Buying my first high end pc

[MrFlippy]

Hi! I'm new to the forum here and I need some advice.
I am planning on buying a high-end game pc with a budget of around 2000-2500 euros and I want it custom made with the right case, CPU, graphics card, coolant paste all that's stuff but I don't know where to look. I did, however, find this amazing site Letsbld but its America only, and I'm in Holland. does anyone know a site where I can make a custom pc with a lot of options that is reliable? It doesn't really matter what delivery time is so it can be a site that delivers to all of Europe. I have looked around for hours to find a good site at which I can set up the pc I want but none have been nearly as good as letsbld. If anyone has good advice on where to find a site like letsbld but for Europe it would be appreciated. if I could I would order the parts separately and build it myself but I won't risk it; what if one part doesn't work or I f it up? Maybe I'm just overthinking how hard it is to build a pc....
Thanks in advance.

[Guest]

I would suggest just ordering parts and building it yourself. Unless youre intending to do custom water cooling (more than an AIO water cooler) then its really easy. Stuff only fits together one way. The difficult part of it is making sure your parts are compatible, they will be utilized properly and you wont have any bottlenecks.

Example, a Ryzen 3 1200 wont work on a Socket 1151 intel motherboard, just not compatible.

An i7 8700k on a b360 wont be a good use of money since the "k" in the 8700k means it can be overclocked, and the B360 motherboard chipset doesnt allow overclocking. No sense in spending the extra money on the k variant of the i7 8700, vs the slight cost savings in getting a B360 motherboard vs a Z370 one which can overclock the processor.

And bottlenecks are basically improper hardware pairings that will leave one component less utilized than the other. Example, say you have that i7 8700k, overclocked, running great, and youre pairing it with a Nvidia GT 1030 as your gpu. That GPU is going to hold you back and you wont be able to really use everything that CPU is capable of performance wise.

You want a balance with hardware.

 

Thats the hard part if you dont know what youre doing, but theres lots of ways to check that kind of stuff. Compatibility checkers, bottleneck finders, and then of course running the list past the users on here or other tech forums who could give you advice on what to do with your system plan.

 

[MrFlippy]

Thanks for the reply,

I have never build a pc and have no experience at all with putting computer parts together. I know there are a million tutorials but it seems all very scary and with a lot of risk for someone who has no knowledge of doing any of it. I'll look further into maybe building it myself, thanks.

[Moriko]

Howdy !
If your budget is up to 2500 euros, you can definitley build a nice, rounded desktop.

 I would advise you to look for parts and buy them from your own country. Do not look for the spring in the forrest when is near you ! And that's because you might have the (unpleasant) surprise of warranties and how they apply to different countries if you buy parts from all over Europe. So this (at least for me) is enough to make me look more careful and closely into my suroundings.

So search and find the parts in your country. Warranties are worth to have, and is much more easier to send them back if you encounter issues.
Do not be afraid to buy different parts from different places. Your budget will thank you, even if is that high. Is not worth to waste money. Look, I will give you my personal example :
I built for myself a system completely from scratch a year ago a bit under 1000 euros, and it has GTX 1060, Ryzen 1700, 8gb DDR4 with a 144hz monitor.

To build more confidence in yourself, watch Linus, JayTwoCents (and many more) and how they ansamble PC's. Is it worth to acquire the skill to do it for yourself.

For now, I will not dive into details about your desktop and parts. First, I would like you to tell us what do you have in mind and then we can work on that. Post your system that you thought about. Is so much easier for everyone and yourself to start from there.

Cheers ! 

[Moriko]

2 minutes ago, MrFlippy said:

Thanks for the reply,

I have never build a pc and have no experience at all with putting computer parts together. I know there are a million tutorials but it seems all very scary and with a lot of risk for someone who has no knowledge of doing any of it. I'll look further into maybe building it myself, thanks.

Okay, so one of my thoughts has been confirmed.
^_^"
Don't worry, just have some patience. Read my other comment and tell us what do you have in mind. We can sort it out toghether ! 

[Lurick]

I put together a couple parts lists, although out of Germany, that should help get you started:

 

CPU - Ryzen 2600 or Intel 8600K would be a solid start. They allow for overclocking in the future and give you a nice start out of the gate without having to deal with overclocking right away but allow you to do it later on. The Ryzen CPUs all come with stock coolers which are pretty good but the -K series Intel CPUs do not have a stock cooler so you need to add one

 

Motherboard - Intel is pretty straight forward, -Z and -X boards allow for overclocking. For Ryzen/AMD it's B- and X- series boards that allow for it and offer a solid set of features.

