Building a PC

Was just wondering how many of you have experience in building a good set-up? At some point this year I want to build my own gaming PC for the first time. I have the case, motherboard and psu already so I just need to get the other parts. On a student budget, so was thinking something like this.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1eu4i

Any suggestions/tweaks would be welcomed

Haven't built one for years but make sure you keep your build area free from static electricity (including clothes) and money spent on cooling is never a waste if you want it to last a decent amount of years.

Look into a liquid cooler for your cpu.  Memory look into 8gb sticks.  From what ive read for video cards amd give you the best value for money. 

Depending on what games you are playing, look into a gaming mouse. 

Also shop around.  Find a computer specialist that sell oem products.  Also look at some usa sites and check out the shipping cost.  You maybe able to get stuff cheaper still.

I tried building my setup on that site, somehow my hdd was 350 quid.   I paid $100 usd for it.

Always look at sales, and read up on the item.  Make sure it is reliable and good rated.  There is still crap out there

I'll put a list on here for now:

CPU - Intel Core i5 4670k (~£180 - well worth the extra because of the overclocking potential)
RAM - GeIL EVO Leggera [2x4GB] (£54 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-133-GL)
HDD - WD Caviar Blue 1TB (£55 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-366-WD)
GPU - AMD Radeon HD 7790 (£120 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-317-SP)
WL-NIC - TP-Link 300Mbps PCI-e Adapter (£17 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-054-TP&groupid=46&catid=1597)

----- Don't dish out extra on case fans at the moment... -----

DVD-RW - Samsung SH-224DB 24x (£21 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-155-SA)
Monitor - BenQ GL2250 [1920x1080] (£108 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-068-BQ)
CPU Cooler - Corsair H60v2 (£60 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-006-CS) - You forgot this in your list
Keyboard - Cherry Black CyMotion Expert (£20 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=KB-007-CH)
Mouse - Razer Abyssus Mirror Edition (£35 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=KB-050-RA)

Ive got the h60 in mine.  Easy to install, pain in the arse with my mobo bios thinking its a fan and running too high of a rpm.

Ive got the h60 in mine.  Easy to install, pain in the arse with my mobo bios thinking its a fan and running too high of a rpm.

Don't connect it to a PWM fan header, connect it to the CPU fan header.

The one thing most overlooked when building a machine...The Case. People go for looks and price and completely overlook matching the case to the components.  You need to make sure your MOBO will fit w/ ease. Check where the PSU will sit, how many Bays, where is the I/O panel how much room for fans and cooling etc...

The one thing most overlooked when building a machine...The Case. People go for looks and price and completely overlook matching the case to the components.  You need to make sure your MOBO will fit w/ ease. Check where the PSU will sit, how many Bays, where is the I/O panel how much room for fans and cooling etc...

It is a big case with plenty of room; fans already built in with space to add more.

I like the suggestions. This is more of a project than anything, don't want to go spending too much. Around £600-700 would be what I'm looking at for the remaining parts, including a decent sized monitor.

I feel quite shitty being on a computing course, which included a hardware unit, and knowing so little about building them

I feel quite shitty being on a computing course, which included a hardware unit, and knowing so little about building them

Dont feel bad...I have a computer degree and I never built my own machine. People get crazy about computers and its almost impossible to be an expert on EVERYTHING.  Learn the basics and find something you like and concentrate on that.  If you like fixing PC's, dont spend all your time learning about programming. If you like programming dont go nuts learning about building a PC.  Study your strengths and what you find interesting.

I like PC repair and Networking. So, I learned how to replace components, backups, malware, spyware, password recovery, OS installs and the basics of networking like IP addressing, subnets, admin accounts, Wifi setup etc... Trust me thats a good field to get into and you can make a living.

Going to order a GTX 770 Lightning and new PSU. Comes to over £400. So worth it.

My lad built me a new PC, and having some issues. He's away for a week, although I've phoned him to ask about it.

I kept getting blue screen, and at the top it said "IRQL not less or Equal".

Made a bootdisc with memtest on, ran it and got errors with RAM.
I then ran each RAM separately, and no errors?

