Posted - 2011.08.01 02:17:00 - [3]

 

Edited by: Akita T on 02/08/2011 04:02:35

THIS IS THE TIME TO SERIOUSLY CONSIDER THE BUDGET

As mentioned above, future-proofing is not really efficient from a financial standpoint.
You should consider how long you want to keep the machine, and how much you want to spend on it.


Some people prefer to spend 1200-2000 USD on a machine every 6 years or so, but this means they get a complete monster for the first year, a still decent machine 3 years down the line, and by the time they reach their 5th year, the machine is pretty weak already, while the final year is spent agonizing over having to spend another huge lump of cash because the machine totally sucks (sometimes not even the case/PSU being reusable).
And there's also always the possibility of damage - the longer you have a particular machine, the more likely it will be that SOMETHING in it will fail. Not a certainty, but a distinct possibility.

Other people (you can call me biased but I think this is a much better overall use of money) would spend 400-650 USD every 2 years or so, getting a decent but not spectacular machine, but still having a borderline decent machine by the time they get a new one.

Of course, there is some middle ground too - you could get some "monster" components with upgradeability in mind, while other components get recycled. Still, that means you will have an extremely difficult time selling your old components - at least with a build from scratch you can either sell your old machine or even just gift it away to some acquaintance, if not keep it in the house as backup in case your new machine gets funky.

WHAT COMPONENTS DO I NEED FOR A BUILD FROM SCRATCH ?

(+brief comments)

#0 : Monitor(s), Keyboard, Mouse

I'm not going to insist on those, since they can be exchanged at pretty much any point in time easily, and you probably have them already from your old machine.

1. A computer case
2. A power supply ("PSU")

Those above (but in particular these last two) can usually survive several builds AND are unlikely to get radically cheaper in time (at least from this moment on).
As such, it might be a decent long-term investment to get some decent ones early and reuse for your next machine.
If you plan to sell your old machine, you can always order a dirt-cheap case+psu combo to stick your old machine in before selling it.

3. OPTIONAL : an optical drive (DVD burner usually)

To be fair, these days, you could survive just as well without an optical drive, but it can be a bit inconvenient to live without one, especially for installing the OS for the first time.
They're cheap enough so it's not such a big deal to just have one anyway.

4. A motherboard ("MoBo")
5. Some memory ("RAM")
6. Some permanent storage (HDD and/or SDD)
7. A processor ("CPU")
8. A discrete video card ("GPU")

While a separate video card is not a must for office work and such, you really, REALLY want one for gaming. In fact, for gaming, it's increasingly becoming THE most important thing to have in a PC, with its performance alone determining most of the performance you get in games nowadays.

9. OPTIONAL : "aftermarket" cooling solutions (usually for the CPU)

Unless you plan on overclocking there's not much reason to replace the "stock" cooling that comes with the CPU in the retail box IF you regularly clean the dust off with a bit of compressed air (blowing through a drinking straw is a semi-decent substitute).
However, if you're worried about temperature and either live in a very hot area and you have no AC or you don't like to clean your PC often, getting one could be a good idea.

In MY opinion, overclocking might be pointless in a lot of cases (especially if the component is NOT a bottleneck anyway) and IS ALMOST CERTAIN to reduce the lifespan of your overclocked components (and sometimes even some others around it) to some degree even with proper cooling.

Posted - 2011.08.01 02:18:00 - [5]

 

Edited by: Akita T on 02/08/2011 16:27:01

PSU

This one is a bit more tricky, especially since you might want to reuse it in your next build.
Most common mistake is to horribly oversize the powersource (and sometimes still have rather poor 12V rail amperage, that's a double mistake).
It's also a big mistake to NOT oversize the PSU at all, since you'd probably need to buy a new one when you decide to upgrade some components or try overclocking anything (I personally advise against overclocking anything, unless it's a very small overclock, or it comes slightly overclocked directly from the factory).

A modular power supply lets you plug in only whatever cables you need, so you have far less clutter inside the case. Not absolutely needed, and for some not worth the premium (especially for budget builds), but nice to have in more expensive builds.
You might want to get a PSU that has enough connectors of the types you'll need (PCI-E and SATA are the most needed ones right now) - while you can always use adapters, it's slightly "safer" to go with the heavier cords that come with the PSU without shoving PCI-E adapters on the thinner MOLEX cables.

You really, really do want active power protection (especially if you don't plan to get an UPS, and most people don't) so the rest of your machine is protected in case of power fluctuations. IMHO, that is one premium it's not worth skimping on, especially since you CAN find rather inexpensive PSUs with active power protection.

