Right. Building a PC thread.

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

there have been alot of good suggestions in here, that build will fucking blow everything away for probably the next two years, and that monitor will last you until it dies for being so fucking nice compared to the average now a days, so expect a damn good setup OP

 

[Wolfram23]

snip
Well I live in the same city as him and have built several PCs for people (from my Kijiji ads). However, Memory Express, where I suggested he buy the parts, attache the CPU to the mobo and mount the cooler for free. snip

That is an awesome service. Is that just the CPU cooler or aftermarket as well? Well worth it if you can avoid messing with paste. Have I mentioned how much I hate thermal paste?

You have to get your hands dirty sooner or later. I say jump in with both feet.

Aftermarket as well. This is a pic of how I received my mobo/CPU/cooler on my very first build ever a couple years ago:

Although now they'll even stick the RAM in for you. So basically all you gotta do is put the mobo in the case, put in the PSU, GPU, and HDD, then connect the wires.

 

[Signa]

Hey guys. I doubt I need to explain my situation to you, you poor bastards get this kind of thread once a week. I'm 16, and I know fuck all about computers. I decided I should stop being such a computer dumb ass, so this summer I want to build my own PC from scratch.

What purpose would it serve? Well, I have my Xbox 360 for pretty much all of my AAA games. I will, how ever, use this PC to play some games. Games like TF2, Minecraft, and such on full capacity. If I would play any AAA games, it would only be on minimal settings. Besides that, I'd also use it for browsing the internet and such. I'll probably use Windows 7 or 8 depending on how long it takes me to make the damn thing.

I have done a bit of research before making this thread, but I'll admit I'm a bit over whelmed. Making the PC itself looks pretty simple, but I'v had pretty much no luck choosing my internals. So I have a couple questions.

1) How much money am I looking at here? I'm hoping to keep this under $1500. Is that naive? Am I asking it to do too much for that low a price?

2) How powerful a CPU and how much RAM will I need?

Any advice about anything would be awesome. PLEASE reccomend me different internals, PLEASE give me tips on how to build the thing once I've chosen.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Any help is appreciated.

TLR- Making PC that can run semi power hungry games (TF2 on highest quality, some AAA games on lowest) Give me any tips on any aspects o building a PC

Just so you know, you probably could get a PC that does all that for about $500-$800. The build that Mathew suggested is great, but it sounds like you are wanting to keep using your consoles. Even at the rate I suggesting, you probably will find yourself ignoring new releases on the consoles and waiting for the PC ports.

Lastly, watch this video. I'm not a fan of AMD cards, and this is why:
They don't support the rendering of those Physx particles and objects. The game won't be broken with out it, but it does make it look SOO much better.

EDIT: Whatever you do, DO NOT buy a pre-built, unless you don't have anyone to help you, and you're too scared to try it yourself. There's so many issues with over heating and sub-standard hardware in pre-builts that it's just throwing money down a drain just to alleviate some of the hassle (or the best part IMO. building is fun).

 

[Waaghpowa]

Holy fucking shitballs OP is in Edmonton.

Mind = blown.

A couple of the regular forum using PC gamers are in Canada actually. I think I'm alone though all the way over here in Toronto

Also Holy balls that aftermarket cooler is massive.

 

[Wolfram23]

Holy fucking shitballs OP is in Edmonton.

Mind = blown.

A couple of the regular forum using PC gamers are in Canada actually. I think I'm alone though all the way over here in Toronto

Also Holy balls that aftermarket cooler is massive.

Haha yeah that's a Zalman CNPS10X Extreme. It was on sale, so I had to get it! It actually was really good, just a single fan and pretty quiet. I still have it sitting in storage "just in case", now that I'm on water.

 

[lacktheknack]

Holy fucking shitballs OP is in Edmonton.

Mind = blown.

What part of town are you in?

Whoa whoa WHOA. Three Edmontonians in one thread?



OT: Matthew94 nailed it. Me and Wolfram are local and are willing to help the actual building part of it.

 

[Wolfram23]

Holy fucking shitballs OP is in Edmonton.

Mind = blown.

What part of town are you in?

Whoa whoa WHOA. Three Edmontonians in one thread?



OT: Matthew94 nailed it. Me and Wolfram are local and are willing to help the actual building part of it.

The internet just got a lot smaller... It's a small internet after all?

