[Need Advice] Building a Custom Gaming PC

[Atlen]

Hello everyone,

I'm pretty new to the PC scene and was hoping to obtain some helpful advice on building a custom gaming PC. That said, here are some details:

Budget: $800-$900 (USD)
Purchase Date: September 2014

Goal:
I'm not aiming to run the very best of Crysis, but I'd really like to play the game Dragon Age: Inquisition on its highest setting (ultra/ultra high?), as well as other games if it can be managed. I've heard the game is possibly (graphically) comparable to Battlefield 4, considering they run on the same engine (Frostbite 3). However, the exact specs (for Dragon Age) have yet to be released.

What I know:

• I won't need a monitor (plan on connecting PC to TV via HDMI)
• I would prefer a mini or mid tower if it doesn't have too big of an impact on what parts I can install. A full tower PC's just too big for me.
• I imagine parts (graphic cards, motherboards, PSUs, etc) will get cheaper by the time September rolls around, but what should I look for in them? Reading about all these different graphic cards, for example, is like being introduced to a foreign language.
• I've received a lot of advice on where to look for parts, but what's the best method of going about it? What do I look for or want in a PC part shop?

Feedback I've received:
I have received a good amount of feedback or suggestions from the Dragon Age community about things to consider when building my PC. Some of these include:

• Avoid water coolers.
  

  It's a gimmick for everyone except hardcore overclockers and silent fanatics.

• Use an air cooler.
  

  A dirtcheap air cooler like say, a Cooler Master Evo 212, for $25, will cool the ever living crap out of any CPU that isn't seriously overclocked. Yeah, it can handle overclocked CPUs as well, but it gets a bit loud doing so.

• Buy a great power supply.
  

  Your PSU is your PC's heart. The PSU is the most stressed component of a PC and the most likely to go up in smoke if it isn't of good quality, nevermind that a good PSU also protects the other components in case of power surges, so a bad PSU may cause life expectancy shortage in other components (like mainboard, CPU and GPU).

• Pair your CPU and GPU evenly.
  

  If your CPU is low, it will bottleneck your GPU no matter how good the GPU is. When I say bottleneck, I mean that if your CPU has a ceiling of 100 ft, your GPU can have a ceiling of 1000ft, but it will be stuck at 100ft of performance due to the PC. The GPU can bottleneck the CPU as well of course, but it's a lot harder to swap out a CPU than a GPU because it may require changing motherboards, which means you need to reinstall the operating system and may need a new type of ram. It's just a lot harder than swapping out a video card.

• 16GB ram isn't all that important.
  

  The difference of 8GB RAM vs 16GB RAM for someone's whose PC is used for gaming is mathematically negligible. There are hardly any true 64bit game engines that could use more than 2GB RAM, let alone 16GB and even out of the handful engines that can use all that extra RAM, the measurable difference in data throughput is nothing more than number benchmarking. The truth is that 4GB RAM is all you need for gaming. Here a benchmarking test pitting 4GB vs 8GB vs 16GB RAM. Woohooo, a whole lot 3% performance increase.

• Buy a VANQUISH Level 2 or 3.
  

  http://www.digitalstormonline.com/vanquish-ii.asp

• Use Logical Increments chart.
  

  http://www.logicalincrements.com/

Your advice/suggestions:
If you do happen to comment with possible specs/builds worth looking into, I'd kindly ask that you explain the reason behind your setup. Again, I know almost nothing about graphic cards, motherboards, processors and the likes, so telling me that a Radeon R9 295X2 is better than a GeForce GTX Titan Z just because means almost nothing to me. I may not understand much now, but reading why people prefer certain products over others will help me understand them better.

I appreciate any help in advance.

 

[EarthDog]

Let's talk in August.

You can grab a PSU or case, or peripherals at a good price, but to pin something down now in the CPU, GPU, motherboard arena...things change quite a bit in four months.

 

[Atlen]

Ha, that's actually a very good idea. I agree. I will ask the question again in August. You may close this thread.

 

[EarthDog]

That said though, one can get a high level idea.. quad core only or quad + hyperthreading. 8 gb or 16... But there are new cpus coming out either in a week or a couple months. The z97 Intel boards are just now coming out, and there may be some new gpus in a couple of months as well.

 

[Witchdoctor]

Agree with EarthDog, 3 to 4 months the lanscape could change considerably. Not sure if you are looking at SLI or XFire in the future, but cetainly not with the initial build budget anyway. If not you may want to do some research on a mITX platform. with top level chipsets and hefty power tranes these systems can hang with any platform on 4c4t or 4c8t and one card.

