Advice on building a Gaming PC (for a "returning" beginner)
Discussion
My aging laptop is coming towards the end of it's useful life, and although I was originally going to replace it with another laptop, I think we've found a space in the house for me to set up a proper desktop PC for gaming. I've been looking at various off the shelf options, but reading a few threads here I've got it in my head that I might be better off building something myself.
Go back 20 odd years and at university I was not averse to opening up my old Pentium 4 PC to add more memory, network cards, replacing the graphics card, etc. Reinstalling Windows 98 was something I did on more than one occasion. However, since then life and budget limitations mean I didn't really do much PC gaming for a long time and my knowledge is really lacking now, beyond the approach of "a higher number is better"... (when buying my laptop 7 years ago I just went to PC World an bought the most expensive one within my budget)
I'd like to be a bit more savvy this time round, so first would like a bit of a crash course on the latest developments/tech. A sort of "gaming PC's for dummies who aren't complete dummies" kind of thing. Partly to bring me up to speed with the latest processors, graphics cards, memory types, power supply requirements, etc, and also which ones will compliment each other and avoid bottlenecks etc.
Can anyone recommend some decent guides, books, blogs, youtubers, etc, which could help me? And also when it comes to actually building a PC can anyone recommend a guide for that too?
TIA
Go back 20 odd years and at university I was not averse to opening up my old Pentium 4 PC to add more memory, network cards, replacing the graphics card, etc. Reinstalling Windows 98 was something I did on more than one occasion. However, since then life and budget limitations mean I didn't really do much PC gaming for a long time and my knowledge is really lacking now, beyond the approach of "a higher number is better"... (when buying my laptop 7 years ago I just went to PC World an bought the most expensive one within my budget)
I'd like to be a bit more savvy this time round, so first would like a bit of a crash course on the latest developments/tech. A sort of "gaming PC's for dummies who aren't complete dummies" kind of thing. Partly to bring me up to speed with the latest processors, graphics cards, memory types, power supply requirements, etc, and also which ones will compliment each other and avoid bottlenecks etc.
Can anyone recommend some decent guides, books, blogs, youtubers, etc, which could help me? And also when it comes to actually building a PC can anyone recommend a guide for that too?
TIA
Start with PC Part Picker.
I remember back to those halcyon days where you had to set the clock speed by a series of jumpers and make sure the master/slave jumpers were also set.
Long gone are they and everything is plug and play these days. Everything plugs in one way and automatically handled by the BIOS.
Only peice of advice I'd give is a word to the wise, you rarely need to force anything that hard but a CPU ZIF socket really is Zero Insertion Force. If it doesn't drop in it's lined up wrong and bent pins on a CPU is no laughing matter.
I remember back to those halcyon days where you had to set the clock speed by a series of jumpers and make sure the master/slave jumpers were also set.
Long gone are they and everything is plug and play these days. Everything plugs in one way and automatically handled by the BIOS.
Only peice of advice I'd give is a word to the wise, you rarely need to force anything that hard but a CPU ZIF socket really is Zero Insertion Force. If it doesn't drop in it's lined up wrong and bent pins on a CPU is no laughing matter.
What are you going to play? if it's older / retro type stuff then consider what I did which is a 2nd Hand Dell Optiplex, new RAM and SSD plus graphics card.... (not an amazing spec but cheap, quiet and reliable)
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/by7i5a/...
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/by7i5a/...
I'd want something fairly high spec as I'd like to run the latest games with reasonable settings. Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, Cities Skylines 2 are a few which come to mind.
My budget is about £2k, but that will need to include a new monitor (I don't think the basic Dell one I brought home from the office will quite cut it
) and probably a decent keyboard too.
Thanks for the links and advice
My budget is about £2k, but that will need to include a new monitor (I don't think the basic Dell one I brought home from the office will quite cut it
) and probably a decent keyboard too.Thanks for the links and advice
That's one hell of a budget. That would get you an OLED ultrawide ,plus the pc.
For a point of reference, I run Starfield and cyberpunk at pretty much full tilt on a gen 12 i5 , RTX3070, and 32GB of ram. This is at ultrawide Res, which is like 2k X 1.5
it's changed so much now. As said , plug and play, biggest changes you will see, off the top of my head:
UEFI Bios replaces legacy
M2 SSDs, mounted on the motherboard
Modular PSUs - cables unplug at both ends.
Much better quality cheap cases compared to the 90s
RGB LED - it's nuts. Most MOBOs support RGB LED lighting of absolutely everything, right down to RAM. I had to go out of my way to get ram that was not disco inferno illuminated.
PC cases with NO drive slots at all,save SSD bays inside.
For a point of reference, I run Starfield and cyberpunk at pretty much full tilt on a gen 12 i5 , RTX3070, and 32GB of ram. This is at ultrawide Res, which is like 2k X 1.5
it's changed so much now. As said , plug and play, biggest changes you will see, off the top of my head:
UEFI Bios replaces legacy
M2 SSDs, mounted on the motherboard
Modular PSUs - cables unplug at both ends.
Much better quality cheap cases compared to the 90s
RGB LED - it's nuts. Most MOBOs support RGB LED lighting of absolutely everything, right down to RAM. I had to go out of my way to get ram that was not disco inferno illuminated.
PC cases with NO drive slots at all,save SSD bays inside.
Definitely look at https://pcpartpicker.com/ People post up thier own builds so you can start with some ideas and as you pick components you can set it to only show you components comparable with the ones you've already picked (eg memory that meets the motherboards spec, graphics card that fits in the case, etc.
It will also link to the prices from various retailers. I built a new PC 3 or 4 years ago and ended up getting the parts from about 3 different suppliers.
My only complaint with it is that virtually all the example builds (and to be fair a significant proportion of available components these days) seem to be obsessed with stupid lights all over everything. I just wanted a box to sit under my desk
It will also link to the prices from various retailers. I built a new PC 3 or 4 years ago and ended up getting the parts from about 3 different suppliers.
My only complaint with it is that virtually all the example builds (and to be fair a significant proportion of available components these days) seem to be obsessed with stupid lights all over everything. I just wanted a box to sit under my desk
RizzoTheRat said:
My only complaint with it is that virtually all the example builds (and to be fair a significant proportion of available components these days) seem to be obsessed with stupid lights all over everything. I just wanted a box to sit under my desk
I can't decide if I like them or if it's tacky. Although as it will be in the living room I suspect it will be Mrs ZS's opinion which sways it
Zetec-S said:
RizzoTheRat said:
My only complaint with it is that virtually all the example builds (and to be fair a significant proportion of available components these days) seem to be obsessed with stupid lights all over everything. I just wanted a box to sit under my desk
I can't decide if I like them or if it's tacky. Although as it will be in the living room I suspect it will be Mrs ZS's opinion which sways it
my priorities are performance AND low noise.
Zetec-S said:
I can't decide if I like them or if it's tacky. Although as it will be in the living room I suspect it will be Mrs ZS's opinion which sways it
...and of course some cases/fans/kits are better then others for configuring fan speed & RGB pattern profiles.
I built one a few weeks ago. I played around on PC parts picker a bit but ultimately looked more at reviews and tried to get the latest released components.
I went for an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3d, an RTX 4070, 32Gb RAM, a 1Tb Gen5 NVMe SSD and a modular power supply.
Windows was pretty painless to install off of a USB stick but I needed to run a network cable to my router until I could install wifi drivers.
Buy a nice case that hides all the cabling, I went for a Corsair iCUE 4000D.
I went for an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3d, an RTX 4070, 32Gb RAM, a 1Tb Gen5 NVMe SSD and a modular power supply.
Windows was pretty painless to install off of a USB stick but I needed to run a network cable to my router until I could install wifi drivers.
Buy a nice case that hides all the cabling, I went for a Corsair iCUE 4000D.
frisbee said:
Buy a nice case that hides all the cabling, I went for a Corsair iCUE 4000D.
On that point, for those like me that don't want garish lights and windows in the side of the case, you might think cable management isn't that important. But I ended up with a case that had a channeling to hide the cables, and it means the airflow is way better through the case, so it's quieter as the fans don't need to work so hard. Well worth considering. My old PC had a massive ribbon cable crossing right over the CPU fan which must have obstructed the air quite a bit.Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff