Building Myself a New PC - Suggestions Welcome! =)

SnapSlav

SnapSlav

NMA's local DotA fanatic
[Feel free to skip this story]
So, my current system's specs have lasted me a good long while. Other than and approximately 6 month period of nightmarish issues revolving around frequent involuntary system restarts, this rig that's slapped together with 6-7 year old parts has handled itself masterfully! But a 6-year-old PC (again, with parts older than that) ought to be retired. Finally I can afford to actually build a new PC, and while I'd like to say "cost shouldn't be an issue", practically speaking, I'd like to keep it around $1,000, if possible. Since I want it to be a sweet rig that makes current games its bitch and makes it another 5 years without so much as a stutter, that means $1,000 would be too demanding, so a budget closer to $2,000 for the system would be much more practical.

Point being, I'm on a quest to build a new PC that "lasts" (insofar as PCs EVER "last"). I've suffered through having inadequate RAM and being unable to upgrade my RAM without paying too much for outdated parts or having to replace the whole damn Motherboard just to get more than 4GB (yes, 4), so I know not to skimp out on the RAM. I've painstakingly cleaned every circuit that I could, manually, without conducting any sparks to the best of my ability, to try to silence grinding noises coming from an excess of dust finding its way into the many fans, and only being able to quiet the noise down, so I know that THIS time around, if a liquid cooling system is affordable, I should not avoid getting it. I know that my PC is a bit of a bulky giant, because while I wanted the innards to be roomy (unlike a pre-built store model that's crammed to the brim) I didn't really get parts that "fit" each other properly, so I want to get parts that match well this time. I know that my efforts to save costs on the Windows OS have caused me to waste hours and days trying to track down OLD OS discs and installing them one after the other so I could use the much cheaper upgrading discs, so I just wanna get a single disc of a good OS that has it all in one simple installation; no more tracking down WinXP discs so I can install a later version on top of it.

I get into the habit of reacquainting myself with the latest hardware when I start looking for upgrades, then ignoring the latest and greatest as soon as my work is finally done, so I'm about 5 years behind on what some of the best parts are I can get. I know that I was 16GB of RAM, minimum. I know I should aim for a Motherboard with nothing lower than DDR3 for its RAM slots. I know I haven't managed to fill out my 1TB hard drive, so I'm more than fine with getting just 1 TB, but solid state drives weren't "a thing" 7 years ago when I started getting parts, so I'm unfamiliar with what to expect as far as SSD hard drives go; I just understand the rough basics of why I want one and what to make use of them for. I have NO IDEA what a sweet CPU is nowadays, and I know that the things I need to look to first are a Motherboard that matches a CPU, then acquire the rest accordingly.
[Story is over]

So...

(Updated 4/17/14)

Tower Case - (?)
Motherboard - (?)
CPU - (?) Quad cores were all the rage 7 years ago. What's the latest craze nowadays?
Power Supply - (?)
Cooling System - (?)
Sound Card - Unnecessary seems to be the consensus. I'm not a sound major who uses pricey audio software, so for gaming the sound card that comes with good motherboards is more than sufficient.
Video Card - (?)
Memory Cards - (?) Sticks of (?)GB RAM
Hard Drives - (?)GB SSD / 1TB HDD
ROM Drives - 1x BDDVD Reader/Writer .
Operating System - Windows 7 v(?) seems to be the consensus. Worst case scenario is in the coming months/year the next Windows will actually be great and I'll just need to pay for the upgrade.

Total: $ (?)

Specifics? Suggestions? Did I miss anything? Help's always appreciated! =)
Just don't go calling me a PC layman. I fucking hate that. I'm rusty like all hell, not a layman. There's a world of difference. =P
 
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Hard Drives - i would be cautious as far as SSD goes, because i had bought one 8-9 months ago and it didn't take well to my experimenting with different operating systems, so one day while installing a new linux distro, it just gave out. Though talking about performance, the system loads much faster it's a visible improvement.

