Want to build a Gaming PC, have no experience.

[Salicyl]

Hey guys, I dont know if Im correct posting it here, but I just recieved my christmas bonus and want to build a new PC from it. The issue is, I simply dont know what numbers to look at etc. when it comes to performance...

 

So I simply want to ask: Can anyone give me some good "items" to purchase for a good gaming-build? 4000$ budget.

 

And yes, Im planning on building it myself, even though I have close to no experience, so any tipps would be GREATLY appreciated!
 

Thank you all in advance!

[keskparane]

Find a free PC to get some build experience. Doesn't have to be good just something you can hack with. Get your hand in before you muck around with your new expensive parts.

 

 

[Salicyl]

Well, I did somwehat disassemble my own current pc once already (removed GPU, Cooling, CPU, Hard drives, RAM) so by biggest "issues" are the installation of the PSU and Motherboard, and the correct wiring of those two.

[Shiv78]

$4000 is too much for a PC IMO.

 

$2000-2500 should be enough for a great PC with peripherals and a decent monitor.

 

Where are you located by the way, and do you care about aesthetics?

[Omnigenous]

13 minutes ago, Salicyl said:

Hey guys, I dont know if Im correct posting it here, but I just recieved my christmas bonus and want to build a new PC from it. The issue is, I simply dont know what numbers to look at etc. when it comes to performance...

 

So I simply want to ask: Can anyone give me some good "items" to purchase for a good gaming-build? 4000$ budget.

 

And yes, Im planning on building it myself, even though I have close to no experience, so any tipps would be GREATLY appreciated!
 

Thank you all in advance!

My tips honestly would be, watch loads of gaming pc build guides and pc and tech YouTube videos. It really helps. I knew barely anything about PCs and after just over a month of watching PC YouTube videos, I would know how to build a pc probably with no  or little help. 

Also when spending $4000 on building 1 PC be REALLY sure that you want to do this, because if you buy all the parts and go off the idea that’s a massive waste of money

 

Hope this helped, all the best and hope your build goes well

[Omnigenous]

Just now, Omnigenous said:

My tips honestly would be, watch loads of gaming pc build guides and pc and tech YouTube videos. It really helps. I knew barely anything about PCs and after just over a month of watching PC YouTube videos, I would know how to build a pc probably with no  or little help. 

Also when spending $4000 on building 1 PC be REALLY sure that you want to do this, because if you buy all the parts and go off the idea that’s a massive waste of money

 

Hope this helped, all the best and hope your build goes well

Also $4000 is slight overkill on your first build

[Salicyl]

So you guys would recommend going for a prebuilt one? My current PC is pretty outdated... dont get me wrong, it works but it could be A LOT better.... (had this PC since 2012)

[Salicyl]

So, in that case: Which company would you guys/gals recommend for a prebuilt one?

[ch3w2oy]

It's not hard to build, I just built my first PC (check sig). But I'm also not you're average person. If you have common sense and are good with your hands you'll be just fine after watching maybe one youtube video.

 

What you need to research is the parts to use.

 

Check out:

AMD Ryzen processors and Intel 8th and 9th gen processors.

Graphics Cards, you have a good budget so look Vega 64, GTX 1080, 1080 TI, RTX 2080, RTX 2080 TI. Cheaper ones are Vega 56, RTX 2070

Get a good motherboard, if you go Intel, get Z390, spend at least $180 on one. With your budget I would spend between $200-350 for a really nice one.

Get an NVMe SSD. Preferably the Samsung 970 EVO, get 1TB since you're ballin. Or get the 500gb and 1TB SSD.

Get a good power supply, like the EVGA 750 G2 Gold

Get a case you like, but make sure it can fit an ATX size motherboard, unless you want something smaller.

 

Here's an idea of everything need:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$529.00 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	Corsair - H150i PRO 47.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$169.89 @ OutletPC
Motherboard	Gigabyte - Z390 AORUS MASTER ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$294.98 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$309.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$117.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Samsung - 860 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$297.99 @ B&H
Video Card	EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB Black Video Card	$704.98 @ Newegg
Case	NZXT - H700i ATX Mid Tower Case	$169.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$79.89 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$2704.70
	Mail-in rebates	-$30.00
	Total	$2674.70
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-15 17:47 EST-0500

 

[xKyric]

Just now, Salicyl said:

So you guys would recommend going for a prebuilt one? My current PC is pretty outdated... dont get me wrong, it works but it could be A LOT better.... (had this PC since 2012)

I wouldn't buy a prebuilt.

You can make a higher preforming PC on your own.

[TopHatProductions115]

@Salicyl As I tell everyone on this forum, the parts you get should be determined by what you will be doing on it, not the whims of other people's opinions. As such, consider your part and software options with the end objective in mind. What will you be doing? What do you want to be able to do on your PC? And in many cases, you should avoid buying pre-builts, as @xKyric has said - unless it's coming to you at a decent value (the parts included warrant the same or similar price to the cost of the pre-built in question).