Now I've put both back in, and run memtest with no errors.

I also ran the windows memory diagnostic, and no errors there either.

Since then, I've had no problems.

Here's my question, the PC came with the motherboard and 1 stick of RAM already in the case, and the rest had to be installed by my lad.
Is it possible for the RAM to come a bit loose during transit, which would throw up errors?

Sounds like it's been overclocked and not given enough juice.

Take down the error code (last 6 digits of the BSoD) and I'll investigate for you.

Here's my question, the PC came with the motherboard and 1 stick of RAM already in the case, and the rest had to be installed by my lad.
Is it possible for the RAM to come a bit loose during transit, which would throw up errors?

Yes it's possible - but not likely. Check anyway. Re-seat the RAM just incase.

Sounds like it's been overclocked and not given enough juice.

Take down the error code (last 6 digits of the BSoD) and I'll investigate for you.


Yes it's possible - but not likely. Check anyway. Re-seat the RAM just incase.

I swapped the RAM round, and all seems to be fine now.
No blue screen for 2 days, so fingers crossed.

My lad came home, and promptly ran a load of tests and declared it healthy.

No idea what was wrong, and when I asked him he said "it's a computer, sh*t happens"
Still giggling at the cheeky f**ker

"it's a computer, sh*t happens"

Never in human history has anything more true been stated. Ever.

Just ordered myself a GTX 780 3GB Superclocked ACX, so excited!!
Getting sick of SLi and the GTX 460's are showing their age...

Just ordered myself a GTX 780 3GB Superclocked ACX, so excited!!
Getting sick of SLi and the GTX 460's are showing their age...

Would say that's a good purchase mate. The ACX coolers are almost as good as Twin/TriFrozr from MSI - not to mention the 780 is a beast of a card.

You'll notice a huge difference, especially in power consumption. I went from a 460 to 770 Lightning and wouldn't ever look back.

Would say that's a good purchase mate. The ACX coolers are almost as good as Twin/TriFrozr from MSI - not to mention the 780 is a beast of a card.

You'll notice a huge difference, especially in power consumption. I went from a 460 to 770 Lightning and wouldn't ever look back.

Should be arriving between 3pm - 4pm today
A little nervous about going into my PC though, been a couple years now since I last opened her up D:

A little nervous about going into my PC though, been a couple years now since I last opened her up D:

That's shocking but what about your pc? 

A little nervous about going into my PC though, been a couple years now since I last opened her up D:

What's the specs?

it's not worth the hassle, just by one ready built, there are some great deals on pc's these days. Computers you build yourself always start off great but invariably you get weird little compatibility issues and other strange behaviour, it's just not worth the hassle or small saving.

it's not worth the hassle, just by one ready built, there are some great deals on pc's these days. Computers you build yourself always start off great but invariably you get weird little compatibility issues and other strange behaviour, it's just not worth the hassle or small saving.

Oh, if only I could neg.

Why is building a custom PC a hassle?

Building a PC yourself means you can control the cost, flexibility and customisation of the rig completely. You can't do that anywhere else - even on these PC Builder websites. There may be great deals on these custom builds, but nowhere near what you could save by building a PC yourself. Nowhere NEAR!

I built this PC two years ago and have been upgrading it ever since. I have not had a single compatibility issue, or any small issue that I have not been able to deal with instantly. If you build the PC correctly (and pretty much everyone does) then you will not have any issues.

In short: Building a PC yourself saves you money, ensures you can upgrade in the future and lets you choose the parts that YOU want.

What's the specs?

Cant remember the motherboard name of top of my head at the mo...

Cooler Master HAF 922
GTX 780 3GB Superclocked ACX
AMD Phenom II x6 1090t @ 3.6Ghz (gonna try and go for 4Ghz soon if I can)
8GB 1333Mhz RAM (My next upgrade will be to some Vengeance 1600Mhz)
1TB HDD
Ive been testing the new card out and everything is running at max no problem, battlefield 3 was going over 120fps on Ultra, but I like Vsync on so got a nice constant 60... I was struggling for 40- 60 on my old cards on medium to high settings so its nice to be able to crank everything up with no worries

Oh, if only I could neg.

Why is building a custom PC a hassle?

Building a PC yourself means you can control the cost, flexibility and customisation of the rig completely. You can't do that anywhere else - even on these PC Builder websites. There may be great deals on these custom builds, but nowhere near what you could save by building a PC yourself. Nowhere NEAR!

I built this PC two years ago and have been upgrading it ever since. I have not had a single compatibility issue, or any small issue that I have not been able to deal with instantly. If you build the PC correctly (and pretty much everyone does) then you will not have any issues.

In short: Building a PC yourself saves you money, ensures you can upgrade in the future and lets you choose the parts that YOU want.

Why would you neg me, its just my opinion based on past experience trying to build pc's. These days you can buy a very good computer for around £500 and a superb computer for about £1200. How much would your component computer be in comparison? bear in mind you'd have to buy all the things like keyboard, mouse, monitor, OS etc etc.
Anyway if someone wants to build their own then fair enough, I wish them luck

Why would you neg me, its just my opinion based on past experience trying to build pc's. These days you can buy a very good computer for around £500 and a superb computer for about £1200. How much would your component computer be in comparison? bear in mind you'd have to buy all the things like keyboard, mouse, monitor, OS etc etc.
Anyway if someone wants to build their own then fair enough, I wish them luck

I saved £300+ making one myself. And that was getting slightly better hardware too, not to mention a better case than what was being provided in the cheapest pre built one I found with what I wanted.
When I started with the one I have now, before the upgrades it cost me £900 to build, yet £1200+ on all pre built sites with lesser hardware.

I saved £300+ making one myself. And that was getting slightly better hardware too, not to mention a better case than what was being provided in the cheapest pre built one I found with what I wanted.
When I started with the one I have now, before the upgrades it cost me £900 to build, yet £1200+ on all pre built sites with lesser hardware.

For me I'd rather pay the extra £300 and have some peace of mind but each to their own. I do recall it being quite good fun researching all the components etc.

This isn't strictly to do with building a pc but it seemed logical to post here rather than create a thread. I just wanted to share my recent experience with you.

A few weeks back, I bought my house mate's old pc off him because he'd splashed out on a new rig.

It's not a massively high spec but still 10x better than anything I've ever owned. It has an Intel Quad Core Q9550 processor @2.83Ghz, 8gb of DDR2 SDRAM PC2-6400, a 500GB SATA HDD and a very outdated video card. There was no operating system so I got hold of a legal copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 off ebay.
So knowing I needed a new video card to be able to play anything remotely new, I gave Res my budget and asked for a bit of advice, settling on a Radeon HD 7850 (OC edition).

Now considering my house mate got rid of this pc because he couldn't play newer games, he was more than a little sceptical when it was suggested that this would be able to run most of them on Ultra, or at least Very High settings.
Sure enough, I tried BF3, Tomb Raider and ARMA III on the highest settings and they ran fine. Dropping to the next level down gave me a higher FPS and smoother gameplay without a significant difference in detail so I opted for that. When playing Tomb Raider, it did freeze at one point but considering this was a fresh OS install and new video card, I just put it fown to driver issues.

Anyway, I was playing BF3 online and the game locked up. "Crappy server", I thought.

Then I played Tomb Raider again and that locked up. "Maybe this is stretching the card a little, I'll lower the settings a bit". Locked up again.

Played Sim City, locked up.

So at this point, my mate had that, 'I told you so' look on his face.

I've spent days reading online and running various diagnostics, testing the GPU, CPU and RAM, clearing, reinstalling and updating drivers...  determined that it wasn't just a case of the video card not being able to handle these games.

Earlier today, I was about ready to give up (ie- throw the tower out onto the road) when I decided to check the core temperatures. I searched around for monitoring software and came across a program called Performance Test. It's a free to try, x amount to buy program that runs tests on all the various components in your pc and gives you a graphical display of how each component compares against a broad range of competitors.

For eample, this is how the GPU came out, with my results in green:
(Note to save the results as an image, you have to buy the full version. This is just a screenshot so some parameters are missing from the bottom)



So I repeated this test for all of the different components and that brings me to the point of this post. The last thing I tested was the HDD and the results were shocking, particularly in the read and write tests where it was about 10% of what the nearest competitor achieved!
It all makes sense now. The games were freezing at points when they had to load more information, checkpoints or trigger points. The damn HDD was so slow that the games wouldn't run!

To check if this was the case, I deleted ARMA III from my HDD, reinstalled it on a Western Digital external drive and ran it from there. I've just completed one of the showcase missions with the settings on Very High with a 40+ FPS and it didn't even blink! So a drive connected via USB manages to deliver the data faster than this SATA drive.

Bit crap that I now need a new HDD but I'm so glad I've managed to isolate the problem.

And Res, I never doubted the card 

it's not worth the hassle, just by one ready built, there are some great deals on pc's these days. Computers you build yourself always start off great but invariably you get weird little compatibility issues and other strange behaviour, it's just not worth the hassle or small saving.

If you dont know a thing about PC's then building one is going to be hard. But, nowadays, even the most timid user can build a machine. MOBO's come w/ everything on it. Match the Mobo w/ a case and PSU and you are good. Their are numerous sites and guides to help someone do it and honestly, Its fun and once you build a new machine, future problems are easy to fix and diagnose.

This isn't strictly to do with building a pc but it seemed logical to post here rather than create a thread. I just wanted to share my recent experience with you.

A few weeks back, I bought my house mate's old pc off him because he'd splashed out on a new rig.

It's not a massively high spec but still 10x better than anything I've ever owned. It has an Intel Quad Core Q9550 processor @2.83Ghz, 8gb of DDR2 SDRAM PC2-6400, a 500GB SATA HDD and a very outdated video card. There was no operating system so I got hold of a legal copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 off ebay.
So knowing I needed a new video card to be able to play anything remotely new, I gave Res my budget and asked for a bit of advice, settling on a Radeon HD 7850 (OC edition).

Now considering my house mate got rid of this pc because he couldn't play newer games, he was more than a little sceptical when it was suggested that this would be able to run most of them on Ultra, or at least Very High settings.
Sure enough, I tried BF3, Tomb Raider and ARMA III on the highest settings and they ran fine. Dropping to the next level down gave me a higher FPS and smoother gameplay without a significant difference in detail so I opted for that. When playing Tomb Raider, it did freeze at one point but considering this was a fresh OS install and new video card, I just put it fown to driver issues.

Anyway, I was playing BF3 online and the game locked up. "Crappy server", I thought.

Then I played Tomb Raider again and that locked up. "Maybe this is stretching the card a little, I'll lower the settings a bit". Locked up again.

Played Sim City, locked up.

So at this point, my mate had that, 'I told you so' look on his face.

I've spent days reading online and running various diagnostics, testing the GPU, CPU and RAM, clearing, reinstalling and updating drivers...  determined that it wasn't just a case of the video card not being able to handle these games.

Earlier today, I was about ready to give up (ie- throw the tower out onto the road) when I decided to check the core temperatures. I searched around for monitoring software and came across a program called Performance Test. It's a free to try, x amount to buy program that runs tests on all the various components in your pc and gives you a graphical display of how each component compares against a broad range of competitors.

For eample, this is how the GPU came out, with my results in green:
(Note to save the results as an image, you have to buy the full version. This is just a screenshot so some parameters are missing from the bottom)



So I repeated this test for all of the different components and that brings me to the point of this post. The last thing I tested was the HDD and the results were shocking, particularly in the read and write tests where it was about 10% of what the nearest competitor achieved!
It all makes sense now. The games were freezing at points when they had to load more information, checkpoints or trigger points. The damn HDD was so slow that the games wouldn't run!

To check if this was the case, I deleted ARMA III from my HDD, reinstalled it on a Western Digital external drive and ran it from there. I've just completed one of the showcase missions with the settings on Very High with a 40+ FPS and it didn't even blink! So a drive connected via USB manages to deliver the data faster than this SATA drive.

