The Official: Building Your Own PC/Laptop

[Bucket_Nakedz]

you should get a z77-based motherboard then, or z67 if you stay with the older 2500k.

most mid towers can usually fit dual graphics cards set-up, full towers are usually for tri/quad setups. personally, i choose the chassis for its looks

take note you'll also need a beefier power supply if you plan on going dual graphics in the future..around 700 watts at least with the proper connectors

Z77 it is. Yeah, i figured 800 watts would be a bit more safer; particularly modular.

[Bladers]

I got my shit from newegg.com

Anyway here's mine:

CASE | Cool Master -$49.99 (I didn't know they gave me a free antec case and that i didn't need to add this. But this case is really cool and has alot of fans.)

Motherboard | ASROCK Z68 EXTREME3 GEN3 - $124.99

Video card | XFX HD-697A-CNFC Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity -$329.99

SILVERSTONE Power supply - $69.99

CPU INTEL | CORE I7 2600K 3.4G 8M R - $299.99 (the best available processor in market)

MEMORY CARD| 4Gx4|GSKILL F3-10666CL9Q-16GB RL - $74.99 (need the excess memory for graphics work in after effects)

Hard Drive | SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $149.99

DVD BURNER | ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS% - $19.99

CPU COOLER | Cool Master RR-212E-20PK-R1 R - $34.99 (Didn't need this aswell since the CPU came with a in-built cooler)

The prices have changed by the way. some things are much cheaper.
secondly never buy a AMD processor they are lagging behind in every possible bench mark.

[magic chiongson]

Z77 it is. Yeah, i figured 800 watts would be a bit more safer; particularly modular.

yeah, make sure it has at least 4 8-pin pci-e connectors, sometimes 800w psus only have 2 8-pin & 4 6-pin

I got my shit from newegg.com

Anyway here's mine:

CASE | Cool Master -$49.99 (I didn't know they gave me a free antec case and that i didn't need to add this. But this case is really cool and has alot of fans.)

Motherboard | ASROCK Z68 EXTREME3 GEN3 - $124.99

Video card | XFX HD-697A-CNFC Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity -$329.99

SILVERSTONE Power supply - $69.99

CPU INTEL | CORE I7 2600K 3.4G 8M R - $299.99 (the best available processor in market)

MEMORY CARD| 4Gx4|GSKILL F3-10666CL9Q-16GB RL - $74.99 (need the excess memory for graphics work in after effects)

Hard Drive | SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $149.99

DVD BURNER | ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS% - $19.99

CPU COOLER | Cool Master RR-212E-20PK-R1 R - $34.99 (Didn't need this aswell since the CPU came with a in-built cooler)

The prices have changed by the way. some things are much cheaper.
secondly never buy a AMD processor they are lagging behind in every possible bench mark.

you are good to go, but the ivy bridge processors were released bout a month ago, they should be available in newegg

both of these should be faster (a little) & more energy efficient than the 2600k:
i7 i7-3770K ~ $300-$350
i5 i5-3570K ~ $200-$220

there should also be an asrock z77 extreme for those processors

also, you should be able to buy the GTX 670 and the slower HD 7950 at between $320-$350. both are faster than the 6970

[Bucket_Nakedz]

Bump for magic chiongson.

Bruh, do you have any experience in liquid cooling. Went to a bingo hall last night and got lucky lol ($1200 jackpot).

Damn old folks were hella mad lol. Anyway, gave my girl $400 and deposited the rest into my account. I already ordered my case, psu, ram and mobo today which came out to $660. Im holding out on the cpu and gpu last. Ive already decided on the 1155 ivey bridge socket as i bought the z77 asus sabretooth. I wanna build a beast - get the most bang for my buck. Since i will be overclocking, im interested in the prospect of custom liquid cooling. Looks fukking sick, and i want my baby to be quiet as possible.

I posted a couple of days ago on another thread on how i wanted to build a rig, but because my truck had major issues during the summer, my money went on to fix it. My lucky draw was the boost i needed. Now i can join the pc master race...

[magic chiongson]

Bump for magic chiongson.

Bruh, do you have any experience in liquid cooling. Went to a bingo hall last night and got lucky lol ($1200 jackpot).

Damn old folks were hella mad lol. Anyway, gave my girl $400 and deposited the rest into my account. I already ordered my case, psu, ram and mobo today which came out to $660. Im holding out on the cpu and gpu last. Ive already decided on the 1155 ivey bridge socket as i bought the z77 asus sabretooth. I wanna build a beast - get the most bang for my buck. Since i will be overclocking, im interested in the prospect of custom liquid cooling. Looks fukking sick, and i want my baby to be quiet as possible.

I posted a couple of days ago on another thread on how i wanted to build a rig, but because my truck had major issues during the summer, my money went on to fix it. My lucky draw was the boost i needed. Now i can join the pc master race...

since you already bought a case, your water cooling options would sorely depend on it. what is the model of you chassis? a custom water cooling set-up that makes your CPU temps run at around room temperature would be very expensive, and a pita to set-up. depending on your chassis, you may need to mod/do some drilling/cutting. for starters, there are some pre-built all-water-cooling system that costs less than half a custom one and would trump the best/most expensive air coolers out there:

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Series...=corsair+hydro

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Series...=corsair+hydro

there are other brands like the antec and thermaltake, they more or less perform the same. get the one's that is cheapest..you would be looking at a radiator with dimensions of 120mm x 120mm x 35mm at the minimum for best performance/price ratio

[Bucket_Nakedz]

since you already bought a case, your water cooling options would sorely depend on it. what is the model of you chassis? a custom water cooling set-up that makes your CPU temps run at around room temperature would be very expensive, and a pita to set-up. depending on your chassis, you may need to mod/do some drilling/cutting. for starters, there are some pre-built all-water-cooling system that costs less than half a custom one and would trump the best/most expensive air coolers out there:

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Series...=corsair+hydro

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Series...=corsair+hydro

there are other brands like the antec and thermaltake, they more or less perform the same. get the one's that is cheapest..you would be looking at a radiator with dimensions of 120mm x 120mm x 35mm at the minimum for best performance/price ratio

here are my specs for my build so far...

case

power supply

mobo

ram

disc drive

im not interested in those closed loop liquid coolers. im going for the real deal, but still don't want to fork over no more than $250. do you think this kit would work well for a dual loop cooling on both cpu and gpu?

i know im going i5 or i7 ivy bridge k for cpu, and most definitely gtx 680 with sli down the road.

[magic chiongson]

here are my specs for my build so far...

case

power supply

mobo

ram

disc drive

im not interested in those closed loop liquid coolers. im going for the real deal, but still don't want to fork over no more than $250. do you think this kit would work well for a dual loop cooling on both cpu and gpu?

i know im going i5 or i7 ivy bridge k for cpu, and most definitely gtx 680 with sli down the road.

your build looks good, that case should easily fit 240mm radiators.

if you want something more compact at less than $250, how about this one since it has good reviews:

http://www.swiftech.com/H2O-x20-Edge-HD.aspx

also this may not be popular but my friends have it and it has the best value @ $200 (could get to $250 if you add a gpu block)

http://www.larkooler.tw/KU3-241.htm

[Bucket_Nakedz]

your build looks good, that case should easily fit 240mm radiators.

if you want something more compact at less than $250, how about this one since it has good reviews:

http://www.swiftech.com/H2O-x20-Edge-HD.aspx

also this may not be popular but my friends have it and it has the best value @ $200 (could get to $250 if you add a gpu block)

http://www.larkooler.tw/KU3-241.htm

Wow, that larkooler looks intriguing. Idk, i think im gonna just buy quality parts because i want i my cooler to last for a very long time for future builds.

I think i fukked up on my ram. I wanted a 16gb dual channel, but i forgot to check the latency which is at 10. Do you think a 1866mhz w/ latency of 8 would be a significant upgrade to the 1600mhz @ latency of 10?

Anyway, thanks so much for the support. Repped!

[LJJ]

I tried building my own PC & it came out to almost $900.



Source: Www.iBuyPower.Com

Look, when people say build your own PC they are talking about ordering the parts of sites like NewEgg. Maybe bargain hunt a little on ebay and such.

They don't mean letting a site like iBuyPower built a PC for you and charge you a lot extra for the assembly and the parts. That's the opposite of building your own PC.

[magic chiongson]

Wow, that larkooler looks intriguing. Idk, i think im gonna just buy quality parts because i want i my cooler to last for a very long time for future builds.

I think i fukked up on my ram. I wanted a 16gb dual channel, but i forgot to check the latency which is at 10. Do you think a 1866mhz w/ latency of 8 would be a significant upgrade to the 1600mhz @ latency of 10?

Anyway, thanks so much for the support. Repped!

larkooler doesn't have a bad rep in terms of quality but they seem to be new though, but its popular with my guys.

tbh you really won't feel the difference when it comes to gaming, maybe some slight improvement on the benchmarks. back in the old FSB days, those tighter timings would mean better overclocks if you loosen them up a bit, but these days with the 'K' processors being the only ones you can overclock you couldn't really play much with the bus speeds anymore. and right now, there aren't single 8gb sticks with with tighter latency than that being sold and if there were it would be unreasonably way more expensive.

you're welcome i went inactive in the xtremesystems forums about a year ago its nice to have conversations like these once in awhile

[Bucket_Nakedz]

larkooler doesn't have a bad rep in terms of quality but they seem to be new though, but its popular with my guys.

tbh you really won't feel the difference when it comes to gaming, maybe some slight improvement on the benchmarks. back in the old FSB days, those tighter timings would mean better overclocks if you loosen them up a bit, but these days with the 'K' processors being the only ones you can overclock you couldn't really play much with the bus speeds anymore. and right now, there aren't single 8gb sticks with with tighter latency than that being sold and if there were it would be unreasonably way more expensive.

you're welcome i went inactive in the xtremesystems forums about a year ago its nice to have conversations like these once in awhile

Yeah, i do research through tomshardware and overclock.net but is just too lazy to sign up and ask for help. Since i love ish, and you being the unofficial guru of pc building. I had to seek your wisdom.

