New PC Build Thread Incoming.

[Edgie]

"why even do a custom build?"...

That's what I told them, and gave him a link to a nice Lenovo... Thanks

[Mrbeansman]

So if Pascal launches this summer how long till 900 series cards start dropping in price?

[DrClout]

Depends on the distributor. Private sellers will drop those prices asap for their own upgrades. Just be careful of those overclockers and it's GG

[Kalmado]

If buying from a private seller I'd request a purchase receipt to see if there is any warranty left. Asus & MSI have never requested a receipt from me for RMA so even a second hand card should be able to get RMA'd if it's within warranty period.

I'll try and get the new thread up tonight or tomorrow night. I'd like to make it as tidy as possible with as much info as I can.

[DrClout]

What are you looking to add to the thread out of curiousity

[Kalmado]

What are you looking to add to the thread out of curiousity

Just a nice format to follow when asking advice so we can get some standard questions and answers out of the way. For instance, someone asking what's a good gpu is too vague of a question. Knowing what components they already have, what resolution they plan to play at, and what games or what end result they would like helps with answering the question in the best way possible.

[Veikuri]

After all the struggle and agony the desktop is finally build. I tried building it myself first but I could not for the life of me install the heatsink I bought. Go figure that the instructions that came with it and a youtube video were telling me something completely different. I also got pretty confused with the motherboard plugs, so I called up my friend to build it for me. He puts everything together, but I forgot my monitor so he can't see if it boots to the bios. I take it home and it shuts off after about 30-45 seconds.. The motherboard is bad! Not sure if it was defective or we shorted it from building it. I take it to microcenter and they don't have the same model so they let me get a motherboard that cost $140($130 after MIR). So that was a pretty good deal. I eventually took it to microcenter so they would build it for me. It actually looks professionally done instead of me just squishy all the wires in. My friend also got me a free Windows 7 which I upgraded to Windows 10.

Here is the final build with everything included. Prices are not accurate:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/r2XGvK

I would like to thank everyone who helped me and I'm probably not going to build a desktop again. That was torment.

[Churchill]

It's easier the second time. Takes me about an hour if nothing needs to be RMA'd.

You can also tell if it posts without a monitor, that's what the LED next to the CMOS battery and power switch is for.

[Kalmado]

Yeah it's just a learning experience. Next time won't be so bad. And I understand about the 212. I've used I think 6 of those or so and they definitely can be a massive pain in the ass. The current build I'm working on (half done on my dinner table) I'm using a Cryorig M9 cooler (mATX cube with clearance issues) and is was by far and wide the easiest cooler installation I've ever done. I'll definitely pay the premium for their larger model the next time I do a build that calls for a full size air cooler.

[Mrbeansman]

What issues do people have with the 212? I had zero issues installing mine.

[Kalmado]

Sometimes it just wants to be difficult with aligning is all. For me, it's more so if my hands start to freeze up on me it makes cpu cooler installation very annoying.

[Churchill]

212 is kind of a 2 person install if you want it to go fast unless your case is large.

[The Stig]

Quick SSD help

I never owned one before. In UK Amazon there was a lightning deal for a 960gb Crucial SSD where the price went from £230 > £150
The model is Crucial BX200 960gb

Specs: Crucial BX200 960GB SATA 6Gbps 2.5" Internal SSD • 540 MB/s Read / 490 MB/s Write
Series: BX200
Product Line: Crucial SSD
Interface: SATA 6.0Gb/s

As I had limited time to research (I found out late) I went and brought the deal. It comes later this week. After research, I'm not entirely convinced it's a good product but from what I can see/understand, I am wondering if anyone can offer me a second opinion if they have knowledge on this product/brand:

- It's a bottom of the line SSD (budget)
- No good for huge files, which is fine
- Poor performance or not (in general) it's still an improvement over normal hard drives
- Its rival is the Sandisk Ultra II SSD (which also seems bottom line, but maybe it slightly performs better)

I plan to use this to temporarily replace my old laptop's hard drive which is showing signs of imminent failure (shreaking/clicking) hence the quick purchase. When I get a desktop later I plan to strip it out of this laptop to put in my desktop.

