Bare bones PC build vs pre built

[Aashenfox]

I was just about to put a graphics card on ebay that's a great starting point for you, an MSI Gaming G4 Nvidia 970 GTX in its original box, lightly used (I had it in my machine for about 6 months, I recently upgraded to a 1080GTX (awesome btw), which means vitrtually zero use as I don't have time for games anymore lol, I don't really know why I keep upgrading), it isn't even dusty. Was gonna put it on ebay starting at 200, yours for that for a fellow Zedder It is the recommended spec for current VR and will allow you to take a dip should you fancy it.

 

I also build PCs by the way and dabble in VR.

 

You don't need 32GB of RAM for anything. 16 is fine. Go SSD, naturally, but get two really good identical disks and run them in RAID 10, double speed, double capacity, no redundancy, you won't need the redundancy cos these will only be a primary drive. I'd recommend 2 Samsung Evo 240GB for a total of 480GB primary disk. Nice and fast disks for decent money, 2 of them will be up there with any other HDD setup for speed, my PC boots in 9 seconds. Get yourself a 4TB secondary, any old Sata will do, a WD Green is fine.

 

Motherboard and CPU, first you have to decide Intel vs AMD. I'm a n Intel guy but I don't really have any compelling arguments supporting that. If going Intel, you want a 'K' chip, indicating it's the high strength version, these take a HEFTY overclock and are generally more reliable, I recommend getting the best one your budget will allow. Stick to a simple mid range gaming motherboard, that supports your chosen chip. If you're not going to be CADding or rendering anything seriously, there's no need to go nuts with the CPU.

 

A 750W power supply is all you need unless you are planning crazy multi GPU in the future, modular is preferable, but not necessary, a cheap one will do fine. For a case that looks smart and is cheap, I recommend a Corsair 200R.

 

Hope it helps!

Edited November 29, 2016 by Aashenfox

[Aashenfox]

By the way, if you buy this stuff, you WILL be able to put it together, safely and easily, don't buy a built PC. It;s like paying for oil changes.

 

I will by all means hold your hand if you take it on.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Aashenfox

[Ekona]

What's the budget?

 

 

Personally I'd be getting any i7, as much RAM as you can (16GB should really be fine tbh, but it's cheap enough so 32GB is always a nice to have), and then the fastest Nvidia card you can get your hands on. A 1070 would be my absolute minimum, preferably a 1080 if budget allows as that will be a noticeable step up if you're aiming at VR. My current 980 will do something like Doom at 1080/60 on Ultra with the occasional drop to 50fps, but that's a year old now and you want to be looking forward. Vive uses 2160x1200, so significantly more and you can expect the Vive 2 to be higher than that again (hopefully closer to 1920x1080 in each eye), so you really want the best you can here.

 

I prefer Intel SSDs, and my current setup has one SSD for the OS and generic programs like PS, iTunes etc. Another SSD takes the popular games where loading can be a pain (Skyrim, Fallout 4 etc), then I have two regular SATA drives for everything else.

[Strudul]

Best advice would be to buy used - either individual components or a full system. Unless you need the very latest spec cos you're running 4k or VR, you will save so much and still get excellent performance.

 

I would avoid ebay, but if you try the marketplace section of a dedicated forum, you can find some really good deals.

 

Don't be afraid to build it yourself either, it only takes 5 minutes. You just stick things where they fit - you can't really go wrong. (Though even the best of us forget to plug stuff in and have a mini panic attack when we press the power switch and it doesn't boot.)

Edited November 29, 2016 by Strudul

[Aashenfox]

What's the budget?

 

 

Personally I'd be getting any i7, as much RAM as you can (16GB should really be fine tbh, but it's cheap enough so 32GB is always a nice to have), and then the fastest Nvidia card you can get your hands on. A 1070 would be my absolute minimum, preferably a 1080 if budget allows as that will be a noticeable step up if you're aiming at VR. My current 980 will do something like Doom at 1080/60 on Ultra with the occasional drop to 50fps, but that's a year old now and you want to be looking forward. Vive uses 2160x1200, so significantly more and you can expect the Vive 2 to be higher than that again (hopefully closer to 1920x1080 in each eye), so you really want the best you can here.

 

I prefer Intel SSDs, and my current setup has one SSD for the OS and generic programs like PS, iTunes etc. Another SSD takes the popular games where loading can be a pain (Skyrim, Fallout 4 etc), then I have two regular SATA drives for everything else.

 

The Samsung EVos have proven to be the best non PCIX disks over and over. Now that they are cheap enough, you should be running 2, the speed boost in raid 10 is dramatic, makes a fast PC blistering fast, plus you can still use the extra space!

