Gaming and General Use PC Build

The Bobster

1. What is your budget? €800-€1000 tops.

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? General PC use & coding work etc. Also some gaming. I currently play EVE Online and I would like to be able to play first person shooters if I want. I am not one to be mad about super high graphic settings or the like.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? No

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? I currently have a viewsonic VX2239WM which is a 22" screen with 1920 * 1080 resolution. I would like in the future to have the option of hooking up a second similar spec screen.

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Keyboard

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes

8. How can you pay? I can do any of them three.

9. When are you purchasing? Very soon

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? I will probably go the prebuilt route.


Hi,

I was originally going to give building the PC myself a go but due to me needing it pretty soon and how busy I am I will probably get it built. I have a few questions.

Is it the norm now for most motherboards to at least have a couple USB3.0 connections.
Is it also the norm for motherboards to have Gigabit ethernet ports.
When graphics cards have a hdmi port does it actually give out audio or would it have to be hooked up to the audio on the card somehow.
Is it easy to pay hardwareversand using internet banking.
To get them to build it for you it is €20 right?

I know more or less nothing about picking out components so I will leave it up to some kind soul that is willing to help me. A couple of notes though. I would like a 128GB SSD as my main drive and maybe 1TB normal secondary drive. As I mentioned I would prefer it to have USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet. I don't care too much about the case, looks wise. Something functional will be fine. I know I mentioned I need a keyboard but I would assume it is not a good idea to get one from Germany. If you could point me in the right direction to get a basic enough one with comfort being the most important. Still will have to come out of the €1000 limit though.

Thanks a million in advance.

Eboggles

Item|Price
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€90.77
BitFenix Shinobi Midi-Tower USB 3.0 black, ohne Netzteil|€55.00
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€35.69
LiteOn iHAS124-19 schwarz SATA|€17.50
Sapphire HD 7850 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express|€227.54
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€212.12
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€52.75
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€111.29
WD Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 3 6Gb/s|€82.66
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€904.31

That's with a very strong graphics card, you could tone it down a bit to save money if you wanted. As for keyboards I'm not too sure, really it's a personal choice, but I'm looking to get Das Keyboard. It is very expensive though and probably not what you're looking for.

The Bobster

That looks good. I think I will stick with the graphics card. I can't see myself getting a new PC too soon so at least I should have a nice bit of future proofing. Also yeah the keyboard is probably a good bit above what I am willing to pay for it. Just a few questions which really show my ignorance of PC building.

On the motherboard it says that there are 2 Super speed and 4 hi speed USB and then it says in brackets that there are 2 and 6 via headers. Does that mean that there are 4 hi speed USB ports but it has the ability to connect two more to the board from for example a case.

On a related note the case says that it has 4 hi speed USBs and a headphone and mic input. How do these work into the setup. Will the mic for example replace the mic input on the motherboard or be identical to it. As there are 4 USB ports do two of them connect to the spare connections on the board and two others replace them or are the ports simply a USB hub?

Back to the motherboard. I am assuming that the VGA and HDMI ports on it are for when you are just using integrated graphics and seems that I am using a graphics card I wont be using them. The question is can you still use them even if you have a graphics card. Not sure why you would want to but more just out of curiosity.

With the HDMI output on the graphics card are you able to get audio out of it ie is the audio from the motherboard connected up to the graphics card.

Is it possible and advised to overclock the CPU. I don't know anything really about over-clocking but I would be willing to give it a go if it is not too hard or is it even necessary to do so with what I am going to be using it for. Would I have to end up getting more fans etc if I do.

Last question I promise To get them to build it for you do you just add a particular item to the basket for €20 and is this all easy to pay for using online banking.

Sorry for all the questions but I really do know sweet F all about the hardware side of computers. Thanks.

Eboggles

On the motherboard it says that there are 2 Super speed and 4 hi speed USB and then it says in brackets that there are 2 and 6 via headers. Does that mean that there are 4 hi speed USB ports but it has the ability to connect two more to the board from for example a case.

Yes, the ones on top of the Shinobi.

