Building my first Mid-end PC, and selling what I don't use

[Anonymous 1]

Hello fellas

This last month I decided to finally build my first gaming PC, since I dreamed to do it for the past 8 or 9 years, and I just wanted to share my results so far.
Please keep in mind that: 1) for the time being I don’t have a job; 2) i’m studying at a public university, 3) I don’t have any kind of income, except the money my family gives me each week for school and all that, which is like 20-30 bucks.
I’m 25 btw, and a situation like mine is a bit common in most parts of Mexico for guys like me.

Anyway, this is what I managed to get right now:

Case:
Nzxt Source 530
https://www.nzxt.com/products/source-530

Motherboard:
Asrock Fatal1ty K6
http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/Fatal1ty%20Z170%20Gaming%20K6/

Power supply:
Corsair cx 750
http://www.corsair.com/en/cx750-80-plus-bronze-certified-power-supply}

HDD
Kingston SSDNOW UV400 480GB (Installed on my laptop atm, it totally rocks and the speed is a HUGE improvement)
http://www.kingston.com/us/ssd/consumer/suv400s3

RAM
Adata XPG Z1 DDR4 2800Mhz 2x8GB
http://www.adata.com/en/xpg-dram/feature/305

Processor:
Intel i5 6600K
And this is the tricky part, it is the only piece missing for the computer to work, and the graphics card. but you don’t need one to get a pc to work to do the basics.

And to put togheter all this stuff I had to abstain myself from a couple of things, from july until christmas I can’t hang out with my friends, I’m not spending anything on fast food restaurants and entertainment, etc. etc.

The point is, no matter what, you can accomplish almost anything if you put your mind, money and time into it, simple and plain, although sometimes a bit difficult.

I had to sell some of my stuff, and I still do, but it’s totally worth it, at least for me, since that build should last at least 5 or 6 years.

Also I asked for permission to KM to post this, I wanted to take the opportunity to offer a good set of headphones that I don’t use lately, When I finished making the publication I figured that maybe there could be an audio fan in here who could be interested, totally worth checking it :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-MDR-1RBT-MK2-Headphones-bluetooth-/252523175536?hash=item3acb8dde70:g:ZoUAAOSwFdtXydbY

And the progress of my build:

[ILiveAgainParticipant]

Good for you. I admire anyone that can rationalise and focus in this way.

It could be a car, house or boat. The idea is exactly the same.

Sacrifice, commitment, faith and focus are all qualities so lacking in todays zombie society.

Good luck …. but you won’t need it my man.

Great job.

[BritGHOWParticipant 2566]

Very nicely done, especially given the circumstances, if I may make a couple of suggestions, turn the HDD around and feed the power and SATA leads in from the cable well and take out any of the power leads not currently connected to anything, idea being to free up as much space in the main body of the case so nothing impedes the flow of air for cooling.

[ResidentEvil7Participant 9585]

You wanted a PC built; too bad you didn’t go to my eBay auction where my custom built PC is and buy that one I built and can’t sell for the past 6 months.

https://themanszone.webs.com/

[DarkRyuParticipant 2354]

I’m a computer technician by trade and I build hundreds of computers a year. If you’re on a budget, f~~~ Intel and go AMD. Most games run a high end i5 at about 20%. Intel processors are overpriced and mostly overhyped. I would recommend the following build:

Processor:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/437624/FX_8320E_Black_Edition_32GHz_Eight-Core_Socket_AM3_Boxed_Processo

Motherboard:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/445131/970_Gaming_AM3_ATX_AMD_Motherboard

RAM:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/420377/Vengeance_Series_16GB_DDR3-2400_PC3-19200_CL11_Dual_Channel_Desktop_Memory_Kit_Two_8GB_Memory_Modules

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139075

PSU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139041&cm_re=corsair_axi-_-17-139-041-_-Product

SSD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147372&cm_re=850_evo_250gb-_-20-147-372-_-Product

Total Cost: ~$600. If you want to save a bit of money you can go with the Corsair CX series PSU like you did with your build, but the difference in quality between the CX and the AXI is night and day. Corsair doesn’t actually make any of their products, but the AXI is a rebranded Seasonic. They make the best PSU’s in the world, hands down.

You have a s~~~ty case, s~~~ty SSD, s~~~ty motherboard, S~~~TY RAM, and overpriced processor and motherboard. NOTHING you picked out is even halfway decent except the PSU, and that’s just “OK,” not great. Not trying to be too hard on you man, I’m just saying. You’ll get 1,000x the computer if you use the parts I listed above.

If you’re concerned about the speed of the AMD processor, don’t be. The Intel processor is only 4.3% faster than the AMD processor I just recommended. Here are the passmark scores:

Intel:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-6600K+%40+3.50GHz

AMD:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8320E+Eight-Core

And if you’re really concerned about the speed difference, get the 8320 (non “e”) for $30 more. It’s actually faster than the i5:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8320+Eight-Core

Intel is a ripoff. TWICE the price for the processor and motherboard for a 4.3% speed difference? NO THANKS!

[Anonymous 1]

ILiveAgain wrote:

Good for you. I admire anyone that can rationalise and focus in this way.

It could be a car, house or boat. The idea is exactly the same.

Sacrifice, commitment, faith and focus are all qualities so lacking in todays zombie society.

Good luck …. but you won’t need it my man.

Great job.

Thanks IliveAgain, you’re right, I think there’s no other way to achieve the things you want, no matter how small or big they can be.

BritGHOW wrote:

Very nicely done, especially given the circumstances, if I may make a couple of suggestions, turn the HDD around and feed the power and SATA leads in from the cable well and take out any of the power leads not currently connected to anything, idea being to free up as much space in the main body of the case so nothing impedes the flow of air for cooling.

I will follow your suggestions BritGHOW

ResidentEvil7 wrote:

You wanted a PC built; too bad you didn’t go to my eBay auction where my custom built PC is and buy that one I built and can’t sell for the past 6 months.

It was a bit late when I found Your listing ResidentEvil7, but I believe sooner or later you will sell it.

DarkRyu wrote:

I’m a computer technician by trade and I build hundreds of computers a year. If you’re on a budget, f~~~ Intel and go AMD. Most games run a high end i5 at about 20%. Intel processors are overpriced and mostly overhyped. I would recommend the following build:

Processor:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/437624/FX_8320E_Black_Edition_32GHz_Eight-Core_Socket_AM3_Boxed_Processo

Motherboard:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/445131/970_Gaming_AM3_ATX_AMD_Motherboard

RAM:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/420377/Vengeance_Series_16GB_DDR3-2400_PC3-19200_CL11_Dual_Channel_Desktop_Memory_Kit_Two_8GB_Memory_Modules

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139075

PSU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139041&cm_re=corsair_axi-_-17-139-041-_-Product

SSD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147372&cm_re=850_evo_250gb-_-20-147-372-_-Product

Total Cost: ~$600. If you want to save a bit of money you can go with the Corsair CX series PSU like you did with your build, but the difference in quality between the CX and the AXI is night and day. Corsair doesn’t actually make any of their products, but the AXI is a rebranded Seasonic. They make the best PSU’s in the world, hands down.

You have a s~~~ty case, s~~~ty SSD, s~~~ty motherboard, S~~~TY RAM, and overpriced processor and motherboard. NOTHING you picked out is even halfway decent except the PSU, and that’s just “OK,” not great. Not trying to be too hard on you man, I’m just saying. You’ll get 1,000x the computer if you use the parts I listed above.

If you’re concerned about the speed of the AMD processor, don’t be. The Intel processor is only 4.3% faster than the AMD processor I just recommended. Here are the passmark scores:

Intel:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-6600K+%40+3.50GHz

AMD:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8320E+Eight-Core

And if you’re really concerned about the speed difference, get the 8320 (non “e”) for $30 more. It’s actually faster than the i5:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8320+Eight-Core

Intel is a ripoff. TWICE the price for the processor and motherboard for a 4.3% speed difference? NO THANKS!

I appreciate the time you took to check my build DarkRyu, It took me a lot of time to decide between Intel or AMD, and in the end I went whith Intel, the laptop I Use has an A8 3500M, and it’s good but I wanted to try an intel now.

About the parts I picked, I bought it all in a local store, and actually I was tempted with the case you put, the corsair, but I could not find it in my country, and It was going to be a bit more expensive adding the import and shipping costs.

I’ve spent so far: (with current currency conversion)

NZXT Source 530: $1760 MXN = $95 USD
Corsair cx 750: $1552 MXN = $83.4 USD
ASrock fatality: $2922 MXN = $157 USD
ssdnow 480gb: $2355 MXN = $126 USD
RAM DDR4: $1274 MXN = $68.5 USD
Total= $9863 MXN = $530.5 USD

without the cpu of course, but it’s not far from what you are suggesting.

And I really wanted the corsair case and the samsung ssd, but I could not get them, and the axi psu, I agree that it’s great, but that one exceeds the budget, maybe once I have everything working, I could change it in the next year or so.

[DarkRyuParticipant 2354]

Anonymous wrote:

I appreciate the time you took to check my build DarkRyu, It took me a lot of time to decide between Intel or AMD, and in the end I went whith Intel, the laptop I Use has an A8 3500M, and it’s good but I wanted to try an intel now.

Well, you’re gonna be hella sorry when your s~~~ty quality rig blows itself up 1 year from now (if you’re lucky it will last a year). And an A8 laptop is TERRIBLE. I would NEVER recommend AMD for a laptop. But desktops are different. I’m sure that laptop is a slow piece of s~~~, but that’s just the way AMD laptops are. That being said, stay away from A-Series AMD desktop processors too. Even the highest end A10 sucks b~~~~.

The rig I quoted you is 20x the quality, faster, will look a hell of a lot better, and will likely last you at LEAST 5 years. I build these all the time and offer a FREE 3 year warranty with them. That’s how much I trust the quality of these parts. If I were you I’d return all that s~~~ty quality stuff ASAP and get exactly what I recommended. It is better and actually cheaper.

Feel free to get whatever case you want so long as it’s $70+ (cheapo cases can warp over time and short our your motherboard and such). But avoid low-end ASUS and AsRock boards. The only company that makes a decent low end board is MSI, and their mid grade boards (like the one I recommended to you) are better than a lot of higher end boards from ASUS and such.

[Chaff/FlareParticipant 3235]

DarkRyu wrote:

Conscienzz wrote:

I appreciate the time you took to check my build DarkRyu, It took me a lot of time to decide between Intel or AMD, and in the end I went whith Intel, the laptop I Use has an A8 3500M, and it’s good but I wanted to try an intel now.

Well, you’re gonna be hella sorry when your s~~~ty quality rig blows itself up 1 year from now (if you’re lucky it will last a year). And an A8 laptop is TERRIBLE. I would NEVER recommend AMD for a laptop. But desktops are different. I’m sure that laptop is a slow piece of s~~~, but that’s just the way AMD laptops are. That being said, stay away from A-Series AMD desktop processors too. Even the highest end A10 sucks b~~~~.

The rig I quoted you is 20x the quality, faster, will look a hell of a lot better, and will likely last you at LEAST 5 years. I build these all the time and offer a FREE 3 year warranty with them. That’s how much I trust the quality of these parts. If I were you I’d return all that s~~~ty quality stuff ASAP and get exactly what I recommended. It is better and actually cheaper.

Feel free to get whatever case you want so long as it’s $70+ (cheapo cases can warp over time and short our your motherboard and such). But avoid low-end ASUS and AsRock boards. The only company that makes a decent low end board is MSI, and their mid grade boards (like the one I recommended to you) are better than a lot of higher end boards from ASUS and such.

F~~~ man, were you talking about women? If not, and this thing is f~~~ing with you, call me up, I’ll kill it.

When you find yourself in the majority, it's time to reflect.

[AttonParticipant]

This reminds me of my first system hell its the one I am using right now.

A MGTOW is a man who is not a woman's bitch!

[Anonymous 3]

It’s a good enough build. Always go with Intel over AMD. AMD hasn’t had a competitive CPU since the Phenom II, and that was a long time ago. They’re betting on Zen but it will probably disappoint. AMD GPUs are pretty solid though.

CX series isn’t that great, but outside of some coil whine probably you’ll be okay.

I’ve never in my life heard of a case warping a motherboard and shorting it out, and a computer physically blowing up within a year.

Usually high end motherboards are more a gimmick and unnecessary, maybe if you do excessive overclocking their VRMs and cooling are more useful, but otherwise for gaming and even a light overclock you’re fine. Asrock is also a very good brand, especially if there is no defect in it. Usually there won’t be. Asus used to be great, and is still well respected for their high end boards, but they outsourced their customer service to India.

If customer service is really important, go EVGA for most of your components. Best customer service in the industry right now, and they make a wide range of components.

I would also strongly suggest, especially when your budget allows, to consider getting an M.2 PCIE 3.0X4 SSD, since your motherboard has a slot for it. The Samsung 950 Pro is probably the best value for performance on the market right now, and I think they may have released a newer version (960 or whatever) that’s even better. 3D Xpoint is coming in a couple of years and might change the game, but probably that type of SSD will be fine for several years. I use one for my gaming and OS myself, although the AHCI version I got a year or so ago, and not the NVME version out right now. Good thing about PCs is you can do incremental updates and be fine.

