I've been contemplating building a PC ever since Crysis came out, but never had the money to do so, until now. I've decided it's probably best I just buy one, since I have no experience building one.

So I need your advice: is this a good deal?

• Will it run Crysis on high, or even max?
• Is Crysis even the benchmark anymore? I want a PC that will chew up whatever I throw at it.
• What should I upgrade? I'm willing to spend $3,000.

Not for that money, nope. You could build that yourself for $1500 tops.

You won't get experience building one till you build one. There's tons of guides, there's even 2 on tested. I felt exactly the same as you when I needed a new rig so I bought an alienware (which I'm happy with). But I'm definitely building next time.

Consider building one yourself. You'll save a lot of money and it really is easy, if you take your time and don't try to rush things.

@theguy said:

You won't get experience building one till you build one.

I figured I should just buy one, then get experience building as I upgrade it over time.

@AlexW00d said:

Not for that money, nope. You could build that yourself for $1500 tops.

I want something I know will work. If that means spending $500 on labour, then so be it.

Trust me EVO, I was unsure about building one my first time too. But I just went ahead with it, my first build took me like 4 hours but after it was all said and done I saved a ton of money and had a good computer. It's a thing you just kind of have to dive head first into.

-Ghooble

@Ghooble: Mine took 7.5 hours, but that's because I was extremely methodical because I was afraid of breaking anything. I read every single manual that came with my components, for example.

If you're not an idiot, there's really no risk of damaging your parts so bad that your PC won't work. Maybe that's not even accurate as I'm an idiot and I managed to get it to work on my first try. There are so many resources online that the only real excuse for not building a PC instead of buying pre-built is laziness.

I was gonna build a new one, too, but I've decided to just wait two years and see where this whole thunderbolt thing goes. Might be a game-changer.

For now I just upgrade, upgrade, upgrade.

@EVO said:

@theguy said:

You won't get experience building one till you build one.

I figured I should just buy one, then get experience building as I upgrade it over time.

@AlexW00d said:

Not for that money, nope. You could build that yourself for $1500 tops.

I want something I know will work. If that means spending $500 on labour, then so be it.

trust me as someone who had never touched PC hardware until I built my computer, build it yourself. You learn alot, have fun, and save yourself a shitton of money.

@EVO: Evo, I just boughtt a pretty similar PC (except I have a GTX560-TI and I added a 60gb OCZ Solid State Drive for my OS, plus 1TB for my HDD) and it cost $1,200. My local PC store built it for me for 50 bucks. Don't you DARE spend 2k +tax on that system.

A couple points:

GPU:

New graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia will be coming out within the next 6 months, and they are supposed to be major leaps in performance because they are going from 40nm to 28nm which is the sort of thing that only happens every couple years usually.

If you want to buy now look at the GTX 580 or AMD 6970 2gb, they are the top of the line single GPU cards from those companies right now.

CPU:

Also, AMD is supposed to be coming out with their bulldozer CPUs which might shake the market up a bit, its hard to say until they are released.

It's probably OK to get a Intel 2500k for your CPU. Its a good value and if you overclock it should be fast enough for games for a few years.

RAM: Get 8gbs of RAM, more is not really necessary for gaming.

buy a PC lulz, you buy a PC if you want a Walmart or best buy special for some insane reason or you are a owner of crap Mac or apple production ta has come to his senses or a console noob ready to settle for those crap low power pcs. if you want a real PC at the real price of components you make your own

@Stepside said:

Don't you DARE spend 2k +tax on that system.

Haha, thanks. This is the kind of advice I'm after. But just for the sake of it:

• Will it run Crysis on high, or even max?

@squirrelnacho: Thanks, that's also really helpful. I suppose I could just wait until those those new graphic cards drop.

After twenty-two years of building machines, I recently decided it might finally have reached the point where for only a couple hundred bucks more, I could get a system pre-built that was of the same quality as something I could build myself (the novelty wears off after the first few builds and certainly after the first few dozen - even faster when the last thing you want to do after a day full of coding and debugging and troubleshooting for a living is spend your evening dealing with airflow and jumpers).