 

I used to compete in the PCMark charts with a couple of my old rigs, the double-SSD is the single thing that makes a quick machine really quick, try it, and have your mind blown (motherboard must support RAID, naturally).

Edited November 29, 2016 by Aashenfox

[Ekona]

He doesn't need that much speed, and if there's cash to burn then it's better going into the gfx card than storage. I'd rather wait an extra 10 secs on boot (who turns their PC off these days anyway?) and gain 10fps.

[Fluke]

Do yourself a favour and join the Overclockers forums and start a 'Spec me a PC' thread, tell the forum members how much you want to spend and what you are going to use the PC for and they will offer some very good advice on what to get. You can then shop around for the parts, you don't need to go all UV lighting and liquid cooling like mine to build a decent rig. You can always swap and change parts at a later date, if your needs change.

[Strudul]

Would recommend bit-tech over Overclockers, but it's just personal preference.

[Aashenfox]

So here we go, just some choices from my local dealer, if I was building a 'decent' PC to a reasonable budget...

 

CPU: Core i5 6600k (this chip is a beast, really) - about 250 quid?

Motherboard: MSI Z170A Tomahawk - 150 quid?

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (8x2) - 100 quid?

Disks: 2x Samsung 750 EVO 250GB, 1 x 4TB Western Digital Green - 300 quid the lot

PSU: Any cheap 750W - 70 quid

Case Corsair 200R - 55 quid

 

And lastly a graphics card. Won't find better value than mine for 200 quid, but if you want to go top of the line, you can spend as much as you want. so far we're at approximately 925 quid.

[Fluke]

What's the budget?

 

 

Personally I'd be getting any i7, as much RAM as you can (16GB should really be fine tbh, but it's cheap enough so 32GB is always a nice to have), and then the fastest Nvidia card you can get your hands on. A 1070 would be my absolute minimum, preferably a 1080 if budget allows as that will be a noticeable step up if you're aiming at VR. My current 980 will do something like Doom at 1080/60 on Ultra with the occasional drop to 50fps, but that's a year old now and you want to be looking forward. Vive uses 2160x1200, so significantly more and you can expect the Vive 2 to be higher than that again (hopefully closer to 1920x1080 in each eye), so you really want the best you can here.

 

I prefer Intel SSDs, and my current setup has one SSD for the OS and generic programs like PS, iTunes etc. Another SSD takes the popular games where loading can be a pain (Skyrim, Fallout 4 etc), then I have two regular SATA drives for everything else.

 

The Samsung EVos have proven to be the best non PCIX disks over and over. Now that they are cheap enough, you should be running 2, the speed boost in raid 10 is dramatic, makes a fast PC blistering fast, plus you can still use the extra space!

 

I used to compete in the PCMark charts with a couple of my old rigs, the double-SSD is the single thing that makes a quick machine really quick, try it, and have your mind blown (motherboard must support RAID, naturally).

 

As I have a slot on the motherboard, I use a 950 Pro 512GB M.2 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD for my main drive and have 3x 500gb Intel SSD drives as my storage for games etc.. The 2x MSI GTX980t were quite cheap when I bought them and handle everything I throw at them. Everything is liquid cooled including the memory sticks, I even learned to cut glass tubes and braid my own cables during the build.

[Aashenfox]

He doesn't need that much speed, and if there's cash to burn then it's better going into the gfx card than storage. I'd rather wait an extra 10 secs on boot (who turns their PC off these days anyway?) and gain 10fps.

 

Second SSD represents less than 10% of the total value of the above system, and it's a MASSIVE disfference to everything, not just boot up times. you will no longer wait at all, for anything. Noticed how games have little bits of info and tips on loading screens these days? I don't have time to read them, makes a huge difference to quality of life on the PC, the only thing that makes an even bigger difference (for gaming) is a gsync or freesync (if you're ATI) monitor.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Aashenfox

[Flex]

Thanks fellas, ideally about £1k all in.

[Aashenfox]

What's the budget?

 

 

Personally I'd be getting any i7, as much RAM as you can (16GB should really be fine tbh, but it's cheap enough so 32GB is always a nice to have), and then the fastest Nvidia card you can get your hands on. A 1070 would be my absolute minimum, preferably a 1080 if budget allows as that will be a noticeable step up if you're aiming at VR. My current 980 will do something like Doom at 1080/60 on Ultra with the occasional drop to 50fps, but that's a year old now and you want to be looking forward. Vive uses 2160x1200, so significantly more and you can expect the Vive 2 to be higher than that again (hopefully closer to 1920x1080 in each eye), so you really want the best you can here.