[Salicyl]

1 minute ago, TopHatProductions115 said:

@Salicyl As I tell everyone on this forum, the parts you get should be determined by what you will be doing on it, not the whims of other people's opinions. As such, consider your part and software options with the end objective in mind. What will you be doing? What do you want to be able to do on your PC?

Play Games and fuck around on the Interwebs.. thats basically it...and like stated, I simply do not know what any of the numbers below for examples a GPU mean...so I dont really understand whats good or not...

 

[Salicyl]

5 minutes ago, tomswife said:

It's not hard to build, I just built my first PC (check sig). But I'm also not you're average person. If you have common sense and are good with your hands you'll be just fine after watching maybe one youtube video.

 

What you need to research is the parts to use.

 

Check out:

AMD Ryzen processors and Intel 8th and 9th gen processors.

Graphics Cards, you have a good budget so look Vega 64, GTX 1080, 1080 TI, RTX 2080, RTX 2080 TI. Cheaper ones are Vega 56, RTX 2070

Get a good motherboard, if you go Intel, get Z390, spend at least $180 on one. With your budget I would spend between $200-350 for a really nice one.

Get an NVMe SSD. Preferably the Samsung 970 EVO, get 1TB since you're ballin. Or get the 500gb and 1TB SSD.

Get a good power supply, like the EVGA 750 G2 Gold

Get a case you like, but make sure it can fit an ATX size motherboard, unless you want something smaller.

 

Here's an idea of everything need:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$529.00 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	Corsair - H150i PRO 47.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$169.89 @ OutletPC
Motherboard	Gigabyte - Z390 AORUS MASTER ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$294.98 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$309.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$117.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Samsung - 860 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$297.99 @ B&H
Video Card	EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB Black Video Card	$704.98 @ Newegg
Case	NZXT - H700i ATX Mid Tower Case	$169.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$79.89 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$2704.70
	Mail-in rebates	-$30.00
	Total	$2674.70
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-15 17:47 EST-0500

 

This DEFINATELY looks like something I'd be interested in... soo on a scale of potato to professional builder, how hard would this build be? I mean my main "fears" of building a PC are A: dropping the CPU onto the pins, B; Installing the motherboard and C; wiring everything up correctly without somehow causing a shot circuit...

[TopHatProductions115]

@Salicyl What games will you be playing? Some are more CPU intensive, while others are more GPU-bound. This will determine what requires more attention in your build. Also, will you need more than 512GB of storage? If not, I guess you can go for an M.2 NVMe SSD and 8-16GB DDR4 RAM. Those should apply regardless of your build choice (unless you somehow need ECC for anything). I didn't see any professional workloads mentioned, so I'm leaving out workstation/prosumer parts. You'll be looking at either a Ryzen 7 or a Core i7 as your highest CPU suggestion in this scenario. From what I can tell, the Intel ore i9 is a bad value proposition for what you'll be doing (unless you need the absolute fastest, no matter the price).

[Salicyl]

2 minutes ago, TopHatProductions115 said:

@Salicyl What games will you be playing? Some are more CPU intensive, while others are more GPU-bound. This will determine what requires more attention in your build. Also, will you need more than 512GB of storage? If not, I guess you can go for an M.2 NVMe SSD and 8-16GB DDR4 RAM. Those should apply regardless of your build choice (unless you somehow need ECC for anything). I didn't see any professional workloads mentioned, so I'm leaving out workstation/prosumer parts. You'll be looking at either a Ryzen 7 or a Core i7 as your highest CPU suggestion in this scenario. From what I can tell, the Intel ore i9 is a bad value proposition for what you'll be doing (unless you need the absolute fastest, no matter the price)...

Hard to tell what games I play, mostly across the whole spectrum of genres (apart from fighters) Although I do like my fair share of from what I can see quite RAM heavy games like Escape from Tarkov or other less optimized games. Budged wouldnt really be an issue but saving money wherever you can is always appreciated, so if you say I can roughly get a similar gaming performance with an i7 as I would with an i9, Id definately go and get an i7... Id say my minimum I'd like would be 32GB RAM and maybe a 1TB SSD and an HDD for mass storage, if those are even used nowadays?

[TopHatProductions115]

@Salicyl

To keep things conservative (unless you absolutely need to game in 4K60FPS), I suggest the following, general build template:

• Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
• 16GB DDR4 2400MHz (2x8GB or 4x4GB) RAM
• nVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti or Titan XP (Pascal - no other variants)
• SAMSUNG 960 Pro 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD
• 1024GB (1TB), 10kRPM, SATA 3, SSHD
• 80+ Gold (or better), dual-rail, 800W, modular PSU
• Noctua CPU cooler for your CPU (at least 2 fans - the bigger, the better)
• case and motherboard choice are left to anyone who follows behind this post  
• if you want a better audio experience, simply say so (I can make suggestions for such)

If you need anything else, there are tons of people here who can make suggestions for that  

[ch3w2oy]

16 minutes ago, Salicyl said:

This DEFINATELY looks like something I'd be interested in... soo on a scale of potato to professional builder, how hard would this build be? I mean my main "fears" of building a PC are A: dropping the CPU onto the pins, B; Installing the motherboard and C; wiring everything up correctly without somehow causing a shot circuit...