On a related note the case says that it has 4 hi speed USBs and a headphone and mic input. How do these work into the setup. Will the mic for example replace the mic input on the motherboard or be identical to it. As there are 4 USB ports do two of them connect to the spare connections on the board and two others replace them or are the ports simply a USB hub?

I'm pretty sure the mic is identical.
As for the USB, I'm not exactly sure what you mean so let me just say the 4 USB 2.0 on the IO can be used as well as the ones via the headers. So you can use 8 USB 2.0 ports at the same time

Back to the motherboard. I am assuming that the VGA and HDMI ports on it are for when you are just using integrated graphics and seems that I am using a graphics card I wont be using them. The question is can you still use them even if you have a graphics card. Not sure why you would want to but more just out of curiosity.

Yeah you can, could be useful for outputting to more monitors.

With the HDMI output on the graphics card are you able to get audio out of it ie is the audio from the motherboard connected up to the graphics card.

Yeah you can output audio through HDMI on your graphics card.

Is it possible and advised to overclock the CPU. I don't know anything really about over-clocking but I would be willing to give it a go if it is not too hard or is it even necessary to do so with what I am going to be using it for. Would I have to end up getting more fans etc if I do.

It is very possible to overclock the CPU, very much advised . I'd recommend an aftermarket CPU cooler to do it though, as the stock Intel one runs very loud and hot. Maybe something like this?

Last question I promise To get them to build it for you do you just add a particular item to the basket for €20 and is this all easy to pay for using online banking.

Yeah, its called Rechner-Zussamenbau

Sorry for all the questions but I really do know sweet F all about the hardware side of computers. Thanks.

We all have to start somewhere .

The Bobster

Eboggles wrote: »

It is very possible to overclock the CPU, very much advised . I'd recommend an aftermarket CPU cooler to do it though, as the stock Intel one runs very loud and hot. Maybe something like this?

I think I will get the cooler. Will they install it for me or is it extra? If they do, do they still send you the stock cooler that they took off?

Eboggles

They may install the cooler, sometimes they don't if they think it will put too much pressure on the motherboard during transit.
The stock CPU cooler will come in the motherboard box along with spare cables and driver CDs.

BillyCom

Eboggles wrote: »

They may install the cooler, sometimes they don't if they think it will put too much pressure on the motherboard during transit.
The stock CPU cooler will come in the motherboard box along with spare cables and driver CDs.

I want to get this one http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=52671&agid=669 but I suspect they won't install it.

Do they usually install the graphics card?

Eboggles

Same thing for the graphics card, but as yours isn't that large I'd say they'd install it.

The Bobster

So this is what I am going to go with. Thanks for the help. Is it hard to order it from them. I know that you have to transfer the money to their account but it is hard to see what exactly is going on as it seems to have only translated some of the site. Is there any hidden charges in there that I am not seeing.

Item|Price
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€91.79
BitFenix Shinobi Midi-Tower USB 3.0 black, ohne Netzteil|€55.94
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€35.55
LiteOn iHAS124-19 schwarz SATA|€17.50
Sapphire HD 7850 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express|€226.51
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€212.12
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€52.40
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€111.29
WD Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 3 6Gb/s|€82.59
Thermalright True Spirit 120|€23.79
Rechner - Zusammenbau|€20.00
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€948.47

The Bobster

Hi, just got my PC there today. Two quick questions. What is the simplest way to go about overclocking this CPU. I really don't know much about it at all. Second, any opinions on what changes to the usual OS setup I should do as I have a SSD. It is a 128GB one so there should be plenty of space to install most/all applications I want on it. Even before I got a SSD I usually put all my data such as movies, documents music etc on a separate drive or partition but is there anything in particular I should watch out for. I will be installing Windows 7 Professional on it. May in the future dual booth Ubuntu or something similar but I will probably plonk it on a partition on the regular hard disk if needs be.

Eboggles

Have you installed Windows yet? If not, here's the best way to get the most performance out of your SSD.

• Unplug the HDD drive in your computer so only the SSD is connected

• Boot into your BIOS and head to HDD options or something like that, and then navigate to SATA mode. Set that option to AHCI.

Then just install Windows!

As for overclocking, have a look at Serephucus' great guide here