You also want to have slightly more wattage available than you would actually need in your latest builds, and not just overall, but also on the 12V rails (where the video cards get additional power). You should be able to find out how much Ampere the 12V rail (or rails) have on the PSU, and from there you also get the wattage. For instance, a video card that can draw up to 168 W will need a PSU with at least 168W/12V=14A on at least one 12V rail, but you will want a +20% "fudge factor", so make it at least 17A. If you decide on SLI mode, make sure you either have two rails with enough amperage for each card, or one big rail with sufficient amperage for both.

A relatively safe estimate of how big of a power source you need is to sum up all video cards power usage (you should be able to find that from the manufacturer, or at worst on wikipedia) and make sure you get enough on the 12V rails, then add the CPU power usage (assuming you're NOT overclocking, if you are, you might want to add more power, almost proportional to the overclock ratio, just in case), then add another 100W for the mobo/RAM/HDD/SSD/DVD, then ramp up everything by at least +20% "just in case" (or even +40% if it doesn't translate into a much higher price).

WARNING ! You don't need to oversize it much more though, the prices increase quite steeply, and PSUs are not 100% effective (they range from not even 70% to a bit over 90% effective) with efficiency dropping a bit as power use drops from peak possible, so getting a HUGE PSU for a machine that uses just a bit of power will mean you're wasting a lot of electricity, and THAT also wastes money in the long run (unless you somehow get magic free electricity, you should consider this too).

Lately there's been a push towards power economy, with both CPUs and GPUs generally trying to not increase too much in wattage (or even go down), so the PSU should be relatively "future-proof" even if you don't oversize it much (just consider whether you want to add extra video cards).
HOWEVER, PSU power slightly decays with use, that's the main reason I kept repeating the "20% fudge factor".
Somebody forwarded this site (from a major PSU manufacturing brand) that helps you guesstimate the needed wattage of your power supply:
http://thermaltake.outervision.com/
They do exaggerate the power decay a bit, worst case scenario style.

Posted - 2011.08.01 02:19:00 - [7]

 

Edited by: Akita T on 02/08/2011 03:54:09

HDD and/or SDD

Let me start by saying that early SSDs have had many "teething" problems, but by now the technology is reasonably mature, so that a SSD is borderline affordable even for low high-end builds, and should last for the duration of your long-term machine's life if you don't abuse it too much (by, say, letting the swap file on it, which is still a bit of a no-no, less than it used to be before waer leveling techniques and were perfected and TRIM command support was added to Win7, but it still reduces its lifespan a bit).
If you're getting a small SSD and you don't plan on keeping the machine very long, then you might consider leaving the swap file there for better overall performance.

The main drawback of SSDs is that they still are VERY expensive on a per-GB basis, and you want at least a 60GB one (preferably a 80GB one minimum, or maybe even 120GB for some minimal convenience), and they don't come very cheap.
Still, they do offer some pretty damn impressive perfomance as far as OS boot times and game load times go, so for the enthusiast gamer they're a pretty good deal - but be careful with free space, their performance degrades substatially when nearly full, and you might find yourself forced to keep installing and uninstalling games because you're out of space.
Getting a large SSD can be prohibitively expensive for anything but a very high-end build.

A somewhat decent middle-of-the-way alternative for now are high-speed (and moderate size) HDDs : a VelociRaptor (10000 RPM) can almost match the performance of some earlier generation SSDs.
Compared to a current-gen SSD though, the price per GB and longer average lifetime are the only minor advantages, with noticeably less performance offered (still better than any other HDD though).


Of course, getting additional slower (but much larger) HDDs for storage purposes is always a good idea.
Just like RAM, they're kind of dirt cheap these days.

And in a couple of years, SSDs might be standard AND cheap.

MOST IMPORTANT THING LAST : THE VIDEO CARD(S)

This is probably going to get long, and with mixed personal bias


The first big question everybody asks is "AMD//ATI or NVIDIA ?"


The price wars between the video card giants and various game titles ending up optimized for either one or the other GPU type make it so that overall, it's extremely difficult to say either one of them has the clear upper hand as far as price/performance levels go, even if a lot of people insist that AMD has the slight upper hand right now (they might be right).
Still, there are some other things to consider too (not necessarily gaming-related) - while there are used to be very few complaints with NVIDIA drivers in the past, lately they're getting more frequent, even if overall I heard far more AMD//ATI driver complaints (predominantly in the past and far less frequently lately) ; also, NVIDIA does have the temporary advantage of PhysX, which is not all that important, but for EVE right now, NVIDIA is slightly more advantageous ; and last but not least, while the multimonitor support is usually nicer for AMD//ATI's "Eyefinity", there are some gaming performance issues that are slightly worse than those you get with NVIDIA (not much, but still) ; and finally, AMD//ATI cards have a very, very strong edge in raw//simple mathematical processing (not to be confused with actual gaming performance), so things like say Bitcoin mining runs much better on them.