Would this make a good system drive? The idea is this SSD in my eventual desktop will have the OS and games on it only. Nothing wrong with that right? I don't need extreme/top of the line performance because at this point I think the difference would be less than 2-3 seconds if benchmarked. I think there's no need to invest in a slightly higher model/edge SSD.

edit: Also if I'm correct, all SSDs are 2.5 right? A quick search only leads me to hybrid 3.5 drives.
edit2: what's the general life of these? Assuming my case of OS and games use only, and light workload (making videos under 5 mins, editing images up to 10-100mb and overall basic day to day use of browsing/twitch). When they first came out back a long time ago I remember reading about it only lasting 60 full writes before performance deteriorates ... we've gone past this now right?

[Arkanna]

If it holds up to the listed specs, it'll be fine. I wouldn't sweat it too much, even if it's a "bottom of the line" SSD, it'll be a lot faster than your old hard drive.

It'll be a fine system drive. How much system memory do you have? If you have less than 8GB, I'd consider moving your swap file to a standard hard drive, which you should probably have anyway for bulk storage like media and whatnot.

SSD's come in 2.5", MSATA, M.2, and PCIe/NVMe. As far as I know, there's no such thing as a 3.5" SSD. If you need it in 3.5" form factor, there's plenty of cheap drive bay adapters out there, and even some that cram more than one 2.5" SSD bay into a 3.5" spot.

[Kalmado]

Ark covered the goods. And as you already said/know, the BX200 is Crucial's bottom of the barrel ssd. If the price is right then go for it. It definitely is better than a HDD.

[The Stig]

Lovely thanks.

On that note, the SSD arrived. I was disappointed about the packaging of the Crucial box but nevermind (there was no plastic/cover/seal over it. I popped open the box and it was there lol)

I noticed it came with a serial key to activate software which I believe is the cloning thing. Can I presume that I can install this on my existing laptop, then slot the SSD into my "USB docker thing for 2.5/3.5 hard drives", connect it, run software, begin clone from laptop hard drive to the SSD (via USB docket). Shut down, open laptop up, swap. Done?

Or is it more complex than this lol (reinstalling from scratch windows is not a problem)

edit; on second though, I think I can change the boot order to the USB connected SSD drive to make sure it works before I commit to swapping lol. Good idea?

edit2: if all else fail and I fuck up somewhere or don't buy a PC... would a PS4 be happy to accept this drive? :D

It'll be a fine system drive. How much system memory do you have? If you have less than 8GB, I'd consider moving your swap file to a standard hard drive, which you should probably have anyway for bulk storage like media and whatnot.

On my planned system it will be 16gb of RAM for sure, maybe 32 if I find a good deal. Not planned that far yet, no rush. But ye-olde basics such as GTX 980 ti, 32gb ram and I7 5820K if there's no 6xxx variant available (yes, I want the 6 cores; I saw the benchmarks and I like the advantages/speed over its 4 core brother) and yeh, the rest don't matter :D

[Arkanna]

The cloning should work, yes. I don't believe swapping storage devices will deactivate your Windows install; at least, it never has for me.

Edit 1 should be correct, yes. Though you don't even have to do that. Once the clone is complete, you can just swap the drives and keep the original one handy in case the cloning didn't work out as you expected.

Edit 2, I cannot say. People say PS4's are easier to mod than Xbones, so ...

[Kalmado]

Swapping drives in the PS4 is extremely simple. You just gotta make sure to have the correct boot file on a properly formatted usb.

[The Stig]

So I managed to clone the thing. But because it took a while I ran out of time to test more and now here I am at work.

I now have my SSD (plugged in via USB dock) as "OS (E"

The drive letter label was automatic. Is it right to presume when I do the full swap (I take out the HD in my laptop and replace it with the SSD) it'll automatically occupy C? Or would it stick to E?

[Arkanna]

It'll go to C.