• Congratulations to the Class of 2024 on your results!
    Let us know how you went here
    Got a question about your uni preferences? Ask us here

Building new PC (2 Viewers)

anomalousdecay

Premium Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2013
Messages
5,766
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
So I've been looking to build a new PC which hopefully can satisfy a few of my key requirements.

Basically, I need a desktop PC that can run through these personal requirements I have:

- Durable to last me at least (bare minimum) 5 years to make it worthwhile my money spent. Hopefully I can get at least 8 years out of it and possibly 10 years like my current rig. By noting years lasted I mean as in able to run at the same performance level it was at when brand new (so no damage done to the rig for as many years as possible).

- Able to multi-task to a moderate level (example: able to run multiple CAD softwares and 20+ tabs in google chrome without any performance issues).

- Able to perform well while single-tasking (example: able to play games particularly on the source engine to a high degree of success).

- Able to run 12+ hours at a time without any affects on the machine as a whole or performance degradation. This runtime would consist of moderate multi-tasking and single-tasking as outlined above.

- Be powerful enough to not require frequent over clocking for above tasks required.

- Never overheat or even slightly heat up. Hoping it can run at a similar safe heat level even if it is over clocking.

Budget is $3000 max for everything (including windows, new keyboard, mouse, etc), but I would prefer to keep it around $2000 for the main build as much as possible and leave about $300 for extra accesories.

So far I have this:

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/XCQdt6

Thoughts about this satisfying the requirements I have?

Also, liquid cooling or non-liquid cooling for cpu? 2 x 8 GB RAM or 4 x 4 GB RAM for my specification?

Do note I'm pretty new to all this and did this myself so don't be afraid to spot out any possible issues with what I have manufactured. I would much rather someone point out any possible gremlins now rather than later when I have all the parts.

Also I'm willing to take my time with getting a build ready and buying it. I have 2 months of time left to get it all setup and ready.

Thanks in advance.
 

OzKo

Retired
Joined
Jul 17, 2007
Messages
9,892
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
Uni Grad
2013
A few comments after having a brief look:

1) Consider reviewing the PSU (I'll have a closer look soon)
2) You won't have any issues with games running Source engine (it's over 10 years old)
3) RAM may or may not be compatible with your motherboard. I had a look at the G.Skill website and it looks like it is, but the Asrock website says different.
 

seremify007

Junior Member
Joined
Apr 29, 2004
Messages
10,059
Location
Sydney, Australia
Gender
Male
HSC
2005
Uni Grad
2009
Even with the most optimistic of budgets I would be surprised if you could get your target 8 or 10 years of good usage out of it with current spec. Without being an expert myself, surely you'd be better off not going bleeding edge now and instead using that to upgrade or replace earlier in the lifecycle?

Given your usage scenario is very workhorse-oriented rather than just end-user gaming, I'd also wonder why you don't go for a commercial or business machine rather than trying to build your own reliable/heavy duty machine along with all the niceties which go with it (i.e. if something breaks or goes wrong, the onus is on them to come to you to fix/replace it).
 

anomalousdecay

Premium Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2013
Messages
5,766
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
have u watched linustechtip's builds?
Will watch them later on.

get a blu ray player at least.
I can do all that later on. Blu rays and CDs are the least of my worries at this point.

and liquid cool it
How much more of a difference in comparison will it make? I've used a mercury cooled laptop before (don't ask me why but the person who did that mod knew what they were doing) and the cpu would still heat up to about 80 degrees iirc.

A few comments after having a brief look:

1) Consider reviewing the PSU (I'll have a closer look soon)
2) You won't have any issues with games running Source engine (it's over 10 years old)
3) RAM may or may not be compatible with your motherboard. I had a look at the G.Skill website and it looks like it is, but the Asrock website says different.
With the PSU, I'm thinking 650W should be ok enough. However I could be wrong. It's estimated to run at 346W, gold rated efficiency so 90% efficient, so I was thinking possibly anything 600+ W should be ok?

Will have a look at changing the RAM in that case too.

Even with the most optimistic of budgets I would be surprised if you could get your target 8 or 10 years of good usage out of it with current spec. Without being an expert myself, surely you'd be better off not going bleeding edge now and instead using that to upgrade or replace earlier in the lifecycle?
I have been using my current one for 11-ish years now. However it was not necessarily a performance based PC to begin with. Uses integrated graphics and I'm surprised how well this pentium 4 HT has coped by itself all these years. I think the reason behind this was due to no components ever heating up much. Heck this machine probably ran at less than 60 degrees all its life. And tbh, my current machine can probably run up until end of unix time. That's how reliable the build quality has been.

