98% certain I am going to first go with an SSD and move the OS over to it for the biggest performance gain, but after that I have to figure out whether to go with the i5 first or the new GPU. Note: I have like 86 days left with EVGA to participate in their Step-up program, which I really want to take advantage of.
Edit: I guess what i'm really asking is, at what point will my CPU become a major bottleneck?
 
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get the best your board and your budget allows. id personally go for the 4690k as there is little difference between the i5 4690k and i7 4790k. the i7 is faster but i dont really think that much faster to warrant the extra price.

this may become a bottleneck from the 750ti so if you can do go for a 780 or 780ti if not something along the lines of a 760-770 will still do fine. id also make sure to upgrade the stock cooler as the haswell's run quite hot and on the stock intel cooler id expect there to be not much overclocking potential.

personally id get the cpu first then save and get the gpu. if you put a 780ti in there with your current cpu it wont like it very much. its quite hard to make use of all the 780ti's power even on a new i5-i7 cpu. atleast with the cpu you can put a bit of overclocking into the gpu if needed and have no problems.

i have a gtx 770 and it will run battlefield 4 on maximum (ultra) at 60fps and have no problems but it wont run off v-sync much higher than that maybe 72fps at most. if you are planning to record etc id get a more powerful gpu. i plan on upgrading mine soon to a 780ti and if you can do i would suggest you do too.
 
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Congrats on the build! It's both fun and rewarding to do it yourself.

EVGA Step Up is an awesome program, I've used it a few times myself. Before you take advantage of that, you should seriously evaluate price v. performance because your upgrade options, at least at the 780ti price points, are VERY expensive. You know that already, but I've literally blown thousands of dollars over the years on GPUs alone and, in hindsight, I often wonder if it was worth it. In fact, for me, I know it wasn't. Hardware depreciates quickly, so you typically don't get much upon resale. I did better internationally on eBay, but even then only recovered about 40% iirc.

I'd make the processor and SSD higher priorities. Find a stable OC on everything and see if you can live with the performance with regard to gaming etc. In some cases, the extra FPS and rendering gains with a GPU upgrade don't match up with the cost.
 
Processor and GPU before SSD IF the GTX 750 Ti doesn't fulfill your needs or you fancy something faster.

The GTX 750 Ti is a good card for the money, but if you want to play more demanding games at higher resolutions or want a card that will last you a little while then I'd upgrade to a 760 or a 770.
 
Thanks alot for all the input guys, it is much appreciated! I have determined that I am going to get the processor first. I am also going to get most likely a 770 or possibly a 780 TI soon after so I can still take advantage of the step-up program. I will have to squeeze an SSD in a little later when the budget allows.
 
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