Personally, overall, yet again, I think it's mostly a matter of taste.
You probably want to find out what your favourite games work best on, and get that.
For a budget PC, I'd be leaning more towards ATI//AMD, even for EVE.
For a more powerful PC, with EVE primarily in mind, I'd favour NVIDIA.

Posted - 2011.08.01 02:20:00 - [9]

 

Edited by: Akita T on 02/08/2011 04:05:50

If you use SLI mode, you need two identical chipset NVIDIA cards, preferably same model too (manufacturer and everything), or else you risk SLI mode not working at all (or, at best, working weirdly).

CrossfireX mode however does not suffer from the same limitations - you can use different AMD//ATI cards as long as they're from the same generation (so, for instance, you can use a Radeon HD 5830 and a Radeon HD 5670 together in CrossfireX mode).
It's still customary (out of habit most likely) to use similar cards though.



There are also several other problems with SLI//Crossfire mode too.

While most newer games can handle multiple video cards with decent scaling, older games can be tricky. Even if both NVIDIA and AMD//ATI keep updating drivers and profiles and whatnot to compensate, older games experience bad (or in extreme cases, even "negative") scaling.
Then again, most older games can easily be handled by a single newer video card, so you can always disable SLI//Crossfire when playing those to escape the bad side-effects.

Also, some AMD//ATI cards suffer from "microstutters" in Crossfire mode on multiple monitors, in some games (even relatively new ones) so bad that you'd think you'd be better off also disabling it for them too, but it doesn't always help, something to do again with internal structure (in particular, how AMD//ATI partitions the video RAM for frame buffering). There are workarounds, but not always. NVIDIA cards have slightly better controls over those kinds of things in the drivers, but they're not perfect either.

All in all, if possible, for most builds, I'd recommend staying away from SLI//Crossfire configurations, and just getting a cheaper motherboard with a slightly better video card.
However, for higher-end or monster builds, you're kind of going to have to go with multiple video cards, because the alternatives are either way too expensive or don't exist yet... so, you know, "meh".


NOTE : Early on in a video card's life, you will predominantly find what is called "reference" cards, which are for most intents and purposes nearly identical.
A bit later on (getting earlier and earlier nowadays), the "big boys" like Asus or Gigabyte and others start coming up with modified designs - better cooling, slight factory-overclocking on top of that, and so on and so forth.
Remember to take that into account when looking at prices.

OH MY GOD DOESN'T THIS "OP PART" OF THE THREAD EVER END ?
AND WHERE ARE THE SAMPLE BUILDS, DAMMIT ?

You'll be happy to know, that part of the thread is almost over now
And yes, the sample builds will be coming right in the next post.

The reason why I felt I had to babble on so much is that this is supposed to teach YOU how to "build your own PC", and since technology marches on so fast (and prices don't stay still either), this thread would have been nearly useless in a year or so without it. Sample builds can always be added later on.

A general rule of thumb VALID FOR NOW (might change in the future) for a gaming PC ?
Your video card(s) should be the most expensive component overall, and represent very roughly between 25% and 35% of your total budget (don't be too afraid if you go a bit over or under).
The CPU should be the second most expensive component, but try to not get too close to the price of the GPU. It's not tragic if you do get close, but at least don't go over.

Posted - 2011.08.01 02:23:00 - [11]

 

Edited by: Akita T on 02/08/2011 04:13:45

SAMPLE BUILD - USA HIGH-END(-ISH) MACHINE (UPGRADEABLE***)
(not really the greatest build, but, meh, I don't like building expensive machines anyway)


320$(280$ with mail-in temp rebate) MSI GeForce GTX 570 1280MB ***
220$ Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
130$ GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 Z68 (PCI-E x16,x8,x4)
125$ G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600, 7-8-7-24 timings, 1.6V ***
140$ 300GB WD VelociRaptor 10000RPM, 16MB Cache
75$ 2TB WD Caviar Green, 64MB Cache
120$RAIDMAX 850W SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC PSU, 2x34A (dual 12V rails)
75$ XCLIO ATX Full Tower (250mm + 360mm + several smaller fans)
20$ DVD writer
= 1225 USD (or 1185 USD after rebate)

***-marked components can be doubled -> 1630 USD (1590 USD after rebates) total price with 2x GTX 570 in SLI and 4x4=16 GB RAM.

Add whatever OS you like, add corresponding price.

The price difference between the K and non-K CPU doesn't really register in the total build cost anyway, so I picked the more overclockable CPU (besides, that's why I also picked a Z68 MoBo). You can upgrade to a 2600K if you like, but the price hike WOULD be noticeable, and the performance wouldn't be radically better (the CPU should not become a bottleneck even after adding the second video card).
With the monster ventilation of that case, you really shouldn't need an aftermarket CPU cooler even if you do decide to ramp up the overclocking a bit, but if you insist on more extreme overclocking, you can get one anyway.
You can also replace the VelociRaptor with a smaller similar-priced SSD if you're so inclined.