So, I took a look at some of the systems out there that I could have built. Take the highest end system on Dog House Systems, for example. After adding an SSD and extra RAM, you're looking at almost $2,900. The same exact thing (actually, a little better) could be built yourself for about $2,000. That's $900 you could put toward your next machine in a year or two. Paying hundreds of dollars premium for something that will lose almost all of its value in six to twelve months is nuts, unless you are so wealthy that the three or four hours you would spend building it is worth more than the $900. I mean, think about that -- $900 is a good $250 more than you'd spend on the most expensive brand new top of the line video card.

So, building your own is still the way to go. If you can build anything with legos, you can build a computer. Just do a little research on the parts you want - there are even plenty of guides to get you started if you're unfamiliar or if it has been a year or two since you've caught up on the latest chips and GPUs. (pcper.com has a good "hardware leaderboard", in fact).

@EVO said:

@theguy said:

You won't get experience building one till you build one.

I figured I should just buy one, then get experience building as I upgrade it over time.

There's not really a lot of experience to be gained in upgrading. Pull the video card out, stick a new one in. Pull a stick of RAM out put a new one in. Seriously, everything in a PC is modular. If you can work a screw driver, you can assemble a computer. Plus, chances are you won't upgrade it, anyway. The problem with upgrading is that you're constrained by the limits of your current hardware. The expense involved in making an incremental CPU or RAM upgrade that conforms to the requirements of your motherboard is quite a lot when you could just build another one from scratch. In twenty two years of building machines, I don't think I ever decided to upgrade over just putting together a new machine (new motherboard, RAM, CPU, GPU, maybe PSU).

@AlexW00d said:

Not for that money, nope. You could build that yourself for $1500 tops.

I want something I know will work. If that means spending $500 on labour, then so be it.

You could put that $500 towards replacing a part that you accidentally drop or break while building the machine yourself and still come out even or ahead. There's no magic in a computer. They're just a handful of modular parts that you plug into each other. It's hard to fit the motherboard into the chassis incorrectly, because it has screw-holes that line up with the holes in the motherboard. It's hard to fit the CPU into the socket incorrectly, because it has a divit on one corner that lines up with the socket. It's hard to fit the RAM in wrong, because there is a divit favoring one end of the stick over the other preventing it from incorrect insertion. The connectors from the PSU to the fans, drives, motherboard, etc only fit one way. The GPU only fits in one direction and only certain slots in the motherboard will accept the card (easily identified, because they'll be about the same length as the connection on your GPU). The only thing you can really fuck up -- as long as you're in a static-free build environment -- is connecting all of your cables to your board jumpers properly. There's a diagram in your manual for that, but it can still be tedious. Still, it's about ten or twenty minutes work tops -- making sure pin-one goes on the right end and so forth.

I don't know how old you are, but if I could figure this shit out when I was twelve years old, in 1989, entirely on my own, then I guarantee that you can. And I didn't have access to the vast web full of videos and documentation that you have now.

PS: It's hard to determine how that system will run until we know what resolution you want to run things in. I prefer to play at 2560x1600 or 5120x1600 and there isn't a car around right now that will run the biggest new titles at a really high framerate with all the eyecandy cranked up. On the other hand, if you're going to play at 1280x800 or 1440x900 and so on, then it'd probably run absolutely anything.

If you don't feel up to building it, don't; however, I think you're spending a little too much. Also, some thoughts/comments:

What resolution is your monitor?

I'm going to assume a 1080p monitor, in that case, Crysis should be fine.

Other games that will test your hardware - Metro 2033, Witcher 2, Far Cry 2, Battlefield 3 (when it comes out). Also, there are dedicated benchmark tools available - such as Heaven.

Chances are you don't need a soundcard unless you are a huge audiophile that makes heavy use of audio editing software.

A better CPU to get is an i5 2500k.

Unless you plan on using SLI, you can probably get a lower wattage power supply. Maybe 700w~

You really don't need a 24 month warranty =|

Personally, I would go with a slightly larger HDD; maybe 1 or 2TB. Personaly, I think it's always good to more hard drive space, especially if you plan on installing a lot of games.

Unless you're overclocking, it's unlikely that you will need additional cooling.

If you're really sure you don't want to build it yourself, then go somewhere else to get your computer built or have a friend build it for you. Basically, $2000 is just way too much.

