PC build guide (im proud i hope to get it pinned :D)

[jameshumphries47]

Okay guys there wasn’t a thread about a pc building guide, from planning to installation and so on. So if anyone needs more details please PM me or post on here, I will go as in-depth as I know, from finding the right parts to right to the end, if I make an error please feel free to correct me as I’m a bit tired I will also go through what you should choose depending on what you are using it for. So if you’re a first time builder or a many time builder have a read, this may help you on your next build.

I hope to get this into a pinned post: D

Reading time about 30mins

 

Chapter 1.1 budgeting

Okay when you are considering building a pc you have to have a good long think on what is your budget, and what are you using it for? I think if your budget is $400 or under for just the tower alone, I think you should buy a pre-built one from your closet computer store e.g. Curry’s, Pc world.

Okay so you have decided what you are using the pc for. If you’re looking for an average gaming rig (no peripherals or monitors) your looking between £600-£2000 that’s just an average, an editing rig would be again from £600 to about £1500 a mining rig I have seen go between £700 and £6500. So you have a rough idea on what sort of price you’re looking at, again I say this is an average, there will be lower there will be higher. The process is the same for all types of computer.

 

Chapter 1.2 do your research

So you have a budget that is great. One of the most important processes in the whole build, but you needs to remember to stick to your budget otherwise you end up spending too much money on something different to what you planned. You are starting to look for parts, the best thing is to do is read many reviews on pc parts on the linustechtips website; they will inform you on the pros and cons of all of them. You have a few choices in makes and models in all computer parts and you need to take that into consideration.

Chapter 1.3 start planning

Okay so you have done your research and you have a rough idea on parts, go on the PartPicker website and start picking parts,

 

 

GPU

Okay with a gaming and mining rig, this is the main piece this is most likely going to be the most expensive part to your whole build, when you start choosing your Graphics card you want to choose between AMD or NVidia, these are the main two makes of graphics cards. Again do you research whether you want to take advantage or NVidia’s drivers or AMD? AMD is a popular choice among miners and with gamers its personal choice. AMD has OpenCL which is great for mining. . If you want more than one graphics card in your computer this is possible too. If you have chosen AMD e.g. the R9 series you can use CrossfireX which is a ribbon cable that goes from one graphics card to the other(s) you can crossfire a graphics card with 2,3 or 4 other cards. Same with NVidia but you use SLI.

You can’t have an AMD and NVidia crossfires or sli’d to each other, if you want 2 different GPU’s in one system you have to run them signally. You can only sli or crossfire the same gpu to the same gpu. In a mining rig you will most likely have a few gpu’s. when searching for a graphics card in a gaming rig it should take about 30%-%50 or your whole budget, a mining rig they should take %50-%70 of your budget with a editing rig should only use %20-%30 of your budget.  You also get different sized ones like 4gb 3gb… you get the idea. You also get different speeds. Try get as much size and highest speed you can for your budget be careful don’t blow your whole budget on a GPU.

 

 

CPU

Okay this is abit simpler, you only have 2 different companies who make cpu’s. AMD and Intel.

Although AMD tend to have better speeds and more cores, they don’t work as well in the real world than they look like they do, as no games at the time of writing this essay guide thing take advantage of all 8 cores. AMD is more budget based computers. Intel on the other hand are more expensive but are the popular choice upon gamers, miners and editors. I am not a fan boy of either side I am quite happy with a CPU from any side. Its more personal choice. You get different speeds and different amount of cores, at the moment cores do not really matter as most programs only use a single core. Try and get as good speeds as you can for your. A gaming rig should use about %5-%15 of your budget, a miner %5-%20 and finally a editing rig should be about %15-%30. Again these are expensive parts.

 

 

Motherboard

This is were the price goes down abit now you just have to think what you want, I would want a few sata ports and usb 3, the motherboard doesn’t change performance, so it isn’t a big deal in all computers it should be roughly %10 or your budget. And make sure you get the socket of motherboard as you got of the CPU. And choose a size between ATX, mATX, mITX, eATX. ATX being the most popular. (Choosing parts gets easier and cheaper from here)

 

 

RAM

With a gaming and a mining rig the ram isn’t a big deal which again should take about %10 of your budget. But with an editing rig ram is one of the main things and should take about %20 of your budget. You get different models of ram, most used is a DDR 3 nowadays, servers and enterprise systems usually use DDR 2 or DDR 1. So the motherboard you chose most likely accepts DDR 3. So make sure you choose that. Gaming and mining and editing rigs you want to get the highest speed possible so you ideally want about 1600mhz. mining and gaming the storage doesn’t greatly matter but again try and get and get the highest amount possible, with an editing rig you want between 16GB and 32GB I have seen 64GB but that’s just stupidly expensive. And an important note that some people miss, buying expensive ram that looks good, with the same specs as cheaper ram does not make a difference.  

 

 

 

Storage

This is just personal choice, but some very good advice that most tech enthusiasts will agree, spend the extra money and get a good make with a long warrantee, as these are the most temperamental parts in your rig, I would recommend anyone who is building a rig to get a SSD as a boot drive as the increase in boot up speeds and program speeds are insane compared to a HDD. SSD’s are great for reading information but when it comes to writing information, it can eventually start to damage you drive. But if you bought a small SSD you also need space to store things. Buy a HDD a few TB should do the trick make sure it SATA. When you buy a hdd you really want a 7200RPM. Again editor, gamer and miner should have a SSD and a HDD.

 

 

Power Supply

Okay this is a bit harder to explain this one, if  you get all you parts and put them on partpicker in the top left hand corner it should give you an estimate. It is always better to get more Watts than you need. Not less. Okay ill try help a bit this is an average a gaming a Intel cpu, Gigabyte motherboard, 8gb of ram, 1 ssd and 1 hdd, gigabyte GeForce 770 is 433watts its good to get 600W in case you ever want to upgrade, and finally you get none modular, semi modular, and fully modular. Modular means you can take the wires out that you don’t need, i guess you can work out what semi modular and none modular means.

 

 

Case

Just personal choice make sure you buy one that is the same size as your motherboard e.g. ATX

 

 

Other parts

CPU cooler, you have a few options, Enclosed water loop like a corsair H100i. you get a fully custom loop, which is very expensive and you get air cooling, do your research on all 3 for first time builders I recommend air cooling. So for the purpose of this essay I will be explaining air cooling if you want me to explain water-cooling please say and I will.

Thermal compound, this is completely your choice but the best one I have used is IC diamond which has actual diamonds in it and gives you better results. Again it’s all choice

Fans, silent are the best but do you want it to be quite or loud, you get better results on nocturne fans and they are silent they are about £12 each. 140mm, make sure you buy the right size fans for your case.

Optimal dust filter. This again is optimal buy a magnetic one they stop the dust being sucked in by the fans.

Monitors and perhirals are all personal choice and doesn’t really matter too much on what you choose.

 

Chapter 1.4 concluding planning

Okay so you have chosen the parts you want to use great now buy them: D, when you receive them keep them safe and don’t drop them, examine the parts for defects.

 

Chapter 2 building the pc

Okay so this is pretty much the same for gamers, editors, miners.

 

Okay first you want to unbox your motherboard from its box, lay the anti-static bag on the box and lay the board on top  of that. You also want to buy a anti-static wristband, put it around your ankle and ground it to something. The best place to build a pc is on your kitchen worktop with tiled floors.

Right anyway back on with the build . you have an anti-static bag, and you have your motherboard on the anti-static bag on the box. My advice is to build the pc outside of the case and then disassemble and put it in the case, to make sure all the parts work. Okay take the cpu out of the box and take the cpu cover of your motherboard and put it in the MOBO box for safe storage.

Never hold the bottom of the cpu, always hold it by the sides, and align the gold corner on the cpu to the one on the motherboard, and slowly place the cpu in the socket of the motherboard. Give it a little wriggle and pull the safety catch arm on the motherboard over the cpu, this will require a bit of strength but don’t be scared.

 

Okay I guess you don’t want to use the stock cooler. Get your cooler you are using and get some rubbing alcohol 97% or more, and rub it on the top of the cpu and on the bottom of the cpu cooler, to make sure it is clean. Then get your Thermal compound and put about the size of a grain of rice down the centre of your cpu,

then seat the cooler on it and wriggle with little pressure, to make sure there is no compound spillage over the edge if there is clean it up. Then fasten the cooler to the board with help from the instruction manual for the cooler.

 

Okay now take out your ram sticks and put them the right way round ( they will only go in one way round) now put your motherboard aside.

Please note ( if you decide to start it up outside the box, make sure take the motherboard of the anti static bag, as it can short the motherboard.)

Now we are going to prepare the case for the motherboard. Okay if you got an optical drive slide that into 5.5 inch rack at the top and secure that with the bolts that came with the case.

