New to computers

[Crazyman1516]

So im new to the idea of having my own computer and, was wondering if anyone has any tips for me about which one to get.

 

The reason i need to get one are 

 

1. Gaming 

2. Work 

3. To be able to stream to twitch 

 

Plz and thank you 

Edited December 20, 2020 by Crazyman1516
Forgot to and one of my reason for needing one

[Crazyman1516]

19 minutes ago, Cvet76 said:

A few questions:
1. your location

2. budget

3. Which games are you looking to play? Is the work you do relevant to how powerful the PC has to be?

4. What resolution are you looking to play them at? (1080p, 1440p, 4k,..)

5. Peripherals-do you need them and are they part of the budget or separate? (monitor, keyb, mouse, headphones/loudspeakers)

6. Do you want to build a PC yourself or do you want to buy a pre-built one?

1. Iowa 

2. Around 2000$ but i can go up if i need to 

3. Mostly rainbow 6 siege and i will need it for collage classes 

4. Not entirely sure sadly im very new to pc 

5. I already have a keyboard and mouse 

6. I was thinking of learning to build one but not very sure do you now if its very hard thank you.  

 

 

My friend told me about ironside laptops 

And alienware but i just dont know what to look for 

 

[Mark Kaine]

I will say it *is* difficult to build one if you have like no prior experience but definitely not impossible either... helps if you have someone to actually help... otherwise you'll need to do quite some research beforehand. 

 

Alienware etc are usually seen as not ideal because they're A) seriously *overpriced* and B) it's often difficult to upgrade them which C) makes them not exactly future proof. 

[Mark Kaine]

here's a "mid range" PC I threw together, which isn't that expensive and will last you several years - longer than an overpriced Alienware (and you can still easily upgrade parts if needed) 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$324.95 @ B&H
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler	$89.90 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B550M Steel Legend Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$150.99 @ B&H
Memory	Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$99.99 @ Best Buy
Storage	Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$99.99 @ Adorama
Video Card	MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB GAMING X TRIO Video Card	$489.99 @ Adorama
Case	Phanteks Eclipse P300A Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case	$59.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$206.39 @ Amazon
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit	$139.88 @ Other World Computing
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1662.07
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-12-20 16:32 EST-0500

 

[thermalgoop]

There's a YouTube (or Floatplane if you really appreciate their efforts) channel associated with these forums. They have a lot of great reference material for learning how to build a computer. It's certainly not impossible, and everyone has to start somewhere. 

It's using lower end components, and a smidge older than you're going for, but all the concepts still apply. Go slow, be meticulous, don't be The Verge, and you'll do just fine. 

 

The PC Part Picker list above looks pretty solid. You may need to wait to see stock arrive for your GPU (at MSRP, don't let scalpers win), in which case 5000 series Ryzen should be available for purchase, too. In your budget, you could squeeze in a higher end board. Usually x570 boards have better power stages and better feature sets than B550:
ASUS Prime X570 Pro

Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite WiFi

 

You can also find a better deal on an 850W Gold PSU. I got my 850W Gold EVGA unit from Best Buy for about US$150. 

 

You'll also want a an NVMe SSD as your boot storage, since your board supports it, and only use SATA for extra storage disks, where speed isn't as high of a concern. I'd recommend the Samsung 970 Evo 1TB NVMe.

 

Also, Win 10 can be had for much less. If you're attending Uni, you can usually get a key for free for being a student. 

[Intergalacticbits]

Myself if I had a friend who had never owned his own computer before I would not recommend building it yourself for the first one.

Does the college your going to attend have any recommendations for their students laptops?

You have a nice budget so it seems like you can get a pretty decent prebuilt or laptop.

I don't think you'll really need all that much machine to play that game.

So depending on what you'll be doing for class you can probably even cut your budget back a little and still be very happy.

 

If it was me I'd go with a prebuilt from a brand name I'd heard of before, HP, Dell and lots of others in the gaming laptop/desktop business.

Just me guessing but I don't think you need to spend all that much for what your saying you want to do with it.

I'd would also just go to a couple of stores first and put my hands on different ones. Just to see what you like. (Best Buy or Walmart)

If you haven't done that already.

I'd also watch a bunch of videos to get an idea of how much pc you need for different games and doing different things.

Then after a little of that you can have a better idea of what your ordering online.

 

Hope that helps a little.

 

 

 

[PeachGr]

Anything that contains a ryzen 7 5800x and an Nvidia 3080

Quote me if you need a specific list of parts

[unsorted]

If you have no friend who's into computers to help:

---

Spend $50 (or less) of that budget on a used PC. Tinker with it. Get familiar with removing parts, cables, CPU/heatsink (buy some spare thermal paste just in case), cards, mainboard. Download the PDFs for the mainboard and processor installation. Remove hard drive, strip down and re-assemble, practice anti-static precautions, get into bios settings, install Windows, install Linux, etc.

--

 

Glorified Lego is what it is.

 

That's your foundation for your new computer assembly...and you'd have gained a life-long skill with practical knowledge no school could ever give you for that money.

 

 

[Crazyman1516]

15 hours ago, thermalgoop said:

There's a YouTube (or Floatplane if you really appreciate their efforts) channel associated with these forums. They have a lot of great reference material for learning how to build a computer. It's certainly not impossible, and everyone has to start somewhere. 

It's using lower end components, and a smidge older than you're going for, but all the concepts still apply. Go slow, be meticulous, don't be The Verge, and you'll do just fine. 

 

The PC Part Picker list above looks pretty solid. You may need to wait to see stock arrive for your GPU (at MSRP, don't let scalpers win), in which case 5000 series Ryzen should be available for purchase, too. In your budget, you could squeeze in a higher end board. Usually x570 boards have better power stages and better feature sets than B550:
ASUS Prime X570 Pro

Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite WiFi

 

You can also find a better deal on an 850W Gold PSU. I got my 850W Gold EVGA unit from Best Buy for about US$150. 

 

You'll also want a an NVMe SSD as your boot storage, since your board supports it, and only use SATA for extra storage disks, where speed isn't as high of a concern. I'd recommend the Samsung 970 Evo 1TB NVMe.

 

Also, Win 10 can be had for much less. If you're attending Uni, you can usually get a key for free for being a student. 

That Chanel is how i got here i just started watching him tho

 

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to New Builds and Planning

[Gaires]

If you follow the motherboards instructions it's not that hard to build your own computer. It will take time, because you'll probably forget to plug some wire(s), but it's pretty hard to accidentally damage the components.

Just remember to be careful to not use too much force and after installing windows run some benchmarks to make sure the temperatures are fine, people here can help you with those.

[thermalgoop]

5 hours ago, Crazyman1516 said:

That Chanel is how i got here i just started watching him tho

 

Haha I know. I was being a bit of a smartass.