- Aug 7, 2015
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This is my first computer build ever and actually the first computer I've ever even bought period. I got a Lenovo laptop for college back in '09 (Lenovo W500 RIP) and I got 6 good years out of that thing. So it's time to get a new one.
Photo Album Link HERE
Main Purpose: The main purpose of my new build is a video editing rig. I make YouTube videos (link here JaxAxRho shameless I know
) and my old Lenovo just wasn't able to run on anything but the lowest settings for more than 30 minutes at a time. For those 30 minutes, I could do some pretty good editing, but the actual render had to be done at low settings. The real problem with that laptop was that they screwed with Windows so that you could choose to run either the onboard graphics or a discrete card. The onboard worked well, but the discrete card was much better (was a radeon atx something, it's honestly been so long I don't remember). However you would lose the ability to change the display brightness on the discrete card after about a year or so. But I digress...
Of course if I'm going to make a solid performance computer I'm going to play games on it, but some of my favorite computer games are from windows 98 and 01 (Machines, AoE2, Stronghold) so I may need help on how to run those...
Components: (list at the end)
So I wanted to keep the components under $800 and (after ordering this morning!!!) I can say that I achieved that goal.
CPU: Initially I was dead set on an i5-4690K and I was psyched to OC the stuffing out of it. However after some discussion with others on here, I decided/was persuaded to go a different route and build on a Xeon E3 1231 v3. With video editing performance my main goal, this just made more sense.
Mobo: Due to initially wanting an unlocked CPU I had set about to find a good Z97 for a good price. I found one, but ditched the unlocked CPU, so in the idea of saving money I looked at H97 chipsets. After further thought though, I decided to stick with the Z97 so that if I wanted to get an unlocked CPU in the future, I would already have all of the OC utilities. Posting this here for safe keeping: PCIe 16x16 vs. 8x8
GPU: Arguably (or maybe not) the most important part of gaming rigs, I had a little wiggle room here since my primary goal was editing and not gaming. I decided upon the R9-270X as it fit within my original budget constraints and after switching CPUs and mobo, it still fit within the final budget. It is also a pretty good graphics card in general and so I should get some quality gaming out of it if I decide to actually venture into some PC gaming.
PSU: Quoted by many guides and tech sites to be the single most underrated and over looked part of a build, I was very apprehensive about a PSU. I originally allocated quite a bit of the budget to this part due to how important it is, but after some discussion and research, I was able to actually save quite a bit of money here and still come out with a quality PSU.
Case: Dealers choice here so I set a hard stop on the budget and found something I liked.
RAM: As an editor RAM is something you (almost) can't have too much of. I wanted 16gb, but I figured I could save some money by going with 8gb. I decided against that idea and went ahead with 16gb. After some discussion I was told to spend a little extra and go for some really quick RAM as it would be that much faster. So I went with some 2400 DDR3.
Storage: SSD is the way to go now for speed and I have a work laptop with two 300gb+ SSD in it and I can attest to this. So I knew I was going to want at least a boot drive with maybe a little extra room for editing speed. Grabbed a 120gb and haven't looked back. As for HDD, quantities are almost solely measured in TB now (like really? holy sh**). I can remember when I was first interested in computers as a kid that 1gb was SOOO MUCH SPAAAACE. So I went with a modest 1TB 7200RPM HDD.
Extras and Peripherals: Ever since my older brother built his computer, I thought a water radiator was the coolest thing (pun intended). I, however, don't need one as I'm not OCing. So stock will work for now, but I might invest in a modest air cooler just to keep the CPU cool as a cucumber for my more intense editing sessions. More research will, of course, be needed. As for external hardware, I've got everything else. I will need a second monitor at some point (I know I'm spoiled), but for now one that I already have will do just fine. I also didn't need any more fans for the moment as my case came with 3. I also have a window on my case, so I'm thinking some green accents would be sweet. I also figured I would add an optical drive due to the fact that I still use CDs for music (cons of having an old truck).
