[Zuelajindi]

Hello all, I have never built a computer from scratch, and am intrigued to do so. My current desktop is 2.5 years old. Here is what I am planning on getting.

Stuff I still need

-Rosewill FBM-02 Dual Fans MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811147167

-LITE-ON Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model iHDS118-04 - OEM
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827106276

-COOLER MASTER Elite 460 RS-460-PSAR-I3 460W ATX12V V2.31 Power Supply
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817171046

-G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231460

ASUS P8H61-I R2.0 LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131878

Stuff I already have (planning on swapping from my current PC

-Galaxy 61TPS4HX2LNX GeForce GT 610 GC 2GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814162112

And finally, after all of this, I'm trying to decide on a good CPU compatible with the mobo listed above. It has to be better than what I have currently (Pentium Dual-Core E5400) and around the requirement to be able to fluently play, say, Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz, apparently)

Thanks in advance. Sorry if this seems a little much.

This post has been edited by Zuelajindi: 08 January 2013 - 10:50 PM

[raghav.naganathan]

Well, I believe the lounge is not the place for this question...but don't worry. I shall ask a mod to move it to the appropriate location.

Note to mod: can you please move this post to the Hardware forum in Computer support?

regards,
Raghav

[Martyr2]

Any particular reason you are going with such a cheap motherboard? Your top investment should be your motherboard since it supports all your other hardware and for gaming you need more. You should be looking at the boards in the 200-300 dollar range.

Another thing I notice is your power supply. For a good gaming rig you will want upwards of 700 watt since most of the components for gaming take some juice. Like your video card and your CPU.

You didn't list your hard drives or if you are going with a Solid State Drive. But anyways, I don't know your budget but I suggest you rethink your motherboard since you are limited on expansion too having only two RAM slots and 1 PCI slot.

You can find a better motherboard.

This post has been edited by Martyr2: 08 January 2013 - 11:12 PM

[ishkabible]

I disagree with some of Martyr2's generalizations. You pick the motherboard that is compatible with your other parts and is reliable. the price doesn't matter, paying more isn't better.

Also, again, you choose a power supply that is rated for your mobo, CPU, and GPU combined. check the wattage required for each. I bet Martyr ends up being right about needing around 700 however.

I wouldn't worry about the whole 8 gb of ram if this is just for gaming. The games are maid to run on 4gb the 8gb is just excess.

I don't like rosswill, all there stuff breaks on me. I've cut myself on cheap cases before and apparently one of the guys in the reviews on new egg did that on this case. For just a bit more you can get a decent mid tower or mini tower(I prefer mid or full but that's just me)

I don't see where it clearly list what kind of expansion slots your mobo has. That is of critical importance. It also doesn't list the maximum wattage the CPU is allowed.

I would go with a better CPU than dual core 3.16 Ghz. I could go up in cores first and drop the frequency a tad. quad core 3 Ghz is plenty cheap nowadays. I have a quad core 2.3 Ghz AMD with a lot of cache overclocked to 2.5 GHZ. It runs every game I've played just fine.

This post has been edited by ishkabible: 08 January 2013 - 11:28 PM

[Martyr2]

ishkabible, on 08 January 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

I disagree with some of Martyr2's generalizations. You pick the motherboard that is compatible with your other parts and is reliable. the price doesn't matter, paying more isn't better.

Most of the time paying more isn't better for sure. But when it comes to motherboards it usually is. More expansion slots, faster expansion slots, higher end bridges, support for the faster CPUs, etc. Of course the higher you go to cutting edge, the more they make you pay (you always pay for the best and most current). Some of it is a little too pricey considering that in a few months the price comes down. However I stick with my initial advice that he should be looking in the 200-300 dollar range for a motherboard that will support better gaming, expansion and can handle some of the modern games he wants to play. He might be able to slide under 200 on a deal but again, the motherboard is where you should invest solid money.

Now this board is fine for a fileserver or your standard little computer. For gaming however, this board has all sorts of major issues. You will not find gamers trying to run some of the latest games on a board like this. You are going to find gamers running things with crossfire or sli which you couldn't even do on this board since there is only one PCI slot.



