Pc Build guide (remastered)

[jameshumphries47]

PC BUILD GUIDE!!!

 
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. Also you tube is a great website for reviews! 
 

Chapter 1.3 start planning

Okay so you have done your research and you have a rough idea on parts, go on the PCPartPicker website and start picking parts.
This is what it should look like when completed (its just an example)

 

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 1,2,3 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 amounts of Vram higher the better e.c.t 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 a bit 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 as they do on paper, 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 different amount of cores and hyper threading which only Intel use!  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 budget, also if you can afford it get hyper threading! A  CPU for 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 a bit now you just have to think what you want, you want sata 6gb/s 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 same 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 %30 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. But DDR 4 is just comming over the horizon! 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 64GB although 64GB is expensive it is well worth it! 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 this will increase the booting speed dramatically. 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 3 for the best red/write speeds!!! When you buy a hdd you really want a 7200RPM. Again editor, gamer and miner should have a SSD and a HDD. This should take about 7% of your budget
 
 

Power Supply

Okay this is a bit harder to explain this one, if  you get all you parts and put them on PCpartpicker 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. i would recommend corsairs line of PSU's and a modular one! again about 15% of your budget!
 
 

Case

Just personal choice make sure you buy one that is the same size as your motherboard e.g. ATX, make sure you get one with the right size bays for the stuff that you have bought so if you have bought a 3 1/2 inch drive then you want a place to store it in your case! pricing is all up to you!
 
 

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 (passive 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!! but i would recommend not using the stuff that comes with your CPU!
 
Fans, silent are the best but do you want it to be quite or loud, you get better results on Noctua fans and they are silent they are about £12 each.  make sure you buy the right size fans for your case. you get a huge range of different sized fans. double check on your case manufactures website to check how many more fans you need and what size!
 
Dust filter. This again is choice buy a magnetic one they stop the dust being sucked in by the fans.
Monitors and peripherals are all personal choice and doesn’t really matter too much on what you choose.
 
if your buying a monitor then realisticly you would benifit from IPS, which gives richer colours and better veiwing angles! also use display port if possible. if not use HDMI!
 

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. place the motherboard on top of the motherboard box, don't place it on the antistatic bag as it can short connections and pins! You also want to buy a anti-static wristband, put it around your ankle and ground it to something. you can buy grounding plugs that plug into your wall socket there not to expensive! If you have some spare money buy a anti static mat! but you don't need that just keep grounding yourself to the case! The best place to build a pc is on your kitchen worktop with tiled floors.

 
Right anyway back on with the build . you have your motherboard on the motherboard 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 pea 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 find your RAM slots and line up the ram and make sure its the right way round! ( they will only go in one way round) push the tabs on either side down! and slot in your ram and apply pressure! now put your motherboard aside.

 
 
Now we are going to prepare the case for the motherboard. if your case came with the stand off's pre installed check make sire there aligned, if not put them in by hand, you dont need to use a spanner!
Okay if you got an optical drive slide that into 5.5 inch rack at the top and secure that with the screws that came with the case or the optical drive
 
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 if there is a hole for air flow at the bottom make sure the heat exsausts through there you dont want hot air blowing on your GPU! and secure it with the 4ish bolts included with 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 2 others Push, until you are ready to learn and swap the orientations of the fans. Okay now screw them in.

 
Okay now most things are in your case, you need to install the GPU, unbox it then choose a PCI-E slot that's not going to blow hot air on not many components unscrew the PCI-E cover on the case simply slot the GPU in the PCI-e slot and screw the back of the GPU into the case!

 
 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  . now is a great opportunity to explain cable management! cable management has to be done its extremely tedious i would recommend using twist wire that you get from your PSU and cables that you accumulate! and tie them together if they go to a similar place! use the rubber groves to route wires, this should achieve better airflow! 

 
 
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).

 

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/USB. 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.

<----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1000th post-------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

[iAsuno]

please set text color to default. it is almost unreadable on the night theme.