@Nocall said:

I was gonna build a new one, too, but I've decided to just wait two years and see where this whole thunderbolt thing goes. Might be a game-changer.

For now I just upgrade, upgrade, upgrade.

I must have missed something, here, because I can't imagine anything you're going to plug into your computer that so vitally needs the transfer speed of the thunderbolt that it's worth putting a machine off for a couple of years for. I mean, are you planning on running your system drive from an external thunderbolt-connected drive or something?!

@EVO said:

@theguy said:

You won't get experience building one till you build one.

I figured I should just buy one, then get experience building as I upgrade it over time.

@AlexW00d said:

Not for that money, nope. You could build that yourself for $1500 tops.

I want something I know will work. If that means spending $500 on labour, then so be it.

I don't get why the extra cost for labour. The local tech and builder company that I use (NCIX.com) only charges $50 extra to put the PC together, do the OS install/setup along with drivers and all other necessities.

@Branthog said:

I don't know how old you are, but if I could figure this shit out when I was twelve years old, in 1989, entirely on my own, then I guarantee that you can. And I didn't have access to the vast web full of videos and documentation that you have now.

I'm 23, and you just helped convince me to build one myself.

@BeachThunder said:

Unless you plan on using SLI

Should I?

@EVO said:

@BeachThunder said:

Unless you plan on using SLI

Should I?

Honestly, I wouldn't bother.

@RsistncE said:

@EVO said:

@theguy said:

You won't get experience building one till you build one.

I figured I should just buy one, then get experience building as I upgrade it over time.

@AlexW00d said:

Not for that money, nope. You could build that yourself for $1500 tops.

I want something I know will work. If that means spending $500 on labour, then so be it.

I don't get why the extra cost for labour. The local tech and builder company that I use (NCIX.com) only charges $50 extra to put the PC together, do the OS install/setup along with drivers and all other necessities.

Well, it appears to me that he's ordering this online. So that's how they make their money. Chances are that your local mom and pop computer store will take the parts you pull off the shelf and hand to them and do a build for you at a reasonable price (probably an hourly charge, which means you'd be looking at a couple hundred bucks, I guess) - but some online "build-a-rig" shop won't, because that's a very small margin.

Of course, mom and pop shops are getting harder to find. I know of one or two in PDX that are left and there is nothing in all of Denver. No mom and pop shops and not even any chain shops, unless you count Best Buy which is about as much a computer shop as Sears is.

I buy my PCs from Puget Systems, great support (the graphics card died a day in, quick response). The reason I buy is I have come to the realization that hardware + me = failure. As in "its on fire" failure.

I have no clue what a fair price would be in AUSTRALIA.  
 
...in any case, I'd get a sandy bridge CPU instead (2500k or 2600k) and a Noctua NH-D14.

@Branthog said:

@RsistncE said:

@EVO said:

@theguy said:

You won't get experience building one till you build one.

I figured I should just buy one, then get experience building as I upgrade it over time.

@AlexW00d said:

Not for that money, nope. You could build that yourself for $1500 tops.

I want something I know will work. If that means spending $500 on labour, then so be it.

I don't get why the extra cost for labour. The local tech and builder company that I use (NCIX.com) only charges $50 extra to put the PC together, do the OS install/setup along with drivers and all other necessities.

Well, it appears to me that he's ordering this online. So that's how they make their money.

Yep, but they provide free shipping which is nice.

Also, everything in Australia is more expensive.

@EVO said:

@Branthog said:

I don't know how old you are, but if I could figure this shit out when I was twelve years old, in 1989, entirely on my own, then I guarantee that you can. And I didn't have access to the vast web full of videos and documentation that you have now.

I'm 23, and you just helped convince me to build one myself.

You'll probably be a bit nervous or scared your first time, so take advantage of all the resources on the internet that you have these days. If you're willing to be patient and do it yourself, it's going to change your outlook on hardware and computers and in the long run, also change your pocketbook. Hell, if you can save $500-$1000 each time by building it yourself and you'd normally get two pre-built machines in a decade -- that $500-$1000 might make it possible for you to build three of your own in that decade for the same total amount. You won't have to maintain the same system for as many years to justify the expense. :)

I'd suggest looking at places like the PC forum on here, for assistance as you need it. Also, pcper.com is pretty decent and Tom's Hardware Guide is possibly the ultimate overall resource. Plenty of guides on what to buy, how to assemble, and extremely helpful forums that can help you out of a jam. Google around and you'll surely find plenty of instructional videos on things like seating a graphics card or inserting a CPU (to be honest, the first time I built a machine when I was twelve, I was worried about bending the pins on my CPU so I asked the guy at my local PC shop to insert the CPU I just bought from them into the motherboard I just bought from them).

My first search for "howto build a gaming pc video" produced this two hour howto video on youtube. I'm not familiar with those who produced it at all, but it looks like a great place for you to get an idea of what is involved. Do your own googling from there, ask in forums when you don't understand stuff. Everyone built a first machine some time, so they've all been there (and we've all lost a piece of hardware due to one problem or another, so it helps to get your parts from a place that will be decent about returns - I've had good experiences with Newegg and Amazon, if they're available to you -- I even totally broke an Antec chassis and Amazon replaced it overnight with no questions asked last year). Newegg also apparently has some of their own youtube video guides on building a gaming rig, so those might be worth checking out.

Anyway, if you end up building your own, good luck. Read everything, look at the pictures, and be patient. Chances are that when you're done, you'll think it's silly that anyone is ever apprehensive about how "complex" building a PC supposedly is.

Carey Holzman - How To Build A Gaming PC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUY0tP5jYIo

@BeachThunder said:

Unless you plan on using SLI

Should I?

The only reasons to go SLI, in my opinion:

* Having more GPU makes you feel like your epeen is enormous and that gives you some weird sort of thrill (or you are so wealthy that you would gladly do 8x-SLI if that could be done).

* You intend on playing just one or two games all the time and you care about the highest performance on them and they absolutely support SLI -- and you are certain you can get a pair of cards cheaper than a single more powerful card that will outperform that more powerful card by a significant amount (and even then, only relevant if the games you are going to play support SLI or else the single more powerful GPU is going to be better, even then).

Reasons to avoid SLI/Crossfire/whatever:

* Poor cost/performance ratio.

* A lot of software won't support it.

* Often buggy.

* Extreme power hog (you'll be wanting to look closer to a 1,000 watt PSU if you're doing SLI with current generation cards).

* You're not even remotely doubling your performance as there's significant overhead.

* You'll be obligated to some amount of testing and tweaking to make sure that your system is not bottle-necking the performance of your cards (you'll become familiar with your BIOS, though).

I'm open to spending more on hardware than I should and it has been over a decade since I've bought anything less than the most powerful current video card instead of buying where the price-break is (I'm like a kid in a candy store), but even I continue to dismiss the value of SLI.

The awesome thing, however, is that it's a decision you can make later. Whatever board you choose will probably support SLI and chances are whatever card you choose will support SLI (or Crossfire, if you're going with ATI). So, if you change your mind in six months, you can play around with SLI -- and by that time, you'll probably get that second video card for much cheaper, too.

(If anyone else has drastically differing opinions on SLI, then by all means share.)

@Branthog said:

@RsistncE said:

@EVO said:

@theguy said:

You won't get experience building one till you build one.

I figured I should just buy one, then get experience building as I upgrade it over time.

@AlexW00d said:

Not for that money, nope. You could build that yourself for $1500 tops.

I want something I know will work. If that means spending $500 on labour, then so be it.

I don't get why the extra cost for labour. The local tech and builder company that I use (NCIX.com) only charges $50 extra to put the PC together, do the OS install/setup along with drivers and all other necessities.

Well, it appears to me that he's ordering this online. So that's how they make their money. Chances are that your local mom and pop computer store will take the parts you pull off the shelf and hand to them and do a build for you at a reasonable price (probably an hourly charge, which means you'd be looking at a couple hundred bucks, I guess) - but some online "build-a-rig" shop won't, because that's a very small margin.

Of course, mom and pop shops are getting harder to find. I know of one or two in PDX that are left and there is nothing in all of Denver. No mom and pop shops and not even any chain shops, unless you count Best Buy which is about as much a computer shop as Sears is.

The thing is...NCIX is one of the biggest tech and builder stores in Canada. In fact they're big enough that they get a lot of exclusive parts before big box stores do. Additionally most of their business comes from their online store which actually resulted in them changing their physical store name (Netlink Computers) to their internet store name (NCIX ---> Netlink Computers Internet Exchange) since more people identified with it than their physical store. So yeah, still confused as to why this store the OP linked is charging so much just to put the damn thing together haha

@mosdl said:

I buy my PCs from Puget Systems, great support (the graphics card died a day in, quick response). The reason I buy is I have come to the realization that hardware + me = failure. As in "its on fire" failure.

The ideal situation would be a place that charges you a nominal fee and simply puts the pieces you choose together - whether bought from them or elsewhere (so you can shop for the best deal on components). I would be entirely willing to pay $200 to have my $2,000 system built for me. I'm too old and busy and tired to deal with the trivial bullshit of building a machine, anymore. Unfortunately, most places seem to require that you choose from their pre-selected options, order from them, and they charge a pretty hefty fee (and there's always the Windows Tax, too). It's hard for me to justify more than $200 to do something I can do on my own and in only a couple hours or so.

I think part of the problem is that all the places that do that also feel obligated to offer some sort of warranty and support. I already have the warranty on each part, so I don't need them to add a lot of overhead to the price on that. I really just want to pay for the kid in the back room to do the grunt work for me so I don't have to.

Thanks a lot @Branthog, you've been really helpful.

@EVO said:

Thanks a lot @Branthog, you've been really helpful.

The link to the youtube video I found disappeared when saving, so I edited it to include it again. Just to be sure, I'm also going to include it here. I watched about the first thirty minutes and it actually is pretty damn good. Watch it in 720p for decent detail and by the time you've watched the full two hours, I think you'll know if this is even remotely something you feel okay attempting - and if you do, you'll know exactly what to expect in the process.

And no problem. Just be sure to let us know if you do it yourself and have fun with whatever money you save. Hell, you could keep yourself in games for a couple of years with what you save, maybe. :)

A final thought - if you're at all the social type, check to see if there are any local user groups you could join. There are linux user groups everywhere, but I bet there are some sort of hardware/PC/gaming groups that get together in a lot of cities on a regular basis that could offer direct help in person if you go to an event/build-a-thon/whatever...), too. If not, then surely you must know at least one guy who knows how to build computers that could look over your shoulder?

None of that should be necessary, but if you have jitters, it's a solid backup, right? :)

Update: After watching even more of the above video - that is super detailed. I think I'm bookmarking that for next time someone is contemplating a build for the first time. :)

@EVO:

The actual building part is real easy. And pretty much every party you buy will have an installation guide. Not that you'll really need those, assembly a computer is pretty much square-circle-triangle, if you know what I mean. Any issues you run into, or question you might have, can quickly and easily be solved by the Internet. Specifically Youtube. The most difficult part is deciding what to buy. :P

@Branthog said:

@mosdl said:

I buy my PCs from Puget Systems, great support (the graphics card died a day in, quick response). The reason I buy is I have come to the realization that hardware + me = failure. As in "its on fire" failure.

The ideal situation would be a place that charges you a nominal fee and simply puts the pieces you choose together - whether bought from them or elsewhere (so you can shop for the best deal on components). I would be entirely willing to pay $200 to have my $2,000 system built for me. I'm too old and busy and tired to deal with the trivial bullshit of building a machine, anymore. Unfortunately, most places seem to require that you choose from their pre-selected options, order from them, and they charge a pretty hefty fee (and there's always the Windows Tax, too). It's hard for me to justify more than $200 to do something I can do on my own and in only a couple hours or so.

I think part of the problem is that all the places that do that also feel obligated to offer some sort of warranty and support. I already have the warranty on each part, so I don't need them to add a lot of overhead to the price on that. I really just want to pay for the kid in the back room to do the grunt work for me so I don't have to.

You can also just buy the barebones version - motherboard/case/psu, which can be the tricky part. The rest is easy.

As for windows tax - most places can ship it with linux as an option to avoid it

@Branthog: I don't have time to watch it at the moment, but I just made a start and already I've learnt the importance of static. I had no idea that could fuck shit up.

@Branthog: Absolutely brilliant post Brant. This should be stickied.

@EVO said:

@Branthog: I don't have time to watch it at the moment, but I just made a start and already I've learnt the importance of static. I had no idea that could fuck shit up.

It's less of a problem in reality than people make it out to be. I don't think I've ever lost a part to static. I mean, don't do your build while wearing socks on your feet on a carpet and pajamas on your hand fresh from the drier or anything, but as long as you have a decent table somewhere and your shoes on, you're probably fine. I do as much of the work on my system with the motherboard sitting on the mylar bag it comes packages in on top of the padding that comes with it and once it all gets into the chassis, I worry even less. If nothing else, you can get simple static wrist straps to clip onto a surface near you, too. They often come packed with a fairly cheap toolkit if you don't already have a kit (non-magnetized set of screwdrivers and a jumper-puller, basically is all it is).

Anyway, as others have mentioned, looking forward to find out what/how you do so keep us updated down the road!

@Branthog said:

@Nocall said:

I was gonna build a new one, too, but I've decided to just wait two years and see where this whole thunderbolt thing goes. Might be a game-changer.

For now I just upgrade, upgrade, upgrade.

I must have missed something, here, because I can't imagine anything you're going to plug into your computer that so vitally needs the transfer speed of the thunderbolt that it's worth putting a machine off for a couple of years for. I mean, are you planning on running your system drive from an external thunderbolt-connected drive or something?!

Actually, yeah, that's exactly right. Might seem crazy now, but that's where I think this particular tech is heading--100% modularization. With thunderbolt and cloud-drives, what a computer "is" has the potential to significantly change in the next few years.

Or maybe that's all just wishful thinking.

@Branthog:Thanks so much for posting the video. This is by far the most detailed and thorough PC building video I've ever seen (I haven't finished it yet though, but so far it's good).

Computers go together like Legos, things only fit a certain way. Your only real trouble might come from your CPU heatsink, depending on your set-up. Make sure you understand how it is connected before you apply the thermal paste.

@EVO: I just finished building my first computer almost two weeks ago. I just put in the order for my gpu and 2 extra fans (hence seeing the items in the cart), but the primary thing I worried about when putting together my pc was the software issues. Making sure you put everything in the right slots is a piece of cake. It's when you get to the BIOS screen or if there's a problem with the windows setup, thats where it might be a good choice to pay for it to be made at a store or something before you put it all together by yourself.

Sure, you could find a way to spend more money, but there's a couple questions you have to answer first before I can lend you my ohso professional advice.

• How much space do you have? This mid size tower is a pretty good size, and a full would be even bigger.
• How many/what kind of monitors are you going to be using? I'm only running a 1920x1080, which is good, but there are also 2550x1660 or something type monitors out there, which require more power. The GPU I have is the most powerful single processor gpu on the market today, and I'm not going to able to max it out at 1080p, so I built myself some leeway there. If you're going to be running multiple monitors, you're going to spending some more money on the gpu. Also, if you're running 3 or more monitors, go with AMD gpu's, not Nvidia. Nvidia only supports 2 monitors on a single card. They make you go SLI if you want more than 2 monitors.
• Are you only going to be using this pc for gaming? I have 16gb of ram up there. Thats waaaay overkill for any game on the market right now. I just checked the sys reqs for Rage, and it's telling you to go for 4gb of ram. Anything more than, 8 lets say, and you should be using your pc for something more than just gaming. I have more because I work with raw images, and eventually going to be getting to playing around with movie files, hence my larger need for ram.
• Case. My case is built around being quiet. There are larger cases, cases with chambers for each component, liquid cooling you can throw in there, etc.

I think thats going to be it for now. I had a pretty good time building my pc. Was watching the Tested video on how they built Jeff's as I was building mine, so that walked me through it like a boss. And the advice you're getting here is top notch as well.

To the Op, I just built my first machine, also. My only problem was wanting a raid config. Best probably just to go with a terrabyte WD cavaliar black, or some variation. But as long as you focus on what you are doing, and the parts are good(bad case also suprisingly for me) you pretty much cannot wrong.