New Computer

[Gregoshi]

I always wondered about building my own PC - aside from the components listed, are there any additional minor things needed to put together a PC? Heat sinks, special adhesives, etc or do the various components come with everything needed? Also, with regards to motherboards and cases, there are a million different models/types out there, how do you decide which are good ones? For example, Psychonaut, why did you pick that motherboard (aside that it matches up with the CPU) over all the others?

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Is that a joke?

Price range?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128445

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103851

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835185142

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136534

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231304

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125347

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817171053

That's a decent rig. With hexa-core. Needs a case and if you have the money switch the HD6870 for a HD5870. Only problem needs to be self-assembled, not too hard.

$1,000 or under or so, presuming I can make montly payments on it .

[pevergreen]

I always wondered about building my own PC - aside from the components listed, are there any additional minor things needed to put together a PC? Heat sinks, special adhesives, etc or do the various components come with everything needed? Also, with regards to motherboards and cases, there are a million different models/types out there, how do you decide which are good ones? For example, Psychonaut, why did you pick that motherboard (aside that it matches up with the CPU) over all the others?

A screwdriver (phillips head) is basically all you need. Most modern CPUs come with the heatstuff applied, and a heatsink/fan included.

Everything else is included, but if your computer has a whole bunch of extra stuff (say 2 DVD drives, 4 hard drives like mine) you'll probably need some extra cables.

Motherboard choice is really the socket. Once you have that, you can check individual specifications, some have different ports on the back plate (i upgraded mine so my current one has a bunch of USB 3.0 ports on the back) and sometimes double/triple channel RAM.

Cases are mostly: Does it look good. Presuming it fits your motherboard, then you're pretty much good to go. Some people get caught up on airflow, but the only problem I've come across with any case is not having enough room for a super huge graphics card (some can't handle the ~10" cards, it starts to hit the drive bays)

[Tellos Athenaios]

It's always worth to have a little tube of silver-based heat paste. That's what, $8 per tube, and it's always kind of disappointing to find you got all your components but miss/run out of paste.
The only thing to think of on top of the list is maybe a wireless NIC (if you don't want to use ethernet cables), plus a card reader if you need it.

Motherboard choice: what pevergreen said, although you can augment your choice with a little rationalisation by reading a couple reviews and seeing if there are any significant (BIOS) issues. Google is good for that. There are a few pitfalls of course: USB 1.1, only 2 slots for RAM.

Apart from looks, as far as cases go it is mostly checking the motherboard fits in the case (in this particular instance you would check for a case which supports Micro ATX). Bonus things are air filters (definitely worth it, but not on cheaper cases usually).

[Gregoshi]

Thanks for the info. That is helpful and I'll file that away for the future.

[Furunculus]

i have just built a marvellous PC for my brother for:

Athlon II x3 at 3.2GHz - £58
Asus 880G/USB3 m/b - £68
4GB DDR3 at 1333MHz - £48
Nvidia 460GTX 768MB - £114

grand total = ~£280

a fitting rig for Guild Wars 2 now that he is the big cheese at Zam

if you want something more bling, what I have:

Phenom X6 at 3.2GHz - £180
Gigabyte 890FX UD5 - £140
8GB DDR3 at 1600MHz - £105
ATI 5870HD 2GB - £300

after xmas however a number of cool things will happen:
Intel release sandy-bridge which means CPU prices for everyone goes down.
ATI release the successor to my card; the 6970

up to you

[naut]

For example, Psychonaut, why did you pick that motherboard (aside that it matches up with the CPU) over all the others?

Well. The manufacturer for one, Gigabyte, trustworthy and good quality. Second the chipset. Third the number, 880, 8xx series is newest, and x80 has a good number of features without the extra cost the x90 has. Finally the features it actually has, generally mobo's are pretty standard, but reading up on what they offer is pretty important (which is related to the product number).