Advice seeking

[Haytaybay]

Hello everyone, I am reaching out on this forum to ask for help and advice on building my very first gaming pc. I’ve been a console user for 12 years and have recently decided to get into the pc world. Knowing nothing about it, it can be very overwhelming. I was hoping someone with experience could shed some light on the process of deciding which parts to purchase and why. I would like to know why I am picking a product as well as where to look to check compatibility with the system overall and any other tips you’d like to share. I was hoping to keep my budget well under $1,500. 

 

Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. It’s hard learning a new skill alone. 

[Zmax]

If you never open a PC. I would believed your best option is to buy a gaming machine from store or on line.  

 

I am sure someone can direct you to a good machine, and store, in your price range

[Haytaybay]

1 minute ago, Zmax said:

If you never open a PC. I would believed your best option is to buy a gaming machine from store or on line.  

 

I am sure someone can direct you to a good machine, and store, in your price range

Strange. Most people say it’s not that hard to build it once you get the basics down. 

[PETRGangKing]

Well first, you need to decide which platform your want.  To decide that, you need to know what your use case will be. If strictly just for gaming, right now Intel has the edge as they have higher IPC but if you are going to be using your PC for production as well, a ryzen build will be a better value, as you would have to spend more with Intel to rival the multi-threaded performance of a ryzen chip.

[Haytaybay]

I guess I should have mentioned that I’ve been considering streaming as well 

[PETRGangKing]

1 minute ago, Haytaybay said:

Strange. Most people say it’s not that hard to build it once you get the basics down. 

It's not hard at all, it's very simple once you know what you need. Somebody on here compared building PC to adult Legos. 

[LukWarm]

Here is a great video from Kyle/Bitwit about how to choose parts so that they work together. It's definitely worth looking at.

For a GPU: what you should get depends on what you want to play, and at what resolution. A gtx 1070 or 1070 ti is great for 1080p at ultra settings at high framerates or 1440p. A 1050 ti is great for 1080p at medium settings. I wouldn't go to AMD just because of pricing right now, and the better performance on the green team.

For a CPU: Most CPUs today will not bottleneck your gpu, but for gaming, clock speed is key. Don't go with old offerings from AMD because they have no upgrade path and are very inefficient. New stuff from AMD will be good for overall multi-tasking, but intel is always the champion in games. Since 8th gen intel CPUs are so highly priced due to availability, I would go with a 7th gen option. An i3 may be tempting, but they do not work very well for gaming.

For a Case: Pick something pretty that you like

For a PSU: PCPartPicker is a great website that you can put all these parts into. It will also give you an estimated voltage. Always go about 100 watts above that to be safe though.

For a Motherboard: Use the provided socket number with whatever CPU you get, and find a motherboard that will fit your case. For intel, if you want to overclock, you need a K series processor and a Z series motherboard. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, then get a non-k CPU and a B or H series motherboard.

For Storage: I highly recommend a SSD of a capacity above 500gb. If you need any more storage, you can get a regular hard drive for cheap.

For Ram: Either get 8gb or 16gb of ram. Buy Ram in 2 stick kits and get a speed of 2400mhz or more. Make sure it's DDR4

For a Cooler: If you are going with a large case, get an air cooler. If you want something more pretty, get an AIO water cooler. If you are going with AMD for a CPU, make sure there is an AM4 bracket included or one that you can buy.

 

EDIT: If you want to do streaming, I'd go with AMD. More CPU cores will make it less impactful on your game to stream.

[Haytaybay]

Just now, PETRGangKing said:

It's not hard at all, it's very simple once you know what you need. Somebody on here compared building PC to adult Legos. 

Hahah yes! I’ve heard the LEGO reference as well. I’m just hoping to find a bit more understanding here. 

[Fictionvl]

11 minutes ago, Haytaybay said:

Hello everyone, I am reaching out on this forum to ask for help and advice on building my very first gaming pc. I’ve been a console user for 12 years and have recently decided to get into the pc world. Knowing nothing about it, it can be very overwhelming. I was hoping someone with experience could shed some light on the process of deciding which parts to purchase and why. I would like to know why I am picking a product as well as where to look to check compatibility with the system overall and any other tips you’d like to share. I was hoping to keep my budget well under $1,500. 

 

Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. It’s hard learning a new skill alone. 

Always nice to see a new comer to the PC master race. few questions though, do you need peripherals like keyboard mouse or monitor? 

 

but in general here's a build that is very good with almost everything

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KkxqD8

 

let me know if you need a keyboard and mouse and monitor so i can make some adjustments 

 

[Haytaybay]

3 minutes ago, LordOfLegends said:

Here is a great video from Kyle/Bitwit about how to choose parts so that they work together. It's definitely worth looking at.

