Gaming PC Builds & Hardware

[tb13]

I'm not a fan of prebuilt, but if you can get that optiplex 990 cheap its the best one, spec wise. If I had to guess, it probably has an i7 2600 and 8GB of DDR3. Not the newest or fastest hardware, but it will get the job done. Since you can get it cheap, you can spend some more cash to drop a graphics card in it to make it a capable gaming rig.

Be careful though, some prebuilt PC's, especially dells, have awkward internal layouts or weak power supplies. If you get a PC with a junk power supply you will need to purchase a new PSU before you can even think about putting a graphics card in it. If you end up with one that has a weird internal layout you might be limited on upgrade-ability.

[lunchmeat]

I'll second the Dell power supplies being shit. At my last job, we had 9010s and 9020s blowing power supplies constantly. Seriously, we had damned near a pallet full of them.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[collegekid]

Originally Posted by tb13

I'm not a fan of prebuilt, but if you can get that optiplex 990 cheap its the best one, spec wise.

Be careful though, some prebuilt PC's, especially dells, have awkward internal layouts or weak power supplies. If you get a PC with a junk power supply you will need to purchase a new PSU before you can even think about putting a graphics card in it. If you end up with one that has a weird internal layout you might be limited on upgrade-ability.

Originally Posted by lunchmeat

I'll second the Dell power supplies being shit.

Hey guys, I appreciate the quick responses. I'm assuming you are talking about that bottom one, Spring $100 bundle thingy. Would it be best that I just wait to get my finances in a better position and then just build my own pc? My own "build" was coming in around $1300 ish.

[silviamang]

Man I havent seen 780s in a while. 780 and 790s were base line for most DoD like 10 years ago, so most likely those are resold DRMO units. Those things are pretty beat up, think of it as used GOV vehicles that are sold for life cycle purposes... Its a pretty big gamble and all of it would need to be replaced anyways. Power supply is most of the time only is only meant to meet the bare minimum, so is the motherboard, no PCIE expansion slots. Hell, I think some of the 780s we got rid of were still using AGP video cards.

[Future240]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dNXVTH

1300 is a lot. You can do it for less. I assume CAD is cpu bound so I went with an R7. Great multi thread. You could easily save with a an R5 1600. Note I did not include monitor keyboard mouse or OS since most people already those and the OS as a student you likely get a discount or free.

Even with my list there are places you can save.

Cpu- r5 is a six core 12 thread cpu vs the 8 core R7
Ram -could drop to 8gb
Case-purely subjective. Cheaper cases
Memory-might not need an ssd

[tb13]

Originally Posted by collegekid

Hey guys, I appreciate the quick responses. I'm assuming you are talking about that bottom one, Spring $100 bundle thingy. Would it be best that I just wait to get my finances in a better position and then just build my own pc? My own "build" was coming in around $1300 ish.

I'd always suggest building a PC over buying one pre built. If you are okay with used hardware you can save a heap of cash too.

I've got an Intel Xeon 6 core/12 thread setup right now with a 980ti that I think total set me back around $750 because most of the parts are used that I bought off craigslist. It isn't the newest hardware, but I spent some time overclocking it a bit and it chugs through even the newest triple a games and would be a solid setup for a workstation too.

If you want new hardware, Future's suggestion is solid. I'd get an SSD for sure, I switched from spinning storage to only SSD's recently and I would never go back.

[BOROSUN]

CAD... Radeon Pro WX 7100? cheapest workstation card around with a 10yr warranty. plus price has dropped around $600.

[BOROSUN]

http://wccftech.com/microsoft-tradem...-physics-dx12/
dope news. the moar development the better.

[BOROSUN]

man, where is vega saga continues.

my new case should be coming in tomorrow.

[Future240]

did your case come in?

[BOROSUN]

nope. it was just my tools.

man, i had amazon 2 day on it. but, it's still on its way. #thumbsdown

[BOROSUN]

http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-memory...rocode-update/



7700k temp spikes

[BOROSUN]

dang $700 budget build

[collegekid]

Originally Posted by tb13

I'm not a fan of prebuilt, .

Originally Posted by lunchmeat

I'll second the Dell power supplies being shit.

Originally Posted by silviamang

Man I havent seen 780s in a while.

Originally Posted by Future240

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dNXVTH

1300 is a lot. You can do it for less. I as

Originally Posted by BOROSUN

CAD... Radeon Pro WX 7100? .

Hey guys, I was busy with finals so I wasn't able to respond. Thank you guys for your knowledge and non flaming. I'm just going to work my ass off and build it.

[BOROSUN]

jim@adoretv is exposing the illuminati.

