So I have been struggling with the decision if I want to build a PC or buy one or not get one. Any way I recently got some good news and want to reward myself and build a future proof PC. Basically to future proof this thing I want to use DDR4 RAM which also means a Haswell-E CPU if I build one right now and I might as well as get a GTX 980.

I know the basic parts but I know absolutely nothing about everything else and when I try to figure this out I just get overwhelmed. Things like power units or how much wattage I need, motherboards, cases, fans, water cooling, and all the other stuff I am not thinking of or overlooking.

Where are the best sites to buy the individual parts? What are things I should know as a first time builder? Are there really good step by step tutorials? What about VR units, what are the best ones or should I wait on buying one of these?

First things first: there is no such thing as future proofing due to the inevitable march of progress. Don't worry about building the most future proof box because you will eventually lose that battle. Time is undefeated. That doesn't mean you can't build something that will last, but don't spend too much time worrying about your part becoming obsolete. My last build was 2 years ago and the only thing I've upgraded since is the GPU, which I just did this past week and really didn't have to do; it was a luxury purchase, honestly (went from a perfectly cromulent AMD 7870 XT to a GTX 970). You don't want to skimp or go cheap if it's something you'll regret later, but you also don't want to blow your budget on top of the line everythings in the name of wishful future proofing.

Pick your battles. Unless money truly isn't an object, compromises will have to be made somewhere along the line. Build the best box that you can afford to build while making reasonable accommodations and plans for what you want to do with it going forward. For example: if you plan to buy a second card for SLI down the road, make sure you plan accordingly and buy a PSU, case, and motherboard that can accommodate that.

Newegg is a good place to buy parts. Amazon as well. Both also offer zero % interest financing options if you spend over a certain dollar amount, which you will easily hit if you buy all the parts at once.

For a first time builder: take your time, be patient, and always Google something if you're not sure about what you're doing. Read the manuals that come with your parts. Give yourself a solid day to build it. It likely won't take an entire day, but you don't want to rush the process.

This is a pretty solid, basic resource. A lot of people swear by PCPartPicker, though I've never used it.

Don't waste money on a VR unit. It's almost never worth it to be an early adopter of a new technology unless money is no object. Let them iron out the kinks and bring their costs down first. Besides, the market hasn't really spoken on whether or not VR is a viable consumer product. Game makers won't prioritize development for them unless it becomes one. It might seem cool as shit, but it's still a great unknown. You can always buy one later (one of the best things about building your own PC: it's always upgradeable).

Buy an SSD. It's worth it even if it's only used as a boot drive. Will (slightly) cut down on your loading times if you put games on it too.

I would get a 970 over a 980 if you're playing at 1080p. If you're gaming above that resolution, you can possibly justify the (massive) price difference. Personally, I'm a guy who goes for the best value, not necessarily the best product. And the 970 is the best bang for your buck.

(Moderator edit - redacted section on RAM with incorrect information.)

You'll be fine, it's not that hard. The internet has lots of helpful people that can steer you in the right direction. Don't rush into any purchases/builds. Do your research and prioritize what you want most in relation to what isn't as important to you. Then budget accordingly.

Good luck.

@jay_ray:

I built my PC about 18 months ago after doing about 3 weeks worth of reading up on it. While building a PC is not hard, there's a lot of jargon to get familiar with as well as little tips and tricks and such.

I used http://www.logicalincrements.com/ to get an idea of what kind of performance vs Budget I wanted to achieve and then I used https://pcpartpicker.com/ to make sure everything was compatible. PCpartpicker will also give you historical price data on your parts and tell you who currently has it at the lowest price. I ended up buying my components from 4 different suppliers (Microcenter, Newegg, Amazon and one other I can't think of atm) as a result. I also read up on advice on http://www.tomshardware.com/ on their forums and such for advice.

and actually I found Youtube really helpful for this, especially the newegg series on building a PC

I ended up spending about 1000 bucks and it still runs current AAA releases at MAX settings just fine. It took me about half a day to put it together, but I was going slow since I was a bit nervous as I hadn't assembled one in quite a awhile.

I definitely recommend getting a SSD for your OS, it's worth the money.