P.S. You should always make sure your board supports all your hardware. That is a given.

This post has been edited by Martyr2: 08 January 2013 - 11:48 PM

[Gorian]

I agree with Martyr2. The motherboard is the base of everything else, and also the most work to upgrade later (you have to take EVERYTHING apart and put it back, compared to just swapping out Power Supplies or video cards). Unless you plan to build a whole new computer, I'd plan for upgradability. What is the ceiling you want to place on your RAM? Your GPU? etc. If your motherboard supports 24GBs of RAM, then you have room for growth if you decide you need it later. (I did this. My original desktop build was 4 years ago. I have the same desktop, with minor upgrade here and there over the years, in RAM, GPU, etc. It is a quad core i7 extreme, 6GBs of RAM, plays every game on the market on Ultra settings. )

[modi123_1]

Moving to the hardware area.

[modi123_1]

Agreed - that motherboard is small and just not a decent platform for future upgrades. Rethink that.

[AnalyticLunatic]

When I was building my custom rig I found this resource extremely helpful: PCPartPicker

It alerts you to any selections that are incompatible, and allows you to save links for the list if you wish to review it later or even edit it, along with showing you the prices from competing venders, and the lowest offered price for each compenent.

When planning ahead for a rig, you are also able to use their graph to watch the total price of your chosen rig over time since you created the list.

Hope it helps!

[lordofduct]

It appears OP is trying to save some money...

1) 8 gigs is good on memory. Don't drop to 4, but you won't need more than 8 really. At 8 you'll have enough to do pretty much anything you want on your computer.

2) replace that mobo, as everyone has pointed out. If you're looking to save some money, you can stay under 200 bucks. Like this one isn't that bad and has room to grow: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131837

Note - the SLI support drops each card to 8x speed. If you go Socket 1155 this will be the case, you can't avoid that. To get enough PCI-express lanes to act otherwise you need to go AMD or go socket 2011 intel. The latter of which is very expensive...

3) processor, that's easy. The 2500k is a a nice cheap i5 packed with tons of power.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115072

Or you can go a socket 1155 i7, and get hyper-threading for a little more money. It's 100 bucks more, but gives 8 threads total. This is what I run personally.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115070


4) you don't talk about hard drives at all. I'd go with a SSD/HDD combo. SSD for programs and OS, HDD for storage space. SSD's are expensive though... but don't go under 128 gigs with it or you'll run out of space fast. Samsung and Kingston have some awesome SSD's right now:

Nice Samsung at 250 gigs:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820147189

even better and faster Samsung at 256 gigs:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820147193

I run the first of those two because I bought mine before the Pro one came out. It's damn good.

Here's a nice Kingston HyperX at 240 gigs:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820239046


As for regular HDD, to give you plenty of storage space, and I just always go with Western Digital (it's my preferred). I'd jump right on the WD Blue 1TB:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822236339


5) your vid card, case, and power supply

Your vid card is fine. You can wait to upgrade that down the line if you want. That's easily swapped out.

Pick a new case, that thing is a piece of junk. While trying to stay cheap you should shoot for the 80 dollar price range on the case.

This is a damn nice Lian-Li for 90 bucks:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811112331

As for power supply... as stated, go for about 700 watts, and above 80% or higher power efficiency. No questions about it... NEVER skimp on your PSU.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 09 January 2013 - 08:47 AM

[Zuelajindi]

lordofduct, on 09 January 2013 - 08:40 AM, said:

It appears OP is trying to save some money...

1) 8 gigs is good on memory. Don't drop to 4, but you won't need more than 8 really. At 8 you'll have enough to do pretty much anything you want on your computer.

2) replace that mobo, as everyone has pointed out. If you're looking to save some money, you can stay under 200 bucks. Like this one isn't that bad and has room to grow: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131837

Note - the SLI support drops each card to 8x speed. If you go Socket 1155 this will be the case, you can't avoid that. To get enough PCI-express lanes to act otherwise you need to go AMD or go socket 2011 intel. The latter of which is very expensive...

