Building my 1st PC, my story step-by-step.

xxcloud417xx

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Oct 22, 2008
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Hey guys,

I just took the first step today at building my first ever Gaming Rig from scratch, it's the first time I do this and I am ecstatic. I've been wanting to do this very badly since I was in high school, watching other guys bring in their gaming rigs during LAN parties.

Anyway, this thread is dedicated to my step-by-step purchasing and building of this beast, I'm on a tight budget so I'll be buying parts as I go along and this should take anywhere between 1 - 2 years.

So the plan is to start with the new case I purchased today and move my crappy old $650 stock ACER parts into it, and watch as those parts get interchanged and transformed into a beastly machine.

Now you're probably itching to get the specs from that wonderful ACER so here's what I've got to start with as a baseline. (I may need to update since I'm not 100% sure on all the parts I currently have in this)

ACER stock Destop:

Case : Stock cheap ACER crap
Processor : AMD Phenom X1 Quad Core 2.2GHz
RAM : 4GB not sure what brand
Motherboard : not sure what brand/specs
Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 3650
Power Supply : 350W not sure what brand
Hard Drive : 750GB 5400RPM not sure what brand
Sound Card : none
Fans/Cooling : not sure what brand
Mouse : Logitech G700
Keyboard : stock cheap-o
Headset/Sound " SteelSeries Siberia V2 (virtual 71. surround sound)
Monitor : 19" LG

Outstanding specs aren't they? lol. I bet you now know why the upgrade is very welcome.

So this is the new PC build as it stands every time I get a new part and upgrade it.

New PC Build (As it currently stands, will be also putting in the date part was added)

Case : Corsair Obsidian 900D Full ATX Case (ordered)( http://www.corsair.com/900d )
Processor : AMD Phenom X1 Quad Core 2.2GHz
RAM : 4GB not sure what brand
Motherboard : not sure what brand/specs
Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 3650
Power Supply : 350W not sure what brand
Hard Drive : 750GB 5400RPM not sure what brand
Sound Card : none
Fans/Cooling : not sure what brand
Mouse : Logitech G700
Keyboard : stock cheap-o
Headset/Sound " SteelSeries Siberia V2 (virtual 71. surround sound)
Monitor : 19" LG

Finally, the reason I'm making this thread. I want to turn to the veteran PC builders in these forums if you have tips, found a sweet sale price (I'm in Canada so it will have to be based of CAD/USD), know of stuff I should know before building, warnings, etc. Let me know, please. I also welcome discussion on individual parts and games/benchmarks. I have a passion for this that I finally now get to fuel and I'm very, very happy to be doing this finally.

I'll be sending pictures if you guys want as the build gets nearer to completion, and I can snap a shot of my current ACER parts inside this massive case since I'm sure it'll be funny to see them look so tiny.

Now my build/buy order will probably look something like this :

1st : Case
2nd : PSU
3rd : Fans/cooling
4th : Motherboard + CPU + RAM
5th : Hard drives
6th : Video Card
7th : Peripherals (Monitor then Keyboard

(may have missed something, let me know)
 

xxcloud417xx

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Oct 22, 2008
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1st post on the thread, since I didn't necessarily want this in the intro. The Case isn't in yet, it was ordered today and will be here in 2-6 business days, I've also taken into account getting an electrostatic wristband for when I get in deep into putting this together.

I also need to actually get up and confirm I got the ACER parts right, I may have been mistaken on a couple parts' specs. (I unfortunately have to Raid right now and I'm on my laptop).