Case and PSU can easily last 2+ builds, hence a reason to get a higher end PSU. Cooler usually also is fine for multiple builds. Initial investment is a bit higher thusly for a first build, and allows someone to shoot for higher end components on subsequent builds in the future, especially if finances improve.

Your RAM is probably okay but if you’re worried just run memtest one day while you’re out. In general it’s not a bad idea to run some stability testing and check temps for all components at least once, to check that there are no issues, especially since you’d be well within warranty period, and with a recent purchase most companies are even quicker to work with someone (especially if they cite tests they ran as it indicates probably a more savvy consumer).

Typically I use G.Skill for my RAM, but there are a few good companies. Most of the off brands just source from a name brand though, I’d have to check ADATA but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were Kingston rebranded RAM or something.

[Anonymous 1]

Thanks for your comment phoenix, and you’re right about intel vs amd, Between those 2 I prefer Intel, simply because the amd fx series are just old already, and don’t worry, if the pc explodes in less than 1 year I’ll simply apply the guarantee 😉

You’re also right about the M.2, I bought that model exactly with that goal in mind, and now i’m just waiting for some money to ve available to buy the i5 and test everything, the next year maybe I will do some improvements with the psu and the M.2.

[MadmanParticipant 772]

Awesome case man, I dig the black interior.

I havent upgraded my system in years, I am still using a first gen Core i7 with 6 cores, 12 GBs of ram in triple channel. The only thing i have upgraded is the video card which is a 970 GTX now, I had a 660 GTX before.

[Blackagar BoltagonParticipant 64]

Unfortunately, as another computer nerd who has built 100s of custom machines for High-End users (all the way back to x386 and Dr-Dos), I have to tell you that DarkRyu is correct in everything he told you.

Plus if gaming is your primary “heavy” workload intel vs amd on the CPU is the most useless money you can spend. Buy the minimum cpu for your needs and put the saved money into the Graphics card. Almost all game processing takes place on the GPU.

The critical elements in building a quality system are “bang for the buck” and reliability. It is all a cost benefit analysis (just like women, funny how that works?).

What is more important to you? That the system looks flashy while its new, or that it will serve your needs for years?

Another thing you may not have considered, why not buy some used parts to bring down the whole cost if you need to save money? In general electronic/computer parts are very reliable if they come from a good vendor, if they don’t fail in the first 30 days they will likely last for a decade or more if you keep heat in check, and make sure they don’t get hit with voltage spikes.

Remember the most important component in your entire system is the POWER SUPPLY! A crappy power supply can take out everything else in the entire system with 1 spike. NEVER skimp on the power supply. I agree with DarkRyu, Seasonic makes the best PSUs on the market.

Speak softly, strike accurately and hit with the force of a thermonuclear bomb

[Anonymous 1]

Blackagar thanks for your reply, as of today I already have a GTX 1070 and the PC is finally complete, I really wanted an i5, so I could be able to do some OC once I had the graphics card, my i5 6500 is running stable at 4.3 GHz, thanks to the z170 motherboard, the thing is that you can overclock any i3 or i5 non K when you have a graphics card installed, because the motherboard disables the integrated gpu of the processor. And for the psu, now I realize you were right, right now the corsair psu is running smooth but I will start to look for another one asap, I have seen a lot of recommendations abouth EVGA psu’s what do you think @blackagar-boltagon??

[Blackagar BoltagonParticipant 64]

http://www.jonnyguru.com/ Is considered to be the expert on PSUs.

EVGA, like Corsair rebadges PSUs made by other companies. Personally because of bad experiences with their warranty support (EVGA) on Graphics cards, I would not touch them with a landwhale barge pole. Seasonic is the way to go, if you really need to save money and don’t need that much juice, Antec have been solid for me in the past.

You need to figure out how much wattage your components use ( http://powersupplycalculator.net/ ) then check how many amps the graphics card needs. (12v rail). The biggest problem for gaming systems is insufficient amps on the 12v rail for the GPU. Gaming GPUs require a lot of amps. Also stay away from the PSUs with multiple 12v rails as these tend to be cheap and do not have the amps for a gaming card.

Also remember that a good quality power supply puts out a very stable stream of juice to the components, jitter and ripple in the current reduces the life of your components.

Here is what I would consider the “Best” gaming grade power supply on the market.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151160

But really if you are not running a high-end workstation class build with multiple graphics cards, that is overkill. Not “best bang for the buck”. (+12v @ 70amps)

For “Best value for your hard earned dollar”, this would be my choice.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088

Remember that good power supplies don’t need to have the huge wattage ratings (1000+ watts) because their output is STABLE and does not need so much overkill in watts to smooth out the spikes and ripples. That is why with cheapo power supplies the GPU vendors always recommend such high wattage.

For those of you out there just building systems for standard net browsing, office use this stuff is way overkill. For an quality office machine build a standard Seasonic 500w PSU is going to do the job for a decade with no problems and will be more power than the machine will ever use.

I hope that info is helpful.

Speak softly, strike accurately and hit with the force of a thermonuclear bomb

[Anonymous 1]

Blackagar the info was more than helpful, what I would like to know is what psu would you recommend me if I wanted to do a SLI configuration, with 2 gtx 1070, and in the near future I also want to add a 4tb HDD and a blu ray disc writer, so what should I do??

[Blackagar BoltagonParticipant 64]

Either of the Seasonic PSU’s I listed would be able to handle 2 GTX 1070s in SLI. According to the data I have seen, each GTX 1070 draws 30amps on the 12v rail.

Since you specified you are going to be overclocking, I would go with the Seasonic Prime Titanium 850 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817151160 ) just to be safe and to future proof your system (10 year warranty).

Bottom line is you need about 65amps on the 12v rail, so I would want 70amps on the 12v rail so I had a little headroom for adding components if needed.

Speak softly, strike accurately and hit with the force of a thermonuclear bomb

[Anonymous 3]

The advantage to the K processors is they have an unlocked multiplier and are binned. Technically you’re not supposed to be able to overclock the non-K, you can OC them with the BCLK but that changes everything on your system and requires a lot more work than just changing the multiplier. Usually Intel also tries to close that off too.

If you tightened up the RAM timings and managed the voltages and other components it will be fine, but you’ll need to do a lot of stability testing and watch heat. Since you have a cheaper motherboard, you’re really going to have to pay a lot of attention to that. 4.3 is a very aggressive OC on a non-K. You might have gotten lucky, but I actually would bet you will fail proper stability testing.

[coolthingy450Participant 1223]

DarkRyu wrote:

I’m a computer technician by trade and I build hundreds of computers a year. If you’re on a budget, f~~~ Intel and go AMD. Most games run a high end i5 at about 20%. Intel processors are overpriced and mostly overhyped. I would recommend the following build:

Processor:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/437624/FX_8320E_Black_Edition_32GHz_Eight-Core_Socket_AM3_Boxed_Processo

Motherboard:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/445131/970_Gaming_AM3_ATX_AMD_Motherboard

RAM:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/420377/Vengeance_Series_16GB_DDR3-2400_PC3-19200_CL11_Dual_Channel_Desktop_Memory_Kit_Two_8GB_Memory_Modules

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139075

PSU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139041&cm_re=corsair_axi-_-17-139-041-_-Product

SSD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147372&cm_re=850_evo_250gb-_-20-147-372-_-Product

Total Cost: ~$600. If you want to save a bit of money you can go with the Corsair CX series PSU like you did with your build, but the difference in quality between the CX and the AXI is night and day. Corsair doesn’t actually make any of their products, but the AXI is a rebranded Seasonic. They make the best PSU’s in the world, hands down.

You have a s~~~ty case, s~~~ty SSD, s~~~ty motherboard, S~~~TY RAM, and overpriced processor and motherboard. NOTHING you picked out is even halfway decent except the PSU, and that’s just “OK,” not great. Not trying to be too hard on you man, I’m just saying. You’ll get 1,000x the computer if you use the parts I listed above.

If you’re concerned about the speed of the AMD processor, don’t be. The Intel processor is only 4.3% faster than the AMD processor I just recommended. Here are the passmark scores:

Intel:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-6600K+%40+3.50GHz

AMD:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8320E+Eight-Core

And if you’re really concerned about the speed difference, get the 8320 (non “e”) for $30 more. It’s actually faster than the i5:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8320+Eight-Core

Intel is a ripoff. TWICE the price for the processor and motherboard for a 4.3% speed difference? NO THANKS!

Mmm. Interesting. Good choice in parts. Thanks for the tips even though it was for the op.

Actions have consequences and consequences have prices. Cause and effect at work.

[Author]

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