3) processor, that's easy. The 2500k is a a nice cheap i5 packed with tons of power.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115072

Or you can go a socket 1155 i7, and get hyper-threading for a little more money. It's 100 bucks more, but gives 8 threads total. This is what I run personally.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115070


4) you don't talk about hard drives at all. I'd go with a SSD/HDD combo. SSD for programs and OS, HDD for storage space. SSD's are expensive though... but don't go under 128 gigs with it or you'll run out of space fast. Samsung and Kingston have some awesome SSD's right now:

Nice Samsung at 250 gigs:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820147189

even better and faster Samsung at 256 gigs:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820147193

I run the first of those two because I bought mine before the Pro one came out. It's damn good.

Here's a nice Kingston HyperX at 240 gigs:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820239046


As for regular HDD, to give you plenty of storage space, and I just always go with Western Digital (it's my preferred). I'd jump right on the WD Blue 1TB:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822236339


5) your vid card, case, and power supply

Your vid card is fine. You can wait to upgrade that down the line if you want. That's easily swapped out.

Pick a new case, that thing is a piece of junk. While trying to stay cheap you should shoot for the 80 dollar price range on the case.

This is a damn nice Lian-Li for 90 bucks:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811112331

As for power supply... as stated, go for about 700 watts, and above 80% or higher power efficiency. No questions about it... NEVER skimp on your PSU.

Would overdoing it for the PSU run my power bills up? Or does the high wattage mean that it can power all the components more comfortably?

Also, I was just thinking about upgrading the motherboard, CPU, and PSU (the graphics card may be all right for now, but it was a Galaxy that I got for less than 100 USD, so I figured some would shoot it down. I may not build totally from scratch just yet. Your thoughts?

This post has been edited by Zuelajindi: 09 January 2013 - 11:51 AM

[modi123_1]

Quote

Also, I was just thinking about upgrading the motherboard, CPU, and PSU (the graphics card may be all right for now, but it was a Galaxy that I got for less than 100 USD, so I figured some would shoot it down. I may not build totally from scratch just yet. Your thoughts?

Well it depends.. what parts do you have around now?

[blackcompe]

Quote

Would overdoing it for the PSU run my power bills up? Or does the high wattage mean that it can power all the components more comfortably?

The more efficient the PSU, the less current it draws, and thus the lower your electric bills will be. The less current drawn, the less heat dissipated, and thus the longer your PSU lasts (and potentially your motherboard and video card). A good PSU basically pays for itself in a year. Generally you should pick a PSU from a reputable brand like Antec, Corsair, or Seasonic. If you're on a budget, then OCZ, Cooler Master, or Rosewill. Any 80 plus certified PSU is probably a safe bet.

The higher wattage does mean it can power more components, and if I'm not mistaken, it also means it does less work than, say a 300W PSU, to power a system drawing 275W. Don't quote me on that.

The Cooler Master you've posted should be just enough for your setup, but as stated, the one component you don't want to cheap out on is your PSU. The GT 610 requires a 300W PSU and draws 16 amps from the 12V rail (the CM provides 18 amps). 18 amps is weak and wouldn't support many mid-to-high end cards. You should at least go with this Antec for only $5 more. That would support a good card. If you're thinking of owning a high-end card in the future and you can afford to spend a bit, go with a higher wattage PSU.

The sky's the limit. Before asking for advice on selecting components, you should set a monetary limit on what you're willing to spend.

This post has been edited by blackcompe: 09 January 2013 - 03:01 PM

[bobjob5]

If you ever are curious on how to figure out if the parts are compatible or not, one of the main things to do is check to see what the motherboard supports.

If you have the motherboard model, you can tell which processors it supports and it's maximum RAM it supports as well. Video cards are typically pretty universal and only really require the right power supply (with enough voltage) for it to function.

The best place to start is the motherboard though. Making sure the car has a good chassis before putting the parts on it is important =).

Good luck. Hope this could give you a good general idea before making any decisions in the future.