Discussion My 10 year old's first build

Nov 24, 2020
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Hi,
My son and I are going to put his first PC together here when I get the case and a miscellaneous things im waiting on. Mostly using things I have stored from previous projects, I have several options for a GPU and am just wondering what some opinions are on what I should use. PC is as follows

Xeon W3550 (believe I can put a small overclock on it)
Z400 MOBO
12GB DDR3
240GB SSD
500GB HDD
500W PSU

I had a lot of this laying around and its somewhat upgradable so I thought this would be a good starter. The GPU options I have with what i have laying around are

GTX275 sli (think we'd need a bigger PSU)
R9 270x (need to test and make sure it works)
ASUS HD7850
560 ti

Not super familiar with xeon CPUs so I dont know which of these would pair best.
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
For all intents & purposes, a W3550 is an i7-950

The R9 270X is the strongest single GPU of the bunch and will pair well enough with the W3550.
I'd stay away from 275SLI due to anywhere close to decent modern support.

270X > 7850 > 560TI >275
 
Nov 24, 2020
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Yeah that's where I was kinda leaning. All he plays atm is Fortnight, Minecraft, and hes expressed and interest in WoW (not sure if I'm ready for that fight yet).

I guess I was just looking for an excuse to put those old 275s in something lol
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Yeah that's where I was kinda leaning. All he plays atm is Fortnight, Minecraft, and hes expressed and interest in WoW (not sure if I'm ready for that fight yet).

I guess I was just looking for an excuse to put those old 275s in something lol

Given that multi-GPU solutions are effectively dead nowadays and the headaches trying to use a GTX 275 in SLI would cause, I think I'd look for an excuse to not use them!

What's the exact 500W PSU? There's a whole lot of quality range for a PSU at a given wattage.
 
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Nov 24, 2020
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Given that multi-GPU solutions are effectively dead nowadays and the headaches trying to use a GTX 275 in SLI would cause, I think I'd look for an excuse to not use them!

What's the exact 500W PSU? There's a whole lot of quality range for a PSU at a given wattage.

It's a Rosewill Stallion RD500-2DB. Friend gave it to me when I put a bigger one in his machine. Used it off and on and it seems to work well.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
It's a Rosewill Stallion RD500-2DB. Friend gave it to me when I put a bigger one in his machine. Used it off and on and it seems to work well.

It should work for a build like this, but if you ever do a significant upgrade, you'll really want to swap that out. It's ancient, was middling quality at best when new (Solytech manufacturer and they're not known for using quality parts), and being group-regulated, it's not a 500W in any modern sense (i.e. post Pentium III), so it's well under a 400W power supply. Rosewill doesn't give a +12V rail total wattage spec, but the theoretical maximum is 372W. Given the age, I would consider this about a 300W power supply.
 
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Nov 24, 2020
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It should work for a build like this, but if you ever do a significant upgrade, you'll really want to swap that out. It's ancient, was middling quality at best when new (Solytech manufacturer and they're not known for using quality parts), and being group-regulated, it's not a 500W in any modern sense (i.e. post Pentium III), so it's well under a 400W power supply. Rosewill doesn't give a +12V rail total wattage spec, but the theoretical maximum is 372W. Given the age, I would consider this about a 300W power supply.

Wow I didn't realize that. Will it power the 270x? Only upgrade I would do would be to go to a 6 core xeon and if I came across a better GPU id put it in there. Or if I upgrade my 290x at some point I would use that. I think that one needs 2 6 pins anyway if I remember correctly.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Wow I didn't realize that. Will it power the 270x? Only upgrade I would do would be to go to a 6 core xeon and if I came across a better GPU id put it in there. Or if I upgrade my 290x at some point I would use that. I think that one needs 2 6 pins anyway if I remember correctly.

You can probably get away with a 270X; it's sub-200W and let's be honest, these aren't expensive parts at this point. A 290X is extremely power hungry, however, and if you use that, the PSU is a hard no.
 
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You can probably get away with a 270X; it's sub-200W and let's be honest, these aren't expensive parts at this point. A 290X is extremely power hungry, however, and if you use that, the PSU is a hard no.

Oh of course, I wanted to use cheaper stuff that would still run some of his games. Im just starting to teach him keyboarding and computers in general.

Even my PC I use now IS older parts but as much as I want to build a new rig. it still does everything I need it to. Actually JUST uppgraded to an FX from A Phenom II x6.

Okay! So if I ever go to the R9 Ill replace the PSU as well. Thanks for all the input
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Oh of course, I wanted to use cheaper stuff that would still run some of his games. Im just starting to teach him keyboarding and computers in general.

Even my PC I use now IS older parts but as much as I want to build a new rig. it still does everything I need it to. Actually JUST uppgraded to an FX from A Phenom II x6.

Okay! So if I ever go to the R9 Ill replace the PSU as well. Thanks for all the input

Oh, it'll be fine with what you have. If you do give him a better GPU, it'll be a good opportunity to teach him about power supplies, the difference between group-regulated vs. independently regulated, what capacitors do, how a power supply knows to switch based on the input voltage, etc.

Definitely a bit envious of your son! I got an Intel 8086 PC when I was five in the early 80s and I was already more PC savvy than either of my parents were (and based on the amount of times I have to go to Mom's to play IT guy, nothing much has changed!). Would have been fun to have a parent to do this with.

I did successfully teach my grandfather that there was cool stuff on the internet, but I never gave him an answer to his question "so where IS the internet located?" that satisfied him. Yeah, he was born in 1910, but it hurt my pride I couldn't adequately explain it for him!
 
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Oh, it'll be fine with what you have. If you do give him a better GPU, it'll be a good opportunity to teach him about power supplies, the difference between group-regulated vs. independently regulated, what capacitors do, how a power supply knows to switch based on the input voltage, etc.

Definitely a bit envious of your son! I got an Intel 8086 PC when I was five in the early 80s and I was already more PC savvy than either of my parents were (and based on the amount of times I have to go to Mom's to play IT guy, nothing much has changed!). Would have been fun to have a parent to do this with.

I did successfully teach my grandfather that there was cool stuff on the internet, but I never gave him an answer to his question "so where IS the internet located?" that satisfied him. Yeah, he was born in 1910, but it hurt my pride I couldn't adequately explain it for him!

HAHA here's to being the family IT guy. Im comfortable building and overclocking. I have a decent knowledge base. Im just not super savvy on the very technical stuff. I figure at that point if I dont have an answer for him we can go learn about it together.

Im jealous of him too. Im 31 and my first PC was a Compaq Presario. I believe it was a Duron processor @750mhz and maybe 512MB ram? 1GB? Anyway it was BARELY enough to get some EverQuest in....those were the days.
 
Nov 24, 2020
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HAHA here's to being the family IT guy. Im comfortable building and overclocking. I have a decent knowledge base. Im just not super savvy on the very technical stuff. I figure at that point if I dont have an answer for him we can go learn about it together.

Im jealous of him too. Im 31 and my first PC was a Compaq Presario. I believe it was a Duron processor @750mhz and maybe 512MB ram? 1GB? Anyway it was BARELY enough to get some EverQuest in....those were the days.

Hes going to open it up in pieces in the box to the case I bought. Should be entertaining to watch LOL
 
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