For a GPU: what you should get depends on what you want to play, and at what resolution. A gtx 1070 or 1070 ti is great for 1080p at ultra settings at high framerates or 1440p. A 1050 ti is great for 1080p at medium settings. I wouldn't go to AMD just because of pricing right now, and the better performance on the green team.

For a CPU: Most CPUs today will not bottleneck your gpu, but for gaming, clock speed is key. Don't go with old offerings from AMD because they have no upgrade path and are very inefficient. New stuff from AMD will be good for overall multi-tasking, but intel is always the champion in games. Since 8th gen intel CPUs are so highly priced due to availability, I would go with a 7th gen option. An i3 may be tempting, but they do not work very well for gaming.

For a Case: Pick something pretty that you like

For a PSU: PCPartPicker is a great website that you can put all these parts into. It will also give you an estimated voltage. Always go about 100 watts above that to be safe though.

For a Motherboard: Use the provided socket number with whatever CPU you get, and find a motherboard that will fit your case. For intel, if you want to overclock, you need a K series processor and a Z series motherboard. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, then get a non-k CPU and a B or H series motherboard.

For Storage: I highly recommend a SSD of a capacity above 500gb. If you need any more storage, you can get a regular hard drive for cheap.

For Ram: Either get 8gb or 16gb of ram. Buy Ram in 2 stick kits and get a speed of 2400mhz or more. Make sure it's DDR4

For a Cooler: If you are going with a large case, get an air cooler. If you want something more pretty, get an AIO water cooler. If you are going with AMD for a CPU, make sure there is an AM4 bracket included or one that you can buy.

 

EDIT: If you want to do streaming, I'd go with AMD. More CPU cores will make it less impactful on your game to stream.

Thank you for the details!

[PETRGangKing]

Just now, LordOfLegends said:

An i3 may be tempting, but they do not work very well for gaming

This is not true at all. An overclocked 8350k does really well for gaming. While it is true you can get better Performance for not number more with the i5-8400, I it's not a significant difference when it comes to gaming applications

[Haytaybay]

2 minutes ago, Fictionvl said:

Always nice to see a new comer to the PC master race. few questions though, do you need peripherals like keyboard mouse or monitor? 

 

but in general here's a build that is very good with almost everything

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KkxqD8

 

let me know if you need a keyboard and mouse and monitor so i can make some adjustments 

 

Oh my bad I should have put that in my original post. I do not have any peripherals but I was planning on having a completely separate budget for that. Maybe $500 to $800 just for those. 

[Haytaybay]

3 minutes ago, PETRGangKing said:

This is not true at all. An overclocked 8350k does really well for gaming. While it is true you can get better Performance for not number more with the i5-8400, I it's not a significant difference when it comes to gaming applications

I was actually considering using an i5 8400 but obviously I’m not very certain haha ?

[Zmax]

4 minutes ago, Haytaybay said:

I was actually considering using an i5 8400 but obviously I’m not very certain haha ?

So I see that you know a lot more then I though. I then retract, the store option.  

[Haytaybay]

2 minutes ago, Zmax said:

So I see that you know a lot more then I though. I then retract, the store option.  

Oh yeah I’ve been searching the web for like 3 straight days watching videos and reading articles and such just trying to absorb it all. 

[PETRGangKing]

7 minutes ago, Haytaybay said:

I was actually considering using an i5 8400 but obviously I’m not very certain haha ?

The 8400 is a very good processor for gaming. On your budget though, I would probably go for the 8600k. You get a decent cooler and overclock it, that thing is a monster. Assuming you are playing in either 1080p or 1440p, a 8600k/gtx1080 or even a 8600k/gtx1070ti combo would be a competent gaming rig and should fall right into your budget. 

[PETRGangKing]

Here is a good guide on which z370 mobos are worth buying, courtesy of AlphaC.

[Zmax]

Thanks PETRGangKing very nice list much appreciated

[Haytaybay]

9 minutes ago, PETRGangKing said:

The 8400 is a very good processor for gaming. On your budget though, I would probably go for the 8600k. You get a decent cooler and overclock it, that thing is a monster. Assuming you are playing in either 1080p or 1440p, a 8600k/gtx1080 or even a 8600k/gtx1070ti combo would be a competent gaming rig and should fall right into your budget. 

Sweet thanks!

[Haytaybay]

7 minutes ago, PETRGangKing said:

Here is a good guide on which z370 mobos are worth buying, courtesy of AlphaC.

I appreciate it(:

[Fictionvl]

24 minutes ago, Haytaybay said:

Oh my bad I should have put that in my original post. I do not have any peripherals but I was planning on having a completely separate budget for that. Maybe $500 to $800 just for those. 

Well then with that being said, I would highly recommend that build and squeeze in a 1070Ti if you can. 

[Haytaybay]

Just now, Fictionvl said:

Well then with that being said, I would highly recommend that build and squeeze in a 1070Ti if you can. 

Okay cool thank you(: