Anyone here build their own computer?

[mr tibbs]

I highly considering bypassing Microsoft, Sony, and Direct TV and building my own computer. I have a quote from a company for a custom computer, problem is I have no idea what I am looking at.

My goal is to use the computer for gaming (mostly replacing a new xbox one and ps4), photo editing for my photography, and use it for a whole house media center including playing music, movies, and streaming tv to four different tvs through out the house. I'm still working on getting an electrician to the house to do the networking.

So, can anyone decipher if this list of computer parts will do what I want it to do?

.

[ttocs]

built on years ago. It worked pretty well but always had some strange locking up issues that could never be sorted out. Decided I would not go that route again myself its easier to pick one off the shelf.

[itchnertamatoa]

seems it would do the job ...
a few components I would replace
- primary drive, not sure cyou need it to be that big .. I think half that size should be plenty for OS and running apps
- secondary drive, upgrade to at least 1TB - 500GB will be a bit small if you store lots of music and photos -
- video cards, I would go EVGA GTX 680, but that's personal preference

[stipud]

- 32gb ram? Major overkill. 8-16 max is good.
- 3 graphics cards? With today's games, you need one, unless you are going for a wacky Eyefinity setup or something. I like the GTX680 or 7970 as well
- What do you need a firewire card for? Do you have any peripherals with this port? Video editing?
- 128gb-256gb is more than enough for primary SSD. Intel is super expensive, you might want to consider someone else, but I would stay away from OCZ.
- 1-2tb for secondary HD especially if you do any downloading... you will definitely need the space for RAWs
- Blu-ray burner is probably excessive
- I'd spend a bit more on a more solid case, cutting costs elsewhere. I like the Fractal Design R4 I just bought... very similar looking, but much better build quality, and much quieter. More like the Antec 280 or Corsair 550d.
- 1000w PSU is LOOL, 600w is good for most gaming PCs
- Don't skimp on fans! Get ball bearing fans, the quieter the better. Don't forget the same decibel rules apply... two 20db fans = 23db
- Nobody pays for Windows
- Or CyberLink PowerDVD
- What type of monitor? You'll probably want something 1080p 120Hz for gaming.

[vladthebad]

I'd avoid Kingston hyperX or any ram with heat spreaders. Quality ram doesn't need them, shouldn't have them, and ideally should share a die/package with something the original ram fab puts into ecc server ram. Not saying to buy ecc... But TONS of 'gamer' ram is just ram that was sold at below cost because it FAILED quality control as server ram, or they never bothered testing it, because it doesn't meet the standards. Ecc ram reports errors, and corrects most of them. I've seen far far too many systems that are crash prone unreliable piles of crap that suddenly stop crashing with quality ram. I run Kingston value ram, or crucial ram that is NOT ballistix junk. Samsung, Hynix, crucial/micron, toshiba and elpida are the only real ram manufacturers in the world. If they won't sell it under their own name, don't bother with it. (Kingston is the exception, they are the primary brand for toshiba and elpida.)

Furthermore, unless you are going to be doing some crazy Linux multihome/multiseat setup, and all of your displays are going to be within 25 feet of your machine as the wire travels, don't bother with one super machine. Build a small home server, it stores all the files. Then stream to your client machines at each tv/each room. Plus, then you can play 4 player games against your kids, friends, etc... If you need help figuring things out, pm me. For just video.... You could do a server and a half dozen appleTV boxes or roku's, etc. (or a mix of client machines and appletv's)

I'd also consider looking up ZFS and if it was me, I'd store your content in a raidZ or raidZ2 depending on number of drives and total capacity.

