Building a PC! Please HELP! -- chaos61988's Journal -- Fur Affinity [dot] net

Building a PC! Please HELP!

13 years ago General

Whispers - of - a - Dreaming Titan

hey guys, im trying to build myself a fairly nice gaming/art PC.. it will be my first time building one myself, i plan on doing the assembling myself if it wont be too complicated! however i have absolutely no clue what i should buy! all i know is from talking to friends and research that i should be able to build a PC that can play any game on the market for around 700$ USD so i want to stay around that price range if possible, but not above 1000$USD. and assuming from what i hear i should order all parts from newegg.com. Currently im stuck on an aging laptop that cant play most current gen games. i.e. Guildwars 2, Diablo 3 etc. all i can manage pretty much is WoW. i know, sad right?

Heres the breakdown so far: i dont really need a monitor as i have a 20inch Vizio 1080p screen that i can use for that if necessary. i also know that id like to invest in a nice MMO mouse/keyboard because thats what i mostly play online, probably a Razer NAGA if i can afford it. so mostly what i need is an idea on what i need to buy to build a kickass tower?

if any of you awesome computer geeks can help me with this id be eternally grateful! :D

Your Friendly neighborhood Mega-macro Bull God, Scesmoon Omegas :3

C O M M I S S I O N S: Closed



"...W E L C O M E  T O  M Y  P A R A D I X T I O N..."

22 Comments

dredd ~dredd

PrOn Artist

13 years ago

I'd recommend the following:
cpu: i5 3570k - 215usd
cpu cooler: Enermax ETS-T40 T.B. -35usd
motherboard: Asrock Z77 Pro3 -90usd
ram: pretty much any 8gb DDR3 kit, most prefer Kingston or Corsair - ~18usd
hdd: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (ST3000DM001) 1TB or any Seagate Barracuda you can get your hands on - ~80usd
gpu: Powercolor Radeon HD 7850 PCS+ - 195usd
dvd drive: Sony Optiarc 24X DVD Burner - 19usd
psu: Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500w Power Supply (RS500-PCARD3-US) - 40usd
case: Antec Threehundred Two - 60usd

total: 752usd without shipping

I highly recommend the i5-3570k, the Asrock Z77 Pro3 and the Seagate Barracuda hdd, everything else are only suggestions. The Powercolor Radeon HD 7850 PCS+ has a great cost-performance ratio, it is strong enough to play most games out there in Full HD with maximum details without issues and every other recommendable alternative I know of costs at least 100 bucks more, like a Radeon HD 7870 or a GeForce GTX 660 Ti.

chaos61988 ~chaos61988

Digital Artist

13 years ago

how powerful would you say this setup is? give me an example of what it could run at max settings or under stress test conditions?

dredd ~dredd

PrOn Artist

13 years ago

It should be pretty powerful. The only limitating factor in this setup is the graphic card, which I chose based on the price, everything else is pretty much top notch. Here's a detailed test of what the card can do: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/.....7850_PCS_Plus/
In short, the setup is powerful enough to run nearly every single current game out there in Full Hd with details and anti-aliasing set on high, except for the most demanding games like Metro 2033. It does also not support advanced physics engines, which are used for example in Batman Arkham Asylum. If you don't know what those engines do, however, you won't miss them. Multimedia and art stuff is no problem at all, unless you plan on rendering hd movies while playing CoD and layouting a newspaper at the same time.

dredd ~dredd

PrOn Artist

13 years ago

Btw, the best alternative for the graphic card I can think of is the Gigabyte Geforce gtx 660 Ti. With that card, you could play nearly every current game with details and anti-aliasing set at max along with support for the physX engine and even tessellation, a very new technology that is not yet widely supported, but holds the potential for cinematic graphic quality. It's 280usd on newegg and if you're lucky you can even grab a version with a free copy of Assassin's Creed 3.

Xovit ~xovit

Watcher

13 years ago

Very well rounded system - no real weaknesses, all well known brands and nothing likely to fail. I do have a personal preference for nVidia GPU's - I would lean for a 660 Ti otherwise a great bang for the buck build here that will run any game on the market - maybe not at max settings but should score well for a mid-range build. Shame your not local.. I have a perfectly good i7 2700K just laying around! Nother $100 you could put into the GPU. Either way, good luck on your adventure.

chaos61988 ~chaos61988

Digital Artist

13 years ago

could always mail it to me bunnybutt! :D

Xovit ~xovit

Watcher

13 years ago

Haha.. its a option, guess it depends on how adventurous you'd like to get. Im not offering it for freee... but, no doubt cheaper then the suggested CPU - and slightly better performing (last generations top performing model for the socket). Getting all new parts though might be a better option despite it being less then a year old.

chaos61988 ~chaos61988

Digital Artist

13 years ago

well depending on what you want to sell it for im definitely willing to pay, you got skype?

Xovit ~xovit

Watcher

13 years ago

sent you a note with it =3

1dimensional ~1dimensional

PrOn Artist

13 years ago

Dredd's setup seems fine, but I really recommend getting a SSd (solid state drive) for installing your OS (a 64GB one is fine for this, I think they're $100 on newegg) and another for games and whatever other software, photoshop etc. since they'd Increases loading speed on a lot of games and resource intensive programs and will make windows or whatever your OS of choice is noticeably quick to boot up as well.
Can use regular HDD for general storage and extra software installs n backup images to burn etc. Since they go larger for cheaper.

dredd ~dredd

PrOn Artist

13 years ago

Yeah, SSD's are neat, although not necessary. I'd recommend a Samsung 840 with 120Gb, 64Gb can feel restricting rather quickly imo and the 120Gb version also costs only 100usd on newegg. It's also important to note that it can be a little tricky for newbies to install them properly as you need to adjust a few settings in the motherboard's uefi before instaling the OS.

chaos61988 ~chaos61988

Digital Artist

13 years ago

lol i feel like you guys are speaking foreign languages to me xD

Everspace ~everspace

Digital Artist

13 years ago

SSD (Solid State Drives) are hard-drives that have no moving parts and work very similarly to a usb stick. They are much, much faster than traditional hard-drives due to not having to "spin-up" or down (mechanical parts). They are usually used exclusivly for your windows installation due to the boot-up speed improvement, and general load times. I like to keep Photoshop on the drive as well.

If you do go this route, you need to not save anything in your user profile (or move it to another disk via symbolic link/fancy shortcut) as it tends to wear out the disk because of repeated writing, and change some minor things like indexing (search optimization).

chaos61988 ~chaos61988

Digital Artist

13 years ago

so i should buy an SSD for my OS and another traditional HDD for the rest of my normal saving etc?

Everspace ~everspace

Digital Artist

13 years ago

SSD is super cushy-gravy. I would stick that money into ram or a better gfx card if I had the option. If you are heavy on the photoshop, going for the extra ram will be all the more worth it. I had a problem with my HDD a year ago so I splurged for the SSD, I haven't been keeping on the prices personally since I'm not in the "hardcore" builder group nor am I in the market for some sort of upgrade.

It's much easier to do a re-format with this setup however...

bunnypeeper ~bunnypeeper

Watcher

13 years ago

OK. Supposing that your range is 700-1000, and your profile would be of a enthusiast/gamer. and want to use newegg (if isn't listed in there, it doesn't exist, it's their unofficial motto), then I would recommend this one...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Combo.....=Combo.1047786
or even better (but a little costlier)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16813131874

Since there are DIY combos, all parts required are there, and some room to upgrade.

Good luck.

chaos61988 ~chaos61988

Digital Artist

13 years ago

and this could run any game on the market? at what settings would you say?

dredd ~dredd

PrOn Artist

13 years ago

The first link's combo is incomplete and the components are way too expensive, and the motherboard you linked to is for AMD processors only. Just sayin'.

bunnypeeper ~bunnypeeper

Watcher

13 years ago

Dredd: Huh. My bad, I guess.

This is what I did:
* Went to Newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/DIY-PC-Combos.....ionStore/ID-33

*Click in "Enthusiasts /OC Gaming"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=30000007%20600084356&IsNodeId=1&name=Enthusiasts%20%2f%20OC%20Gaming

*Chose two within the range that Chaos said that had a SSD.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Combo.....=Combo.1047786
and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Combo.....=Combo.1050547
(that's the one dredd pointed out that was incomplete, because I was checking the stats and copied the wrong link)

Chaos, AFAIK, those are for no AA settings, because of motherboard graphics, my suggestions are based in the idea that "Art first, Games later".

And the combo tends to be pricey because of SSD as a main drive, not an OS drive.

Again, these are suggestions, considering the level of expertise and requirements posted.

Ogrebear ~ogrebear

Photographer

13 years ago

I used this as a good guide: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/05/08/t.....ards-and-more/

I changed nothing other that cutting out the stuff I already had (case, keyboard etc). The resulting machine is fast, stable and runs Skyrim at full wrack with approx 100 mds running.

NN-Blackrider ~nn-blackrider

Watcher

13 years ago

i5 3570k, asrock 1155 motherboard of your prefered size, Nvidia GTX 660, Crucial M4 128GB SSD, Corsair 650Watt PSU, 2x4GB 1600MHz Cl9 G.Skill Ripjaws RAM, case of your preference that fits, any reliable HDD of your preferred size as "warehouse".

FORGET about Razer. Mad Catz for mouse, for keyboard I can't recommend as I use just standard ones.

Dragonien ~dragonien

Writer

13 years ago

Tigerdirect.com i prefer them a bit more over newegg, they often have a bit better specials. but both are good.

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