Holford

When I was a teenager, growing up in a town in the English county of Kent, I was surrounded by a large number of people who exceeded the age of 60. As such, and as I was already known amongst my parents' friends as, "their IT support", I put my name & number in the local newspaper as a computer repair person.
 
I did a few jobs for a few people over the summer. Nothing overtly exciting (odd RAM upgrade, or minor data recovery). Then one day, I get called in by a guy who bought his elderly mother a PC, so she could email him as he was travelling a lot for work that summer, and he was leaving his 13 year old son with her.
 
So I turn up, check out the PC and see that it's performance is AWFUL! I load up the web browser, and the homepage is an asian pharmaceuticals website, and there are about 10 random 'browser bars'... Okay. So I crack out my anti-virus suite, see it's flagged a bunch of files in the Documents folder, go to check it out. I find a huge repository of WMV Low Res downloaded Hentai Tentacle Porn...
 
Right. I erase it, wipe the system, restore critical files and programs after passing them through my anti-virus suite's quarantine, and say no charge to the old lady.
 
A week or so later, I get a phone call from the guy who called me in the first place, saying thank you and asking what the issue was...
 
"Oh... It was just a bunch of viruses that got onto the system, and some random bloatware slowing performance. Don't worry, I've removed them now, and done a clean install", I tell him.
 
"But how did they get on there?", he asks.
 
"..."
 
"Did my mother open a spam message, or something?"
 
"..."
 
"..."
 
"You should talk to your son about his taste in movies"
 
I hang up.

What a fucking asshat.

You should show it to your kids and tell them you were a ex pro dancer!

Ok first, why is this in console gaming? Probably going to be moved but I had to ask.  Second, I haven't seen a Mac vs PC add in like 10 years so that's not even relevant anymore.  Third, Apple sells designer products that come with a designer price.  They may not be as powerful as a similar priced PC but they run incredibly well because Apple keeps everything in-house, they can optimize the absolute crap out of their software so it can utilize every tiny bit of their undoubtedly under-powered hardware.  Now I use a desktop PC but I use an iPhone 6s Plus and personally I find it much better than any Android device I've used (I've had other phones so don't call me a sheep or some dumb crap like that).  They may be under-powered on paper but they make up for it with the incredible efficiency of iOS.  Overall, Apple is a competitor and is going to be around for a very, very long time, either suck it up and deal or see yourself out of the tech world buddy.

A pcpartpicker.com build list is a lot easier to work with.
 
A 250W psu is more than sufficient to power the system. So 650W is far more capacity than needed. Beside, EVGA G1 psu offer only average quality and performance. Also, the listed unit is 180 mm long. Silverstone lists the max psu length as 150 mm
 
The cpu cooler is too tall for the case. Silverstone lists the max cpu cooler height as 61mm. Noctua lists the NH L9x65 height (with fan) as 65mm.
 
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i3-7100 3.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($119.88 @ OutletPC) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i 33.8 CFM CPU Cooler  ($37.88 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: MSI B150I GAMING PRO AC Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($92.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($57.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card  ($139.99 @ B&H) 
Case: Silverstone Sugo SG13B Mini ITX Tower Case  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($57.15 @ Amazon) 
Total: $505.87
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-15 23:20 EST-0500
 

That's genuinely useful, thank you! I hadn't come across this model from MSI in my research.

I personally think you would be better off with this card due to it's small size/performance. Will give you more room, and better overall temps.
 
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137081&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Video+Card+-+Nvidia-_-N82E16814137081&gclid=CMHGjrTUk9ICFUdufgod13kIgQ&gclsrc=aw.ds
 
 

I just finished building my first computer for gaming. The total cost was about $360~ my concern with that was that I planned on doing this as a challenge build by spending no less than $50 per part by either buying used or finding some great deals. After I list the parts you'll see that that wasn't going to happen. (I did get the GPU for $45 but finding a CPU and ram was the problem)
 
PARTS LIST
 
CPU
AMD X4 870K 3.9GHz Quad-Core
        This was my challenge killer for the "Under $50 per part" because finding a CPU that was gaming ready at least in some sense (AKA anything quad core with decent GHz) so I decided forget it and tried to go for an AVERAGE of under $50 per part. I had also bought the MOBO before making a proper CPU choice so I had locked myself in to an FM2+ socket so lesson learned. I came to this CPU after lRooking up some benchmarks compared to my laptop's CPU and this one had scored better and fit the rest of my requirements.
 
Ram
G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
       There's not much story or explanation behind this ram. I wanted at least 8 GB and dual channel. Check. I was told speed of ram isn't going to make a huge difference so I didn't worry about that too much. This was highly rated on newegg and fit the price point at least closely. Check. It has designer heatsinks (I think that is what they're called) which is an unnecessary but necessary point for me. I just think it looks cool. Check.
 
MOBO
Biostar Hi-Fi A70U3P Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard
      Again not much story behind this but it is my least favorite and imo the weakest part of this build. It has dual channel memory (The ability for quad-core would have been nice but lesson learned) which isn't that hard find. It was an AMD board which was chosen for price reasons. This board was also on sale which let me hit the challenge's price point. Some drawbacks are that it only has two fan headers; one CPU and one for a case fan ( my case came with two fans) and it only has one PCI-e x16 3.0 slot which can come back to haunt me for upgrade ability but now its fine.
 
STORAGE
PNY CS1311 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
     This was on sale and it was an SSD. Its going to be a boot drive and used as the storage until I buy an HDD to act as actual storage. After that it'll be a boot drive and used for games with long load times.
 
CASE
DIYPC DIY-F2-W ATX Mini Tower Case
      As soon as I saw this case I fell in love. It looks cool as hell and came with LED fans and fell under my price point while it was on sale. It isn't very big for cable management which was a nightmare but otherwise I love this case. It doesn't have any space or openings for things like disk drives but I don't need one of those so no harm no foul.
 
PSU
EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply
      Its a reputable manufacturer and it was in the price point do I really have to say more. My only wish is that it was modular or at least semi-modular it would make cable management easier.
 
GPU
XFX Radeon R7 360 2GB Double Dissipation Video Card
     This was the catalyst for this build. I bought this from someone on craiglist who said he never used it (sure it was still in box and had the plastic protective wrap on the GPU and came with the original box but I still took it with a saltbae amount of salt) but the caliber of this GPU for $45 dollars I couldn't say no. This is my pride and joy of this build and it was a very noticable upgrade for me considering the last 3 computers I had and used for gaming all had integrated graphics. Sure it isn't a GTX 1080 and there's many like it but this is my first computer and this one is mine.
 
BENCHMARKS
This will be quick and off the top of my head but in 3dmark skydiver it got ~11000 and for fire strike (I DONT REMEMBER RIGHT NOW BUT ILL UPDATE THIS WHEN I GET BACK TO IT AND RUN THE TEST AGAIN TONIGHT) I'm happy with the performance considering the cost and I've been able to play more games at higher resolutions than I ever was able to, I'm very happy and proud of my build.
 
FOREWORD
Eventually I am going to add a 1TB HDD to get more than a minimal 120 GB of storage. I also want to change out the motherboard to one that I can overclock with better and that has more ram slots as well as more pci-e slots for something like a network or wifi card.
 
NAMING
I do not have any ideas for a name for the build so please post some suggestions below I look forward to seeing them.


If I forgot to mention something please let me know and I'll elaborate more on it.

So I work in a 'high-end technology store' which is oft frequented by people (not always of the older generation, but quite commonly so) who have a somewhat limited grasp on technical terms. I had one such encounter with a person that wanted to get a new computer because they were given a lower-end MacBook Air a few years ago, and found they were running out of space constantly. He was adamant that he need a machine with, "at least `12 or 16".
 
I turned to them, perplexed for a moment, and clarified, "Oh, that's the RAM. That doesn't affect storage." Thinking the matter was settled, I indicated to them a system with a 512GB SSD & 8GB of RAM. They then turn to me and re-iterate, "Oh no! That doesn't have enough! See *points to the Info Pane* it only has 8!"
 
Needless to say we do this dance several more times before they finally 'understand' what I was trying to explain to them.
 
Another fun day in technology sales.

I did this recently myself - checkout my experience / advice here: 
 

So I work in a 'high-end technology store' which is oft frequented by people (not always of the older generation, but quite commonly so) who have a somewhat limited grasp on technical terms. I had one such encounter with a person that wanted to get a new computer because they were given a lower-end MacBook Air a few years ago, and found they were running out of space constantly. He was adamant that he need a machine with, "at least `12 or 16".
 
I turned to them, perplexed for a moment, and clarified, "Oh, that's the RAM. That doesn't affect storage." Thinking the matter was settled, I indicated to them a system with a 512GB SSD & 8GB of RAM. They then turn to me and re-iterate, "Oh no! That doesn't have enough! See *points to the Info Pane* it only has 8!"
 
Needless to say we do this dance several more times before they finally 'understand' what I was trying to explain to them.
 
Another fun day in technology sales.

So I work in a 'high-end technology store' which is oft frequented by people (not always of the older generation, but quite commonly so) who have a somewhat limited grasp on technical terms. I had one such encounter with a person that wanted to get a new computer because they were given a lower-end MacBook Air a few years ago, and found they were running out of space constantly. He was adamant that he need a machine with, "at least `12 or 16".
 