[jameshumphries47]

please set text color to default. it is almost unreadable on the night theme.

ahh okay will do that no im so sorry! better?

[MG2R]

ahh okay will do that no im so sorry! better?

Fixed it for you

[jameshumphries47]

Fixed it for you

thank you how do i have links like you do in your sig?

[Manny Calavera]

lots of unnecessary info and percentages

 

its 99% easier just ask for the build

 

Good effort tho

[jameshumphries47]

lots of unnecessary info and percentages

 

 

Good effort tho

i think the percentages give newbies something to go off! and im not sure what you mean by its 99% "easier just ask for the build xD"

[Manny Calavera]

i think the percentages give newbies something to go off! and im not sure what you mean by its 99% "easier just ask for the build xD"

well, its much easier if people who dont want to research ( or read  ) to ask on this forum for pcpartpicker build. thats what they are doing, or we review their build and correct etc..

 

also, this article has flaws and i wouldnt even recommend it. Remaster it again  and again. and again...         for example if you put thermal compound for about the "grain of rice" then you are well on your way of building worse computer than if you bought prebuilt

 

I didnt even read whole article so yea... wouldnt recommend this, especially not for new builders

[jameshumphries47]

well, its much easier if people who dont want to research ( or read  ) to ask on this forum for pcpartpicker build. thats what they are doing, or we review their build and correct etc..

 

also, this article has flaws and i wouldnt even recommend it. Remaster it again  and again. and again...         for example if you put thermal compound for about the "grain of rice" then you are well on your way of building worse computer than if you bought prebuilt

 

I didnt even read whole article so yea... wouldnt recommend this, especially not for new builders

well i have built multiple gaming rigs in the same way i made this no problem and they are all working now?

[lubblig]

why not just watch linus's videos? feels like you've made somewhat of a summary on all of his videos.. You did some of your own work but the building part was almost funny since you kind of quoted him

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are quite a few, just go here and look yourself and the building part is almost identical to what you said.. https://www.youtube.com/user/LinusTechTips/search?query=build

 

But great that you took the time to do it but I don't see the point since this is what Linus does for a living..

[Manny Calavera]

well i have built multiple gaming rigs in the same way i made this no problem and they are all working now?

Or maybe you cant distinguish between pea and grain of rice but other people do.

[jameshumphries47]

why not just watch linus's videos? feels like you've made somewhat of a summary on all of his videos.. You did some of your own work but the building part was almost funny since you kind of quoted him

 

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhkJLF3oyI8

 

 

 

There are quite a few, just go here and look yourself and the building part is almost identical to what you said.. https://www.youtube.com/user/LinusTechTips/search?query=build

 

But great that you took the time to do it but I don't see the point since this is what Linus does for a living..

but the emphasis is not on building but on planning and installing OS. i didn't watch any of linus vids to write this up only one for the photos  but thanks for your reply and honestly you cant miss out the building bit

[jameshumphries47]

Or maybe you cant distinguish between pea and grain of rice but other people do.

well to be honest you being kind of rude now, but i think a grin of rice-a small be is a good amount to go off

[Manny Calavera]

well to be honest you being kind of rude now, but i think a grin of rice-a small be is a good amount to go off

ignore the "insult" and insist that you are right? way to go... protect your massive ego

no i was just stating the fact you will have to prove me otherwise.

 

oh and is it cooked / overcooked rice or not? its difference and what type of rice? Lmao! 

VS.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhkJLF3oyI8#t=1539

 

big difference mate. you misinform people. On bequiet cooler linus made same method. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk45njIUvH0#t=941

[jameshumphries47]

ignore the "insult" and insist that you are right? way to go... protect your massive ego

no i was just stating the fact you will have to prove me otherwise.

 

oh and is it cooked / overcooked rice or not? its difference and what type of rice? Lmao! 

VS.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhkJLF3oyI8#t=1539

 

big difference mate. you misinform people. On bequiet cooler linus made same method. 

ahh right i see what you mean ill change it!

[iglaman]

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