Sound Cards - If you don't have a good pair of speakers (meaning you have something from "creative" or "logitech") i wouldn't bother buying a sound card, unless you have a surround system and that particular card has some surround features and if presumably the games actually use those features. Ohterwise you won't feel a difference, as you will get sound that's as good as your speakers are, or heaphones if you use those.

Operating System - you can try out Ubuntu, or Mint from Linux, as they are not that complicated, completely free and you can actually run some new games through Wine and they have nvidia drivers(sometimes can be problematic). Wine is especially good for old games, as all of them run without problems, when on windows you can get lags. And you can still keep Windows even if you have one HD, because linux distros can be installed alongside windows.

Can't help you with anything else, as i never run a bleeding edge system. I currently have and i5 3.0 and a nvidia gtx650.
 
It all boils down to the budget really. SSD are great, I have them in all my systems. Plextor, Intel and Samsung are all good and blazing fast. When running 1 GPU setup any decent 600W (at most) PSU will do. Aim for Haswell i3/i5 depending on the budget, the GPU is the biggest difference anyway now.
 
I'll take those into consideration, but yeah, as I pointed out, this time around I'm trying NOT to go with a "budget PC" build. I'm not trying to make it ears-bleeding-heart-attack-inducingly-second-coming-of-Jesus amazing, but I want it to spit on how my current PC has handled itself after 6 years, 6 years from now. =)
 
If your interested in Getting an Oculus in the future then Grab a GTX 770 or better video card when doing the build. It is the suggested min spec card for the DK2 and the upcoming consumer version (CV1).


Tower Case - Get one that fits your budget and person style, I like Antec because of the acoustic damping panel they use.
Motherboard - Depends on the CPU
CPU - Get the most power you can afford.
Power Supply - Used to be crucial to get a high quality one on the old days, these days any of the major brands will be reliable
Cooling System - I still use air, though I did buy a case with good airflow. Water cooling is fine if you *need* it which most people don't.
Sound Card - You can get good on board sound these days, although I still by dedicated sound cards. I prefer the good old soundblasters.
Video Card - this and the CPU are where you need to make some cost based decisions, everything else in the build will form around these two items.
Memory Cards - Ram cost next to nothing these days, get at least 8 gig, 12 if you fancy.
Hard Drives - get a SSD for you main system drive and a HDD for bulk storage if you don't have a home server.
Disc Drives - BDDVD I'd get a one with burning capability as it will cost about $10 more and could be useful.
Operating System - I'd either wait for the next version of windows (the so called 8.1) or grab 7
 
Uh, quick question y'all, if the CPU starts smoking and now can't be removed from the motherboard... this is a bad thing, obviously, but how bad is it?
 
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Wumbology said:
Uh, quick question y'all, if the CPU starts smoking and now can't be removed from the motherboard... this is a bad thing, obviously, but how bad is it?
Click to expand...

The CPU has welded itself to the motherboard? That's sounds pretty bad, and it seems like you will need to replace both the motherboard and the CPU. I would love to see a pic or two if you can be bothered, I have been fixing pc's for well over a decade and never seen anything like you're describing.

Do you know what caused it? Even if your cooling system failed the PC should have shut down when it detected the CPU was running hot.
 
(EDIT: Bumped and edited the details on the original post.)

Obviously, as I indicated in my "story" and in the details about the individual parts, I'm well aware that the whole system hinges around which CPU and which motherboard I get, so WHICH are the ones I'd like to know. Being behind on what the latest are means I don't know what the numbers currently mean, relatively. If a CPU's specs say "8MB this" or "2 x 4MB that" or "series blah" or whatnot lacks a vital context for me, and I'm hesitant to make choices without that context. So details and specifics are what I'm asking about, ESPECIALLY since the CPU and the motherboard need to match; I don't want to buy parts that might be "great" on their own, but don't work together.

Sounds as though the consensus is, at least as far as the OS is concerned, just grab Win 7. So at least that question seems dealt with. =)
 
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