 

[Supernova1138]

Lastly, watch this video. I'm not a fan of AMD cards, and this is why:
They don't support the rendering of those Physx particles and objects. The game won't be broken with out it, but it does make it look SOO much better.

GPU accelerated PhysX really isn't much of a selling point for Nvidia because so few games actually support it. There are only about 23 games that even use that feature, and only two of those have come out in the past year. PhysX might be important if The Batman Arkham games, Metro 2033, Mafia II, Alice Madness: Returns, or one of the other few PhysX enabled games are your favourite games.

PhysX really hasn't taken off because it is Nvidia proprietary, game developers aren't interested in putting extra effort into a feature that the consoles can't use, and only a portion of the PC audience can use. As such I really wouldn't get an Nvidia card solely on the basis of PhysX unless some of the few PhysX enabled games are among your favourite titles.

 

[lacktheknack]

Holy fucking shitballs OP is in Edmonton.

Mind = blown.

What part of town are you in?

Whoa whoa WHOA. Three Edmontonians in one thread?

The internet just got a lot smaller... It's a small internet after all?

This reminds me of a friend who met a lovely tourist while on vacation in Europe, and after talking for a half hour, realized that they both lived on the same street.

I'm on the south side... the REALLY south side. South of Anthony Henday south side.

 

[Wolfram23]

Holy fucking shitballs OP is in Edmonton.

Mind = blown.

What part of town are you in?

Whoa whoa WHOA. Three Edmontonians in one thread?

The internet just got a lot smaller... It's a small internet after all?

This reminds me of a friend who met a lovely tourist while on vacation in Europe, and after talking for a half hour, realized that they both lived on the same street.

I'm on the south side... the REALLY south side. South of Anthony Henday south side.

Lol that's hilarious. I grew up in Millwoods, right by the golf course. I'm downtown now, but I work just off 17th street.

 

[lacktheknack]

Holy fucking shitballs OP is in Edmonton.

Mind = blown.

What part of town are you in?

Whoa whoa WHOA. Three Edmontonians in one thread?

The internet just got a lot smaller... It's a small internet after all?

This reminds me of a friend who met a lovely tourist while on vacation in Europe, and after talking for a half hour, realized that they both lived on the same street.

I'm on the south side... the REALLY south side. South of Anthony Henday south side.

Lol that's hilarious. I grew up in Millwoods, right by the golf course. I'm downtown now, but I work just off 17th street.

I don't meet many Albertans on this site, but when I do, they tend to be Edmontonian.



Anyways, /derail. The OP actually has locals to help him actually build the thing if he wants.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

You don't need 1500

I just bought this a few days ago, it's getting shipped
http://www.excelcomputers.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=52594
It's more then powerful enough to run tf2 on high, and AAA games on low, considering that's what my computer does now and it's awful . 5 year old laptop that was shitty then

This thing is 1300, and far better than my old computer, and I can easily upgrade the ram which is the only dodgy part. If made the computer myself, I could have gotten it far cheaper. You could probably get one to do what you want for less then a thousand.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Damn you Edmontoners! Everyone in Toronto is so dumb and uninteresting.

 

[Solo-Wing]

Dude. Go to Future shop or best buy or what ever... Buy a $700 computer (Not counting monitor, Keyboard, speakers and all that stuff) with at least a i5 processor and hopefully a 500-600W powersource, and 4GB ram. And then buy a $100-150 videocard (Make sure it is a Geforce or something else from NVIDIA) and replace the shitty one that came with it if it had one (Esspesually if it was AMD, they are not meant for games). That should let you play Nearly any game near full settings (AAA or not) and you will for sure spend less then $1500.

Hell my current computer was a peice of crap. About 6 years old, Pentium D 2.8 GHz with integrated graphics and 1GB ram. Could barely run AAAA reckless disregard for gravity.

Bought a $50 GT 520 Silent 1GB DDR3 graphics card, and 2 1GB ram sticks, slapped them in and got the best Driver firmware for the card from NVIDIA. I can now run Portal 2 near max stats at about 40 FPS.

You will NOT have a problem with my suggestion and save yourself a fuck ton of time and pain and possibly money.

 

[Signa]

Lastly, watch this video. I'm not a fan of AMD cards, and this is why:
They don't support the rendering of those Physx particles and objects. The game won't be broken with out it, but it does make it look SOO much better.