I get what you mean there, but if I compromise a bit of power I might not be able to run certain programs or play any higher end games. I'm looking for some sort of sweet spot in the middle.

Given your usage scenario is very workhorse-oriented rather than just end-user gaming, I'd also wonder why you don't go for a commercial or business machine rather than trying to build your own reliable/heavy duty machine along with all the niceties which go with it (i.e. if something breaks or goes wrong, the onus is on them to come to you to fix/replace it).
That was something I was considering before I wanted to build and something I still have in mind. However I don't think I'll come across too many hardware related issues in general if I pick the right parts. It's moreso software issues which I believe would cause problems.
 

siggy

Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2014
Messages
82
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2015
I would personally consider downgrading the CPU in the interest of money. Trust me an i5 will do all that you have said and save you a lot of money.
Rest of the build is pretty good, maybe add a hard drive in case SSD fills up, your choice.
I wouldn't bother with liquid cooling, such a hassle but up to you, it is pretty nice if you can be bothered though...
 

seremify007

Junior Member
Joined
Apr 29, 2004
Messages
10,059
Location
Sydney, Australia
Gender
Male
HSC
2005
Uni Grad
2009
I think what I'm trying to figure out is are you building this primarily as a games machine or a development machine?
 

brent012

Webmaster
Webmaster
Joined
Feb 26, 2008
Messages
5,291
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
That video is over 2 and a half years old haha, would definitely not follow it. Old high end CPUs can still hold their value really well as people want to upgrade without changing mobos, so the processor in that video is obsolete now but still expensive. Can get better stuff for less.
 

astroman

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 12, 2014
Messages
7,069
Location
Las Vegas
Gender
Male
HSC
2015
this
CPU: Intel Core i7 5930K
Cooler: Corsair H100i
MOBO: EVGA X99 FTW
RAM: Corsair LPX 16GB Red
GPU: Asus GTX 970 Strix 4GB
Hard Drive: Western Digital WD Black 3TB
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB
PSU: CoolerMaster V850
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Black
 

Speed6

Retired '16
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Messages
2,949
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Do you have a budget to work around with? I can help you with the build parts etc, what you need, what's the best.
 

anomalousdecay

Premium Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2013
Messages
5,766
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
agree, get a big HDD, they are dirt cheap atm
That is pretty much a 2 second job for like $100 and I'll do that later.

I think what I'm trying to figure out is are you building this primarily as a games machine or a development machine?
Primarily development, but will be used for some gaming from time to time. The degree of gaming will be moderate to high end. Probably not going to hit the really high end games though any time soon.
 
Last edited:

anomalousdecay

Premium Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2013
Messages
5,766
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
I would personally consider downgrading the CPU in the interest of money. Trust me an i5 will do all that you have said and save you a lot of money.
It will save about $100 to $200 ?
That's not a major worry. Would rather to take the option which will lead to longer life.

I wouldn't bother with liquid cooling, such a hassle but up to you, it is pretty nice if you can be bothered though...
Yeah that's why I'm hesitant with it. Will cost another $300 to $400 and I think I can already obtain good cooling without it (I'm not building some ultimate gaming machine to require such intense cooling).
 

D94

New Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2011
Messages
4,423
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Semi-modular is alright as long as you have good cable management. I went with a full modular psu just for convenience and if I had to change a wire for whatever reason, I wouldn't need to worry about which one. 650W is plenty. One issue I had when building my PC was my 20+4 pin ATX main power cable was cut incorrectly so the latch didn't click onto my mobo. I kind of forced it on instead of exchanging it...so this a reason for full modular - I would not need to remove my entire psu and all its existing connections in order to replace one cable.

Consider getting extra fans for general air flow throughout the case (this is case dependent). If overclocking is a potential future decision, then make sure your components can handle an increase in GHz.

CAD + Chrome is nothing with those specs. I can easily run it with Intel Core i7-4770K, 16GB ram and GTX 760 graphics. Go with 2 8GB ram sticks and so you should have 2 extra slots for later on if you need it. I can easily run CS:GO on high graphics and around 300 fps. Although admittedly, my graphics card fan does make a fair bit of noise (not quite sure what to do).

Also, I haven't checked yet but see if your mobo has on board wifi and/or an ethernet output. You probably won't need an additional one straight up.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 2)

Top