Help me build my PC 2016 Edition Catch All

EverythingsTentative wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Are you trying to build a Laptop? I'm confused.

Well I'm trying to get a new gaming laptop. I've always preferred laptops, because I can move it around my house, easily, but if I can build a desktop for a lot cheaper I may go that way.

Wait, you can build a laptop at home?

Not really.. I mean you get get those Clevo or Sager laptops that are essentially built to your complete spec after you pick a chassis but you still arent building them yourself. That was my confusion.

In general yeah for $2200 you can build a monster dual GPU gaming PC.. or spend $1500 on a monster 1080P gaming PC.

TheGameguru wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Are you trying to build a Laptop? I'm confused.

Well I'm trying to get a new gaming laptop. I've always preferred laptops, because I can move it around my house, easily, but if I can build a desktop for a lot cheaper I may go that way.

Wait, you can build a laptop at home?

Not really.. I mean you get get those Clevo or Sager laptops that are essentially built to your complete spec after you pick a chassis but you still arent building them yourself. That was my confusion.

In general yeah for $2200 you can build a monster dual GPU gaming PC.. or spend $1500 on a monster 1080P gaming PC.

What Guru said.

Most of your decent desktop video cards are going to blow that 780M away. 780M is no where even close to a desktop 780 video card. Here's a chart showing 3dmark scores for comparison, notice the "Compare against cards with similar performance" about midway down

http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/g...

Let's narrow your request down a little bit. How much would you like to spend? Like Guru said $2200 will get you a monster PC that will last years to come, but I'm assuming you don't want to spend that since you're asking about building a desktop for cheaper. If you can give us a hard limit we can show you some really specific builds and what kind of performance you would get.

Gumbie wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Are you trying to build a Laptop? I'm confused.

Well I'm trying to get a new gaming laptop. I've always preferred laptops, because I can move it around my house, easily, but if I can build a desktop for a lot cheaper I may go that way.

Wait, you can build a laptop at home?

Not really.. I mean you get get those Clevo or Sager laptops that are essentially built to your complete spec after you pick a chassis but you still arent building them yourself. That was my confusion.

In general yeah for $2200 you can build a monster dual GPU gaming PC.. or spend $1500 on a monster 1080P gaming PC.

What Guru said.

Most of your decent desktop video cards are going to blow that 780M away. 780M is no where even close to a desktop 780 video card. Here's a chart showing 3dmark scores for comparison, notice the "Compare against cards with similar performance" about midway down

http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/g...

Let's narrow your request down a little bit. How much would you like to spend? Like Guru said $2200 will get you a monster PC that will last years to come, but I'm assuming you don't want to spend that since you're asking about building a desktop for cheaper. If you can give us a hard limit we can show you some really specific builds and what kind of performance you would get.

Okay. I haven't had a gaming PC for around a 18 months now. My son decided my last Asus was thirsty. I haven't really had much reason to get another gaming rig since, but I really want to play D:OS. So, I guess whatever can run that perfectly would do for now.

EverythingsTentative wrote:
Gumbie wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Are you trying to build a Laptop? I'm confused.

Well I'm trying to get a new gaming laptop. I've always preferred laptops, because I can move it around my house, easily, but if I can build a desktop for a lot cheaper I may go that way.

Wait, you can build a laptop at home?

Not really.. I mean you get get those Clevo or Sager laptops that are essentially built to your complete spec after you pick a chassis but you still arent building them yourself. That was my confusion.

In general yeah for $2200 you can build a monster dual GPU gaming PC.. or spend $1500 on a monster 1080P gaming PC.

What Guru said.

Most of your decent desktop video cards are going to blow that 780M away. 780M is no where even close to a desktop 780 video card. Here's a chart showing 3dmark scores for comparison, notice the "Compare against cards with similar performance" about midway down

http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/g...

Let's narrow your request down a little bit. How much would you like to spend? Like Guru said $2200 will get you a monster PC that will last years to come, but I'm assuming you don't want to spend that since you're asking about building a desktop for cheaper. If you can give us a hard limit we can show you some really specific builds and what kind of performance you would get.

Okay. I haven't had a gaming PC for around a 18 months now. My son decided my last Asus was thirsty. I haven't really had much reason to get another gaming rig since, but I really want to play D:OS. So, I guess whatever can run that perfectly would do for now.

What kinda price limit are we talking?

I mean, I dunno. Obviously I want it to be as inexpensive as possible, but I almost bought that laptop, too. I'll just say ~$1,300. Cheaper would be even better.