 

Same with your hard drives and your solid state drives, don’t clump them together it’s good to keep them as far apart as possible to give it room to radiate heat. Okay now get your power supply and work out which way is best to bolt it, and secure it with the 4ish bolts included from the back side of the case. Go into your motherboard box and get the rear IO shield and carefully secure that in place, no screw are needed for that.

Now your fans, work out which ones you want to exhaust heat (pull ) and which ones should suck it in (Push) you want really 1 Pull which is the back exhaust and the rest Push, until you are ready to learn and swap the orientations of the fans. Okay now screw them in. okay now put the brass standoffs in the correct hole for you to put the motherboard on and screw it on. now route the cables to the correct places like the 24pin to the motherboard and each cable only has one place where it can go .

 okay now put all the fan cables into the correct places on the motherboard, plug in your GPU(s) into the pci-e slot(s) and put the cables needed in. now get your sata cables and plug them into your motherboard and into your drives. And any other cables consult the manual(s).

Thanks to @megadarkwood for the right to use his video for photos  

Chapter 3

 Right okay you have the pc built great, now you need to install an os, we are going to install windows 7

The first step is to place your Windows 7 DVD into the DVD tray and boot the machine. Your computer needs to be configured to boot from DVD. This is done via BIOS. On most computers, the BIOS menu can be accessed by pressing either the F2 or Del keys while the machine is booting. Once you have completed this stage, Windows 7 will start loading. After a few moments, you will reach the installation menu. Your first step is to choose the language and the keyboard. You will be now taken to the Install now menu. so you can click Install now and proceed. The next step is to accept the licence agreement, then click custom. The next step is to choose where you want to install Windows 7. This is probably the most important part of the entire installation, so you need to be very careful here and make the right choices. Inexperienced users can simply highlight the unallocated space and click Next. You now have the option to create new partitions, format them with a desired file system, change the size of existing or newly created partition (Extend), or delete them. The Load Driver function is usually necessary if you want to create more complex setups like RAID, but this is currently beyond the scope of this tutorial.

 

We will create a new partition. According to official system requirements, Windows 7 needs 16GB of free space. However, you can do with less. The minimum recommended space for a partition where you want to place Windows 7 is 10350MB. Eventually, the installation itself will take approx. 7GB. Make sure you have enough space and install it to the SSDWindows 7 installer will now tell you that it will have to create an additional partition for the core system files. This will be a small primary partition ahead of your newly created one. We now have a system partition and a primary partition, plus some free space. In purely technical terms, there is no such thing as a partition of the type system. There are only two types of partitions: primary and logical. The above-mentioned partition is a primary partition.

If you're using ONLY Windows 7 to create a partition layout on your system, then you should just create a partition with a sufficient size to hold the Windows 7 data files and nothing else. The system partition will be added. Leave the handling of any unpartitioned, free space after the installation. If you're comfortable with your setup, highlight the created partition and click Next. Windows 7 will be installed to this partition. Depending on your hardware, this can take some time. During the installation, your computer may restart several times. Let it be.

 

Eventually, you will be asked to provide your username and a computer name. You will also have to password-protect your account. This is most advisable. You should opt for a strong password.

Then get your activation key and type it in You will be asked to configure your updates. You can choose either setting you like. However, I recommend you configure this choice later, after Windows 7 is installed and running properly. Configure your time zone. Your location will determine the firewall settings for your newly installed Windows 7. You have three choices: home, work or public network. Home and work networks are supposed to be trusted, so you should not experience any problems adding other machines to your group or sharing data with them. However, the public network is meant to be untrusted. So if you have installed Windows 7 in, let's say, Internet cafe, then you should choose the third option.

All done

Okay now go download your favourite programs, but make sure you Google all your part names and models and download the drivers for the part.

[DoubleY]

Awesome

 

Good luck on getting it pinned!

[jameshumphries47]

thanks @Slick

[Oshino Shinobu]

It looks good, but you should probably break it up a little, there's a lot of solid text without gaps in there.

 

Also, put a line or two in between each section (eg. CPU, GPU, Case etc.) it will make it much easier to read. 

[jameshumphries47]

okay thanks for the advise will do that, I wrote it up on word so I just coppyed and pasted so its not how I layed it out on word

[Nineshadow]

Chapter 3 = not good for dark theme users

Nvidia supports OpenCL,too.

Also,CrossfireX doesn't require any bridge from what I remember.

[jameshumphries47]

fixed @Nineshadow

[Nineshadow]

erm how can I fix that? @Nineshadow

Change the colour to automatic.

It's fixed now 

@jameshumphries47 

[Dayone]

I'd mention looking into good cable management for your case. I regret my case purchase now because I have nowhere for the wires to go, it's just a big mess.

[jameshumphries47]

thanks will do when I get time

[nohuevos]

thanks will do when I get time

I found a bit of a typo under power supply 

"Modular means you can take the games out that you don’t need"

 

Looks like a great log and I can't wait to see what you put together!

[jameshumphries47]

aha okay, i was really tired when i did it thanks 

[Guest]

Awesome! Relay detailed and niche written.

 

But one important part (to get pinned) is missing: Pictures

[jameshumphries47]

Awesome! Relay detailed and niche written.

 

But one important part (to get pinned) is missing: Pictures

hmm yes that will be hard but ill try as i am building my first rig at the end of this year, i will post photos when i buil

[megadarkwood]

hmm yes that will be hard but ill try as i am building my first rig at the end of this year, i will post photos when i buil

You can steal screenshots from this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4fyCwyBbZA

[CCap]

Sounds great man. You obviously put a lot of thought into this, and I wish you luck on trying to get it pinned. 

 

@Slick @WoodenMarker @looney @Windspeed36  @airdeano

[JustTooDank]

I thought it was bad to sit your motherboard on the outside of the anti-static bag. It's only anti-static on the inside.

[jameshumphries47]

@JustTooDank

no I know its not anti static, yours good practice to put it on the anti static bag that reminded me to add something

[jameshumphries47]

@megadarkwood thanks dude will do mate

[jameshumphries47]

photo's added more will be tomorrow

[athos]

looks very nice, would be nice if you could upgrade the photos sometime

[jameshumphries47]

@athos, I know but I got permission to use them @LinusTech may I screenshot your photos from your videos on here?

[the21robot]

#whynopinned

[papeles]

Some stuff you should consider adding:

 

-GPU type of cooler (blower type, etc), number and position of Extra power connectors, lenght - these all matter to some extent, and you have to take this in consideration when getting PSU and Chassis

 

-Memory- memory profiles, latencies, voltages. Heatsinks that are huge and can interfere with the cooling of your cpu. 

 

-Applying thermal paste - It's not always a "grain of rice". When applying thermal paste you have to know (googling) how the surface of the chip you are trying to remove heat away from is. Notice that most CPU's have the chip protected by a cap. Haswell (as example) has 2 chips, 1 rectangular close to the center and one squarish next to it; the correct way to apply thermal paste would be in a vertical line.

 

-Motherboard: there is so much to consider here that you didn't mention. You should add something about the chipset, power phases and overclocking, types of chips and how they influence ram/cpu overclock. SLI/CFX capability. Extras as certain Network adapters, good onboard audio (shielded parts, amplifiers, sound chip)

 

-Storage: should have mentioned Raids for data speed and data security. Sata/pci-e disks. Mains difference between mechanical and ss. Prices also, since these vary alot.

 

-PSU: eficient certifications. Haswell rdy PSU's. 

 

Other stuff:

-Buying cooling matterial. You have to consider the case and the fans. Should have mentioned on how to think when building something considering airflow. Static pressure and cfm concepts, laminar airflows to minimize "suffocation". Consider CPU cooler and GPU cooler types and positions when doing so.

-Cable management - Also to be considered when buying a case. Besides looking awefull it interferes with the cooling.

-Case Extras: e-sata on the case, usb 3.0 on the case, proper fan options be it for air or watercooling. 

 

Things i do not agree on:

-Thermal paste apply method is not like that for every component

-Do NOT wriggle any cpu. It only fits properly in ONE way. Mobo and cpu have arrows and a side notch to fit. It goes in and stays put perfectly.

-Who said that all the people who buy a pc installs windows 7? and from a dvd? i personally dont see a person installing an operating system from a cd in like, 4 years and i live in a 3rd world country! Not everything is windows!

-No mention on watercooling.

-No mention on big stores where you can buy/find mostly all the types of components, even if just to compare prices with your local stores. (newegg, ncix, amazon, ebay, younameit)

-I'm bored to think more.

 

 

Now, to summarize my post and PLEASE, DON'T TAKE THIS AS AN OFFENCE, this should not be pinned at all. It is too superficial.

If i was some random person trying to build a pc, the info given here would not have helped me that much. Most of this i would consider just from googling for the main parts. When some1 is trying to really build a pc, there is so much detail you have to consider for each component and how it will mix together in the end.

[Paralectic]

You mentioned you sli/crossfire with ANOTHER 4 cards? 5 way-sli. lol ok

And you are pretty much Intel Fanboying with your topic.

I