First time building a PC need advice

[GerrymcGerryson]

Hello,

 

     over the last couple weeks I have been looking for parts to build my new PC. I have never built one before so I just want to make sure everything works well. I have looked up countless videos but I just wanted to get one last set of opinions before I buy it all. My main concerns are about if the power supply I chose is good for my build and possibly upgrading my GPU later on. I am also worried about the hard drive and weather it is good. Another concern is the 212X with the ram I chose. All the videos I watched said to get low profile but I bought the ram before I decided on the 212X due to a good sale. Lastly the reason I have the GTX 970 in is I am buying it used from my cousin for 100$. He recently upgraded to the 1080. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated, I just really want my first build to be perfect for the amount of money I have.

 

Link: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Y8j7sJ

[Himommies]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/s8bfxY

[MValuableP]

First of all, you could go with the be quiet! Pure Rock as it's a really good (and cheaper) option to the 212X, which seems unnecessary for your build.

 

Second of all, you should be looking at getting 16GB of RAM as newer titles will require you have more than 8

 

Third of all, the power supply you've chosen is way too much. The Corsair CX550M will do you just fine, as your build will probably only really need around 350 watts. (Then you want a 50W loft and room for overclocking as you've chosen the 6600k).

 

Also, if you want a better performing harddrive, get the Western Digital Black instead of Blue, as the Black edition has better performance. Try to maybe squeeze in a Crucial MX300 250GB SSD with the money you've saved from the other parts I've mentioned, and you'll get a much nicer experience

[Sniperfox47]

Looks like everything is compatible so that's a good start. Let's address your concerns in order:

 

1) Power supply: a 650W is a little over what you need but it won't hurt anything. You should be able to drop to a 550W PSU with plenty of overhead if you can save some by doing so, but 650W will give you a little bit of wiggle room to add a second card if you want.

 

Rough napkin math estimate for what you need: the 351W that PCPartpicker says you need, plus about 50W for inaccuracies in PCPartpicker and Wiggle room for an extra drive or two, divided by .75 to account for the PSU dropping wattage over time. 400/.75=~533 Watts. Anything over that you'll be fine far into the future.

 

2) Hard drive: It'll be fine. As mentioned above you may want to look at the black, but it won't cripple your system or anything like that if you want to save a few bucks.

 

3) Fan/RAM: it looks like your motherboard should have enough spacing, but it'll be tight. Depending on your fan orientation you should be able to fit it fine, but you may have to flip the fan.

 

 

[GerrymcGerryson]

4 minutes ago, MValuableP said:

First of all, you could go with the be quiet! Pure Rock as it's a really good (and cheaper) option to the 212X, which seems unnecessary for your build.

 

Second of all, you should be looking at getting 16GB of RAM as newer titles will require you have more than 8

 

Third of all, the power supply you've chosen is way too much. The Corsair CX550M will do you just fine, as your build will probably only really need around 350 watts. (Then you want a 50W loft and room for overclocking as you've chosen the 6600k).

 

Also, if you want a better performing harddrive, get the Western Digital Black instead of Blue, as the Black edition has better performance. Try to maybe squeeze in a Crucial MX300 250GB SSD with the money you've saved from the other parts I've mentioned, and you'll get a much nicer experience

Thank you a lot for this. I just looked at the CPU cooler you were talking about and I will definitely go with this. as for the ram and the ssd Is it possible to chose to upgrade to those later? I know my case has 2 ssd mounts so if i need more room could i just add more. Also with the ram right now i am only playing games that don't require 16 GB such as minecraft, overwatch, and csgo. Is it as simple as getting another 2X4GB set and putting them in or is it more complex than that. 

[MValuableP]

1 minute ago, GerrymcGerryson said:

Thank you a lot for this. I just looked at the CPU cooler you were talking about and I will definitely go with this. as for the ram and the ssd Is it possible to chose to upgrade to those later? I know my case has 2 ssd mounts so if i need more room could i just add more. Also with the ram right now i am only playing games that don't require 16 GB such as minecraft, overwatch, and csgo. Is it as simple as getting another 2X4GB set and putting them in or is it more complex than that. 

No worries.

 

SSD "upgrade" is definitely possible

 

Also, if the motherboard you chose has 4 RAM slots (which Z170's do), you'll be having the easy install of 2x4 GB if that's what you want to do  Just remember the RAM has to be the same as the other 2x4 GB in your system right now.

[GerrymcGerryson]

8 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Looks like everything is compatible so that's a good start. Let's address your concerns in order:

 

1) Power supply: a 650W is a little over what you need but it won't hurt anything. You should be able to drop to a 550W PSU with plenty of overhead if you can save some by doing so, but 650W will give you a little bit of wiggle room to add a second card if you want.

 

Rough napkin math estimate for what you need: the 351W that PCPartpicker says you need, plus about 50W for inaccuracies in PCPartpicker and Wiggle room for an extra drive or two, divided by .75 to account for the PSU dropping wattage over time. 400/.75=~533 Watts. Anything over that you'll be fine far into the future.

 

2) Hard drive: It'll be fine. As mentioned above you may want to look at the black, but it won't cripple your system or anything like that if you want to save a few bucks.

 

3) Fan/RAM: it looks like your motherboard should have enough spacing, but it'll be tight. Depending on your fan orientation you should be able to fit it fine, but you may have to flip the fan.

 

 

OK great thank you so much for this. Do you think I should go with the 650 or opt for a lower 550 then. My plan for future upgrades for the GPU was either to get a second GTX 970 and use a SLI bridge (my knowledge of that is still very limited but I will do more research when I want to upgrade) or just go for one of the new chip set cards whenever they come out. would a 550 or somewhere around that be able to support those options?