[Kirghiz]

I'm a fan of some parts and not others you have listed, but that's more a matter of taste than function, so I'm not going to criticize brands so much and stick to function. That being said, I firmly believe Nvidia GPU's are better than AMD/ATI, so I would look at a pair of GTX 680's in SLI as a matter of future proofing, but a single will work for you. For a SSD hard drive, just get something big enough to run windows and a few other necessary programs, and store everything else on your other drives. You can have a 500GB WD Raptor for your games and such, that will be plenty. For your media center role, I would want at least a couple TB of hard drive space if you plan to actually store movies on the computer. No more than hard drives cost now, I would go ahead and invest in at least 2TB, perhaps 5TB, and that would allow you to get quite a bit of your movie library on there. If you have a huge movie library and you're tired of looking at discs, you may need more than that.

The first thing I would do is not buy the machine online. If you order from Dell, Alienware, Cyberpower, or whomever, you will pay way too much. Plus, I have had machines from all those brands and they all broke. Best thing to do is find a local computer guy to do the work, and order the parts from Newegg.com or somewhere similar. All the ones I've had built from parts I've ordered lasted longer. Computers snap together like legos, it isn't like car audio. The key to computers is buying the right parts and installing the right drivers. building them is easy.

Start with the motherboard, thats the key. Count the PCIe slots, count the RAM slots noting which DDR# they are, and count the SATA ports for the hard drives. The more of each you have, the more you'll be able to expand later. If you have open SATA ports you can always pop another hard drive in if you fill what you have. There are other factors for the motherboard, like bus speed and whatnot, but as a general rule "higher" is better. Don't skimp on the motherboard. That's how you future proof yourself, and replacing the motherboard is what constitutes a rebuild instead of an upgrade.

[mr tibbs]

WOW, look at all of that info!!!

Thanks for all of the suggestions. It's obvious that I have a lot of research to do. I'll look into the suggestions as I learn more about the different pieces. Thanks guys! I'll let you know the final outcome.

[Francious70]

- 32gb ram? Major overkill. 8-16 max is good.

agreed

- 3 graphics cards? With today's games, you need one, unless you are going for a wacky Eyefinity setup or something. I like the GTX680 or 7970 as well

He said he wanted to stream TV to 4 TV's in the house.

- What do you need a firewire card for? Do you have any peripherals with this port? Video editing?

[/quote]

really agree. Pretty much everything has gone to USB interface. Get a USB 3.0 card if you're wanting fast transfer speeds for larger files like RAW pictures.

[dbjury]

i second the movement for smaller primary drives, and get 2 of, so 2 x 128gb... ONLY the system should reside on these drives, have them in RAID setup so if one drive goes down the other is there instant support/backup, and the same for secondary (storage) drives, get 2tb drives, lots of em, 2 or 4. and have everything in raid. any failures, replace drive and not batter an eyelid. Seems like a crazy strong system. Buy an awesome case for it, you wont regret spending good money on a great case.

my 2c for now

[dbjury]

I just realised you have already picked a good case, I just so happen to run the p183 myself, I think my powersupply is 850watt, which I dont even need really, but good to have solid.
Great case, plenty of room. and quiet

[mr tibbs]

So, for xmas the wife decided to get someone at work to build me a gaming PC! After we discovered streaming through Netflix/Hulu Plus/Aereo using the PS3's and the Roku we really didn't need a whole home PC anymore. So this was a pure gaming PC.

My question is how did she do? I'm really green at the whole PC building stuff and don't have a clue as to what is what. I primarily plan on using the PC to play games downloaded from steam and the like and maybe process some photos on if I have the time.

Below is a list of the components she bought and had put together, thoughts??
Case
Harddrive
DDR3 Ram
Processor
Motherboard

Any comments or tips would be great. Thanks guys!!

[ajaye]

So, for xmas the wife decided to get someone at work to build me a gaming PC! After we discovered streaming through Netflix/Hulu Plus/Aereo using the PS3's and the Roku we really didn't need a whole home PC anymore. So this was a pure gaming PC.

My question is how did she do? I'm really green at the whole PC building stuff and don't have a clue as to what is what. I primarily plan on using the PC to play games downloaded from steam and the like and maybe process some photos on if I have the time.

Below is a list of the components she bought and had put together, thoughts??
Case
Harddrive
DDR3 Ram
Processor
Motherboard

Any comments or tips would be great. Thanks guys!!

I think you did fine. BUT...

I personally liked your first setup. I know some said 32gb memory was overkill...but applications are constantly pushing the envelope for improvements and becoming more taxing in the process (no pun intended). I thought 4gb was overkill for my mbp when I bought it 5 years ago. I can't afford to go out and buy a new machine every few years and even some of the basic audio work I like to do, when running multiple plugins, has my cpu pegged at times. I know photo stuff isn't so bad, but if you ever decided to cross over and start messing with video, maybe a different story.

I HOPE a BD burner is going to be a useful thing in the not so distant future, too. There is an impressive segment of market support for high resolution lossless audio that continues to expand. 24 bit/192khz is available (though its value is still questionable imo) and a bluray burner and bluray capable player in the car would make a simple task out of playing high res music in the car.

Just some food for thought. The other thing you have going is a PC based machine, so overhauling it in two or three years or even replacing it isn't as ridiculous sounding as me spending $2k+ on a laptop every 2 years instead of spending $3,300 on one that will still get the job done in 5-6.

Only minor thing you may want to consider is, at the very least, a separate on board sound card. The specs on the o/b of that motherboard are about what I would expect from a new computer, but I'd imagine for a pretty minimal investment you'd get marked improvement in build quality and components used. One thing I'd look at improving on is the signal to noise if you plan on running your sound through a nice home theater and listening pretty loud. If you just plan to use like a home theater in a box or some small active computer speakers it will probably be fine for you. The specs also talk about some "onboard proprietary lossless audio protection" thingamajigger. If you plan to do any cd copying or something, you may want to have a look into what that means exactly.

[dbjury]

So, for xmas the wife decided to get someone at work to build me a gaming PC! After we discovered streaming through Netflix/Hulu Plus/Aereo using the PS3's and the Roku we really didn't need a whole home PC anymore. So this was a pure gaming PC.

My question is how did she do? I'm really green at the whole PC building stuff and don't have a clue as to what is what. I primarily plan on using the PC to play games downloaded from steam and the like and maybe process some photos on if I have the time.

Below is a list of the components she bought and had put together, thoughts??
Case
Harddrive
DDR3 Ram
Processor
Motherboard

Any comments or tips would be great. Thanks guys!!

I think you need a graphics card. (I didn't notice any info of having one. )Essential for a gaming rig. I have gtx-680 and runs very well.

[ttocs]

My brother came into town for the holidays and I can't tell you how excited I was when he told me he wanted me to help him fix his laptop. By "help" he meant he would be in the room(most of the time) and its no wonder the thought of me to fix it since I have a perfect record with these(batting 1000 with 1 in a row now). His power plug had some kind of issue. After finding a youtube vid that showed how to take his apart, we cleared the dinner table and started in on it. 3 hrs later we had pieces now taking up the whole table and part of the counter. The screws were neatly organized on a couple pieces of tape I layed out across the top of the workspace. Got it all apart and it looks like it got hot enough to melt the solder off of the board. Touched up a couple small areas and then started too put it together. Happy too say it charges now but not sure I would do all that again.

Only one extra screw too!

[mr tibbs]

So, for xmas the wife decided to get someone at work to build me a gaming PC! After we discovered streaming through Netflix/Hulu Plus/Aereo using the PS3's and the Roku we really didn't need a whole home PC anymore. So this was a pure gaming PC.

My question is how did she do? I'm really green at the whole PC building stuff and don't have a clue as to what is what. I primarily plan on using the PC to play games downloaded from steam and the like and maybe process some photos on if I have the time.

Below is a list of the components she bought and had put together, thoughts??
Case
Harddrive
DDR3 Ram
Processor
Motherboard

Any comments or tips would be great. Thanks guys!!

I think you need a graphics card. (I didn't notice any info of having one. )Essential for a gaming rig. I have gtx-680 and runs very well.

Sorry, somehow missed the graphics card. She got the MSI MSI R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express included in there.