First Time Building a Computer

[Mettelor]

I'm trying to build a new desktop. In the past I've bought an Inspiron 1525 or something, an ASUS k52j or something, and now I want a solid desktop to play games on. I can't remember the specific laptops that I've had, but trust me when I say that they weren't great for gaming.

The other day my buddy and I (mostly him, he knows infinitely more than I do about computers) browsed around Newegg and made what we thought was a pretty solid shopping cart of parts for a new computer. So here's what we had, any advice or tips would be awesome.

Newegg.com - Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm Fan, 1x Rear 120mm Fan, option Fans-2x Side 120mm Fan
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Newegg.com - ASUS VS248H-P Black 24" 2ms HDMI LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor 250 cd/m2 ASCR 50,000,000:1
Newegg.com - ASRock 870iCafe R2.0 AM3+ AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
Newegg.com - TP-LINK TL-WN851ND Wireless N Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n 32-bit PCI Up to 300Mbps Wireless Data Rates 64/128 bit WEP, WPA/WPA2, WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK
Newegg.com - ASUS EAH6870 DC/2DI2S/1GD5 Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
Newegg.com - Thermaltake TR2 RX 750W Bronze W0382RU ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-8GAB
Newegg.com - AMD FX-4170 Zambezi 4.2GHz (4.3GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Quad-Core Desktop Processor FD4170FRGUBOX
Newegg.com - ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive Model BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS - Blu-Ray Drives

It comes out to around $950.

My other buddy is mentioning something about how I should get a liquid cooling system instead of a fan, and a solid state HDD and go ahead and get the other RAM. I'll run those things by the first buddy and see what he thinks, but I'd like some input from more people before I make a purchase because $1000 is a pretty decent chunk of money to commit to something.

Thanks.

[jdeb]

Welcome to PCMech

Change the hard drive. Don't trust the reviews, it is a solid fast drive, many people do not know what they are doing during installation.
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Change the motherboard for reliability and stability
Newegg.com - ASUS M5A97 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Change the power supply for reliability and stability
Newegg.com - SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Change ram memory for reliability and stability
Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9B

If you want perform heavy overclocks than a closed loop cooler will work fine.
Newegg.com - Antec KUHLER H2O 920 Liquid Cooling System

If you are not overclocking, the stock cooler is fine. However if you do not want to introduce water into your system, this is the best air cooler in my opinion.
Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/AM3+

If you want an SSD, I would recommend the Intel 520 series. I would not use anything smaller than a 120gb. Install your OS and apps on it, then use the drive I linked above for data.
Newegg.com - Intel 520 Series Cherryville SSDSC2CW120A3K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

[Mettelor]

Thanks for the reply, I don't know all that much about computers, but I'll look into all of those things and see what I can figure out.

[birddog_61]

Originally Posted by jdeb If you are not overclocking, the stock cooler is fine. However if you do not want to introduce water into your system, this is the best air cooler in my opinion. Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/AM3+

Coolermaster Intel Final Heatsink Temperature Comparisons - Hyper 212 Evo FrostyTech Review
I wouldn't call it the best air cooler, but for at its price and size I haven't found anything to beat it.

[Mettelor]

Now that I've looked further into your suggestions, I'm just even more confused. Hopefully you'll see that I've responded or someone else will help me out.

Originally Posted by jdeb Welcome to PCMech Change the hard drive. Don't trust the reviews, it is a solid fast drive, many people do not know what they are doing during installation. Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive Change the motherboard for reliability and stability Newegg.com - ASUS M5A97 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS Change the power supply for reliability and stability Newegg.com - SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply Change ram memory for reliability and stability Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9B If you want perform heavy overclocks than a closed loop cooler will work fine. Newegg.com - Antec KUHLER H2O 920 Liquid Cooling System If you are not overclocking, the stock cooler is fine. However if you do not want to introduce water into your system, this is the best air cooler in my opinion. Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/AM3+ If you want an SSD, I would recommend the Intel 520 series. I would not use anything smaller than a 120gb. Install your OS and apps on it, then use the drive I linked above for data. Newegg.com - Intel 520 Series Cherryville SSDSC2CW120A3K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

I basically understand what you're talking about with the HDD, the Motherboard, the Power Supply and the RAM. Essentially I'm getting what should be a more reliable version of what I had in my cart at the same price or a slightly higher price.