Bit crap that I now need a new HDD but I'm so glad I've managed to isolate the problem.

And Res, I never doubted the card 

You may want to try Belarc Advisor. I have used it and will give you a complete system status. CPU,RAM,HD,Drivers,Settings etc... It will list every component and its status. It may give you some info you need to fix the problem. Also you may want to try Speedfan and CPU-Z.

You may want to try Belarc Advisor. I have used it and will give you a complete system status. CPU,RAM,HD,Drivers,Settings etc... It will list every component and its status. It may give you some info you need to fix the problem. Also you may want to try Speedfan and CPU-Z.

Ok cheers, I'll try the Belarc thing but I'm pretty convinced the HDD is fubar. Already tried CPU-Z and it didn't throw up anything of interest.

This isn't strictly to do with building a pc but it seemed logical to post here rather than create a thread. I just wanted to share my recent experience with you.

A few weeks back, I bought my house mate's old pc off him because he'd splashed out on a new rig.

It's not a massively high spec but still 10x better than anything I've ever owned. It has an Intel Quad Core Q9550 processor @2.83Ghz, 8gb of DDR2 SDRAM PC2-6400, a 500GB SATA HDD and a very outdated video card. There was no operating system so I got hold of a legal copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 off ebay.
So knowing I needed a new video card to be able to play anything remotely new, I gave Res my budget and asked for a bit of advice, settling on a Radeon HD 7850 (OC edition).

Now considering my house mate got rid of this pc because he couldn't play newer games, he was more than a little sceptical when it was suggested that this would be able to run most of them on Ultra, or at least Very High settings.
Sure enough, I tried BF3, Tomb Raider and ARMA III on the highest settings and they ran fine. Dropping to the next level down gave me a higher FPS and smoother gameplay without a significant difference in detail so I opted for that. When playing Tomb Raider, it did freeze at one point but considering this was a fresh OS install and new video card, I just put it fown to driver issues.

Anyway, I was playing BF3 online and the game locked up. "Crappy server", I thought.

Then I played Tomb Raider again and that locked up. "Maybe this is stretching the card a little, I'll lower the settings a bit". Locked up again.

Played Sim City, locked up.

So at this point, my mate had that, 'I told you so' look on his face.

I've spent days reading online and running various diagnostics, testing the GPU, CPU and RAM, clearing, reinstalling and updating drivers...  determined that it wasn't just a case of the video card not being able to handle these games.

Earlier today, I was about ready to give up (ie- throw the tower out onto the road) when I decided to check the core temperatures. I searched around for monitoring software and came across a program called Performance Test. It's a free to try, x amount to buy program that runs tests on all the various components in your pc and gives you a graphical display of how each component compares against a broad range of competitors.

For eample, this is how the GPU came out, with my results in green:
(Note to save the results as an image, you have to buy the full version. This is just a screenshot so some parameters are missing from the bottom)



So I repeated this test for all of the different components and that brings me to the point of this post. The last thing I tested was the HDD and the results were shocking, particularly in the read and write tests where it was about 10% of what the nearest competitor achieved!
It all makes sense now. The games were freezing at points when they had to load more information, checkpoints or trigger points. The damn HDD was so slow that the games wouldn't run!

To check if this was the case, I deleted ARMA III from my HDD, reinstalled it on a Western Digital external drive and ran it from there. I've just completed one of the showcase missions with the settings on Very High with a 40+ FPS and it didn't even blink! So a drive connected via USB manages to deliver the data faster than this SATA drive.

Bit crap that I now need a new HDD but I'm so glad I've managed to isolate the problem.

And Res, I never doubted the card 

Sounds like your HDD is a 5400RPM drive which means the read and write speeds are going to be terrible, even when compared to USB drives.

These sort of drives are best left for servers. Not for loading an OS & games on to.

Not your fault mind, seeing as it came with the rig (I'm guessing) - but I'd never recommend using a 5400RPM drive for anything more than heavy storage.