Building my first gaming PC....a question.

Hi all

A returning gamer (in the loosest sense of the word), last played games in the eighties and early nineties, went from PS1.... had a break due to work for about 25 years.....then have jumped back in with PS4 at the grand old age of 46....and I'm loving it!

I'm wanting to get/build a gaming PC though. Initially to play things like WoW and LoL, but everything else too. I've spent ages watching PC builds on YouTube, and they now seem less daunting that I initially imagined, however, I'm worried about either spending too much on way more than I need.....but also I don't want to get a system that's not up to playing games at a decent standard.

My budget will most likely be no more than £1000, but want to future proof it so I can play whatever I want for a while yet.

I've watched so many builds where they use things like the GTX 1070i or 1080i.... obviously at the moment these would eat most of my budget.....but I now have those parts etched in my head as a must.

I think I'm asking if I can build a system for say £800-1000 and have something that will keep me happy whilst I jump into PC gaming?

Not sure whether to get the components and accessories every few weeks as I can afford them...then build it in a couple of months time, or save the money and get it all at once?

Sorry for the ramble....and thanks in advance for any help.....really looking forward to it but a little daunted by the whole parts picking thing.

This is the kind of thing I've been watching....the more detailed ones too which do step by step.....



CX.

As a casual gamer, you really don't need to go for a 1070. A 6gb 1060 with a Ryzen cpu will give you a perfectly acceptable gaming experience.

i built my current gaming rig my self for about 3,000 USD ,i was initially daunted but watching a few youtube videos made me feel better about the process once parts showed up it took me about 3-4 days to build it

this is the site i used to find all my parts and pre-test compatibility pcpartpicker.com... i would assume it would work for the UK as well. they have several builds on there in your price range but GPU'S have been more expensive lately due to bit coin mining ,AMD tends to be the cheaper option but often is more power intensive then Intel and invidia respectively,so keep your electric bill in mind as my pc uses about 3000 watts of power and produces a good deal of heat but i deliberatly over built mine. i have dual amd 295x2s GPU's which are water cooled by 120mm radiator(only use one currently as im fixing the radiator it came with), a water cooled Amd 9590fx chip set cooled by a 360mm radiator,rampage motherboard (unsure of exact specs off hand) ,64 gigs of ram ,a samsung evo 1tb hd and a seperate 10,000 rpm veliciraptor HD and something like 23 fans of various flavors in an AZZA case (biggest one i could find) . in winter i dont need to heat my house and in summer i have to run ac to even be able to game so like i said keep power requirements as well as heat in mind

pcpartpicker.com...=0,200895 these are examples of builds in your range assuming i did the conversion right

get a little pc repair builder tool kit that ideally comes with a strap to ground you so you dont ruin stuff with static electricity

a reply to: RalagaNarHallas

3k? Sounds awesome but you're either mad or rich or both. I would love a go on that beast.

As someone mentioned above, use pcpartpicker.com to pick out parts for your build. You don't need a top of the line GPU (graphics card). A GTX 750ti is a really good deal price/performance-wise. You absolutely should get an SSD (solid state drive) for your operating system and games, no question about it. I'd also recommend 16gb of RAM.

a reply to: Flatcoat

Hell even. 1050 TI would work right?

a reply to: CX

Great suggestion just under your OP
Nothing at all wrong with the 1060
I would recommend the Asus 1060 GTX OC 6gb version (if possible , go Titan Ti though)
AMD Ryzen CPU (your choice. all are good)
Of course , AMD board (I favor ASROCK or ASUS as I have 3 PC gaming systems built similar and next to zilch for issues)
Get a board that has at least NVME capability . NVME M.2 if possible and save your money for an NVME drive.
Dont try multiple monitors just for bragging rights. Who needs to surf the web while playing a game ?
Go with a good 4k TV (cheap one if needed) Otherwise a standard LCD or LED TV that does 1080p will suffice

Hope this helps

I built 2 gaming rigs last year. One with a more modern chip (I5 6600k) and one with an older (but still great!) i5 2500k. If you can find a board for the 2500k you could save a fair chunk of change which could go towards your graphics card, memory, PSU etc.

You don't need a mega powerful processor for gaming but it does help. The graphics card is where it's at. The nice thing about 'K' chips is they are designed to be overclocked giving you much more head room to play with.

I picked the 2500k up on ebay for $115 and the board for $150.

Do yourself a favor and look up the 2500k on youtube. It's a legendary chip for gaming and still a viable option for gaming at 1080p...plus it's Intel. Can't go wrong.

a reply to: RalagaNarHallas

thanks for the link. I am planning on switching to PC gaming later this year, currently I am PS4. My budget is going to be 2,000.....hopefully I will be able to piece together a solid machine for that amount. I am decent with electronics, but have not put together my own PC before, so it should be kind of fun assuming I can do it!

a reply to: CX
Whatever you do , know that you can go cheap at first , then upgrade a piece at a time. That way , you eventually have enough parts to build another system.
Oh , wait . Dont get carried away like I do .
At one time I did this and in 2 years had 6 gaming systems.
Overkill
Actually , one could have called it an obsession

a reply to: annoyedpharmacist

it gave me confidence after a bad break up so its a good morale boost and being able to say i built that helps ego wise lol.

save all receipts,and warranty info in case you get bad parts ( i got a bad cooler that was replaced for free under warranty) and its also a good skill to learn in that if some thing ever does go wrong because you built it you can now fix it your self and or replace the broken parts

and google any of the components for reviews to make sure you get the best bang for your buck and avoid any problem components ,make sure power supply is reputable and reliable as alot of the expensive prebuilt gaming rigs from some manufactures have problems due to bad power supplies (not gonna name them but some are pretty shady in the prebuilt industry)

a reply to: CX

Ill give ya my specs for my main build and you can use that for reference.
I7 2600K
12 G gddr3 ram
2TB WD split into 2 drives 7400 rpm
ASUS motherboard cant remember the model though.
And no one laugh but a PNY 1050 TI with a 6pin for added power.
I don’t do 4K so this build works great. I can play any game at 1080P with ease at max.

a reply to: CX

If you have to buy liquid cooling parts, buy them from aliexpress, they're twice as fast as ebay as a rule. Don't use water for liquid cooling, use a high viscosity oil, if there's a leak ever, it won't short out anything. It also won't create oxides of copper, aluminum, iron, etc. I just did my own bit mining equipment, everything is oil cooled, with a flow switch inline to shut everything down if there's a failure.

Cheers - Dave

originally posted by: Flatcoat
As a casual gamer, you really don't need to go for a 1070. A 6gb 1060 with a Ryzen cpu will give you a perfectly acceptable gaming experience.

Stay away from Ryzen if you intend on any retro gaming.

originally posted by: Disenchanted1

originally posted by: Flatcoat
As a casual gamer, you really don't need to go for a 1070. A 6gb 1060 with a Ryzen cpu will give you a perfectly acceptable gaming experience.

Stay away from Ryzen if you intend on any retro gaming.

Why ?
I am running programs circa 80s - 2018 with no issues.
?

originally posted by: annoyedpharmacist
a reply to: RalagaNarHallas

thanks for the link. I am planning on switching to PC gaming later this year, currently I am PS4. My budget is going to be 2,000.....hopefully I will be able to piece together a solid machine for that amount. I am decent with electronics, but have not put together my own PC before, so it should be kind of fun assuming I can do it!

If the crypto mining ceases , parts will be a lot cheaper

Picking the graphics comes down to just a few things. Mainly what resolution do you want to run for a display?

If your only going to do 1080 and no VR, a 1060 is what is run. 1440p or VR use would need a 1070 minimum, imo. 4k is still tough, but of you want high frame rate 1440, dabble in 4k and want great vr performance you need a 1080.

I have a 1070 in my home rig and do mostly 1080 and be, it runs it just fine.