 

I prefer Intel SSDs, and my current setup has one SSD for the OS and generic programs like PS, iTunes etc. Another SSD takes the popular games where loading can be a pain (Skyrim, Fallout 4 etc), then I have two regular SATA drives for everything else.

 

The Samsung EVos have proven to be the best non PCIX disks over and over. Now that they are cheap enough, you should be running 2, the speed boost in raid 10 is dramatic, makes a fast PC blistering fast, plus you can still use the extra space!

 

I used to compete in the PCMark charts with a couple of my old rigs, the double-SSD is the single thing that makes a quick machine really quick, try it, and have your mind blown (motherboard must support RAID, naturally).

 

As I have a slot on the motherboard, I use a 950 Pro 512GB M.2 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD for my main drive and have 3x 500gb Intel SSD drives as my storage for games etc.. The 2x MSI GTX980t were quite cheap when I bought them and handle everything I throw at them. Everything is liquid cooled including the memory sticks, I even learned to cut glass tubes and braid my own cables during the build.

I saw above, man, your rig is sweet. Mine's a beast, but nothing to look at...currently rocking...

 

MSI Gaming motherboard, forget which, it's pretty old now.

Intel i7 4790K at 5GHz on cool days with Corsair H80 cooling

16GB Corsair Vengeance

2x OCZ Agility 3 128GB SSDs in RAID 10, reading 1.2GB/s

1x WD Black 4TB storage

Nvidia 1080 GTX Founders Edition (storage heater, but powerful)

Corsair Enthusiast 850W PSU

Corsair Carbide 200R case (temporary but currently suiting my needs really nicely!)

DELL 2716DG Gsync monitor (this thing is the absolute dog's testicles)

 

I'm running about 160fps on Doom (and seeing about 150 of them thanks to the monitor) at ultra @ 1440p, it's pretty epic.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Aashenfox

[Aashenfox]

Thanks fellas, ideally about £1k all in.

 

OK, in that case, let's get rid of the second SSD, 250GB is fine for primary, now you're down to about 830, my gfx card at 200 puts you at 1030, guesstimating.

 

Basically, the spec I described above with one SSD, choose your favorite online retailer and start filling a basket, then let me know how it works out. and we can start adding or removing

 

That spec I wrote out above (not my spec, the one I wrote out further above) is really a 'minimum spec' for a decent system that can do literally anything. If we go lower, you'll start compromising overall performance and in that case you might as well get another laptop.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Aashenfox

[Strudul]

Does that budget need to cover peripherls (monitors, kb, mouse, speakers)

[Richf]

Google PC Specialist problems before you use them , I've only ever heard bad things about them

[Ekona]

And I've only ever had great service from them, even when an internal HDD went pop 11mths in. Changed it out straight away, happy to let me do it without affecting warranty, great company to deal with.

[JetSet]

Why do you want a PC btw over the PS or XB? A decent machine that will play the latest PC games at full res / highest graphics settings will come in at around £1k... and that will be pretty middle of the road components.

 

1k isn't too bad really, I paid 1.2k back in 1993 for a top of the range Escom 486 66mhz with a 256k graphics card, a 100mb hard drive and a massive 1mb of memory . Mind you, it did come in a massive tower and had two floppy drives. I still have the tower it came in . I believe the Tandon 386 16mhz , my first PC bought in 1991, set me back £1250. My next PC was a Viglen in 1995, I think it was a Pentium 120, the 17" monitor that I specified added another £500+ to the price , came out at around 2 grand.

 

Pete

Edited November 29, 2016 by JetSet

[Fluke]

Why do you want a PC btw over the PS or XB? A decent machine that will play the latest PC games at full res / highest graphics settings will come in at around £1k... and that will be pretty middle of the road components.

 

1k isn't too bad really, I paid 1.2k back in 1993 for a top of the range Escom 486 66mhz with a 256k graphics card, a 100mb hard drive and a massive 1mb of memory . Mind you, it did come in a massive tower and had two floppy drives. I still have the tower it came in . I believe the Tandon 386 16mhz , my first PC bought in 1991, set me back £1250. My next PC was a Viglen in 1995, I think it was a Pentium 120, the 17" monitor that I specified added another £500+ to the price , came out at around 2 grand.

 

Pete

 

My first PC was. P120, and I was leagues ahead of my mates that had either a 386 or a 486. I miss the the sound of my modem dialing to connect.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Fluke

[Aashenfox]

I also paid 2 grand (or rather my parents did, I was 13 I think, around 1990) for my first 8086 based chip, a 386SX25 with 4MB RAM and an 80MB hard drive. It had a turbo button that overclocked it to 33mhz, which naturally did make a big difference, especially playing Wolfenstein. Good times. Prior to that I had an Amstrad PC1512 with an 8088 and 512kB RAM! When I first got that at about 9 years old, it had 2 5.25" floppy drives, later I was able to upgrade one of them (and it was a tough decision to lose one floppy drive, but I went for it!) in favor of a 10MB hard drive. It was incredible for its time, a giant thing, took up 2 5.25 slots and weighed about 5 tons.

