Building a gaming 'rig'

[Shaggy Jenkins]

10 hours ago, Tri-TON said:

 

 

Thanks very much. Anything I should avoid when picking these components up?

Also, in regards to build, how easy would it be to put together?

 

As far as picking parts PC part picker is good to play about with, it will highlight any compatibility issues as well as giving you best prices (I just went with Amazon for them, as I couldn't be bothered opening other accounts with other companies, but paid only slightly more) 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/MtKHHN

As far as putting it together its not too bad, most things are marked on the connections and on the motherboard, and in most cases each connection has a unique fitting.  The only fiddly bit is the front case connections, power lights etc as they are usually one or two pin connections.  Like Mr X says loads of YouTube videos to watch to get familiar with it

For picking parts, would say start with:

• processor - get the best you can afford
• graphics card - as good as you can afford next to the processor, you don't want to go too big if you have scrimped on the CPU as there really is not point due to bottlenecks in performance.
• motherboard - keeping price down, just get something that will support CPU and GPU and RAM with a few USBs on it
• ram
• storage
• case

as you go down the list, compromise more to keep to your budget.

[Mr Hahn]

One thing I would say when building a PC is don't skimp on the power supply. It doesn't sound very exciting but make sure to get one from a reputable brand as there is plenty of cheap crap out there.

Make sure the motherboard is the correct socket for the CPU. I've seen that mistake made multiple times, not as big a deal as you can theoretically just return it when you realise what you've done but best not to make that mistake.

As was earlier stated, 16GB of RAM is a good amount. I think 32GB is overkill for gaming personally so 16 is a sweet spot.

I disagree slightly with getting a massive case. I bought a huge case when I built my first PC and I regretted it for the lifespan of the computer, took up so much space and unless your running a very fancy set up, there wasn't that many cables and it just looked very bare inside. I like the Fractal Define C but that's me.

 

 

 

[Mr Hahn]

For those interested here's a pic of my PC:

Needs a clean and no I don't live on a slope.

[hellbhoy]

It is worth noting for first time builds. MAKE SURE YOU APPLY A FUCKING HEATSINK PASTE before connecting the CPU TO THE COOLER FFS. The better the heatsink compound the better the heat dissipation. I have recently found an expensive compound but it is a liquid metal median and was hard as fook to apply but did show idle temperature drops in excess of 5 degrees plus and when the CPU is running full throttle it actually reduced top temps in excess of 10 degrees. It was tempted to overclock to over 4Ghz.

Cool Laboratory "liquid Pro", comes in a syringe? but looks like mercury when applying to the CPU. I have never ever used anything better to keep the CPU as cool as even on air-cooled heatsinks. I advise this 100% for those wanting the best heat management.

Now, I have seen folk tell posters to buy big ticket items like going for Nvidia GTX 1060 plus type GPU's for gaming. WHY? most folk I now only use an LCD, LED and Plasma TV's for gaming and I can confirm without a shadow of a doubt that my Nvidia GTX 1050 2GB which only draws power from the PCI-e lanes and plays COD Infinite Warfare at the highest frame rates for an HD TV , 60FPS on the highest settings. My friend has a GTX 750 1GB no power extensions and dual core i5 3.37Ghz and plays COD Infinite warfare at 80 to 90 percent of maximum settings at 60 FPS in 1080p, a drop to 720p and it went on full settings and not much difference notably in picture quality .

Buying a fucking huge GPU card like a Nvidia GTX 1080 plus is only ever going to be tested by those who have a 1080p or higher PC monitor and not using an HD TV that can have frame rates in excess of 100 FPS, I have seen monitors push out 140 FPS and this is where the huge f**k off GPU's with huge amounts of memory like 8GB plus actually get pushed and tested. These huge GPU cards are designed for intensive gaming by those who are after the highest frame rate at the highest resolutions and at the highest game settings even using multiple monitors with high frame rates and resolution.

In short if you are only using an HD TV an Nvidia GTX 1060 with an extra power adaptor will give maximum settings at 60FPS on 1080P. Do not attempt as I did to play 4K gaming on a 4K HD Ultra TV, 30FPS gaming fucking sucks man with the TV struggling to render and will need to buy a 4K PC monitor that can produce at least 60FPS to play 4K gaming. My Nvidia GTX 1050 will be useless at higher than 1080p at higher than 60FPS.

Most important when building a PC and I have built loads of them is the CPU, chose one of the latest designs and don't get sucked in by faster older cheaper ones. The newer the CPU the more instruction sets it will be able to execute making even a new slower clocked CPU will be faster than an older CPU with a higher clock speed. Also note that future games being released will be optimised to the new CPU's architecture and instruction sets making the CPU handle more data easily, newer software will also use the new instructions sets to work more efficiently.

Nobody needs any more than 8GB of memory unless like me I do video editing and rendering and 16GB really does help speed up things. I you have four slots for memory then buy four 2GB modules to fill up all the slots, why? The CPU and memory are linked by lanes, if you use two lanes when there are four then you are throttling the memory bus and will slow down data retrieval. Using all four lanes will speed up data transfer between the memory and CPU.

As said by many, an SSD OS drive is definitely a must in having a quick loading PC.