GPU accelerated PhysX really isn't much of a selling point for Nvidia because so few games actually support it. There are only about 23 games that even use that feature, and only two of those have come out in the past year. PhysX might be important if The Batman Arkham games, Metro 2033, Mafia II, Alice Madness: Returns, or one of the other few PhysX enabled games are your favourite games.

PhysX really hasn't taken off because it is Nvidia proprietary, game developers aren't interested in putting extra effort into a feature that the consoles can't use, and only a portion of the PC audience can use. As such I really wouldn't get an Nvidia card solely on the basis of PhysX unless some of the few PhysX enabled games are among your favourite titles.

Fair point, but for me it was a happy coincidence that I ended up with a Nvidia card and found that it did more. It's still something I would take into consideration next time I need a card. I played through Batman without the Phsyx enabled because I thought my PC couldn't handle it. It turns out I goofed one setting on the Nvidia control panel, and now I'm replaying the game with it on and it does improve the experience. And that's why I'm recommending it, because it's all about the experience.

 

[Wolfram23]

Dude. Go to Future shop or best buy or what ever... Buy a $700 computer (Not counting monitor, Keyboard, speakers and all that stuff) with at least a i5 processor and hopefully a 500-600W powersource, and 4GB ram. And then buy a $100-150 videocard (Make sure it is a Geforce or something else from NVIDIA) and replace the shitty one that came with it if it had one (Esspesually if it was AMD, they are not meant for games). That should let you play Nearly any game near full settings (AAA or not) and you will for sure spend less then $1500.

Hell my current computer was a peice of crap. About 6 years old, Pentium D 2.8 GHz with integrated graphics and 1GB ram. Could barely run AAAA reckless disregard for gravity.

Bought a $50 GT 520 Silent 1GB DDR3 graphics card, and 2 1GB ram sticks, slapped them in and got the best Driver firmware for the card from NVIDIA. I can now run Portal 2 near max stats at about 40 FPS.

You will NOT have a problem with my suggestion and save yourself a fuck ton of time and pain and possibly money.

Sorry man, but that is an absolutely terrible idea. He said $1500 is his budget, maybe he's well off and that's not a big deal for him. If he could only afford $800 or something then it would be pretty easy to build one like that instead.

 

[FloodOne]

I built a mid level rig for $500.

ATI 6770, 8gb RAM, 1tb HDD, 600w Power Supply Unit, and a smallish motherboard (can't remember offhand what exactly it was).

It's not blowing the screen off my monitor, but I can play most games at high settings, and it games almost never chug.

 

[lunavixen]

i built a mid range PC for about $550AU, 8GB RAM, decent processor and motherboard, dunno which parts exactly, my brother is the one who found them and who waled me through the assembly of the system

 

[Solo-Wing]

Dude. Go to Future shop or best buy or what ever... Buy a $700 computer (Not counting monitor, Keyboard, speakers and all that stuff) with at least a i5 processor and hopefully a 500-600W powersource, and 4GB ram. And then buy a $100-150 videocard (Make sure it is a Geforce or something else from NVIDIA) and replace the shitty one that came with it if it had one (Esspesually if it was AMD, they are not meant for games). That should let you play Nearly any game near full settings (AAA or not) and you will for sure spend less then $1500.

Hell my current computer was a peice of crap. About 6 years old, Pentium D 2.8 GHz with integrated graphics and 1GB ram. Could barely run AAAA reckless disregard for gravity.

Bought a $50 GT 520 Silent 1GB DDR3 graphics card, and 2 1GB ram sticks, slapped them in and got the best Driver firmware for the card from NVIDIA. I can now run Portal 2 near max stats at about 40 FPS.

You will NOT have a problem with my suggestion and save yourself a fuck ton of time and pain and possibly money.

Sorry man, but that is an absolutely terrible idea. He said $1500 is his budget, maybe he's well off and that's not a big deal for him. If he could only afford $800 or something then it would be pretty easy to build one like that instead.

Yeah but with this set up he could play anything Meduim-High with full Resoltion with no problem and save him self about $500. What will that extra 500 get him? like 10 more FPS on a slightly higher quality then this plan?

 

[Waaghpowa]

I think it's worth mentioning that if you do go ahead and build that PC, you could go ahead and throw your Xbox out and not notice the difference. It could handle just about everything on high or more, which is already far better than anything the Xbox is capable of handling.