Gaming PC Build Advice

[CMvan46]

Soon as you are building it in a few months time, forget about the 2500k and 5XX series Nvidia or 6XXX series ATI/AMD, and get all the next-gen parts coming out around January-March time which should get you an Intel system at a minimum of 20% faster at the same price while running cooler and using less power. Also HDD prices should be lower than the prices currently by then. Also make sure to get a LED monitor with an IPS panel.

Well I'm getting an idea now so I can be prepared for cost and saving later on. If something better comes along there are always substitutions to be made.

 

[bevo]

Ok is there a rule of thumb on how big a case should be inside?

Buy as big of a case as you can. Bigger is always better when it comes to computer cases. It makes the install alot easier, and will keep everything much cooler. Don't skimp on the case, and you can use it for your next build too.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

IMO, as long as it's a decent-sized mid tower then you're good. No need for a full tower unless you already know you will need one.

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Well I'm getting an idea now so I can be prepared for cost and saving later on. If something better comes along there are always substitutions to be made.

For example if you are thinking about getting the 2500K now, get the Ivy Bridge equivalent in the series, same for graphics. You will get a much cooler running and faster computer due to improved architecture and shrinking of process that the CPU or GPU is made.

About cases, make sure to get one with internal USB 3.0 connector.

 

[Seismica]

Well I'm getting an idea now so I can be prepared for cost and saving later on. If something better comes along there are always substitutions to be made.

If you aren't building it for a few months, you may aswell wait for Ivy Bridge (Successor to Sandy Bridge) and either get the better performance, or get an i5 2500k/i7 2600k/i7 2700k when the price goes down. Like mentioned before there is very little between these 3.

About cases, make sure to get one with internal USB 3.0 connector.

And make sure your motherboard has a USB 3.0 header on it, mine doesn't (but then again neither does my case, so I have to use the back ports for USB 3).

If you are considering a dual graphics card setup in the future, invest in a good motherboard now that has two PCI-E x16 slots. Mine has one x16 slot and one x4 slot I think, so a dual setup would be useless for me. If only i'd spent the extra £30 on a motherboard...

I'm new to the whole PC building game so as neema_t said in another thread, take everything said with a pinch of salt.

 

[nick09]

Yeah look for ATX Mid cases. They are a nice balance for keeping the size in check and nothing too outrageous to lug back to home.

 

[Saidur_Ali]

If you aren't building it for a few months, you may aswell wait for Ivy Bridge (Successor to Sandy Bridge) and either get the better performance, or get an i5 2500k/i7 2600k/i7 2700k when the price goes down. Like mentioned before there is very little between these 3.



And make sure your motherboard has a USB 3.0 header on it, mine doesn't (but then again neither does my case, so I have to use the back ports for USB 3).

If you are considering a dual graphics card setup in the future, invest in a good motherboard now that has two PCI-E x16 slots. Mine has one x16 slot and one x4 slot I think, so a dual setup would be useless for me. If only i'd spent the extra £30 on a motherboard...

I'm new to the whole PC building game so as neema_t said in another thread, take everything said with a pinch of salt.

No point in getting outdated power hungry processor then even if it is a bit cheaper, bang for buck might be similar

Ivy Bridge motherboards will be native USB 3.0 so that should be a given hopefully then .

PCI-E 3.0 with Ivy Bridge motherboards too so OP don't invest in a new motherboard now .

 

[CMvan46]

Ok thanks a lot for all this guys. I will keep an eye out for a case then. It would be nice to split the cost up a little bit. Definitely won't be buying the cpu, motherboard, or video card until I have the money to finish it.

 

[NissanSkylineN1]

I use AutoCad and 3ds Max quite heavily too for my school. Its all CPU power for me. Even though the Nitrous Rendering thing in the new 3ds Max is supposed to use the GPU, I haven't seen it use the GPU at all. However, the GPU is used when creating a model. I would recommend clock speeds for this, optimally an i7 for your budget.

 

[Azuremen]

Buy as big of a case as you can. Bigger is always better when it comes to computer cases. It makes the install alot easier, and will keep everything much cooler. Don't skimp on the case, and you can use it for your next build too.

Larger doesn't mean better air flow by default, and certainly makes taking it to a LAN quite a hassle, or even setting it up in some places. Mid ATX, as others have said, is more than adequate 90% of the time.

 

[Seismica]

No point in getting outdated power hungry processor then even if it is a bit cheaper, bang for buck might be similar

Ivy Bridge motherboards will be native USB 3.0 so that should be a given hopefully then .

PCI-E 3.0 with Ivy Bridge motherboards too so OP don't invest in a new motherboard now .

Good points well made 👍 just shows how quickly technology advances. In a few months my i5 2500k will be considered obsolete to a certain extent, and my 6850 is already regarded as such. (My Mobo isn't obsolete though... just cheap XD). Advise to OP is research and where you are unsure, invest that little bit extra to be sure you are getting a quality product. I wish i'd spent more on motherboard, power supply, graphics card and case as they all have obvious flaws which I didn't think of beforehand. (Mobo has no USB 3 header, only 1 PCI-e x16 slot; PSU not fully modular and only 620W means future upgrades may have to be coupled with a new PSU; Graphics card was an older model which will need upgrading in a year or two; case is good but a little small and access when building was an issue).