 

 

[Homer Thompson]

8 hours ago, hellbhoy said:

It is worth noting for first time builds. MAKE SURE YOU APPLY A FUCKING HEATSINK PASTE before connecting the CPU TO THE COOLER FFS. The better the heatsink compound the better the heat dissipation. I have recently found an expensive compound but it is a liquid metal median and was hard as fook to apply but did show idle temperature drops in excess of 5 degrees plus and when the CPU is running full throttle it actually reduced top temps in excess of 10 degrees. It was tempted to overclock to over 4Ghz.

Cool Laboratory "liquid Pro", comes in a syringe? but looks like mercury when applying to the CPU. I have never ever used anything better to keep the CPU as cool as even on air-cooled heatsinks. I advise this 100% for those wanting the best heat management.

Now, I have seen folk tell posters to buy big ticket items like going for Nvidia GTX 1060 plus type GPU's for gaming. WHY? most folk I now only use an LCD, LED and Plasma TV's for gaming and I can confirm without a shadow of a doubt that my Nvidia GTX 1050 2GB which only draws power from the PCI-e lanes and plays COD Infinite Warfare at the highest frame rates for an HD TV , 60FPS on the highest settings. My friend has a GTX 750 1GB no power extensions and dual core i5 3.37Ghz and plays COD Infinite warfare at 80 to 90 percent of maximum settings at 60 FPS in 1080p, a drop to 720p and it went on full settings and not much difference notably in picture quality .

Buying a fucking huge GPU card like a Nvidia GTX 1080 plus is only ever going to be tested by those who have a 1080p or higher PC monitor and not using an HD TV that can have frame rates in excess of 100 FPS, I have seen monitors push out 140 FPS and this is where the huge f**k off GPU's with huge amounts of memory like 8GB plus actually get pushed and tested. These huge GPU cards are designed for intensive gaming by those who are after the highest frame rate at the highest resolutions and at the highest game settings even using multiple monitors with high frame rates and resolution.

In short if you are only using an HD TV an Nvidia GTX 1060 with an extra power adaptor will give maximum settings at 60FPS on 1080P. Do not attempt as I did to play 4K gaming on a 4K HD Ultra TV, 30FPS gaming fucking sucks man with the TV struggling to render and will need to buy a 4K PC monitor that can produce at least 60FPS to play 4K gaming. My Nvidia GTX 1050 will be useless at higher than 1080p at higher than 60FPS.

Most important when building a PC and I have built loads of them is the CPU, chose one of the latest designs and don't get sucked in by faster older cheaper ones. The newer the CPU the more instruction sets it will be able to execute making even a new slower clocked CPU will be faster than an older CPU with a higher clock speed. Also note that future games being released will be optimised to the new CPU's architecture and instruction sets making the CPU handle more data easily, newer software will also use the new instructions sets to work more efficiently.

Nobody needs any more than 8GB of memory unless like me I do video editing and rendering and 16GB really does help speed up things. I you have four slots for memory then buy four 2GB modules to fill up all the slots, why? The CPU and memory are linked by lanes, if you use two lanes when there are four then you are throttling the memory bus and will slow down data retrieval. Using all four lanes will speed up data transfer between the memory and CPU.

As said by many, an SSD OS drive is definitely a must in having a quick loading PC.

 

 

Just on the GFX card - Im not going to argue about what your 1050 can or cant do but I can guarantee you it wont run a heavily modded Skyrim on the highest settings at 1080p 60FPS, because my 1060 wont do that.

Its horses for courses, clearly, but if you've got the money then theres nothing wrong with going for a higher spec. The higher the spec the longer it will last before needing replaced.

Really, you could make the same argument you made for GFX cards about CPUs. Yes, the newer ones are faster but the difference when gaming isnt going to be noticeable.

[Shaggy Jenkins]

Seriously, who is using a TV of any description for PC gaming?  That's just crazy.

[GiGi]

52 minutes ago, Shaggy Jenkins said:

Seriously, who is using a TV of any description for PC gaming?  That's just crazy.

Agree. Before I got a new screen for running double monitors I used a wee LG tv of my brothers alongside my other monitor. It genuinely looked like shit side by side and I could never quite get the correct resolution to display properly. Never again. It was fine as a spare but I couldn't play games or that on it.

[Mr Hahn]

1 hour ago, Shaggy Jenkins said:

Seriously, who is using a TV of any description for PC gaming?  That's just crazy.

Also agree. To add to that, I have a 144Hz monitor and they're the tits. Nothing I've added to my set up over the years has made more difference to my experience than a high refresh rate monitor.

[Tri-TON]

Thanks for the help guys. However I have decided to go in a different direction, in that I've bought a gaming laptop.

Dell Inspiron 7000 15.6" Gaming Laptop (Intel Core i5-7300HQ, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, GTX 1050 4GB) - as Amazon describes it. Down from £900 to £700, reviews are pretty good other than the people commenting about the screen.

[GiGi]

Fair enough. I really dislike gaming laptops though. Could get a better desktop for the money if you wanted one. 

[Tri-TON]

Fair enough. I really dislike gaming laptops though. Could get a better desktop for the money if you wanted one. 

I did want the desktop but after buying the computer itself I would've had to purchase other things. Plus I never really took space into account [emoji23].

[GiGi]

21 hours ago, Tri-TON said:

 

I did want the desktop but after buying the computer itself I would've had to purchase other things. Plus I never really took space into account .

 

I have nearly a full quarter of my spare bedroom dedicated to a big f**k off desk for my PC. Spend more time on that than I do on my missus.