Indie-Resource.com

Well since Halls hasn't responded to my PM yet and I know he has experience in this area. I decided to create at topic about it.

I am going to attempt building my first PC as my laptop sucks and I havn't had a desktop in ages. A friend told me I should start with the processor and cpu,

My budget is $500-600tops.

I would like i7
At least 16gb ram, 32 if my budget can handle it.
The harddrive I am not worried about since I usually use external HD's for storing data, so 500gb-1tb
I suppose 4USB slots.
DVD Burner (not blue-ray)

I also don't know if PC's have built in wifi things now-a-days, so something for that if its not built in.


Did I miss anything?

Anyone got any links for some parts they like to share? -_-

I"m fond of AMD Athlon myself, as well as Western Digital HD's I'm not sure u're experience, nor the prices now a days, but 10 years ago I could build a top of the line computer from scratch for 500-600 dollars. If u're a gamer, u'll want a good video card as well. I personally like the Nvidia myself. But starting out with a CPU, you can go with Intel, which isn't bad, but as stated, I never went wrong with the AMD.

Ok, I might help a bit with this.

First of all, processor = cpu (central processing unit)
Let's start with that, note that there are (for Intel) 3 "types, there is i3, i5 and i7. Also note that i7>i5>i3 may not return true 100% of the times, depending on the generation and specs of the cpu like cores and clock time you may have i5>i7>i3 or wtv. So to get a good cpu I would go to https://www.cpubenchmark.net/ and start seeing scores for the cpu's withhin your budget, I believe the CPU is around 30-50% of the budget of the computer, but I'm not sure.

About the GPU (for games, aka Video / Graphics card) you can choose between AMD or Nvidia, I prefer Nvidia since I've used them all my life, but some people believe (and tell me) that AMD is cheaper and sometimes better. From name, I would recommend a Nvidia Geforce GTX 700+ 2GB, I have a GTX 650 2GB and it's good and all, but probably won't run GTA V
To check more on GPU's http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ and check as you checked for CPU's. About the % of the budget, I would put a GPU between 20-30% of the budget, my GTX 650 2GB cost me around 120$ (exactly 109€) so a GTX 700+ can cost you maybe a couple of hundreds (200-250$ would be my aim).

RAM, ram is the easiest of choices, since it's the cheapest of the main components you basically want a RAM that fits your Motherboard and has a good frequency. (DDR3 i believe is the best option), you can have easily 16gb for around 100$ I would say, but not sure.

Motherboard, for the Motherboard I can't help much, I believe a good one can cost you around 100$ ? But I'm not sure so you need more opinion on this one.

Other Stuff, about your question on wifi, you need to get a card for that (just like you buy a graphics card), note that the Motherboard must have the wifi card socket!
The dvd and that stuff is really cheap, dont even worry about that.
The USB sockets depends on the motherboard, aim for one with at least 2 USB 3.0 and around 4 USB 2.0, mine has 12 USB 2.0.

Hard Drive, I SERIOUSLY recommend you to INVEST on a SSD instead. It's faster than an HDD (more expensive too, but worth it), and what people have recommended me to do is to put the boot stuff (OS and main apps) on the SSD, and the rest of the things on a HDD or external drive. I think Windows 8 + SSD can boot in like 1-2 seconds.

OS, I would recommend Windows 7 or 8. 8 is prettier for tablets or touch screen laptops like mine, but it's a lot faster than windows 7 in my opinion, but your choice.

Good luck

I am confused about these GHZ? They come from the CPU/processer. Right?

So 4.00ghz < dual core 3.00ghz

So if a i7 has a 3.4ghz. Is that 3.4 * 7 so it would be 23.8 total ghz of processing?

No.

Ghz is how the frequency of something gets measured, the unit is Hertz (Hz) and Ghz stands for giga-hertz. This frequency is the clock-frequency, aka the times it can run per second, 60Hz it's 60times per second. CPU has it, GPU has it and RAM also has it. Usually the most common to look for is the CPU and then the RAM, I don't think you need to focus much attention on the clock-frequency of the GPU.

Now, i7 doesn't mean it has 7 cores, actually there are no 7core cpu, its usually a pair number.
The more cores the better? Maybe not, it's obviously better in some cases, but I like to think that sometimes 2 heads don't think better than 1, but generally more cores the better

About your 3.4ghz * core#, i don't think it works like that, but I don't know for a fact, so I won't say for sure that it is, or it is now like that.

PS: I'm not sure if you are worried about it, but note that i7>i5>i3 is true in terms of power consumption I believe.

It's been aong time since I have been in the custom PC market but what I tend to do is start with the mother board. Once you have your desired mother board you can then choose your components. There is nothing worse about picking a MB and then picking your CPU and it's the wrong socket

Also a lot of things depend on what you want for your computer Are you going to play games, media center, word processing, etc. From there you can decide what you would need upfront and get later Also something to look into is the amount of power you will need, now a days I don't think a 300 watt power supply cuts it anymore and basically the more power you are running the better the cooling system you will need.

As far as OS' go, you can probably just cheap out and go with something that is open source like Linux or something unless you were to play games that you can only play on windows then you would have no choice but to go with windows.

Bottom line, think of what you want to do then go from there

I think I am going to through Windows XP on it then downloads Windows X.

No offense, but don`t buy a desktop yet..

Save some money and get a real desktop machine. It will save you a lot in the end, otherwise you end up with a half-decent desktop which can`t quite run all your favourite games ( let alone in a good resolution/details ).

I`d spend > 1100$ and buy an i5 ( or i7 depending on prices ), 16GB ( or 32GB depending on prices) of DDR3 ram, 1x 250gb ( or 500gb) SSD samsung 840 EVO series, a 980GTX and a good 700+ watts power supply. As for brands for motherboard, i`d go with Gigabyte`s 1150 / 2011 socket depending on what the latest ( and best ) platform is currently.

Why I recommend this? It`s simple, it will get you a computer you can use for at least the next 3 years ( games wise and anything else ) As you said, you use a lot of external drives so that`s great for movies/audio other media. The SSD will soo much improve your life, you`ll never go back to normal HDD`s once you`ve used an SSD. However, I still recommend installing a regular 4TB drive or something for your games and media regardless. Just as a safeguard. The i5 and i7 difference isn`t that big of a deal for games anyway and some tests show that an i5 performs better ( relatively ) then an o7 due to not having hyperthreading.

The GPU is the most important part of the desktop IMO, it drives your games. You want to get the best available from the get-go. No more problems with settings in games and/or resolutions, no weird lags or bottlenecks whatsoever. Your games will run so smooth... Beautiful. Truly.

If you want very specific builds, i could look at what is most recent and what is popular.

Start with the processor first, then get your motherboard based on the CPU you want, then get your RAM to fit it, then a graphics card, then a power supply that will power it all. Then your HDD.

I don't think you can get what you want with your budget. I think something more reasonable is an i5, 8gb of RAM, 500GB HDD. The cheapest i7 is $300. 8GB of RAM cost about $60, 16 cost over $100. Graphics cards run about $100 for a decent one.

Also, don't think Ghz are the end all, be all for processors. The same with the amount of cores it has. Take a look at this chart http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gam ... 106-5.html

When building, keep in mind what you're going to be working on. If you're runnin things with a lot of number crunching, like 3d modeling, statistical modeling, etc. you'll want a powerful processor. If you want to play games, you want a pretty good graphics card. Anything over 16GB of RAM is overkill, and 16 may be a bit at this time (you're future-proofing, really, if you go over 8). Also look at the latency of the RAM, not just the size.

You'll need to check your motherboard for things like built in ethernet, wireless, etc. Also your PC case will be how many USB ports you have.

@Xelaph

I didn't say I was going to buy a Desktop.. I need to build one.

I mostly will be using it for development, there are other things I will constantly use it for such as video conversions. Maybe occasionally play some games. My friends want me to start playing DOTA 2 but I dunno if I will be.

Thanks everyone. I guess I will start finding some parts.

How's this for my processor/cpu?

https://www.google.com/#q=Intel+Core+i7-4770K&tbm=shop

My budget is 500-600$ as of right now, but next Friday. I will have about another $400-500 to dump into it. I really wanted to stay within $500-600 range, but as long as my computer last me for a couple years 2-4 for development purposes. I'll manage.

I also am trying to get my car on the road, so I am not trying to dump thousands into this computer =]