 

[CMvan46]

Larger doesn't mean better air flow by default, and certainly makes taking it to a LAN quite a hassle, or even setting it up in some places. Mid ATX, as others have said, is more than adequate 90% of the time.

I won't ever take it to a LAN and the only time it will move is when move out in a few years so size won't be too much of an issue.


I'm realizing how much I'm going to have to research in a few months. I thought it'd be a good idea to get a rough parts list together now but apparently not so much. Besides the power supply case and maybe a hard drive I can't really look at anything until next year. It's only 4 or 5 months till I build this thing.


http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=15573031

That's what I put together. Just shy of $1100 without Windows 7 so $1200 + tax and shipping.

 

[Casio]

Larger doesn't mean better air flow by default, and certainly makes taking it to a LAN quite a hassle, or even setting it up in some places. Mid ATX, as others have said, is more than adequate 90% of the time.

Bah. That's why us cool cats have separate m-ITX LAN machines.

 

[bevo]

Larger doesn't mean better air flow by default, and certainly makes taking it to a LAN quite a hassle, or even setting it up in some places. Mid ATX, as others have said, is more than adequate 90% of the time.

The bigger the better. I would never buy anything but a large case, as long as i could afford it and had room for it. If you can't carry around a big computer case to you friends house then you might want to lay off the PC for awhile and hit the gym They really are not that heavy, and will fit in any car. As long as you don't want to take it across town with a scooter you would be alright. Plus it makes wire management so much easier and just gives you so much more room to work. for a first tiem builder the more room you have the better it is.

The longer he has the PC the more he might feel like adding other components to it. You could limit yourself using a mid tower if you want to go with some big GPUs, water cool, or put a big fan on your CPU.

 

[Azuremen]

Did you seriously tell me to hit the gym? There is no reason for a full size case if you intelligent manage the cables and aren't running a triple SLI setup or so other "hey, look at me" non sense.

Modern cases have so many things that make managing everything easy anyhow. This isn't the 90s, we have quick release 3.5 bays, nice 5 inch mount areas, easy fan mount points, etc. And we aren't routing IDE cables either.

Larger cases can also lead to more internal turbulence, resulting in less smooth airflow, and having the same air spinning around in corners isn't the best either.

 

[bevo]

Did you seriously tell me to hit the gym? There is no reason for a full size case if you intelligent manage the cables and aren't running a triple SLI setup or so other "hey, look at me" non sense. .

I have a huge case and don't have any trouble at all packing it around. It's not like it's more things to carry, it's just heavier and bigger. Just wrap your arms around it and carry it to the car. I don't see what the hassle is. What if he does want to go triple sli someday, or decides to overclock and wants to add a couple radiators, a big CPU fan, some more fans for the case. I didn't think I would ever get more then 1 gpu and never thought about going water. I'm glad though that the guy who helped me put mine together had me spend the extra money and got a big case, because now I have sli 570s, extra fans to cool them, a cpu water block, and a fan controller. There's just so many more options when you use a big case. Plus like I said for a first time builder a big case is great. Nothing scrunched together, plenty of room and light to learn about PC building.

Lets look at pros and cons for a big case

pros
much better cooling potential
more room to learn to build the pc
many more future options as far as upgrades
Much better if you wish to ever start wanting to overclock
Will be much more quiet because you can use larger fans that run a lower RPM
with better airflow


cons
more expensive
large footprint
Hassle to take to LAN party if you drive a scooter or can't lift over 30 lbs

 

[CMvan46]

So a question I had. If I wasn't going to consider overclocking are extra fans necessary or thermal paste? And how exactly does thermal paste work?

 

[Seismica]

So a question I had. If I wasn't going to consider overclocking are extra fans necessary or thermal paste? And how exactly does thermal paste work?

Fans are necessary. Some cases come with the included but ideally you want to utilise all of the fan mounts on your case. Generally you want the fans on the front to suck air in and the fans on the back to blow air out, to keep good air flow. If you are unsure about which way they go, look at the fans on the case and the way the fan blades are shaped, the concave edge is consistent with one way of air flow (I'd check mine, but they're currently moving with my PC being on and all, ) or you can turn it on and test it by putting a light bit of paper (a receipt or a bit of tracing paper is ideal) up against it to see which way the air is flowing. Also, cable management is a good and effective way to improve cooling at no cost (Cable ties should come with the case and most cases these days have places where you can route wires. Getting a modular PSU is recommended for this, as non-modular PSUs just make it that little bit more fiddly, as they are usually not the right length and as they are attached to the PSU, once you have this in place it can be difficult to move them around.

Thermal paste is a necessity to fill in any gaps and imperfections on the CPU cover. Here is a good thermal paste application guide:
http://www.arcticsilver.com/methods.html
http://www.arcticsilver.com/intel_application_method.html#

If you are not overclocking, a stock cooler will be adequate. They are also far easier to install as they already have the thermal compound applied, which spreads automatically when you put it into place.

Even if you are not overclocking, the cooler the better as this will make your system stable even under load. Better cooled components have a longer life than those that are subjected to high temperatures.

A water cooling solution would not be necessarily in my opinion unless you're planning a multi-GPU setup with significant overclocking. Air cooling is perfectly fine and more cost effective.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

People seem to over-exaggerate the effects of case cooling on overclocking. As far as air cooling is concerned, overclocking is mainly dependent on the CPU cooler. The case cooling factors in a bit for extreme overclocks.

The difference between a mid-tower and full tower makes no significant difference when it comes to ease of building.

So a question I had. If I wasn't going to consider overclocking are extra fans necessary or thermal paste? And how exactly does thermal paste work?

Not really. The stock heatsink comes with thermal pads pre-applied. For a case like the Antec 300, you get 2 fans. One is for exhaust on the top and one for the rear. You don't necessarily need more. You could just take the rear fan and put it in the front to balance out the air flow a bit. Or add 1 or 2 in the front. In the stock configuration you would have the power supply throwing air out, possibly the video card, and the 2 exhaust fans with no fan moving air in.

 

[bevo]

People seem to over-exaggerate the effects of case cooling on overclocking. As far as air cooling is concerned, overclocking is mainly dependent on the CPU cooler. The case cooling factors in a bit for extreme overclocks.

I dissagree with that. If you are overclocking for games and have a decent cpu there is no need to overclock it. What you are going to overclock is the GPU, and that needs a cool case to keep the temps down. I got rid of my stock fans and put in yate loons and it dropped my gpus temps by over 10c, and that allowed me to push the cards much farther. Also when it comes to overclocking, that cpu is much more difficult to get right then the GPUs, and you will only see boosts in benchmarks and not any games unless it was already an outdated CPU to begin with. Anyone that will spend an hour messing with their graphics cards can easily get at least a 20% boost in performance at a minimum with their GPU. MSI afterburner makes it pretty much fool proof, anf all you have to do is run heaven for 10 minutes to make sure it is stable.

The case temps play a very big role in overclocking the gpu, and it is super easy to do, with no worries of ruining the card. Within the frist 30 minutes of trying to OC my 570 I took it from 732mhz to 875 with a very small bump in voltage and 80c temps. After I added the yate loons it dropped the temps to the low 60s.

People look at overclocking as a really hard thing to learn, but where you get by far the most benefit from it for gaming, is by leaving the CPU alone and doing it to the GPU. All you do is move some sliders over a little in the software, and run a 5 minute test to look for anything weird, and then keep bumping them up until the PC crashes. Then go back down to where it was stable and your done. a stock 570 will have trouble staying over 30fps in BF3 on ultra, but take a few minutes to OC the card, and you are running in the 40s and very rarely dropping below 30 FPS.

The way I look at anything when I build it is, am I going to get involved in this, and want to make it as good as I can afford, or am I going to just leave it alone and be happy with how it came. A large case gives you the option to tinker with the PC and add fans that will let you push it much farther then the stock settings. You could add 300$ more performance out of your PC just by getting decent fans and putting an OC on your GPU. To do that though you will have to have really good airflow to keep the GPU temps down.

 

[Azuremen]

This thread is now about how I can't lift a 30lb case and how bevo knows best because of his opinion

Going to large lans, being that guy that has the tower that forces other people to have to work around it sucks. Or packing it up flights of stairs. Smaller and Mid-ATX you can just put a strap around, carry with one hand with the keyboard and mouse while packing the monitor in the other hand. Now I've just saved myself walking 3 blocks back to my car to get Monitor for, say, PAX.

And you make it sound like building a PC is some art these days. Good lord, everything is idiot proof these days. It isn't like you are assigning jumpers for the clock speeds, or messing around with IDE cables and slot mount CPUs.

 

[NissanSkylineN1]

For the first time Azuremen, I agree with you. A Mid-tower ATX case is fine enough. take my Thermaltake V3 for example. How does 6 fan slots sound? Its got 2 on top, 1 in the front, one in the rear, a slot in the bottom and a small vent in the side. It keeps my motherboard at a cool 25 degrees. Large ATX cases and more than 3 case fans are only necessary for builds with more than one large video card (Like a 6990 CF), a server with a gazillion storage drives, or a build with an insanely huge CPU heatsink the size of Kanye West's ego in 2008. In my opinion, 3 case fans are enough. At the 25 degrees, I have 2 fans running at max and one on silent at 700RPM. You could probably do with a Coolermaster V8 or a decent heatsink for the CPU if you're overclocking.

Also, large ATX cases are heavier than 30 lbs. When they're filled with components, I would say they're about 50 lbs. I mean for me, its no feat to do, but I don't know if Azuremen can carry that much weight.