Trying to Make a Workstation

[AshwinRox]

I've build two computers before, one was with second hand parts and stuck them all together, the other was just a copy of that system. That being said, I'm not really sure how to build my next PC. From a lot of people, I'm told to pick up stuff from pc part picker and build with that. But I'm not entirely sure where to start, or what guide to follow. If I could get some advice, I would like to build close to dream machine as I can! With in a budget of course. 

 

That being said, I am currently working with a budget of about 1500, I would like to ideally be around a 1000, but I could go up to 2 if there is a really good advantage to it. I just got my first commission check and it was a lot of work. I want to make every cent count, and build something that would last a long time! This build is kind of a present to myself to remind me the amount of effort I put into the project before it paid off. 

 

If you can help, fantastic! And thanks for taking the time to read my post and see what could be helped. I really appreciate it. Currently, I'm kind off a hobbyist in terms of graphical design, animation, and some sound editing. I'd like to do some streaming, but I'm debating to use my old computer as a streaming machine and go from there. I love games, I generally have loads with humble bundle, but mainly, I'm playing some games like Overwatch, Borderlands (I want to pre order 3, but there is some controversy atm), Destiny, and that new Apex Legends. I do have an itch for the sims, and that requires some major computing power by itself. I like being creative, making worlds, and designing intricate projects and worlds with minecraft and sims. I would like to have the ability to run my own minecraft server and have friends on! (For the love and death of me, I have the hardest time trying to figure out how to do that). 

Most small stuff, like audio editing is strictly cause my brother is a musician, and I would like to record some music he plays and use it to make some podcasts or youtube videos. Currently I'm looking into an audio card myself cause I found a sweet old Bose home theater spearker system. It's only a series II cinemate system, but I'm happy I have something than buying something new. I also have three monitors, so I kind of need a graphics card to manage that. I don't know why, but I love multi tasking with seperate screens. I plan to one day invest in a 4K wide screen monitor once it gets more affordable. 

I hope I'm not being too talkative in this post. I'm really excited to work on a new desktop! I was also told that prices were dropping for ram, I'm kind of debating leaning towards a board with a ma capacity of 64gb to kind of test out the limits of what I can run on this machine. 

Thanks for the help! And if you are reading at the end of this and trying to help, I really appreciate it for your time to look through all of this. I kind of want to learn more about computers to do this myself, and maybe help others in the future! 

PS: Is DDR 5 going to be a thing now? I know it's too early to really invest in it. I know Linus made a rant about the renaming scheme of USB 3.2 gen 2 x 2, but I wonder if it's something worth looking into when choosing a new board. But I could just plug in a new bus to take those ports can't I?

[Eastman51]

9 minutes ago, AshwinRox said:

PS: Is DDR 5 going to be a thing now? I know it's too early to really invest in it. I know Linus made a rant about the renaming scheme of USB 3.2 gen 2 x 2, but I wonder if it's something worth looking into when choosing a new board. But I could just plug in a new bus to take those ports can't I?

DDR5 is a long way off still. And even when it comes out, there will be a transition period where the cost won't be justifiable.

 

This system can handle all the games you want to play, drive your monitors, do video editing, and has a fairly ok dedicated sound card. I would do more research on sound cards before you buy this one, in case this is a poor pick (I went with budget, lol).

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor	$289.79 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Asus - ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard	$128.49 @ OutletPC
Memory	G.Skill - Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$77.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Western Digital - Blue 250 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$48.89 @ OutletPC
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$59.89 @ OutletPC
Video Card	Gigabyte - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB WINDFORCE Video Card	$498.99 @ SuperBiiz
Case	Fractal Design - Meshify C Dark TG ATX Mid Tower Case	$101.98 @ Newegg
Power Supply	Corsair - RMx (2018) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$89.99 @ Amazon
Sound Card	Creative Labs - Sound Blaster Audigy Rx 24-bit 192 kHz Sound Card	$59.89 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1375.90
	Mail-in rebates	-$20.00
	Total	$1355.90
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-05 13:11 EDT-0400

Most people don't need more than 16GB of RAM, and I'd only go up to 32GB at max (just grab another of those G.Skill Aegis kits, they're good and pretty cheap). 64GB of RAM is only supported on higher end things, like Threadripper, which drives up the cost of the system.

 

This system should be able to handle streaming pretty easily, but you could get an Elgato HD60 to put in your old PC and have a dedicated streaming box if you wanted to.

 

 

For a Minecraft server, I would use your old PC to offload the RAM and CPU load to a dedicated box. Setting up MC servers are pretty easy, even modded ones (if you use Twitch); you can DM me if you want help with this, I run dedicated servers for many games that me and my friends play.

[brob]

The motherboard sound subsystem is pretty good. You might consider using it for a bit before deciding if a discrete sound card is really needed. You may want to consider an external DAC.

 

The gpu will provide decent gaming up to 2K. A more powerful gpu would be required for good 4K gaming.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($289.79 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450 AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0) ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($114.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($79.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Samsung - 860 QVO 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($117.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Video Card  ($513.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Corsair - Carbide Series 275Q ATX Mid Tower Case  ($89.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $1286.62
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-05 13:25 EDT-0400

[SupaKomputa]

22 minutes ago, Eastman51 said:

TLDR

Agree with most of the items, except the WD Blue and Internal soundcard.

Better use external USB soundcard, more versatile, you also can use it in other devices (laptop).

For ssd, get samsung evos. Cost more but longer warranty.

[Eastman51]

1 minute ago, SupaKomputa said:

Agree with most of the items, except the WD Blue and Internal soundcard.

Better use external USB soundcard, more versatile, you also can use it in other devices (laptop).

For ssd, get samsung evos. Cost more but longer warranty.

Internal sound cards aren't bad, just depends. USB ones can be better, but they can also be an awful choice for some setups. 

I'd only get the Samsung if you actually care about the longer warranty. Everyone should have backups, regardless of the drive they buy anyways, so....

WD Blue and 860 EVO has pretty similar write endurance for the same capacity, so personally I don't think it matters which one.

[AshwinRox]

5 hours ago, brob said:

The motherboard sound subsystem is pretty good. You might consider using it for a bit before deciding if a discrete sound card is really needed. You may want to consider an external DAC.

 

The gpu will provide decent gaming up to 2K. A more powerful gpu would be required for good 4K gaming.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($289.79 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450 AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0) ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($114.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($79.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Samsung - 860 QVO 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($117.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Video Card  ($513.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: Corsair - Carbide Series 275Q ATX Mid Tower Case  ($89.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $1286.62
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-05 13:25 EDT-0400

I looked this over... I do like the CPU, but I don't see a cooler here. I think I forgot to mention this but I would like a motherboard with M.2 slot so I can load the OS on it for boot times. I already have a 500GB Samsung with a good speed on it. 

 

Other than that, wouldn't this kind of CPU need a Cooler on it?

[AshwinRox]

5 hours ago, Eastman51 said:

Internal sound cards aren't bad, just depends. USB ones can be better, but they can also be an awful choice for some setups. 

I'd only get the Samsung if you actually care about the longer warranty. Everyone should have backups, regardless of the drive they buy anyways, so....

WD Blue and 860 EVO has pretty similar write endurance for the same capacity, so personally I don't think it matters which one.

So I looked this over and I already have a Samsung M.2. However, I was wondering, that sound card doesn't seem to have much in terms of what port is what on it. Is it programmable?

[brob]

3 hours ago, AshwinRox said:

I looked this over... I do like the CPU, but I don't see a cooler here. I think I forgot to mention this but I would like a motherboard with M.2 slot so I can load the OS on it for boot times. I already have a 500GB Samsung with a good speed on it. 

 

Other than that, wouldn't this kind of CPU need a Cooler on it?

 

The 2700X comes with a reasonably good cpu cooler. No need to buy something bigger unless you want to push overclocking.

 

The motherboard has two M.2 slots. Check the motherboard specs or user manual for details.

[AshwinRox]

14 hours ago, brob said:

 

The 2700X comes with a reasonably good cpu cooler. No need to buy something bigger unless you want to push overclocking.

 

The motherboard has two M.2 slots. Check the motherboard specs or user manual for details.

Oh I see. This one has covers for the slots. That's cool. Thanks!
 

I was always told it's good to get a cooling system since it would be much more preferable to the stock. I suppose if it comes with a good one, there won't be any need. 

[AshwinRox]

On 4/5/2019 at 1:49 PM, Eastman51 said:

Internal sound cards aren't bad, just depends. USB ones can be better, but they can also be an awful choice for some setups. 

I'd only get the Samsung if you actually care about the longer warranty. Everyone should have backups, regardless of the drive they buy anyways, so....

WD Blue and 860 EVO has pretty similar write endurance for the same capacity, so personally I don't think it matters which one.

Do you have any USB sound cards you'd recommend?

[Eastman51]

23 hours ago, AshwinRox said:

Do you have any USB sound cards you'd recommend?

I'm not all that familiar with external sound cards, so not really. Look for DACs and amps, you should be able to find lists of the best ones out there with a simple Google.

[AshwinRox]

18 hours ago, Eastman51 said:

I'm not all that familiar with external sound cards, so not really. Look for DACs and amps, you should be able to find lists of the best ones out there with a simple Google.

Thanks! I'll try to find that stuff and work on building my computer. And hopefully start up the server for minecraft too!

 

[celerystruct]

On 4/6/2019 at 2:04 PM, AshwinRox said:

I was always told it's good to get a cooling system since it would be much more preferable to the stock. I suppose if it comes with a good one, there won't be any need.

Ryzen 2700x comes with a very good cooler for being stock. It's even got rgb. If you're not going to overclock then you should be fine.

[Bearmann]

Only if you need a really quiet cooler for audio editing would you need to replace the AMD cooler. A quiet case here helps too, like the Corsair 275Q above or a Fractal Design R6.