First Enthusiast Build

Hardware Build a PC
1

This is a post asking some general questions about what is going to be my first desktop PC. I have been researching this area since febuary when IO decided I was going to do this, I consequently began subscribing to channels, reading reviews and staying up to date with the latest advancements. Now feeling I know enough to begin to put together a parts list. My Current Budget is $1400, but I may increase it if the desktop GTX 800 series is released before next year, or if I find an affordable 4k display, which would require me to get a better gpu than is currently on the list. I expect to be putting this together in mid november/december. Here's the current list:

1. NZXT Phantom Full tower case

2. Geforce GTX 770 w/ 4 gigs of GDDR5

3. Rosewill 750w PSU

4. AMD FX 8350 Vishera

5. Samsung 120GB SSD for the OS

6. G Skill Ripjaws 8 GB of Ram

7.  WD 3 TB Drive 

8. Asus 23' Monitor 1080P

9. Asus Optical Drive

10. Corsair Water Cooling

As you may have noticed one of the main things I am under educated on is the motherboard and CPU. I'm not sure what I should get for either. I want a powerful CPU, but I don't need something too powerful. a 4 core will do just as nicely, but I want something for around $300 or less. I can't even tell you what I want in the motherboard because I know so little about that part of the system.. As far as ram, I would prefer 16 gigs at a reasonable speed and price. The Hared drive is probably going to change, I want at least one 2 TB drive that writes at a decent speed. Any comments or suggestions would be helpful. As of this posting the current cost of the above items total at $1,367.90 USD. The Budget will increase by at least $100 to accomodate a motherboard. Prefered Retailer is newegg, I plan to game and potentially record content.

2

Suggested motherboards for an FX-8350:

Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0

Asus M5A99X Evo R2.0

3

What do you want this machine to do well. And I will build a part list in your price range in the morning. 

4

I want to future-proof best I can for gaming at a min of 1080p.

5

For that the only thing I would change is the 770 to a 780. I will try to find you cheaper parts but off to bed with me it was a long day.

6

I personally would take off the AIO watercooler. Most air powered systems do just as well as AIO's. If you do go with an AIO, I would go with the cooler master glacer because it provides an upgrade route. also you can find pre-assembled kits from alphacool at frozencpu.com

7

If you're planning on 1080p gaming, a 770 is almost over powered, but if you can swing it, more power to you. If you want to SLI them later, you'd need the 990FX chipset, at which point I'd recommend the 990FXA-UD3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128514&cm_re=990fxa-ud3-_-13-128-514-_-Product

Gigabyte makes some of the best motherboards out there, this one included. It will also open the door to you later on when you want to get some performance out of the chip, as this board has an excellent power delivery system. IIRC, this is one of the few boards that the FX9590 is specified to run on.

As for the cooling, I agree with the other guy, an AIO cooler is generally a bad idea. I know people will rush to let you know that AMD chips use 400 gazillion watts, and must be has hot as stars, so you need to cool them with water. Well...that's not true at all, they're 125w chips, and get just as hot as PHII's. For that reason, I'd recommend  this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099 as your cooling solution, since it's basically all you'll need.

I did look to see if I could find you a venomous x, as that air cooler will likely outperform that Corsair water cooler, but I guess they discontinued them.

For your powersupply, I'd recommend http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087&cm_re=seasonic-_-17-151-087-_-Product instead of that Rosewill product. I've heard great things about Seasonic on HWbot and from overclockers on overclock.net. I'd personally be running this PSU if Canada Computers didn't stock Corsair exclusively.

One other note: Great choice on the RAM. I have been exclusively using G.Skill in all my builds for a number of years now, and never had an issue. I'm currently running a similar setup to yours (But it's a year and a half old) and I'm really happy with it:

FX-8350 @ 3.7 (235x20) NB @ 2.58

8GB G.Skill Sniper 2192MHz 10-11-10-31 PC3-12800

Biostar TA970

Club3D R9 280X Royal Queen

8

whats your reasoning for the seasonic PSU over the rosewill one? I can see that the seasonic one is rated 80+ gold instead of bronze, but does that justify the extra $50? also, I'm not sure If the chosen case can fit a 240mm radiator, as I would prefer to keep an AIO watercooler for the system

9

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7PJkWZ

I used a EVGA PSU with a dual ball bearing fan instead. I switched you to a LG IPS display. You SSD got upgraded to a 240GB. Motherboard is a Asrock 990FX killer. Changed your ram your not running an APU you won't see any difference and its compatible. And moved you over to a R9 280 better bang for the buck. But if you decide to stay with the 770 the motherboard is one of the few AMD boards that support SLI. 