Edit: I do need a display and keyboard, too.

OS included I assume?

fangblackbone wrote:

OS included I assume?

Yup.

Here is something I put together for $1254 based off of Guru's $500 build (no keyboard and mouse because those rely 100% on personal taste):

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/82yH7P

Mind you, keep an eye out on http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales for better deals.

I have a Razer mouse, and I'm pretty sure that I want a mechanical keyboard. How are Razers?

I would avoid razer's mech boards. They dont use Cherry switches anymore, they switched to a much lesser off brand switch.

You can do better for less money from CoolerMaster (aka CM Storm), Ducky, Corsair, Filco... heck even Rosewill. I'd buy any of those before even looking at Razer.

There's a mechanical keyboard thread right here in the tech section. Hit that up for more specifics.

Monoprice has some Cherry-switch keyboards that look pretty good, and don't cost very much.

Is it cool to talk about frankentoshes here? If not I'll rely on TonyMac but I respect the opinions here and would like to see what you have to say.

The wife's six year old MacBook ate it last night and now's the best time to convince her to go desktop.

We're heavily invested in the Apple environment so we need to stay that way for now but I'd like to dual boot Windows and get some gaming in.

some other zach wrote:

Is it cool to talk about frankentoshes here? If not I'll rely on TonyMac but I respect the opinions here and would like to see what you have to say.

The wife's six year old MacBook ate it last night and now's the best time to convince her to go desktop.

We're heavily invested in the Apple environment so we need to stay that way for now but I'd like to dual boot Windows and get some gaming in.

Is it cool to talk about frankentoshes here? If not I'll rely on TonyMac but I respect the opinions here and would like to see what you have to say.

I don't see any real reason why it would be a problem. I don't think we have any special expertise in doing that, however; we can help you build a PC, and perhaps can help you find specific chipsets or whatever, but as far as knowing what chipsets to use, I haven't seen any particular sign that we would know.

Thanks, Malor.

This build is based off parts known to work for a mid range OSX machine. There are others with more muscle but I'd like to stick around $1500 before the monitor. This one comes in at $1150 so it gives me a bit of breathing room for changes.

Assuming the above is true how will it perform as a Windows machine with regards to gaming? I'm shooting for 1080p, 30 FPS minimum on high settings for current / next few years of AAA games. Is that asking too much of this build?

Is the motherboard decent quality? Reviews seem mixed so I'll look around for something else if it's going to cause me issues.

Is an i5 ok or should I go for the i7?

Is the GTX 760 2GB capable or should be I looking for a faster / larger card?

Is the power supply sufficient?

Should I be adding fans?

I'm shooting for 1080p, 30 FPS minimum on high settings for current / next few years of AAA games. Is that asking too much of this build?

Yeah, that should be fine. You might prefer a 4-gig video card, though, if OS X can drive one. The next generation of games is moving up to much larger textures, because the consoles support it.

Is the motherboard decent quality?

I've never bought a Gigabyte board. I mostly buy ASUS, and I have one little ASRock I'm using for a file server. ASUS has usually (not invariably) been very good, and the ASRock is surprisingly strong for such a cheap thing. I haven't heard that Gigabyte is terrible or anything, I've just never tried them.

Is an i5 ok or should I go for the i7?

Well, there's some thinking that the hyperthreading may be nice for running console ports; each of the phantom, half-speed cores in the i7 is just about as fast as the real ones in the consoles. And there are a couple of titles that benefit from hyperthreading. At the moment, in other words, it makes very little difference. It may in the future, but whether it will be a hundred bucks' worth of improvement is unknown.

Because CPUs are improving so slowly, these days, I lean in the direction of buying upscale.... you'll probably have it for 5 years or more, so the extra hundred bucks amortizes pretty well.

Is the GTX 760 2GB capable or should be I looking for a faster / larger card?

Speedwise, that's pretty good for 1080p. Doing 30fps at that res should be no problem for that card; you should be able to push over 60 in most titles. You might like 4 gigs of VRAM, but that's not strictly necessary.

Is the power supply sufficient?

550 is fine for one Intel CPU, plus one strong video card, no matter how big an overclock you get on the CPU. If you plan to ever do SLI, that probably wouldn't be enough, but it's fine for what you're planning to buy.

Should I be adding fans?

Not familiar with that case, so I can't tell you.