 

RAM - You generally want RAM that's around 3000MHz, you'll get solid performance per dollar here and while it's not as important for most Intel CPUs, it can help.

 

Storage - You'll want something like a 1TB or 2TB HDD for mass storage of games and whatnot and a 240GB to 500GB (or so) SSD for booting Windows and having other programs that benefit a lot from the fast loading times stored on the SSD.

 

Video Card - Depends on what you want out of it and there are a lot of different options. I figure for 1440p or 1080p with high refresh rate (144Hz or so) then a 1070Ti will probably be your best bet but you could go with a 1080 as well for not much more if you want to really turn up the settings. On this though I will say that new GPUs are launching in the next couple weeks so I would advise waiting until then and pick out something from the new 2000 series lineup from Nvidia.

 

Case - Usually down to personal preference but I went with one that offers solid looks and good airflow.

 

Power Supply - There is a thread on the forums that ranks PSUs by tier and anything Tier 1 through 3 is what you should ideally target. 550 Watts, give or take, is usually enough for most systems with a single GPU.

 

Operating System, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, etc. - I didn't pick any of these out since prices can vary a lot depending on your choice but normally, if you buy direct from the store, Windows will run you about $100 or so. Monitor I would look for something with G-Sync at around 144Hz refresh rate in the 24" to 27" range. If you can afford it, go 1440p but 1080p is pretty standard these days and the 1070Ti (or 2070) won't have any issues pushing solid graphical quality on either. For the keyboard and mouse it's really up to what you like or if you have something already.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor  (€168.89 @ Alternate)
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME B450-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard  (€107.59 @ Alza)
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (€141.89 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€59.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (€58.55 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB ROG STRIX Video Card  (€477.99 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Cougar - MX330 ATX Mid Tower Case  (€42.90 @ Caseking)
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (€65.89 @ Alternate)
Total: €1123.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-19 14:12 CEST+0200

 

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8600K 3.6GHz 6-Core Processor  (€249.90 @ Caseking)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U9B SE2 37.9 CFM CPU Cooler  (€49.29 @ Aquatuning)
Motherboard: Asus - Prime Z370-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (€139.00 @ ARLT)
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (€141.89 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€59.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (€58.55 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB ROG STRIX Video Card  (€477.99 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Cougar - MX330 ATX Mid Tower Case  (€42.90 @ Caseking)
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (€65.89 @ Alternate)
Total: €1285.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-19 14:14 CEST+0200

[MrFlippy]

Thanks for the reply!
What i have in mind right now is a i7 8700, a gtx 1070, 1070 ti or a 1080, and 16 gb of ram. i really like the NZXT h700i tempered glass case. I don't know what motherboard, cooler and a power supply is sufficient for this build. It doesnt really matter to me if there is rgb.

[Lurick]

17 minutes ago, MrFlippy said:

Thanks for the reply!
What i have in mind right now is a i7 8700, a gtx 1070, 1070 ti or a 1080, and 16 gb of ram. i really like the NZXT h700i tempered glass case. I don't know what motherboard, cooler and a power supply is sufficient for this build. It doesnt really matter to me if there is rgb.

If you go with the 8700 (non-K model) then a B360 motherboard will suffice. You don't need a cooler since the 8700 comes with a stock cooler but you can swap it out for something nicer looking like the Cryorig H7 or similar. As for PSU, the CXM550 would be perfect.

[MrFlippy]

I have taken in all the suggestions and I'm probably gonna build it myself now, or let some hardware store nearby do it for me. Here is what I have come up with so far:

Case: H700 
CPU: i7-8700
Motherboard: MSU B360 GAMING PLUS (is it any better than the normal version?)
Ram: Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 
PSU: CXM 550W 80+
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080 (not sure yet which version, gaming x or normal. any advice?)
SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2,5 inch
HDD: (2TB) Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM006
 

Is this all compatible/viable for the case and motherboard? any advice on the motherboard and anything else is much appreciated :)

[Lurick]

3 minutes ago, MrFlippy said:

I have taken in all the suggestions and I'm probably gonna build it myself now, or let some hardware store nearby do it for me. Here is what I have come up with so far:

Case: H700 
CPU: i7-8700
Motherboard: MSU B360 GAMING PLUS (is it any better than the normal version?)
Ram: Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 
PSU: CXM 550W 80+
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080 (not sure yet which version, gaming x or normal. any advice?)
SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2,5 inch
HDD: (2TB) Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM006
 

Is this all compatible/viable for the case and motherboard? any advice on the motherboard and anything else is much appreciated :)

That should be a solid motherboard and for the GPU I would suggest anything that's within budget that's got 3 fans that's not crazy overpriced

[MrFlippy]

Thanks for all the advice, do you know if there is anything else that I would need to have like cables or other extra's that are needed?

[Merp83]

1 minute ago, MrFlippy said:

Thanks for all the advice, do you know if there is anything else that I would need to have like cables or other extra's that are needed?

You shouldn't, also try go for maybe a 650w? I can make a build for you if you wish

[MrFlippy]

That sounds good. I don't really know whats compatible and what is not so if you could make a build that's similar to what I made but that is compatible I would love to see it C:

[Lurick]

1 hour ago, Merp83 said:

You shouldn't, also try go for maybe a 650w? I can make a build for you if you wish

Unless going for like a 1080Ti or Titan then 550 watts is almost always enough but if OP can find a 650 watt PSU for about that price then it would give them some more headroom, or a fully modular PSU

[Merp83]

20 hours ago, Lurick said:

Unless going for like a 1080Ti or Titan then 550 watts is almost always enough but if OP can find a 650 watt PSU for about that price then it would give them some more headroom, or a fully modular PSU

I had that PSU, got quite loud when approaching 60% load

 

21 hours ago, MrFlippy said:

That sounds good. I don't really know whats compatible and what is not so if you could make a build that's similar to what I made but that is compatible I would love to see it C:

https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/LXwxRJ

here you are you could have a 1080ti or wait for the new rtx 2080

[MrFlippy]

Thank you very much for making a compatible build for me, would it still be compatible if I made the i7 8700k an i7 8700, I don't plan on overclocking or is overclocking really simple?
Do I need coolant paste with the CPU cooler?

[Lord Blue of Screenshire]

11 minutes ago, MrFlippy said:

would it still be compatible if I made the i7 8700k an i7 8700, I don't plan on overclocking or is overclocking really simple?

It would be compatible, but you wouldn't need a Z370 board since the i7 8700 can't be overclocked. A B360 board should suffice. 

 

15 minutes ago, MrFlippy said:

Do I need coolant paste with the CPU cooler?

For the i7 8700 there is a cooler included with thermal paste preapplied. For the i7 8700k no stock cooler is included.

[MrFlippy]

Good to know.
What B360 motherboard would you recommend if I maybe want to expand ram and adjust things later on? 

[Lord Blue of Screenshire]

3 hours ago, MrFlippy said:

Good to know.
What B360 motherboard would you recommend if I maybe want to expand ram and adjust things later on? 

You should be able to expand RAM on any motherboard with 4 slots given you're buying 2 sticks now.

[MrFlippy]

Looking through the specs of the360 and the z370 is a bit confusing to me, does the z370 have better performance since it has a higher price or is it more expensive because it can overclock?

[Merp83]

35 minutes ago, MrFlippy said:

Looking through the specs of the360 and the z370 is a bit confusing to me, does the z370 have better performance since it has a higher price or is it more expensive because it can overclock?

Just a better board- can overclock if you want in the future (which is really easy and you can go on a lenient overclock), better sound and just overall  a bit better, I would personally go for a z370 with an i7 8700k for your price, and WAIT for RTX 2080, or atleast benchmarks etc

[MrFlippy]

Yes, its be at least 2 weeks before I start to buy anything, got some things coming up. I heard that when the new cards arrive all the old ones will get sold out very fast, is that really true? Should I buy the 1080 that I know for sure ill have right now?

[Merp83]

On 20/08/2018 at 8:53 PM, MrFlippy said:

Yes, its be at least 2 weeks before I start to buy anything, got some things coming up. I heard that when the new cards arrive all the old ones will get sold out very fast, is that really true? Should I buy the 1080 that I know for sure ill have right now?

Its debateable, I would wait for the RTX cards, or atleast first day reviews.