Building a gaming pc - need help

dpkimmel2001

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My son wants to build a gaming PC. I haven't done anything like that in a long, long time making me very out of touch with what's required/desirable these days. Any of the links that I had are long since gone. I'm sure a bunch of you out there have ideas or links on where to get hardware and the like. If so, can you post your thoughts on what you would build and post some links to some good places to buy hardware. Thanks for your help, as this will give him a head start on this project.
 
What's the budget? My son knows a guy with a $500 car and a $10,000+ computer used to play games.
 
Edit, I tried posting amazon links and that didn't work, I will type in the exact computer I put together this summer, the items are from Amazon.


ROSEWILL ATX Mid Tower Gaming Computer Case, Gaming Case with Blue LED for Desktop / PC and 3 Case Fans Pre-Installed, Front I/O Access Ports (CHALLENGER S)

Corsair CX Series 750 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified Modular Power Supply (CP-9020061-NA)

Intel 7th Gen Intel Core Desktop Processor i7-7700K (BX80677I77700K)

MSI Enthusiastic Gaming Intel Z270 DDR4 VR Ready HDMI USB 3 ATX Motherboard (Z270 GAMING M3)

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 CPU Cooler with 120mm PWM Fan

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB 2x8 GB DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz C15 Desktop Memory Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2B3000C15)



As far as hard drive, depends if he wants a SSD hard drive or regular, the SSD hard drive loads in a couple of seconds and is very fast, but does cost more.

the memory I posted for some reason is really high, I paid like $135 for mine, I believe I read that the memory prices and video card prices are real high right now for some reason.

You will need a video card as well, I have a Zotac Nvidia 1080 card, which is around $500 or so maybe more, but you can go cheaper on one if he is just doing regular gaming. I do the Virtual Reality stuff and you have to have really quick stuff to run it.
 
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An acquaintance's son bought one of these off of Dell's web site for himself for Christmas. They have several levels of these. :D

Alienware Area-51
  • 7th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 Processor
  • Windows 10 Home
  • 16GB Memory
  • NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070Ti
Crush your opponents with an 8-core, 4.5GHz Intel® Core™ i7 X-Series processor. Includes 128GB SSD + 2TB hard drive. Includes a free digital copy of Forza Motorsport 7 12 months special financing.^
Market Value

$3,079.99
Save
$80.00 (3% off)
Dell Price

$2,999.99
 
An acquaintance's son bought one of these off of Dell's web site for himself for Christmas. They have several levels of these. :D

Alienware Area-51
  • 7th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 Processor
  • Windows 10 Home
  • 16GB Memory
  • NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070Ti
Crush your opponents with an 8-core, 4.5GHz Intel® Core™ i7 X-Series processor. Includes 128GB SSD + 2TB hard drive. Includes a free digital copy of Forza Motorsport 7 12 months special financing.^
Market Value

$3,079.99
Save
$80.00 (3% off)
Dell Price

$2,999.99
Alienwares are such a ripoff that I'm surprised i actually used their name.

Intel and AMD have quite the war going on right now, i7-8000 series versus Ryzen.

As far as case, I have had good luck with the Antec 300, 900, and 1200; as well as the Cooler Master HAF and HAF-X series of cases.

AMD:

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Processor, 8-Core 3.6 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113430 $350

ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero AMD Ryzen AM4
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132963 $244

Seagate 2TB BarraCuda SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178993 $60

CORSAIR AX Series AX860 860W 80 PLUS PLATINUM
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139044 $170

CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB ) 288-Pin DDR4 2666
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233698 $209

SAMSUNG 850 EVO M.2 2280 500GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal SSD
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147399 $168

Asus 24x DVD-RW Serial-ATA Internal OEM Optical Drive
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135305 $20

Windows 10 Professional
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832588491 $150

Sub-Total: $1,371

Intel:

Intel Core i7-8700K Coffee Lake 6-Core 3.7 GHz (4.7 GHz Turbo)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117827 $404

ASRock Z370 Killer SLI/ac LGA 1151 (300 Series)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157790 $139

Cooler Master GeminII S524 Ver 2 - CPU Air Cooler
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103204 $38

CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB ) 288-Pin DDR4 2666
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233698 $209

SAMSUNG 850 EVO M.2 2280 500GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal SSD
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147399 $168

Windows 10 Professional
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832588491 $150

Total: $1,108
 
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Anything prebuilt is going to be a ripoff
Obviously I'm not a technonerd so I buy prebuilt tech stuff. I'm kinda proud of that actually because I have enough junk rummaging around in my brain as it is.
I see it as a trade-off - time and effort vs. money.

I thought about building a gaming PC several years ago when both of my little brothers did it, but I never had luck with PC gaming in the past and didn't have the desire or patience to sit there and build one myself. I also didn't feel like spending all of the money required to get a good pre-built gaming PC, so that thought quickly died and I chose to stick with console gaming.

It's kind of like buying a car. If you have the mechanical know-how/expertise, or know someone who does, it's always going to be much cheaper to put forth the effort to seek out and buy a good used car vs. a brand new one.
 
I see it as a trade-off - time and effort vs. money.

I thought about building a gaming PC several years ago when both of my little brothers did it, but I never had luck with PC gaming in the past and didn't have the desire or patience to sit there and build one myself. I also didn't feel like spending all of the money required to get a good pre-built gaming PC, so that thought quickly died and I chose to stick with console gaming.

It's kind of like buying a car. If you have the mechanical know-how/expertise, or know someone who does, it's always going to be much cheaper to put forth the effort to seek out and buy a good used car vs. a brand new one.
Yep.
 
I had a friend tell me what to buy when I built mine. I believe we bought most from newegg. All we had to do was connect a few wires to connect all of the components inside by simple wiring diagram, they were all in place inside the case. The rest was like a normal computer set up. It was all pretty much plug and play, no soldering, didn't need even a screwdriver.
 
I've built my own computers since Windows 98 (partly to avoid the crapware manufacturers install); for most of my builds I'd have to deal with some kind of problem (usually minor but not always). I found keeping up with technical changes was too much work so the last couple times I would go to my local Microcenter store (they have several stores and an online store) and ask them what I need for an upgrade. But this time around I'll be getting one that is already built. Microcenter has a PowerSpec series of computers they put together and you probably couldn't built it for the price they sell it for - they have one I like. The do offer a service for $150 to build any spec you want.
 
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