What I don't understand is what you're talking about with the cooling systems and with the SSD. My friend who mentioned the Solid State Harddrive said that I should get it because they should never break and are just... solid. When you talking about getting 2 hard drives I get lost. It seems like you're saying that either SSDs don't come in larger storage sizes (like 1TB) or maybe they aren't efficient in either operation or in price at that size, and that I should put the things I commonly use on the SSD and the things that I rarely use on the larger HDD. But then again, I could be completely wrong.

Originally Posted by birddog_61 Coolermaster Intel Final Heatsink Temperature Comparisons - Hyper 212 Evo FrostyTech Review I wouldn't call it the best air cooler, but for at its price and size I haven't found anything to beat it.

I'm assuming you just disagree with the first poster about what air cooler is best for my needs.

Next, I was wondering how well this computer would run (with or without the recommended changes, I'll probably do the basic reliability changes at least because they make sense to me though) games like WoW, Counterstrike, Battlefield or Starcraft 2. I've played WoW and SC2 on my current laptop and it can scrape by well enough on low settings, but if anything complex happens it gets laggy. I'm assuming that this computer will run on the higher settings more smoothly, and if my games of choice change at some point in the relatively near future I won't have any large issues there either.

Next, what are some upgrades that I might consider before I buy anything to get more bang out of this computer? I'm not loaded by any means, but if this computer could be significantly better by jumping from $950 to some higher price, I would definitely consider it. I just need to know what things to consider. Definitely under $1,500 though.

Lastly, where can I go to learn more basics about computers hardware and stuff? If you can't tell from this thread already, I'm pretty low in the computer-knowledge area.

[Nizmo]

With OP's knowledge level in mind, I do not recommend an AMD system, which really needs to be overclocked to get your money's worth but it requires a lot of tedious tinkering and frankly is not for the novice, you have to also realize that overclocking a component will void the warranty.

You can easily build a comparable Intel CPU-based system without any overclock because Intel CPUs perform excellent as stock. With your budget, you can build a very solid Intel system instead without bothering with overclock.

Disregard anything about water-cooling, you don't need it. Another plus for Intel, you don't need any fancy CPU cooler by not overclocking, just use stock cooler.

SSD is not necessarily more reliable than HDD, they are about the same. But SSD is much faster thus it is great for a boot drive, anything more than 120 GB becomes expensive, and not really necessary by storing your media files and such on a separate, cheaper HDD with much more capacity.

[birddog_61]

Originally Posted by Mettelor I'm assuming you just disagree with the first poster about what air cooler is best for my needs.

It all depends on how serious you get about overclocking, if your goal is just to bump up the clock speed some to improve performance a little then the cooler he recommended is perfect. If you goal is to squeeze every bit of performance out of the system that you can then I would recommend the corsair H100, if you want to stay away from water even though its closed loop then I would recommend either the spire Thermax Eclipse II, or the cooler master TPC-812, or the Noctua NH-C14.

[rwest]

For water cooling, I think it comes down to how comfortable you are with it, eperienced or not. I personally, am becoming more experienced in OCing and really don't want water anywhere near my system-closed loop or not. Of course I dont push my system either. I have done so, to see what I can make it do-but I never leave it there.

ie. I can boot my 3.1gig calisto with four cores and at 3.7gig, I can run at 3.6gig, I keep it at 3.4 with no voltage bumps. (cpuz even calls it a Deneb)

As a dual I ran it stable at 3.6gig. I hit 3.8 with voltages slightly bumped and all this on the stock cooler. I got four cores open with the Hyper 212 and never looked back. I've been tempted to see what she'll do as dual with the hyper 212; but I'm just happy with her.

So from a OCer like me, I can agree that water cooling is not neccesary to get a performance boost. Granted cooler is better and water will keep the system cooler and more stable at the same given voltages; but why take the chance if you dont really need it? Yep its closed loop, but it's still water. Parts fail. You can't get around that. If my fan goes, I may have to replace the cpu. If you spring a leak....

[jdeb]

Originally Posted by Mettelor Now that I've looked further into your suggestions, I'm just even more confused. Hopefully you'll see that I've responded or someone else will help me out. I basically understand what you're talking about with the HDD, the Motherboard, the Power Supply and the RAM. Essentially I'm getting what should be a more reliable version of what I had in my cart at the same price or a slightly higher price. What I don't understand is what you're talking about with the cooling systems and with the SSD. My friend who mentioned the Solid State Harddrive said that I should get it because they should never break and are just... solid. When you talking about getting 2 hard drives I get lost. It seems like you're saying that either SSDs don't come in larger storage sizes (like 1TB) or maybe they aren't efficient in either operation or in price at that size, and that I should put the things I commonly use on the SSD and the things that I rarely use on the larger HDD. But then again, I could be completely wrong. I'm assuming you just disagree with the first poster about what air cooler is best for my needs. Next, I was wondering how well this computer would run (with or without the recommended changes, I'll probably do the basic reliability changes at least because they make sense to me though) games like WoW, Counterstrike, Battlefield or Starcraft 2. I've played WoW and SC2 on my current laptop and it can scrape by well enough on low settings, but if anything complex happens it gets laggy. I'm assuming that this computer will run on the higher settings more smoothly, and if my games of choice change at some point in the relatively near future I won't have any large issues there either. Next, what are some upgrades that I might consider before I buy anything to get more bang out of this computer? I'm not loaded by any means, but if this computer could be significantly better by jumping from $950 to some higher price, I would definitely consider it. I just need to know what things to consider. Definitely under $1,500 though. Lastly, where can I go to learn more basics about computers hardware and stuff? If you can't tell from this thread already, I'm pretty low in the computer-knowledge area.

I was offering a suggestion for an SSD based on your original post. If you decided to go that way, the 120GB Intel 520 SSD would be where you would install the OS and apps. Then the larger spin drive (WD Caviar Blue) would be used for storing data. This will enhance overall system performance but will also cost more.

The water cooling suggestion was in response to your friend's suggestion but if you are not heavy overclocking then omit the closed loop water cooler suggestion. The stock cooler is fine for everyday use and light overclocking.

The 3rd party air cooler (CM Hyper212+) is a recommendation if you plan on doing moderate overclocking and do not want to introduce a liquid cooling system. Birddog was simply pointing out that there may be better air cooling suggestions than what I recommended. I only recommend what I have used and had success with and the cooler I recommended is a solid choice. I have tested a Noctua, Evercool, and a handful of others. The Noctua probably produced the best cooling results under load but it was marginal and did not justify the cost in my opinion. That was a good link supplied by Birddog and only gives you more options.

In terms of the performance with the changes I suggested, you will be very satisfied, if not elated. One poster suggested to stay away from the AMD side and I could argue that but not worth incorporating in this thread. However, I will say that the Intel IVY or Sandybridge CPU's are the best bang for the buck so you may want to look into that. They also offer you the opportunity to incorporate SSD caching or SRT technology which can increase performance while maintaining a lower cost in hardware (60GB SSD vs. 120GB).

My suggestion is this. If you want to stick with the AMD build, look at my suggested changes and your original post. Put together the revamped list and post in this thread in order to get this thread back on track, headed in the right direction. We can continue to dissect the build until you are secure with the choices. We will also give you a link to the "out of the case" build procedure towards the end so you are ready once the parts are in hand.

[Mettelor]

Alright, I'll keep tweaking with things until I think I'm set, then check back here to make sure I'm not doing something stupid and just not realizing it.

[lewiswharf]

Originally Posted by Mettelor Alright, I'll keep tweaking with things until I think I'm set, then check back here to make sure I'm not doing something stupid and just not realizing it.

Take advantage of the suggestions their offering, I wasn't disappointed four years ago and I'm in the process of building my second computer (which feels like the first time) with the help of this community.