[BOROSUN]

my new case

nzxt s340

[Future240]

^^^^That looks huge.

Originally Posted by collegekid

Hey guys, I was busy with finals so I wasn't able to respond. Thank you guys for your knowledge and non flaming. I'm just going to work my ass off and build it.

Id suggest to post up your final build before you buy it so we can check over it.

[tb13]

Originally Posted by Future240

Id suggest to post up your final build before you buy it so we can check over it.

I agree, post up what you are planning to get before you buy, I made some not so great choices when I built my first PC.

Not sure if any of you care, but if you guys like toying around with older hardware check out a thread I made over on OCN a few years back. I had almost forgotten about it until I got a PM from someone the other day, was pretty shocked to see how much it had grown

[MOD] LGA775 Support For LGA771 Xeon CPUs

[Future240]

Originally Posted by tb13

I agree, post up what you are planning to get before you buy, I made some not so great choices when I built my first PC.

Dude....

My first pc "build" I took a prebuilt acer I had with a Phenom I, swapped the mobo, put in more ram, with a HIS 4850 and put in a 650 watt psu with a air cpu cooler. At the time I had no idea the Phenom was absolute shit at overclocking and that I had a psu what was MAJOR overkill.

[tb13]

Originally Posted by Future240

Dude....

My first pc "build" I took a prebuilt acer I had with a Phenom I, swapped the mobo, put in more ram, with a HIS 4850 and put in a 650 watt psu with a air cpu cooler. At the time I had no idea the Phenom was absolute shit at overclocking and that I had a psu what was MAJOR overkill.

Ahaha I went to Fry's electronics and bought one of their "Bundles" with an Athlon x4 645 and some random DDR2 that I could afford. Once I got home I realized I had some of the slowest DDR2 known to man kind and a motherboard that was beyond basic bitch status. Not to mention I spent some serious cash (for me at the time at least) on a brand new GTS 250 that same day

Pretty much completely replaced that entire system within a few months because of how awful it was...

[di-devol]

I cheated, I'm able to use a work computer for home, but I'll post the specs:

Falcon Talon
i7- 5930k Haswell
64GB Corsair DDR4
Asus x-99 deluxe
GeForce GTX TITAN X 12GB
4x 1tb ssd's

Monitors and peripherals are up to me.

Plays whatever I need, for a while most likely. Honestly just waiting for Destiny 2 on PC.

[Future240]

^^^Developer?

Originally Posted by tb13

Ahaha I went to Fry's electronics and bought one of their "Bundles" with an Athlon x4 645 and some random DDR2 that I could afford. Once I got home I realized I had some of the slowest DDR2 known to man kind and a motherboard that was beyond basic bitch status. Not to mention I spent some serious cash (for me at the time at least) on a brand new GTS 250 that same day

Pretty much completely replaced that entire system within a few months because of how awful it was...

I stuck with the Phenom and the 4850 for years. In 2015 I upgraded to a 7950 which wanted to run great, but was severely bottle necked by the Phenom. Later on I got a 470 which I am running now while I wait for Vega.

[tb13]

Originally Posted by Future240

I stuck with the Phenom and the 4850 for years. In 2015 I upgraded to a 7950 which wanted to run great, but was severely bottle necked by the Phenom. Later on I got a 470 which I am running now while I wait for Vega.

My second system was an Phenom X4 965 Black Edition with some OCZ Platinum DDR2. Was a huge upgrade, but when I upgraded GPU's I felt the bottleneck. I swapped over to an LGA1366 setup and I have stuck with intel ever since.

Really happy to see AMD making a comeback, will be interesting to see if they start releasing new chips regularly again to compete with Intel.

This is one of my old rigs, probably my favorite build to date, had an i5 3570k, GTX480's in sli and a sweet custom water cooling loop.

[BOROSUN]

Originally Posted by Future240

^^^^That looks huge.

it's a decent compact midcase
here's a example


it should clear up some real estate on my desk vs my current thermatake core v2.1

[di-devol]

Originally Posted by Future240

^^^Developer?

Yep, Oculus Research.

[BOROSUN]

saving this yt vid for future ref.

[Future240]

Vega needs to hurry up.

[Hachetjoel]

Here's mine before I put it in the case, went with dual 1070's so that I could mine, the computer paid for itself after about 6 months.

[anti tyler]

[tb13]

Originally Posted by anti tyler

GTX770 nudes

Back in 2012 I did something similar with a GTX480, some dude on OCN.net was making these little plates that let you drop an H60 or H80 onto a GPU. Was then and is still now and awesome mod.