[Sniperfox47]

1 minute ago, GerrymcGerryson said:

OK great thank you so much for this. Do you think I should go with the 650 or opt for a lower 550 then. My plan for future upgrades for the GPU was either to get a second GTX 970 and use a SLI bridge (my knowledge of that is still very limited but I will do more research when I want to upgrade) or just go for one of the new chip set cards whenever they come out. would a 550 or somewhere around that be able to support those options?

A 550 would support swapping v out for a future graphics card without issue. Adding a second might be kind of tight on the wattage, and you should probably stick with the 650 if that's your plan.

 

Stick with the 650 if it's cheaper. If you can get a good quality 550 for cheaper and you don't need room to add a lot more stuff then grab that. A 550 Gold will, in theory, have slightly less power draw at idle and off states than a 650 Gold, but not substantially.

[ARikozuM]

20 minutes ago, GerrymcGerryson said:

OK great thank you so much for this. Do you think I should go with the 650 or opt for a lower 550 then. My plan for future upgrades for the GPU was either to get a second GTX 970 and use a SLI bridge (my knowledge of that is still very limited but I will do more research when I want to upgrade) or just go for one of the new chip set cards whenever they come out. would a 550 or somewhere around that be able to support those options?

550W will support 2x970's. Get yourself a good PSU like the EVGA G2/G3, Corsair RM, or Seasonic M12.

 

Spoiler

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/b6mHqk
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/b6mHqk/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($229.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A SLI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($128.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($57.33 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Crucial MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($80.60 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($53.19 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card  (Purchased For $100.00)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $835.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-18 12:40 EST-0500

The spoiler is the build that I would go for. Buy the HDD first and make a partition worth 120GB to ease the cloning process in the future when you buy an SSD.

[MValuableP]

15 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

550W will support 2x970's. Get yourself a good PSU like the EVGA G2/G3, Corsair RM, or Seasonic M12.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/b6mHqk
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/b6mHqk/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($229.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A SLI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($128.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($57.33 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Crucial MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($80.60 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($53.19 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card  (Purchased For $100.00)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($74.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $835.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-18 12:40 EST-0500

The spoiler is the build that I would go for. Buy the HDD first and make a partition worth 120GB to ease the cloning process in the future when you buy an SSD.

That's where my suggestion of the Corsair CX550M seems fitting, right?

[TheBestUserName]

54 minutes ago, GerrymcGerryson said:

...as for the ram and the ssd Is it possible to chose to upgrade to those later? I know my case has 2 ssd mounts so if i need more room could i just add more. 

Upgrading from a large drive to a smaller one can potentially be a pain depending on the kind of data you keep and how you organize it. Although, the easiest way is to physically install the drive, install Windows fresh on it, install your programs, then drag/drop the rest of your data from the old to the new.  There are cloning utilities to automate it, but, blah... they're generally a nuisance. 

[Psittac]

Have you looked for any r9 fury on sale? They've come down to fill in that price point.  I have a sapphire r9 fury nitro on this rig and it's quite a nice card. Also maybe take a look at the 1060 vs 970.  My take on sli is it's crap, has been ever since it started.  I thought I'd give it a try again earlier this year and I really don't like it.  Games that are supported are hit or miss and sometimes when they are technically supported the performance can be glitchy. All comes down to whether or not the content creators wanted to spend the time on it, and considering a large portion of PC games are port's of console games, meh.  If you don't mind running one card sometimes and switching settings around every time you go into a game it can be beneficial, I like reliability more myself these days.

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, MValuableP said:

That's where my suggestion of the Corsair CX550M seems fitting, right?

If it has a grey label, yes.

 

1 minute ago, TheBestUserName said:

Upgrading from a large drive to a smaller one can potentially be a pain depending on the kind of data you keep and how you organize it. Although, the easiest way is to physically install the drive, install Windows fresh on it, install your programs, then drag/drop the rest of your data from one to the other.  There are cloning utilities to automate it, but, blah... they're generally a nuisance. 

You can set partitions while installing Windows to facilitate any cloning.

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, Psittac said:

Have you looked for any r9 fury on sale?

He has the 970 already.

[MValuableP]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

If it has a grey label, yes.

 

You can set partitions while installing Windows to facilitate any cloning.

It does

[Psittac]

2 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

He has the 970 already.

ahhhh ok, no idea how I missed that the first time.

 

970 is a pretty good card, I had a 560 to start on this rig and after a while someone sold me a 580 cheap.  Worked just fine on everything I played until I upgraded a year ago.  The worst thing that can happen is you don't run ultra setting's.  Should be more than enough for 1080p gaming.  I only mentioned it because $300 for a 970 sounded high.

[Kazy]

5 hours ago, GerrymcGerryson said:

Hello,

 

     over the last couple weeks I have been looking for parts to build my new PC. I have never built one before so I just want to make sure everything works well. I have looked up countless videos but I just wanted to get one last set of opinions before I buy it all. My main concerns are about if the power supply I chose is good for my build and possibly upgrading my GPU later on. I am also worried about the hard drive and weather it is good. Another concern is the 212X with the ram I chose. All the videos I watched said to get low profile but I bought the ram before I decided on the 212X due to a good sale. Lastly the reason I have the GTX 970 in is I am buying it used from my cousin for 100$. He recently upgraded to the 1080. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated, I just really want my first build to be perfect for the amount of money I have.

 

Link: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Y8j7sJ

I had the 970 in my build not to long ago until I bought my 1060 G1... It was a huge upgrade from performance to cooling and even the looks. I would very much recommend even over the rx 480 because the drivers are better...