Whats ur current rig specs? U favor intel or amd?

[magic chiongson]

Yeah, i do research through tomshardware and overclock.net but is just too lazy to sign up and ask for help. Since i love ish, and you being the unofficial guru of pc building. I had to seek your wisdom.

Whats ur current rig specs? U favor intel or amd?

haha the resident pc hardware geek yeah i do go to tom's hardware for the graphics charts & 'best for the money' articles and also posted in oc.net because there are a lot of folks there who have the same motherboard as i do

it's over a year old, with some part older than that.

i5 2500k @ 4.1ghz stock voltage
biostar tp67xe
g.skill sniper 8gb (2x4gb) 1600 1.25v
inno3d gtx480 w/ arctic accelero extreme cooler
prolimatech megahalems w/ 2x xigmatek dark knight fans
season x-660 (660w)
coolermaster stacker stc-01 (got this in 2006! i have had other cases since then but this one survived them all)
1 x samsung spinpoint f3 1tb, 2 x spinpoint f4 2tb

hrmm did i forget something..anyway i was planning on going SLI since the gtx480's have gone cheap these days but they run very hot and very power hungry..i should prolly just get some newer card. i'm thinking of going mini-itx these days with either of these cases and get an ssd:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...enix%20prodigy

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...63170&Tpk=sg07

[Bucket_Nakedz]

haha the resident pc hardware geek yeah i do go to tom's hardware for the graphics charts & 'best for the money' articles and also posted in oc.net because there are a lot of folks there who have the same motherboard as i do

it's over a year old, with some part older than that.

i5 2500k @ 4.1ghz stock voltage
biostar tp67xe
g.skill sniper 8gb (2x4gb) 1600 1.25v
inno3d gtx480 w/ arctic accelero extreme cooler
prolimatech megahalems w/ 2x xigmatek dark knight fans
season x-660 (660w)
coolermaster stacker stc-01 (got this in 2006! i have had other cases since then but this one survived them all)
1 x samsung spinpoint f3 1tb, 2 x spinpoint f4 2tb

hrmm did i forget something..anyway i was planning on going SLI since the gtx480's have gone cheap these days but they run very hot and very power hungry..i should prolly just get some newer card. i'm thinking of going mini-itx these days with either of these cases and get an ssd:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...enix%20prodigy

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...63170&Tpk=sg07

Nice. Id love to build an amd bulldozer next. And i looked up that cooler master case, damn that shiets looks heavy.

I envy yall who live in the lower 48 and taking advantage of newegg. Since u cant have standard shipping on newegg, the shipping prices are too expensive for me to order there.

Thank god for amazon tho. They seem pretty even with most of neweggs pricing. And since i have student prime, im taking advantage of the free shipping lol. I know they mustve been pissed when i ordered my case lol. I got it for $155, but as soon as they shipped it, they were selling it at full retail value to probably make some poor dude make up the difference lol

[magic chiongson]

Nice. Id love to build an amd bulldozer next. And i looked up that cooler master case, damn that shiets looks heavy.

I envy yall who live in the lower 48 and taking advantage of newegg. Since u cant have standard shipping on newegg, the shipping prices are too expensive for me to order there.

Thank god for amazon tho. They seem pretty even with most of neweggs pricing. And since i have student prime, im taking advantage of the free shipping lol. I know they mustve been pissed when i ordered my case lol. I got it for $155, but as soon as they shipped it, they were selling it at full retail value to probably make some poor dude make up the difference lol

i did make an amd-based one (A8 apu) as an htpc for my parent's house, the built-in graphics is good enough for decent graphics settings for some games. you could also overclock all their cpus unlike intel where only the 'K' ones can. amd was the shiet in the socket 939 days, too bad their high-end performance is crap these days. those amd bulldozer chips are prolly no better than the fastest core i3..excluding the built-in graphics performance.

it is heavy..it has wheels lol. and i've had a heavier (but smaller) one with the antec p180..damn thing was too thick the side panels alone weighed around 10lbs each. if i'm gonna buy a new full tower that could support 240mm rads i'd prolly get the cooler master storm stryker..or the corsair 500r with a lesser budget.

i couldnt buy from newegg either..they would only ship to the bill-to location of your credit card and mine is international..i wasnt in american soil when i built the one i mentioned above. so yeah, thank god for amazon lol. dang didn't notice you were in alaska at first. watercooling would really make good sense with the low ambient temperatures i want a mini-itx build this time 'cos i'm gonna be moving around for the next year or so.

[Bucket_Nakedz]

got my stuff delivered last night. fukking case is huge! anyway, pc guru. ive been doing more research and seeing as this will be my first build, do you think i should try air cooling before investing in something expensive as water cooling?

idk, i know i want to overclock ivy bridge to at least 4.5 stable. do you think air cooling will suffice? even tho i prefer quietness, ive heard the big fans like the noctua dh-14 do really good and doesn't make too much noise. idk, im going back and forth...