Building a new PC but need help/suggestions

[Reier]

Yo


My laptop stinks at running any game made after like 1989 so I thought I'd build a desktop. Doing research and have a pretty general idea of what I want. Been watching a lot of tutorials and I think I'll get most of my parts from newegg.
The main dilemma is which exact parts to get. Like which brands and stuff, enough power but not bottlenecking, etc.


Main issue is the video cards, CPU, and motherboard. I've been looking at sites and I basically have no idea as there are so many of them and idunno. I don't want to get the highest end things possible, but I do want to run some games and potentially video editing and I'd like to be able to expand it later.


What I do know:
CPU is basically AMD vs Intel. I'm leaning AMD at the mo, mainly for price. I just don't know the difference between all the bazillion models/serieseses.


Video cards are manly nVidia and ATI I think? They range a lot in price and I've been told to overshoot than undershoot on these things... but there's just so many and obviously I'd like to save as much cash as possible.


Motherboards
idunno anything except you want 16 speed PCI and USB 3.0 or something





I'm sure I'll have more questions. Thanks.

[Enigm@]

your motherboard is pretty easy to pick out because it basically comes down to is if you use intel or amd (i'm assuming you use the latter), the price, how many usb ports you want, what size you want, (if you're building a smaller comp you'll obv want a smaller motherboard and the opposite if you want to build a larger comp) what pin configuration you want, because different CPU's use different pin configs, if you want dual vid cards or a speey ram config, and that's it.

also for brands asus is good if you have a high budget, and ASRock is good for cheaper builds.

or if you don't give a sh** about any of that you can get a cheap mother board for like 50 dollars, just make sure you have the right pin config for your CPU.

video cards and CPU's are much more simple in terms of buying. for CPU's, 3.5-3.9 gigahertz is prolly what you want for modern games and sh**. also if you want 8-core or quad core it just comes down to a matter of preference.

for video cards, 192 bit ones are what you'll want to look for if you want if you're going on the cheap side. EVGA is what you'll want for this.
if you're wanting a more expensive one (ie in the 300-400 dollar range) they'll be i think 256 bit, which just enhances the graphical performance.

also most chipsets for video cards are NVIDIA, so i don't no if that makes a diference sense you're wanting a AMD motherboard. but the best AMD manufactured chipsets are made by XFX.

[Gropaga]

Not about parts and such, but buy some air cans to clean the dusts if many of it enters to your comp.

[Badger]

Well, my system just about runs current-gen games to full settings, so maybe my specs will help you decide what you need.

OS:
Windows 7

CPU:
Intel i5-2500k (4 cores) (Overclocked to 3.3GHz)

Motherboard
Asus Maximus IV GENE-Z
4 PCI Slots

RAM:
2x 4gb DDR3 Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9 @ 933 mhz

Graphics Card:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (Will hopefully upgrade to a 6XX soon)

HDD:
Samsung HD103SJ 1TB HDD (Slow as , will hopefully get an SSD at some point)

Hope this helps with your decisions in some way.

[HurricaneAndrew]

Not about parts and such, but buy some air cans to clean the dusts if many of it enters to your comp.

You're better off to turn your fan so it blows air out of the case rather than sucking it in. This keeps the dust out and it cools better like that anyway.

Well, my system just about runs current-gen games to full settings, so maybe my specs will help you decide what you need.

OS:
Windows 7

CPU:
Intel i5-2500k (4 cores) (Overclocked to 3.3GHz)

Motherboard
Asus Maximus IV GENE-Z
4 PCI Slots

RAM:
2x 4gb DDR3 Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9 @ 933 mhz

Graphics Card:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (Will hopefully upgrade to a 6XX soon)

HDD:
Samsung HD103SJ 1TB HDD (Slow as , will hopefully get an SSD at some point)

Hope this helps with your decisions in some way.

I'm going to assume that you are running 64 bit OS and your drives are SATA format and not IDE...

SSDs are expensive. The site I use for my bits and pieces has a 64GB SATA SSD listed for $100.