One thing I see people go cheap on, that that they shouldn't, is Power Supply Units. You don't need to go for overkill, but every friend of mine who has ever had something go seriously wrong with their PC has had it come from a cheap or inadequate PSU. Just make sure to get one that give you the wattage you need.

I personally don't think getting a top of the line Video Card is a great use of money as they tend to get obsolete fast . My friends usually shoot for a middle to upper middle tier one and figure they'll replace it in a few years. That's what I did this time and seems to working out just fine.

One thing to consider doing is waiting till August if you can, seems like a lot of retailers have Back to School specials on computer parts. At least they do around here.

I wouldn't buy a VR unit yet unless you have money to burn. The tech and market for that is changing rapidly and you could end up with a unit that doesn't have great market penetration quickly.

@dotdashdotdash: @slag: Thanks for the advice! The only thing I meant by future proofing my machine is that I'd prefer to make a DDR4 RAM machine, which constricts me to very particular CPU and motherboard if I were to build a PC in the near future.

My biggest question I suppose is are all the GTX 970 GPUs that are made by different companies more or less the same? This also goes to power units that have the same rating and wattage. So is one 750W 80 plus gold as good as another 750W 80 plus gold?

@jay_ray:I tend to keep an eye on http://reddit.com/r/buildapc, they have some solid resources and seeing the builds that other people put together can give you some ideas/insight.

@jay_ray: Yes, like PatODay said once you selected all the parts, post your build on a build your pc forum (reddit, teamliquid, newegg probably has a forum or something) and people will take a look at it and give you the thumbs up or helpful tips. Generally PSU's that come with the 80 plus gold mark are excellent and safe to pick.

@dotdashdotdash: I agree with a lot of what you said, especially the part about about going for the best value. Getting a 980 over a 970 is usually unnecessary in most cases like you said. However, there is one thing that I will say. It is always better to buy RAM in pairs. This isn't an opinion. It is a fact that RAM performs better in pairs than if you were to buy a single stick. The performance gain isn't massive, but you're unnecessarily losing performance by using a single 8GB stick over two 4GB sticks, especially since the cost difference is usually negligible.

This is absolutely incorrect. If you run a single 8 GB stick of RAM, it's going to be operating in single channel. One would need two 4 GB sticks put into matched memory banks in order to operate DDR3 in dual channel mode, and there is a measurable performance benefit to doing so. I removed the section of your post with the incorrect information in it.

Everyone, please be careful when advising others on PC builds. I had to write up a post just days ago addressing exactly this type of situation, if you guys could take a look at it when you have time but before further advising anyone on a PC build or upgrade, that would be great. Thanks.

http://www.giantbomb.com/pc/3045-94/forums/regarding-pc-build-and-upgrade-advice-please-read-1770415/#7

I should have expounded what I meant when I said that.

Yes, two sticks will be faster than one stick in synthetic benchmarks. In terms of real world usage scenarios, the vast majority of people will never see the difference. If I put two boxes with the exact same specs side-by-side, except one had a 1x8GB RAM stick and the other had 2x4GB RAM sticks, the vast majority of people wouldn't be able tell the difference without running a benchmark.

See this article on single channel vs dual channel RAM. The author was surprised when he visited MSI and saw laptops they built with 1x8GB RAM instead of 2x4GB RAM. The MSI rep told him that "in [their] testing, there was almost no difference between dual-channel performance and normal performance." So he performs his own tests and essentially comes to the same conclusion, that "dual-channel just isn't necessary for the vast majority of the consumer market," and that "Gamers, mainstream users, and office users shouldn't care."

So why do I suggest one 8 GB RAM over two 4 GB sticks? More flexibility and expandability going forward. That's it. You have more headroom and fewer potential failure points going forward. Now, it's probably a fair rebuttal to say that no one is going to need 32 GB of RAM anytime soon, so leaving that possibility open isn't very meaningful. Which is fair.

I guess it would be better advice to simply buy whatever saves you the most money, as the performance differences between a 2x4GB setup and a 1x8GB setup are largely going to be meaningless in real-world, day-to-day use. Unless being faster at synthetic benchmarks is your goal, you probably shouldn't care.

Apologies for not being clearer in my original post.