Just making an interesting topic I'm hopeful on reading through and responding to. I'm curious how your first experience building a dedicated gaming PC was? What did you mess up? What challenges did you face? Did anything malfunction? How much did you know going into building it? What parts did you use?
Now, I'm technically still very new to PC gaming compared to a lot of people on this site. I've only started about 5 years ago, but I've learned a lot in that time. This should be obvious, because up until about two years ago, I didn't know what the hell a Voodoo card was, and then I found out it was just a graphics card (I honestly though it was something separate ._.)
Anyway, I guess I'll start:
So, if was pretty early 2008, and I always wanted to know what the first Crysis was like. I've seen screenshots of this gorgeous game, seen amazing gameplay, and it was something my 15 year old mind just loved. This fueled my interest in building a gaming PC, but I didn't know anything about what I was doing. I've opened a PC before, and put in a Wireless Network card before, but I didn't know anything about CPUs, GPUs, RAM, etc.
So I go on amazon to find a cheap PC I could start with. It was my birthday and most of my family members were willing to chip in for a basic computer, so I find this Dell computer (I think it was $250-$300?). It was a single core 3.4Ghz processor, with 4GB of RAM and Windows XP. I buy the computer, wait about a week and a half, and it gets here. I'm ecstatic, as I already bought the GPU I wanted to put in it, and rush it up to my room. I boot up the computer, make sure everything is working, download the Crysis demo, and after turning the PC off, I plop in the GPU. Now the screen looked more vibrant, and I installed the drivers from the disc. Now I think I'm ready for some Crysis, right?
Well, it ran...kinda? The GPU was a gift from a girlfriend at the time, a GeForce 9500GT. It was cheap, and not knowing just how different GPU were from each other, thought it would be enough. (Nope, I was too dumb to look at the required specs for the game)
The game was at 1024X768, all settings on medium, and running at about...35FPS I think. It seems forever ago.
To speed this up, after that I decided to upgrade the CPU, not knowing ANYTHING about different socket types, and bought an Intel 3.4Ghz dual core, but the socket was different. I still have that CPU just lying around to this day, completely unused.
My girlfriend bought me a new GPU, a GT 430.
Eventually, through experimenting, and taking an A+ Computer Repair class in high school, I learned quite a bit, ending up where I am today with a GTX 670, an AMD 8350, 8GB of RAM, and Windows 8 64-bit, with a hopeful upgrade in the near future.
EDIT: I know my experience seems very tame. I've known people who literally had parts catch on fire, but I guess I just got really lucky. The worst that happened to me was that my GTX 480 (the most expensive PC part I ever bought at the time) simply crapped out on me, frying my PSU along with it.
Now, I'm technically still very new to PC gaming compared to a lot of people on this site. I've only started about 5 years ago, but I've learned a lot in that time. This should be obvious, because up until about two years ago, I didn't know what the hell a Voodoo card was, and then I found out it was just a graphics card (I honestly though it was something separate ._.)
Anyway, I guess I'll start:
So, if was pretty early 2008, and I always wanted to know what the first Crysis was like. I've seen screenshots of this gorgeous game, seen amazing gameplay, and it was something my 15 year old mind just loved. This fueled my interest in building a gaming PC, but I didn't know anything about what I was doing. I've opened a PC before, and put in a Wireless Network card before, but I didn't know anything about CPUs, GPUs, RAM, etc.
So I go on amazon to find a cheap PC I could start with. It was my birthday and most of my family members were willing to chip in for a basic computer, so I find this Dell computer (I think it was $250-$300?). It was a single core 3.4Ghz processor, with 4GB of RAM and Windows XP. I buy the computer, wait about a week and a half, and it gets here. I'm ecstatic, as I already bought the GPU I wanted to put in it, and rush it up to my room. I boot up the computer, make sure everything is working, download the Crysis demo, and after turning the PC off, I plop in the GPU. Now the screen looked more vibrant, and I installed the drivers from the disc. Now I think I'm ready for some Crysis, right?
Well, it ran...kinda? The GPU was a gift from a girlfriend at the time, a GeForce 9500GT. It was cheap, and not knowing just how different GPU were from each other, thought it would be enough. (Nope, I was too dumb to look at the required specs for the game)
The game was at 1024X768, all settings on medium, and running at about...35FPS I think. It seems forever ago.
To speed this up, after that I decided to upgrade the CPU, not knowing ANYTHING about different socket types, and bought an Intel 3.4Ghz dual core, but the socket was different. I still have that CPU just lying around to this day, completely unused.
My girlfriend bought me a new GPU, a GT 430.
Eventually, through experimenting, and taking an A+ Computer Repair class in high school, I learned quite a bit, ending up where I am today with a GTX 670, an AMD 8350, 8GB of RAM, and Windows 8 64-bit, with a hopeful upgrade in the near future.
EDIT: I know my experience seems very tame. I've known people who literally had parts catch on fire, but I guess I just got really lucky. The worst that happened to me was that my GTX 480 (the most expensive PC part I ever bought at the time) simply crapped out on me, frying my PSU along with it.