With your budget, that's one bad ass system. If you really want to spend more, get the 2080 ti. Don't worry about what games you play, that computer will handle anything. With your budget, I'm not sure why people are asking what you're going to play. Good luck. 

[Salicyl]

1 minute ago, TopHatProductions115 said:

@Salicyl

To keep things conservative (unless you absolutely need to game in 4K60FPS), I suggest the following, general build template:

• Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
• 16GB DDR4 2400MHz (2x8GB or 4x4GB) RAM
• nVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti or Titan XP (Pascal - no other variants)
• SAMSUNG 960 Pro 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD
• 1024GB (1TB), 10kRPM, SATA 3, SSHD
• 80+ Gold (or better), dual-rail, 800W, modular PSU
• Noctua CPU cooler for your CPU (at least 2 fans - the bigger, the better)
• case and motherboard choice are left to anyone who follows behind this post  

Those ARE some nice specs I have to admit, but I am considering upgrading to 4k, and for some reason I love the Idea of a water cooled CPU... I dont know why.. just feels more fancy (not custom tubing, just a premade kit) Also would this be compatible with a RTX 2080? Cuz from all I heard that is a pretty beast GPU... but like stated Im not too sure about anything

[ch3w2oy]

22 minutes ago, Salicyl said:

This DEFINATELY looks like something I'd be interested in... soo on a scale of potato to professional builder, how hard would this build be? I mean my main "fears" of building a PC are A: dropping the CPU onto the pins, B; Installing the motherboard and C; wiring everything up correctly without somehow causing a shot circuit...

Dropping cpu in its easy as pie. I promise, I was worried about this as well. It literally falls in place. I just did a second build as Christmas gift. You won't short circuit anything. I built my computer on the motherboard box first just to test it. 

[TopHatProductions115]

@Salicyl If you really want it, go for an RXT 2080 Ti. The 8700K won't hold it back much (if at all). Unless you're doing some heavily-threaded workloads (in addition to the high clock speeds offered), the Core i7-8700K still stands as a good option from Intel. Also, be careful not to fall into this trap:

 

[Salicyl]

2 minutes ago, tomswife said:

Dropping cpu in its easy as pie. I promise, I was worried about this as well. It literally falls in place. I just did a second build as Christmas gift. You won't short circuit anything. I built my computer on the motherboard box first just to test it. 

tbh, I was never concerned about plugging something in the wrong way until I watched this: 

Since I dont have a damn clue wth has happened there, Im afraid of messing up in the same fashion 

[TopHatProductions115]

In both of the videos below, look for which CPUs get the best FPS numbers (higher is usually better) :

 

 

[ch3w2oy]

42 minutes ago, Salicyl said:

tbh, I was never concerned about plugging something in the wrong way until I watched this: 

Since I dont have a damn clue wth has happened there, Im afraid of messing up in the same fashion 

You'll be fine, don't read into it to much. You'll just start to second guess yourself. Im a very techy person so it might just be me, but it's rather simple. 

 

Also, you should consider building a high end AMD build as I have because I have good faith that AMD will deliver in early 2019, making an upgrade to their next generation absolutely worthwhile. 

 

Grab this and upgrade cpu in 2019 and you'll have one bad computer. This is exactly what I did, except went with 2600x and Vega 56 with plans to upgrade next year. And this system already won't hold you back from not a damn thing. 

 

Be a BOSS.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor	$289.89 @ OutletPC
CPU Cooler	Corsair - H150i PRO 47.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$169.89 @ OutletPC
Motherboard	Asus - ROG Crosshair VII Hero (Wi-Fi) ATX AM4 Motherboard	$284.98 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$479.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$117.99 @ Amazon
Video Card	EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB XC GAMING Video Card	$1348.89 @ B&H
Case	Phanteks - Enthoo Evolv TG (Silver) MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$137.98 @ Newegg
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$78.89 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$2938.50
	Mail-in rebates	-$30.00
	Total	$2908.50
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-15 19:18 EST-0500

 

[Shiv78]

2 minutes ago, tomswife said:

Grab this and upgrade cpu in 2019 and you'll have one bad computer. This is exactly what I did, except went with 2600x and Vega 56 with plans to upgrade next year. And this system already won't hold you back from not a damn thing. 

 

If he will upgrade so soon, a Ryzen 3 or 5 would be a better way to hold off (probably a R5 2600).

 

ALSO, that case is for MICRO ATX not full ATX. That mobo won't fit in there!

[ch3w2oy]

Just now, Shiv78 said:

If he will upgrade so soon, a Ryzen 3 or 5 would be a better way to hold off (probably a R5 2600).

I absolutely agree. Thanks for catching that.  If it's not worthwhile then at ieast you still have the highest end of the highest end. You can always sell the cpu for a nice penny. 

 

But yes, if you're going to upgrade like me, get an r5. I got the 2600x for the same price as 2600, otherwise that's where my head was as well.