10

I'm going to stick with the memory because I prefer the stick's color, as well as its speed is faster. I just checked and the the H100i can fit in my case.(which is the full tower nzxt phantom). I'm going to stick with the first ssd because it's cheaper and I only need it for the OS. The gigabyte motherboard someone posted above is cheaper as well and has high quality reviews and specs. Other than that I'm still deciding on the Graphics card and hard drive. I do know I'm not paying the money for A WD Black series. I'll switch to the noted power supply but I'm not sure if it being only semi modular affects anything. Thanks for the advice

11

i would grab a R9-290 instead of a 4GB GTX770 cause thats kinda pointless a 770 with 4GB.

12

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Nq2rRB

Offcourse a monitor is personal, you could look which one suites you the best, i would recommend an ips monitor, cause of the better color quality and viewing angle´s, i selected a cheaper LG ips monitor to stay below the $1400 budget., LG produces the best ips panels, if you could afford to spend a extra $100 on the monitor, then there are nicer LG ips panels to find. But still the one i selected is not bad, its the same one Cellprocessing has selected.

You could also look into those korean 1440P monitors, like achieva shimian. the ones Logan uses, you can get them arround $300 / $350 on Amazon. Qnix and X-stars are also very nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlVbGcv0g-g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akJVKzzp4a4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbyT9lDEtjM

Grtz Angel ☺

13

a Phantom can hold a 240 Rad very well.

 

14

I think That I can up the price range to grab a 1440p monitor. of the three videos which comes the highest recommended? I would REALLY like to keep it under $300 if at all possible. I'm actually looking at a 780 instead but I'll keep some of the amd cards in mind as well

15

XFX, EVGA, Corsair, Seasonic and Silver Stone are all great power supplies

The Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 or ASRock Fatality 990FX are both much better boards than the Gigabytes and have more features.

I wouldn't bother with the GTX770 4GB version. That card only having a 256bit memory interface can not utilize 4GB of vram in gaming and really is over priced. To save ya a bit of money and get you a little more performance look at the R9 280x 3GB. Cheaper and better performance than the GTX770. Good brands would be Asus, Sapphire, XFX and Powercolor.

If this PC will be on 24/7 I would not count on a liquid cooler for years of reliability. Air coolers many times are just as good and way more reliable. The FX8350 does not run that hot even overclocked. An FX8350 can usually be overclocked to 4.4 to 4.5GHz on Auto voltage and not run a drop hotter than stock. In most cases there is no need to over clock a FX8350 they are more than enough right out of the box. Possible over clock down the road my be necessary though. 

The NZXT case is a great choice. The Samsung SSD is top notch. The G.Skil Ripjaws are great. The Western Digital Blue 2 or 3TB will be great choices as well.

16

Just watch the video´s Logan and Wendell, tell all the ins and outs about those monitors.

X-star is a Samsung PLS panel

Shimian is an LG ips panel

Qnix you can get them with ips and pls panels.

Ips panels normaly have the best viewing angles, and best colors, But Logan was realy supriced about the quality of the X-star if im right.  The cool thing from a pls panel is doe, that it can be overclocked.

You can ask Wendell all about this. cause he played arround with it for a while.

17

Choosing patience, I'm going to increase my bidget to around $1800, switching cases for the phantom 820, and upgrading the graphics to a GTX 780. I am going to find a better PSU, and am going to try to find an affordable 1440p monitor, the ones abover are either unavaliable or too expensive

18

Here's the current parts list:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BhfxRB

still working on a cooler and a mechanical hard drive

19

I am using this mobo it http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131876 it is a very good overclocking board.

20

The power supply is pretty cheap in quality.  Also, it's not modular at all.  At such high wattages, you will want a modular power supply as there are a stupid amount of cables that come out of the power supply.

Highly suggest this one: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-power-supply-p1850xxxb9

A WD Blue or Black would be a good choice for a HDD.

Noctua NH-D14 for the cooler.

Also, your case is big for your build. A mid tower should fit everything just fine.