I turned to them, perplexed for a moment, and clarified, "Oh, that's the RAM. That doesn't affect storage." Thinking the matter was settled, I indicated to them a system with a 512GB SSD & 8GB of RAM. They then turn to me and re-iterate, "Oh no! That doesn't have enough! See *points to the Info Pane* it only has 8!"
 
Needless to say we do this dance several more times before they finally 'understand' what I was trying to explain to them.
 
Another fun day in technology sales.

I've moved my rig several times in the past couple years, but it was all Stateside, and drove my system myself. But still disassembled into the smallest components. I hope the AIO continues to function. I think that's the scariest part to ship!

Hello again, fellow TechTippians!
 
So a little over a year ago, I posted this question to the forums "How to ship my Rig (Moving from the UK to USA)". Well, it's a year later. I've moved from London to Austin. My Personal Rig has come with me - and boy did I learn a few things about shipping computers internationally along the way...
 
First of all, I want to stress something: @wolfsbane3083 had the best answer to my original question. However, due to budget constraints, time, and locally available resources, I had to go with a sliughtly different solution.
 
That all said, i wanted to share my experience with you all, lest some other poor soul out there has to go through the same thing I did.
 
THE RIG
So the machine I was shipping was housed in a Cooler Master Mastercase Pro 5 body. Full specs include:
CPU    Intel i5 4960k Quad Core CPU Motherboard    Asus Z97-PRO Gamer S1150 Z97 ATX RAM    Kingston HyperX Savage 2400MHz (4x8gb - 32GB) GPU    (x2) MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 Gaming Twin Frozr Case    Cooler Master Mastercase Pro 5 Storage    (x1) Intel 535 240GB SSD, (x1) Samsung Evo 240GB SSD, (x2) WD Black 4TB HDD PSU    EVGA SuperNOVA 750W PC Power Supply Cooling    Corsair Hydro Series H110i GT 280mm Extreme Performance All-In-One Liquid CPU Cooler  
THE BUDGET
Due to the expense of everything else with this move (I think I spent culmatively $8000 on Visa fees, Processing fees, Flights, Medical Exams, and more) I had to limit my shipping costs as much as possible. Overall, I had approximately $200 to spend on shipping.
 
THE SOLUTION
So how did I send it? It boiled down to a few stages:
Deconstruction: I removed the HDDs and SSDs, along with my two Graphics Cards, and the WiFi antennas, from the rig prior to packing. I also put back into the case the original rear PCI-e shrouds. Packing: I used the box that came with my Cooler Master Mastercase Pro 5 case (as well as the original foam packing), filling the outside & inside of the case and box with ESD safe packing peanuts. Preparation: I placed the graphics card into their original ESD wrappers & retail boxes, and the HDDs and SSDs into a foam-lined steel carry case. These boxes all then were packed into my checked luggage. Shipping: Using the courier DPD in the UK, I paid approximately $180 for shipping & insurance (guaranteeing me reimbursement for damage done to the components at retail price) and taking it by hand to one of their depots.  
THE OUTCOME
The rig arrived approximately 3 days after I did (taking 5 days overall). The box it arrived in was... frankly... destroyed. In hindsight, I could've definitely done with purchasing another box to place the case's box into, and attaching it to a flat wooden pallett. Unfortunately for cost (the side & weight of this would've moved me from consumer to commercial shipping costs, which were almost twice the amount I paid) I wasn't able to do this.
 
Upon arrival, there were a few... concerning things that I noticed. 
Two of my RAM modules had become unlocked and gotten stuck between various other parts of the case
They were otherwise undamaged, and are still recognised & used by my system without incident. 
  The power-supply came loose from the case's bracket & the screw became lodged underneath the PSU's body
This was the most notable damage to my system, as the actual PSU chassis has become slightly dented and damaged from moving around within the body of the case, during its journey.  
There were also things that didn't go wrong, and seem unaffected by their transatlantic journey: 
The CPU & All-in-one Water Cooler remained in place, undamaged, and tightened to the case
Due to a lack of suitable box to place the Corsair H110i GT AIO Water-Cooler in for shipping, I was forced to leave it in the system. There has been no damage, or drop in performance.
  The original box that came with the Cooler Master Mastercase Pro 5 case is very resilient
I switched from a Corsair Air 540 to the Mastercase Pro 5 about 6 months prior to my move, in small part because of Cooler Master's legendary packing materials. I was not disappointed.  
Okay guys, that my 'guide' to moving internationally. There are lots of mistakes I made (that hopefully someone else can learn from), and plenty of things I discovered along the way.
 
If you're about to go through a similar move, and want any advice or want to ask any questions, please feel free to hit me up. Also checkout the original thread that was linked at the start of this post, as there are lots of useful tips in there from people who have actually worked in the shipping industry.
 
That's all for now guys - catch you next time!