Squeegee_Joe wrote:

Any thoughts on the Cooler Master Elite 110? I'm considering a SFF build, possibly a SteamBox. I don't intend to have an optical drive, so I want a completely blank front face. NUC isn't really an option yet, but I'm starting to consider it.

This article on Forbes talks about the Elite 110 in the context of building a small gaming PC -- it looks like a good option if you want something really small, bearing in mind that it's short enough that it seriously limits your video card options. There are a few cards that should fit in there without problems, but MSI's short GTX 760 that's designed for small systems might be the fastest you'll find.

And this why I love that I'm in this thread. I have an iMac which I dual boot into Win7 and I figured when that died, it would be 'the end'.

I never considered going the other way around, booting OSX from a PC.

Brilliant!

Cross post from the trading thread if someone is looking for 140mm LED fans.

Corsair quiet series airflow 140mm red LED fans

JC wrote:

Cross post from the trading thread if someone is looking for 140mm LED fans.

Corsair quiet series airflow 140mm red LED fans

You don't want those:

The sleeved bearing system reduces vibration for quiet operation

Sleeve bearings are bad. They don't last long, and they're noisy. I have not been at all impressed with other Corsair fans I've tried, and that continues to confirm my prejudice against. It's the biggest knock I have against the otherwise-excellent Hyper-212 CPU coolers; they come with sleeve bearing fans.

At the very least, you want dual-ball-bearing fans, but you'll probably prefer fluid dynamic bearings. They'll typically last for a decade or more, and they're very quiet. They cost more, but you can usually get them for less than $15, and you'll have them for a long time.

edit: argh, you're actually selling them, which makes me feel kind of bad for crapping on them, but still... sleeve bearings aren't a very good idea.

Malor.... sometimes man... STFU.

That being said. These fans are not loud. Your poop parade makes it seem like these sound like jet engines and will crap out in 3 months. That's not the case. They aren't loud and have a 2 year warranty.

Sorry JC, I was going to buy those but Malor talked me out of it.

Malor: Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!

I'm sorry, JC. You have every right to be mad at me.... but this is supposed to be Tech and Help, and I don't think I'd be doing a very good job of helping if I let sleeve bearings go by without saying something.

Your poop parade makes it seem like these sound like jet engines and will crap out in 3 months.

No, but they frequently fail within about two years; three is about maximum, at least if they're on all the time. FDBs can last a decade or more. At least if they're well-made, they show almost no wear.

no worries man. Just picking on you for fun and amusement.

Folks on Amazon seem happy with them, 4.5 stars out of 5.

yeah Malor hates water cooling, sleeve bearings, kittens, and ice-cream.

And puppies, and children. Get off my lawn!

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8GHz
MOBO: ASUS P5QL/EPU
RAM: 4GB (2 x 2GB) DIMM DDR2 (not sure what brand)
Video card: Radeon HD4650
PSU: Corsair TX 650W
HDD: Western Digital WD Blue 640GB 3.5” 7200RPM WD6400AAKS
Case: Lian Li PC-A05N ATX mini tower

I've had the above computer for over 4 years now. Just recently, I've been getting back into video gaming, and that made me start looking at upgrading the PC. This was built by a friend who had a computer business, and I've never built one or upgraded any parts before. I would like to just build a brand new one eventually, but we need to buy a laptop for my wife first for her work.

So my main question right now is would it be worth just upgrading the video card now and doing everything else in a few months, and would something like that even work with my current setup?

Correct me if any of this is wrong. After some research, I think my MOBO only supports up to Core 2 Duo processors and DDR2 RAM. So I think it's not even possible to upgrade to, say, an Intel i5 and DDR3 RAM until I get a new MOBO. If that's true, then that leaves the video card.

I by no means need the newest or fastest card. I typically will only play games that are a couple years old, usually buying stuff for like $5 on the Steam sale. I think the newest game I have is Batman Arkham City and Diablo 3, which the demo runs fine on my current setup. I don't care so much about running every game at the highest possible settings, just getting something better than what I have now that should last a while.

That being said, it seems like the EVGA GeForce GTX 750ti that came out earlier this year is a mainstream, entry-level card that seems targeted to me. How would something like that compare to what I have now, would it work in my current build, and how is it as a graphics card for someone like me who might play games a few years after they come out? Or are there other options in a similar price range that are better? I would prefer to get an NVIDIA card since I often use Linux, and I think NVIDIA cards in general are supposed to work a little better in Linux than the Radeon ones.

Thanks for any help. I'm sure I'll have another post in the next few months about upgrading everything else.