Components List:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($237.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-E ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($91.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($96.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Mushkin ECO2 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($52.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 270X 2GB DirectCU II Video Card ($139.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: NZXT Source 220 ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSC0 DVD/CD Writer ($13.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) ($86.75 @ OutletPC)
Total: $885.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-09 12:38 EDT-0400
Note: this price includes the OS, take that out, and the savings on the CPU and the budget does indeed fall under $800.
The only thing I did not buy online was the Xeon. I had a friend who lives right next to a Micro Center (as in less than 2 miles... SWEET) and he graciously accepted my request to pick it up in store for me and ship it to me. It was $40 cheaper than anywhere online.
Start of build: July 29th, 2015
Phase 1A: Research - As of Aug/9/15 I have completed research and discussion on the build.
Phase 1B: Order/Purchase - As of Aug/9/15 I have ordered everything on the list, obviously research was completed when I pulled the trigger here... ALMOST 🙁
Yup, it happened. I jumped the gun. I totally forgot to double check if my mobo actually had Wi-Fi and it does not. SO I ordered an adaptor:
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN781ND 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($12.10 @ Newegg)
Phase 2: Build - As of Aug/17/15 everything is built.
Phase 3: Power - As of Aug/17/15 11:30PM EST the computer is alive. It boots and goes to BIOS.
Phase 4: install and Test - As of Aug/18/2015 the OS has been installed and all drivers (I think) have been installed.
Phase 5: Profit - As of Aug/19/2015 Steam has been installed and a few in game tests have been run. Nothing extreme, but everything looked buttery smooth. 😀
So that's my build. Check back here for updates, I'm really excited to even have gotten this far and I don't even have my hands on anything yet. I will be uploading pictures externally and providing a link to the album.
Special thanks:
DonkeyOatie
turbopiki
For their suggestions, expertise, and bearing with all of my newbie questions.
Thank you,
Platinum
Update 1: Fixed incorrect PSU (thank you Rhezner).
Update 2: Added link to photo album.
Update 3: The case has ARRIVED!! Added photos and checked that the link works.
Update 4: OEM Windows 7 arrived yesterday. I also purchased my Adobe elements software. Lots more stuff should be coming in today!!
Update 5: I decided these should be updates not edits. I will also post a photo of all boxes compiled when I get them all. Today the Video Card and the TB HDD arrived! Pictures are in the album, but like I said I'll post highlight videos in this thread as well. Also looks like the PSU won't be here til Monday, so build will be next week. 🙁
Update 6: SO MANY STUFFFFFSSS. Big box of goodies from NewEgg today. Got my RAM, SSD, DVD drive, mobo, SSD adaptor, and Wi-Fi card. Pictures are on the photobucket album. Everything else will be here after the weekend, so I'll update then.
Update 7: The Processor is here!! So excited. All I need is the PSU to get here. I also have some SATA cables on their way, but I think I could squeeze by without them, or just go to the local Staples and pick on up.
Update 8a(Aug/17/2015 6:30PM EST): The PSU has arrived! The SATA cables also arrived over the weekend. All in all, it took 1 week to get everything here and most was here in less. I'd say good job by all shipping companies. LET THE BUILDING COMMENCE!
Update 8b(Aug/17/2015 11:22PM EST): After 3.5 hours of actual building, the computer is alive and kicking. The bios boots and it all looks gorgeous. 😀 I'll leave you all with a final Day 1 pic, but I uploaded a bunch of pictures to the album to highlight the whole process. I will also add a few posts about lessons learned and other thoughts. This has been an awesome experience thus far and I cannot wait to actually put an operating system on this thing and open her up on some video editing and gaming. Picture of the Day:
Update 9: At this point the computer is fully functional. I've installed Adobe, Steam, a few minor programs, but all in all the computer is completely up. I have not done any stability testing yet, but I would like to get some video edited, so testing will probably wait until the weekend.
Update 10: So I plugged in my old laptop HDD (320GB 7200RPM 2.5") and initially it popped right up. I was able to navigate a little inside it. Initially it wouldn't let me open my old user files, but then it just started working. DATA HAS BEEN RECOVERED! 😀 I'm very happy that it was a simple plug and play. I do not however have a DVD RW drive now though... Guess I need to get a Molex to SATA converter and another SATA cable...