 

3 years after getting the 386 I was working at IBM repairing Ambra PCs at component level (changing controller chips on the motherboards and other surface mount solder work (BY HAND!), nobody doing that any more). lol. When I got that job I immediately had access to all the toys and started setting parts aside 'for home use'..."oh, yes, this 486 DX2 66 is beyond repair, I'll just throw it in my pocket, oops, no, I meant the bin!". lol, and so started my love affair with always having the top kit and competing on benchmark sites.

 

We also used to do crazy experiments with overclocking using a diagnosis tool that was something like liquid freon (a faulty IC sprayed with cold will often work temporarily, allowing you to identify which chip is broken on a complex motherboard simply by spraying around and seeing what happens), as long as we continuously sprayed the chips with this stuff, we could run them at what were considered to be insane speeds. We once got 150mhz out of a 486 dx50, as soon as my colleague stopped spraying the freon, the chip instantly popped and a piece of ceramic hit the warehouse ceiling. Ah, yes, lots of good times...

Edited November 30, 2016 by Aashenfox

[Flex]

Does that budget need to cover peripherls (monitors, kb, mouse, speakers)

 

No got all those.

[TT350]

@ Aashenfox

 

That's a really cool story!

 

My first PC was a Packard Bell with a Pentium 60 CPU with 8mb RAM in 1995.

 

I remember playing original command and conquer on it. And how if I built too many units it really slowed down.

 

My mate had a P75 and those 15mhz really really made a difference. Like night and day. I'm sure these days CPU's can have that and more as a margin IE two identical processsors could differ by 15mhz or a lot more and still be rated the same.

 

Just 3 years later I had a Pentium 3 @ 350mhz.

 

[Aashenfox]

Yeh 15mhz of 60 is 25%, what we would do these days for 25% more performance! I also remember ordering my first pentium, though I don't remember which exact model it was. I spent an entire month's wages on a motherboard, the chip and a VESA graphics card in order to play Quake 2 at 640x480 and thinking resolutions would never get finer than this! Then the Voodoo revolution started, Matrox and 3DFX started producing cards with never-before-seen power, and it wasn't long before we were playing Q2 at 1024x768 (the limit of home use monitors for many years unless you were into graphics or incredibly wealthy) and thinking that this is the pinnacle of gaming. Nights and nights spent with my mates huddled around my pc playing Pinball Fantasies, taking it in turns. I can almost smell the bong water as I sit here typing this, probably why I don't remember much between then and now loooooool.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Aashenfox

[TT350]

My p350 (may have been 300) had something I've never seen since owning it. 2 seperate 3dfx cards. It had a 16mb and an 8mb card.

 

Odd.

 

I replaced both for a 64mb Voodoo 2 that cost 600 quid!!

 

I can't remember what PC I upgraded to after that. I think it was one I built myself using an AMD mobo and cpu.

 

I upgraded that as I went along. Then I bought a pre built one from Overclockers. That was a great PC. It was premium at the time about 7 years ago now. Core i7 920. 16gb ram. Can't remember the gfx card. But over the years all I ever needed to be able to play new games was replace the gfx card twice.

 

 

[TT350]

I was always in competition with my friend who was very well off. His father was a doctor and my friend was an only child.

 

So it was hard keeping up with how expensive things were back then. My dad had a good job too, contracted to work in power stations all over the middle east and even the Caribbean.

 

My first P60 was 1800 quid! With no printer, no scanner, no modem (had the option to have one though for a few £100.

 

I don't think any game ran very well on it. It came with Fallout 1. That had extreme load times and really slowed down sometimes. I bought Need For Speed 2 for it. And that was extreme. Long load times and juddering graphics.

 

Also it came with Descent. And that was great on it. Terminator Future Shock ran ok on it too and that was an awesome game. First 3D graphics un a shoot em up u think.

 

The computer I had before that was awesome. I had an Amiga A600 with hundreds of copied games. Cannon Fodder., Alien Breed, Chaos Engine.

 

Can't believe I swapped it all for an Atari Jaguar just to play Alien Vs Predator.

 

Before any of those though, I inherited a Sega Megadrive and before that a Commodore 64.

 

I so wanted to make a woman using my C64 like in Weird Science

Edited December 2, 2016 by TT350