But if you are THAT obsessed with having a PC that will load Skyrim or other similarly intensive games in less than a second, go for it.

[Badger]

Yep, 64-bit. I only have one drive, and I'm not totally sure how it's set up.

[HurricaneAndrew]

Yep, 64-bit. I only have one drive, and I'm not totally sure how it's set up.

I also meant the CD drives, but anyway...

You can tell what format it is by the wire connecting the drives to the board.



This is an IDE cable end.




This is a pair SATA plugs.


SATA is faster than IDE, so it is obviously the preferred format in a gaming PC.

[Reier]

Ok think I'm gonna go for this now, I really need some feedback with parts and stuff though. This thing doesn't need to be SUPER high powered, I just want it to hold me for some years and can run games stuff like photoshop decently. Budget is like $1000. Monitor and keyboard and stuff I've got handled already.

Here's my list of parts (not set in stone, feel free to recommend things):

Case will be an NZXT 220, I've heard it's good quality and the case isn't my biggest concern here. I was sort of freaked I'd run out of room and I've heard this is a good size.

Hard drive will be a 500GB non-SSD (SSDs are too expensive, and I don't need it THAT fast), I don't need anything too fancy. Might go like western digital or something.

OS Windows 7, figure I'll just get Home Premium off amazon. I won't be getting the OEM cause I might use it somewhere else. I don't care about windows 8.

RAM will probably be 4-8 GB, any recommendations on which? I can always get 4 and upgrade it and RAM is pretty cheapo compared to the other stuff anyway so no biggie.

Here's the stuff I really need help on

Motherboard. I've watched some videos around of how to build budget PCs and this one guy uses an MSI B75MA-P45 on most of his stuff. He says it is pretty good but I obviously have no idea. Any recommendations?

CPU I actually think I might go intel instead of AMD. It's such a pain to choose CPUs for me since there's a million different ones. Some ones I've been looking at are the I5-3470, i5-3330, I3-3220. I have no idea. This and the graphics card are the main issues on choosing parts here. Like I don't want some super bottleneck but I want it decent and I'd rather not replace parts in like 3 months if I can help it.

Video Card I have no idea. I don't want it SUPER UBER ULTRA HIGH END but I want it to run some newish games with decent specs with a DECENT FRAMERATE (SO SICK OF 7 FPS TF2 ON GARBAGE SETTINGS).


Also do these things usually come with all the wires I need or will I need to get some? And overclocking, what's up with that and aftermarket fans and stuff, any feedback here?

Help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance.

[Reier]

Looking at Nate Tech's build (and dang that site is a lifesaver). https://gametechmods.com/forums/index.php?topic=13327.0

I was thinking of going with the i3 but now I'm thinking that might be a little underpowered so I might go with an i5 (3350p or 3470, leaning towards the latter). I keep seeing the Radeon HD 7850 all over the place with good reviews, but I' don't know since there might be a better one out there (nVidia?). I'm not sure though.

Doubt I'm going to overclock or anything for the sake I'll make my PC a lead brick.
btw, what about those network adapters and sound cards? Do the motherboards come with those already or something and these are just extras or do I need one?

What my current list is (subject to change, believe me... mainly CPU and video card, I think motherboard and stuff are fine) http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Wd41

Any recommendations?

[Reier]

Bought the PC parts
put em together

...and it actually works

so happy

will try some games after the 10 million windows updates

[Mecha]

Good for you! :)

[Reier]

7 FPS NO MORE i hope
Gets like 7-point-whatevers on the windows index thingy after all of the drivers so I assume it'll work

will post parts list in a while

[Reier]

oh yeah
runnin my free copy of bioshock infinite on ultra with stupid high fps

Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
MSI B75MA-P45 Micro ATX  LGA1155 Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 1GB Video Card  (came with Bioshock and Tomb Raider for free)
Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case
Corsair Builder 500W Power SUpply
Windows 7

now if only my DL speed were faster so I don't have to wait 2 days for all my steam games to go on this thing