Update 11: Final update!!! (I think) So with the final additions, I think my build is completely done for the near to intermediate future. It looks cool, it runs great, and I built it. What more could I ask for?
Photo Album Link HERE
Main Purpose: The main purpose of my new build is a video editing rig. I make YouTube videos (link here JaxAxRho shameless I know
) and my old Lenovo just wasn't able to run on anything but the lowest settings for more than 30 minutes at a time. For those 30 minutes, I could do some pretty good editing, but the actual render had to be done at low settings. The real problem with that laptop was that they screwed with Windows so that you could choose to run either the onboard graphics or a discrete card. The onboard worked well, but the discrete card was much better (was a radeon atx something, it's honestly been so long I don't remember). However you would lose the ability to change the display brightness on the discrete card after about a year or so. But I digress...Of course if I'm going to make a solid performance computer I'm going to play games on it, but some of my favorite computer games are from windows 98 and 01 (Machines, AoE2, Stronghold) so I may need help on how to run those...
Components: (list at the end)
So I wanted to keep the components under $800 and (after ordering this morning!!!) I can say that I achieved that goal.
CPU: Initially I was dead set on an i5-4690K and I was psyched to OC the stuffing out of it. However after some discussion with others on here, I decided/was persuaded to go a different route and build on a Xeon E3 1231 v3. With video editing performance my main goal, this just made more sense.
Mobo: Due to initially wanting an unlocked CPU I had set about to find a good Z97 for a good price. I found one, but ditched the unlocked CPU, so in the idea of saving money I looked at H97 chipsets. After further thought though, I decided to stick with the Z97 so that if I wanted to get an unlocked CPU in the future, I would already have all of the OC utilities. Posting this here for safe keeping: PCIe 16x16 vs. 8x8
GPU: Arguably (or maybe not) the most important part of gaming rigs, I had a little wiggle room here since my primary goal was editing and not gaming. I decided upon the R9-270X as it fit within my original budget constraints and after switching CPUs and mobo, it still fit within the final budget. It is also a pretty good graphics card in general and so I should get some quality gaming out of it if I decide to actually venture into some PC gaming.
PSU: Quoted by many guides and tech sites to be the single most underrated and over looked part of a build, I was very apprehensive about a PSU. I originally allocated quite a bit of the budget to this part due to how important it is, but after some discussion and research, I was able to actually save quite a bit of money here and still come out with a quality PSU.
Case: Dealers choice here so I set a hard stop on the budget and found something I liked.
RAM: As an editor RAM is something you (almost) can't have too much of. I wanted 16gb, but I figured I could save some money by going with 8gb. I decided against that idea and went ahead with 16gb. After some discussion I was told to spend a little extra and go for some really quick RAM as it would be that much faster. So I went with some 2400 DDR3.
Storage: SSD is the way to go now for speed and I have a work laptop with two 300gb+ SSD in it and I can attest to this. So I knew I was going to want at least a boot drive with maybe a little extra room for editing speed. Grabbed a 120gb and haven't looked back. As for HDD, quantities are almost solely measured in TB now (like really? holy sh**). I can remember when I was first interested in computers as a kid that 1gb was SOOO MUCH SPAAAACE. So I went with a modest 1TB 7200RPM HDD.
Extras and Peripherals: Ever since my older brother built his computer, I thought a water radiator was the coolest thing (pun intended). I, however, don't need one as I'm not OCing. So stock will work for now, but I might invest in a modest air cooler just to keep the CPU cool as a cucumber for my more intense editing sessions. More research will, of course, be needed. As for external hardware, I've got everything else. I will need a second monitor at some point (I know I'm spoiled
), but for now one that I already have will do just fine. I also didn't need any more fans for the moment as my case came with 3. I also have a window on my case, so I'm thinking some green accents would be sweet. I also figured I would add an optical drive due to the fact that I still use CDs for music (cons of having an old truck).Components List:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($237.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-E ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($91.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($96.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Mushkin ECO2 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($52.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 270X 2GB DirectCU II Video Card ($139.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: NZXT Source 220 ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSC0 DVD/CD Writer ($13.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) ($86.75 @ OutletPC)
Total: $885.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-09 12:38 EDT-0400
Note: this price includes the OS, take that out, and the savings on the CPU and the budget does indeed fall under $800.