This is why I hold onto all of the original boxes for my components. AIO, CPU, GPU, MB, RAM. Pretty much everything except my hard drives.
I would've put the case in it's own box, filled it with bubble wrap and shipped it on its way, while putthing the rest of the components tightly in a double box. Put them all into one box, packed tight with bubblewrap. Then put that box into a slightly larger box, bubble wrap that, and then ship. The extra boxes do help with damage issues. Its easy to get damaged through one box, but two boxes seems to do a pretty good job at displacing impacts.
 
Otherwise, great experience, glad I didn't have to go through it. Do you have any pictures of how you packaged things up?

IT's late and I'm both hungry and tired from shooting Scrapyard Wars (which by the way is an LTT series and will be airing ad-supported on YouTube very soon for your viewing pleasure).
 
But there are a few points to address and you've already been patient enough.
 
I said LMG content would always be free. This was poor wording on my part. There has always been content produced by me and my team that was not necessarily available on a free platform like YouTube.
 
These "The Boost" videos that we make on contract as a sales training resource for Intel, for example:
 
 
 
In much the same way, Vessel has contracted LMG the production company to create an original series for their platform. They bankrolled the whole thing, giving us an opportunity to make something that otherwise would have been too costly, and per the licensing agreement they own the right to exploit this content. It's their show until such time as they decide it's not anymore.
 
We played more of a "production company" role in this than we're accustomed to.
 
This could, and SHOULD have been communicated better, and for that I'm sorry. The community should have heard about this from us FIRST, and not from a random email newsletter, but I've been (and so has the whole team) absolutely busting ass to not only get Nerd Sports produced, but also make sure that we're keeping up with everything else that we've got going on including not having missed a single day of LTT uploads for something like 5 years..
 
With that said, quantity isn't everything, and I've noticed that not everyone has appreciated the LTT content as much as usual lately, but it's hard for me to tell if that's because they don't like our new direction (fewer reviews, and more exploratory or experimental videos) or if they just saw a video or two they didn't like and raised hell in the comment section - it wouldn't be the first time.. And I will say, too, that honestly if a couple of the videos felt rushed then it's probably because they were.. HOWEVER, the primary reason for the rushed videos was  the entire week we're taking off this week to film Scrapyard Wars Season 4, which will be premiering on Vessel sometime in the next few weeks or so, followed by a release on YouTube 1 week later, which is the standard agreement for OUR content that is paid for by LMG or our sponsors.
 
Nerd Sports was shot 40% during evenings and weekends with employees taking time in lieu later on when we hire some more staff or when things slow down a little. We were careful to avoid disrupting any of our other commitments because imo you guys deserve the best we can deliver.
 
Which is another point that was brought up in this thread - "How will LMG keep its commitment to maintain the pace and quality of the other content if they're making Nerd Sports or other contractual content?"
 
We couldn't. We're hiring.
 
I've never shied away from investing in more staff or better equipment or a better facility to make sure that we're doing our best for ourselves, each other, our sponsors and our viewers. If we play our cards right, absolutely everyone wins.
 
Nerd Sports has been a fantastic learning experience for us, and whether we continue the series with Vessel, create other completely different web series in the future, or just say "fudge it" and flip burgers from now on, we'll be able to do those things better than we could have without having done this.
 
So bottom line is this. I screwed up the way I communicated "LMG content", which was meant to be content funded BY Linus Media Group rather than content funded entirely by and licensed to a 3rd party, and I screwed up in a MUCH bigger way the LACK of communication about this project. Sorry guys.

Nice building, what kind of server are you on? If you don't want to get raided continuously, try finding some people and build a small village. Groups of bases are attacked more rarely than solo bases.

Xpost from /r/pcmasterrace/:
"First year following Linus Tech at CES but this is my general impression." -  Geersart

It's an excellent PSU. Go for it.

3 980 ti's in SLI? For that I would go for a 1000-1200W PSU. Also are you going to buy the parts in London or USA?

make sure it is fully redundent

why not get a real redundant server PSU instead of a consumer one?

Box it in the case box and then buy/build a wooden crate to put it in with a least 3 inches of foam/peanuts between the box and crate. Put this way up labels so that the gpu is up and the mobo is on the bottom. If you want to make doubly sure it stays the right way up (everyone ignores up arrows) strap it to a slightly larger pallet. And finally, shipping insurance. It's gonna cost a bomb but at least you'll be covered.
 
I know this sounds overkill but believe me, shipping is a lot rougher than anyone who hasn't work in the industry can imagine.

We are aware things aren't perfect St the moment but making videos is what pays for the new studio to be built so we can't exactly put making videos on hold while we build it..
It is what it is and it will be better than ever and we will all forget this ever happened

make sure you get 2 extra 140mm fans for the top.