Also having such a small footprint could serve you well in a livingroom enviroment. That being said sit down put your feet up and learn all that you can between now and then so you are equiped to make solid decisions when the time comes. There will be plenty of help around here, but have a firm grip on the tech will serve you well.

 

[NiHaoMike]

More than 8GB RAM can be very useful if you want to use tmpfs (or some other RAMdisk), though I don't see too much use for typical gaming. But if some other application can make good use of it, go for it! It also can come in handy if you ever plan on running VMs.

Also, you'll need a very good GPU setup if you want to run 4K. 1080p isn't particularly demanding, but you'll probably want higher quality settings on a big screen.

I also recommend connecting the PC directly to the TV and using S/PDIF for audio. The reason is because some receivers add a significant amount of lag, enough to degrade gameplay.

 

[MunkyTOS]

+1 on the waiting, its good that you have a window of time before you're planning to make this purchase to do a lot of researching and best advice is ask a ton of questions. Also as far as that website goes they seem extremely overpriced. Building a system myself that iss fairly similar to their Level 2 bolt system but $700 less and it has a 2gb GPU. Also I find it extremely weird that their systems are configured in 4 sticks of 2gb memory versus 2 sticks of 4gb.

Its better to build yourself and save yourself as much possible on that end so you can put the money towards parts and not towards labor and gimmicks.

 

[Atlen]

Cool beans. Well, I guess the plan will be to educate myself as much as I can until September. That said, if it's ok, could any of you possibly explain the significance of each of these things below (as related to gaming)? I am researching it on my end as well, but I'm curious to see if there are any differing opinions.

• CPU
• Motherboard
• Memory
• Storage
• Video Card
• Power Supply
• Case
• Cooling
• Drives
• Expansion
• Software
• Displays

I borrowed this list from PCPartPicker.com to get an idea of what to expect when shopping, but the amount of options is huge (at least for me). For instance, regarding a CPU, what do I look for between AMD and Intel to determine which is best for my gaming needs? That and more, you know?

 

[Theocnoob]

Cool beans. Well, I guess the plan will be to educate myself as much as I can until September. That said, if it's ok, could any of you possibly explain the significance of each of these things below (as related to gaming)? I am researching it on my end as well, but I'm curious to see if there are any differing opinions.

• CPU
• Motherboard
• Memory
• Storage
• Video Card
• Power Supply
• Case
• Cooling
• Drives
• Expansion
• Software
• Displays

I borrowed this list from PCPartPicker.com to get an idea of what to expect when shopping, but the amount of options is huge (at least for me). For instance, regarding a CPU, what do I look for between AMD and Intel to determine which is best for my gaming needs? That and more, you know?

It's good that you want to learn all this stuff, but honestly, you don't need to know anything.

You tell us what games you want to play at what resolution. You tell us how much money you have. You tell us if you want a compact system, we do the rest.

I feel that a much better explanation of these parts can be obtained from youtube than what I or any other member could give you.

To get you started, I HIGHLY recommend you watch "Explaining SSDs" by "Explaining Computers" on Youtube. It is an exceptional piece of video on the subject.

Another channel I HIGHLY recommend to learn in depth about PC hardware is anandtech. You can also go to the Anandtech website and forums for more details.

Because PC hardware and pricing shifts constantly, it will be much wiser, as others have said, for you to come back and ask us JUST before you order. That way we can give you the most current recommendations based on what is available and what the prices are like when the time comes. New Intel CPUs will be out by September, and we'll be recommending those over what's available now.

Just so you know, with a budget of $900, you won't be playing very many games on high. Certainly, you won't be running Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3 on ultra, unless painfully low framerates are acceptable to you. It would be better if you could increase this budget to $1100-1200 to attain your goals. If this is not possible, we can put together a great AMD based machine for you for $900 in September but you will have to adjust your expectations accordingly.

 

[MunkyTOS]

As far as text book definition, someone else will probably chime in and give the general run down but the main things to focus on are cpu and gpu. The rest of the choices are important but mostly as far as quality because there's very minor differences between the variety of components.

CPU: AMD seems to reign supreme in budget builds but Intel for overall power. Look at operating frequency, cache and benchmarks.

Motherboard: Look for quality brands with good reviews and features that are useful to you. Many boards have a lot of gimmicky features though so don't let it sway your decision too much if its not something you'd necessarily use.