This machine (even before the GPU/RAM "doubling") should easily be able to run even CQ at maxed out graphic detail in fullHD at over 60 FPS, and should not experience any noticeable "hiccups" of any kind even without the switch to a SSD.


EDIT : It's been brought to my attention that this machine has a "hidden bonus" if you do decide to get even a small SSD - the Z68/Sandybridge combo supports "SSD caching" of regular drives.
What this means is exactly what it says on the tin - the SSD will get used like a giant cache for the HDD, and while you may get poor performance on the first load, subsequent loads will be at SSD speeds.
Obviously, it's not quite perfect and doesn't always cache what you'd like to cache for long enough, but it's still better than just a HDD. But from what I hear, it gets better with repeated use - the more you load something, the more likely it is to stick in the cache, and since most people do use up the same things a lot, you should notice a vast improvement in regular usage scenarios as far as loading times go.
It's not quite so rosy for write scenarios, but hey, you can't eat your cheap cookie and expect to still have an expensive one afterwards.

Posted - 2011.08.01 03:21:00 - [13]

 

Just to help some for the OP, I also use this site as a reference to start off building new PCs. then I change which parts to remove or to change (like soundcards) to play with the price range. It covers Budget, Low, Mid, High, and "dream" range systems.

Posted - 2011.08.01 03:57:00 - [15]

 

Great post, it should help people that are thinking of building a new machine. In the list of parts suppliers you might want to add http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/ they are one of the best companies to buy PC parts from.

Posted - 2011.08.01 04:32:00 - [17]

 

I love building my own PCs!

But do remember, that with a store purchased PC (like from Dell or whatever), it does come with a warranty and someone will fix it for you if it does break.

More money, more peace of mind.

Also, things like video cards and CPUs are now very much $ per performance. Even a low grade/cheap CPU will play eve fine and run most of ur games without drama.

More ram > faster ram.

Just be careful, look closely at things, and minimise touching any metal bits :)

Posted - 2011.08.01 11:11:00 - [19]

 

It's nice to know that my psychic abilities are still working as intended.

Thanks Akita, you saved me the effort in writing you an evemail to suggest you put together a thread like this to get a sticky.

It does appear of late that threads surrounding PC upgrades are popping into focus - something to do with what you've written I think; that high performance PC's do not cost the earth right now.

AK

Posted - 2011.08.01 13:07:00 - [21]

 

Truth be told; if you need a guide on how to build your own PC, you probably shouldn't do it in the first place. Too many pitfalls, possible warranty issues and whatnot.

Posted - 2011.08.01 14:09:00 - [23]

 

Edited by: Akita T on 01/08/2011 14:19:16

Originally by: Nite Piper

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The only and single thing I reacted on was your comparison SSD - velicoraptor.

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Clarified position better

Originally by: Magnus Veyr

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Truth be told; if you need a guide on how to build your own PC, you probably shouldn't do it in the first place. Too many pitfalls, possible warranty issues and whatnot.

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If you don't know how to swim, you should never try to ? There's a first time for everything, and I opened up with quite the reason for actually wanting to learn how to do it.

Of course, some people will still not build their own, but at least they could get a decent idea of how much their already-assembled should have costed as parts alone (and on whether the parts in it are any good, or if the sellers are tying to push some junk bits on him), so at least it's an improvement.

Posted - 2011.08.01 15:27:00 - [25]

 

Originally by: Akita T

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Originally by: Magnus Veyr

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Truth be told; if you need a guide on how to build your own PC, you probably shouldn't do it in the first place. Too many pitfalls, possible warranty issues and whatnot.

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If you don't know how to swim, you should never try to ? There's a first time for everything, and I opened up with quite the reason for actually wanting to learn how to do it.

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As soon as I had funds available I put my own computer together, anything I make is far from perfect but at least it's cheaper than anything from PC world (more like extortion world..). I even bought a Haynes manual when I built the first.

Posted - 2011.08.01 17:00:00 - [27]

 

Bravo Akita! I always look out for the "how to upgrade my PC" threads because I know you'll have at least a few things to say that I can learn from. This thread deserves a sticky CCP!

Posted - 2011.08.01 17:30:00 - [29]

 

Originally by: Pr1ncess Alia

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just buy this one and save your time reading stuff.

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230$, motherofgod.jpg - good luck sticking THAT one in a budget build... or even a mid-range build.
Also, unless it comes with a lifetime warranty (and I'm pretty sure it doesn't) there's nothing to stop it from croaking 3, 5 or 7 years down the road. Plus, who's to say you won't need more than 1kW for your machine eventually ? Heck, right now, getting dual xeons and triple GTX 580 then overclocking everything could easily push you well above that power need.