Titan X all the way...
Right now though , I have 1 Titan GTX Black ,
Was staying away from that , as the OP was on a budget.
1060 GTX OC on one of my systems , and no problems at all
With any resolution

I will also endorse partpicker all the way.

I do the planning for what goes in our rigs over here, and it's invaluable for my purposes.

I usually aim for the high end of middle when I go to do a build and that generally lands us with solid rigs that will easily handle most games, but we're neither one major FPS types.

originally posted by: CX
Hi all

A returning gamer (in the loosest sense of the word), last played games in the eighties and early nineties, went from PS1.... had a break due to work for about 25 years.....then have jumped back in with PS4 at the grand old age of 46....and I'm loving it!

I'm wanting to get/build a gaming PC though. Initially to play things like WoW and LoL, but everything else too. I've spent ages watching PC builds on YouTube, and they now seem less daunting that I initially imagined, however, I'm worried about either spending too much on way more than I need.....but also I don't want to get a system that's not up to playing games at a decent standard.

...

It all depends on the kind of monitor you are going to use. If you run a 24" monitor at either 1920 x 1080 (16:9) or 1920 x 1200 (16:10), a GTX 1060 will give you an even 60 fps in most games. A 27" running 2560 x 1440 (16:9) would probably need a GTX 1070, and moving to 4K monitors would probably need a GTX 1080 Ti.

At the age of 47, I built my first PC in over a decade last December, and I settled on a 6 GB GTX 1060 in a Black Friday deal. This is a PC not only for gaming, so I went for a big Corsair case, 32 GB of RAM and a 7700K processor - 4 cores at 4.2 GHz. I settled for a previous generation motherboard and CPU since by the time THIS setup starts to feel "slow", we've moved a couple generations further anyway, and I'll just replace CPU, motherboard and RAM. The 8 core CPUs I found to be too expensive and not a must for my current use (games, image editing, but no video or other sorts of rendering).

I selected an ASUS motherboard that had just enough connections for my current use - including a couple of slots for NVMe. I currently use a Samsung 960 Pro 500 GB M.2 for system disk, and reused a couple of 240 GB SSDs for storage. Later I will add 6 mechanical drives and make a storage space in Windows for media files, etc.

I have a 750 W power supply from Corsair (convenient to be able to see the power usage due to the USB connection and Corsair Link), and this is the kind of power that will support even a bunch of mechanical disks and a 1080 Ti. I don't think I've ever been much past 200 W power consumption (1060 GPU, 1 M.2, 2 SSDs, 1 DVD Writer, 1 mechanical disk in a front mounted tray, 7700K CPU).

Two excellent channels on Youtube are JayzTwoCents and Linus Tech Tips. Especially the former is a goldmine of information for any PC builder.

Jay was the one that taught me to build for my CURRENT needs, and not overdo it.

To sum up my recommendations:

1. Buy a case big enough to hold enough BIG fans (120 or 140 mm), and with room for future expansion.
   
2. Go for at least 16 GB of RAM - 32 if you plan on doing more than gaming.
   
3. Pick a motherboard that will let you use more RAM than you start out with.
   
4. For gaming, match monitor and GPU. Upgrade the combo every few years.
   

Why big fans? Because 80 mm or smaller fans do NOT sound pleasant. A typical setup will be 2 intake fans in front, 1 output fan at the back (on top), and either a radiator or more fans on top.

When it comes to CPU, Intel or AMD is pretty much equally good choices these days. There are some quirks in both camps. Be aware that Intel has picked a thermal paste between die and heat spreader that is more geared towards longevity than lowest possible temp. I'm using an AIO CPU cooler from Fractal Design - a 360 mm Celsius S36, and even at stock settings (I haven't bothered with any tweaking), I will hit CPU package temps of 70-75 C (158-167 F) under load, as long as I have the fans set to minimum RPM (600ish RPM) (this with room temps of 20-22 C (68-72 F)

Summer heat and any overclocking will undoubtedly bring more noise, as the fans will have to run faster. Still, 120 and 140 mm fans have a nice "whooosh" sound to them that is not annoying in the same way that 80 or 60 mm fans.