Memory: From what I've come to learn, frequency shows minimal differences and it comes at a high cost. 8-16gb depending on application is more than sufficient and many people go for 1600-1866 mhz. Worth reading up on RAM in general and learning about frequency, timings and cas latency.

Storage: Its good practice to use a fairly small SSD with a fairly large HDD to store your information. Depending on your exact needs of the machine, your SSD can range anywhere from 60gb to 256gb ++ depending on budget. Quality is important here because a dead drive does you no good (although all drives can fail). Personally I would go for a 120gb SSD to hold your system information + actively used games along with a 1-2tb drive to hold things like music, movies, personal files.

Video card: This is pretty much where the bulk of your budget can go (and should go). There is a lot of information about the performance of video cards and current cards are always tested against the recent games to show where they fall short (if at all). Best bet is to search for your game and see where graphics card rank in terms of fps (frames per second) to judge what to buy here.

Power supply: Purely quality based once you know how many watts your system will draw while leaving yourself some leeway. There is a great article on power supplies as far as how they rank in terms of quality and price found here.

Case: This is personal preference for the most part. Look for a case that suits your needs, offers good amount of features and is within your budget. Read up on reviews and watch build videos using the case to get an idea of how easy/difficult it is to build in. For a basic build, I wouldn't use up too much of your budget in this area.

Cooling: Using a quality cooler on your CPU will make a huge difference in temperatures and will allow you to overclock while remaining well within the operating temperatures. Cooler Masters Hyper 212 evo is one of the best bang for buck out there at the moment. Case fans will help so be sure to see how the case is laid out and what fans it can accommodate. Creating airflow will help get cooler air in and hotter air out. In general you want air to come through the front of the case and exhaust out the back and top.

Drives: They are pretty much the same as every other in this category. Your basic dvd/cd burner drive will suffice and if you really want to play blurays you could pick up one of those.

Expansion: You wont typically get anything here unless its a sound card or wifi card although there are many good usb wifi solutions if you're not running ethernet.

Software: Not sure what you're looking for in this category, as far as OS goes its mostly personal preference. Your basic home or pro version will suffice. Be sure to keep your computer up to date and check graphic drivers on a regular basis if its not set to already do so.

Displays: This will be based on budget and graphics card. You'll most likely be gaming at 1080p at this budget so just look for a quality 23-27" monitor. Be sure to look at max resolution, response time and reviews/feedback.


In general all things are affected by your budget because it allows you to decide whats more valuable to have in your build and where you can splurge/skimp. When you're ready to buy, ask for advice on the specifics of the parts and it will be much easier to come up with a gameplan. I hope this helps, theres far more knowledgeable people on these forums but I figured I would chime in to try and help.

 

[Theocnoob]

A note about bluray playback- you can only do it if you get Bluray playback specific software. The average programs like WMP and VLC can not play back blurays. You will need to purchase the software seperately or pick a drive that includes it in the package.

 

[NiHaoMike]

VLC can play Bluray.
http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/

 

[Bobnova]

A note on bottlenecking:
A faster GPU will always perform better than a slower GPU on any given CPU.
When you are bottlenecked, doubling GPU power will not double performance, but it will increase it significantly.

Exceptions are made for going from a GTX780 to a Titan on a single core Atom, but even then there will most likely be a performance gain.

To modify the ceiling metaphor, it's more like your real performance is the average of your ceilings. 1000' and 100' gives you 550' of performance, 1500' and 100' gives you 800' of performance, and 1000' 1000' gives you 1000'.
It's still not accurate, but it's closer at least.
You do want them to match at least somewhat, but it's not nearly as important as people seem to think it is IMO.

If you don't mind buying used, BUY USED. The OCF classifieds are kind of slim pickings, but you will get what you think you're going to get and the deals are good. You can save a lot that way on CPU, motherboard, GPU and RAM. PSU you can sometimes save a lot as well. Classifieds access requires using an ISP email (no gmail, yahoo, etc.) or .mil email account. I don't remember if .edu is still allowed or not.
It also requires that you have 100 decent quality posts. Given that you have some months before you're buying this shouldn't be an issue.

Be sure you get a quality PSU. This is not to be confused with an expensive PSU or a high wattage PSU.
There's a list in the PSU section of known-good units (do note revision numbers, though).
Additionally, anything that Johnnyguru.com, hardwaresecrets.com, techpowerup.com, or my reviews on overclockers.com and funkykit.com says is good is almost certainly good.