The only thing I did not buy online was the Xeon. I had a friend who lives right next to a Micro Center (as in less than 2 miles... SWEET) and he graciously accepted my request to pick it up in store for me and ship it to me. It was $40 cheaper than anywhere online.
Start of build: July 29th, 2015
Phase 1A: Research - As of Aug/9/15 I have completed research and discussion on the build.
Phase 1B: Order/Purchase - As of Aug/9/15 I have ordered everything on the list, obviously research was completed when I pulled the trigger here... ALMOST 🙁
Yup, it happened. I jumped the gun. I totally forgot to double check if my mobo actually had Wi-Fi and it does not. SO I ordered an adaptor:
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN781ND 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($12.10 @ Newegg)
Phase 2: Build - As of Aug/17/15 everything is built.
Phase 3: Power - As of Aug/17/15 11:30PM EST the computer is alive. It boots and goes to BIOS.
Phase 4: install and Test - As of Aug/18/2015 the OS has been installed and all drivers (I think) have been installed.
Phase 5: Profit - As of Aug/19/2015 Steam has been installed and a few in game tests have been run. Nothing extreme, but everything looked buttery smooth. 😀
So that's my build. Check back here for updates, I'm really excited to even have gotten this far and I don't even have my hands on anything yet. I will be uploading pictures externally and providing a link to the album.
Special thanks:
DonkeyOatie
turbopiki
For their suggestions, expertise, and bearing with all of my newbie questions.
Thank you,
Platinum
Update 1: Fixed incorrect PSU (thank you Rhezner).
Update 2: Added link to photo album.
Update 3: The case has ARRIVED!! Added photos and checked that the link works.
Update 4: OEM Windows 7 arrived yesterday. I also purchased my Adobe elements software. Lots more stuff should be coming in today!!
Update 5: I decided these should be updates not edits. I will also post a photo of all boxes compiled when I get them all. Today the Video Card and the TB HDD arrived! Pictures are in the album, but like I said I'll post highlight videos in this thread as well. Also looks like the PSU won't be here til Monday, so build will be next week. 🙁
Update 6: SO MANY STUFFFFFSSS. Big box of goodies from NewEgg today. Got my RAM, SSD, DVD drive, mobo, SSD adaptor, and Wi-Fi card. Pictures are on the photobucket album. Everything else will be here after the weekend, so I'll update then.
Update 7: The Processor is here!! So excited. All I need is the PSU to get here. I also have some SATA cables on their way, but I think I could squeeze by without them, or just go to the local Staples and pick on up.
Update 8a(Aug/17/2015 6:30PM EST): The PSU has arrived! The SATA cables also arrived over the weekend. All in all, it took 1 week to get everything here and most was here in less. I'd say good job by all shipping companies. LET THE BUILDING COMMENCE!
Update 8b(Aug/17/2015 11:22PM EST): After 3.5 hours of actual building, the computer is alive and kicking. The bios boots and it all looks gorgeous. 😀 I'll leave you all with a final Day 1 pic, but I uploaded a bunch of pictures to the album to highlight the whole process. I will also add a few posts about lessons learned and other thoughts. This has been an awesome experience thus far and I cannot wait to actually put an operating system on this thing and open her up on some video editing and gaming. Picture of the Day:
Update 9: At this point the computer is fully functional. I've installed Adobe, Steam, a few minor programs, but all in all the computer is completely up. I have not done any stability testing yet, but I would like to get some video edited, so testing will probably wait until the weekend.
Update 10: So I plugged in my old laptop HDD (320GB 7200RPM 2.5") and initially it popped right up. I was able to navigate a little inside it. Initially it wouldn't let me open my old user files, but then it just started working. DATA HAS BEEN RECOVERED! 😀 I'm very happy that it was a simple plug and play. I do not however have a DVD RW drive now though... Guess I need to get a Molex to SATA converter and another SATA cable...
Update 11: Final update!!! (I think) So with the final additions, I think my build is completely done for the near to intermediate future. It looks cool, it runs great, and I built it. What more could I ask for?
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