My next part purchase is going to be my PSU and maybe some fans, was looking into the Corsair AX860 (link below) since I am hoping to get dual GTX780s eventually (or GTX880s if I end up buying the cards next year)

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=77641&vpn=CP-9020044-NA&manufacture=Corsair
 

FireAza

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Aug 16, 2011
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Now is a pretty good time to be building a PC. Years ago, building a PC was kinda challenging, since there were various things to remember when assembling it (i.e setting master and slave jumpers on HDDs) now days it's quite simplified. Good luck!
 

mrhateful

True Gamer
Apr 8, 2010
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FireAza said:
Now is a pretty good time to be building a PC. Years ago, building a PC was kinda challenging, since there were various things to remember when assembling it (i.e setting master and slave jumpers on HDDs) now days it's quite simplified. Good luck!
Indeed I also remember that the order in which HDD were linked with a parallel cable mattered :S
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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i wish i had your "old" PC.
I can definatelly share your passion and i wish to buy/build my own PC next year (monetary restraints). will bel ooking back at this topic to learn from your mistakes rather than mine if i wont forget (i probably will).
 

Kinitawowi

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Nov 21, 2012
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FireAza said:
Now is a pretty good time to be building a PC. Years ago, building a PC was kinda challenging, since there were various things to remember when assembling it (i.e setting master and slave jumpers on HDDs) now days it's quite simplified. Good luck!
My dad, his mate and I once spent fourteen hours trying to get a 2-speed CD-ROM drive working so we could play the original C&C - this was back when you had to loop the CD drive through the sound card. And configure MSCDEX in the CONFIG.SYS. And configure the SoundBlaster through the AUTOEXEC.BAT properly.

Thems were the days.

[/lawn]
 

Signa

Noisy Lurker
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Jul 16, 2008
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I just hope you're going for the absolute best deals you can. I've been told that upgrading incrementally as you are costs more in the long run, and leaves you with some outdated parts once you're finished.
 

AdrianCeltigar

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Jan 8, 2011
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Seems you already know that you'll need to replace that 350W power supply: I use an 800W power supply and it's been able to power everything I've thrown at it.

As for your hard drives, I suggest that you get an SSD drive and install the OS and your core programs and games on it, and use a second, regular drive for everything else. SSD drives aren't very big in terms of storage yet, hence the need for a second drive for media and such.

I'm also in Canada and I've gotten great deals through TigerDirect on various bits. They rarely have the best day-to-day prices but their sales can be phenomenal: I'd sign up for their news on deals via email. (I saved almost $600 on my GPU through them during a Canada Day Sale) They also offer rebates on a lot of their stuff.
 

Trent Kama

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Apr 4, 2010
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So you bought a massive, $350 extreme water cooling optimized case and you're putting your old parts in it right now. Right. That's going to look hilarious. Don't bother. You should be saving up money for your budget and purchasing your parts at the same time so you can just build it without parts becoming outdated or your older parts being incompatible.

Also if you start piecing this together without upgrading the power supply, you'll probably fry the whole setup. Figure out your budget, find compatible parts(http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/), and order when you can afford them all. Hop on Youtube and building forums do some research.
 

kaioshade

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Apr 10, 2011
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Congratulations on taking the first steps to building your own machine.

Budget is a huge factor in what you are going to build. Personally i do not think building all at once is necessarily better than buying separate. I did my CPU (i5 3770k) Memory (16GB DDR3), board (Asus Maximux Gene V), and Power supply (Corsair AX 850) i then did the graphics cards (2X GTX 670) Hard Drive (3X Samsung SSD 840 Pro Raid 0). It is still a great system and runs everything i throw at it, and is insanely fast.

But budget is first.
 

xxcloud417xx

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Oct 22, 2008
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I'm buying the Corsair AX860 next Friday. It's 80 plus Platinum, modular, very nice. I'm planning on throwing in 2 GTX780s eventually (or by the time I get to the GPU 880s or 980s. Which is why I want the 860W for future-proofing.

I've planned the build so that right now I'm buying the basic stuff that won't go obsolete (starting with case > PSU > Cooling system > Maybe Hard Drives) then after about 4-5 months of saving money I'll then start moving on to the bigger stuff (Motherboard + RAM + CPU I'll buy together) then after a few more weeks I'll grab the video card. My goal is to be finished by Q4 2014.