PC build 900euros/1,200$/750pounds - help needed - beginner

[Robotmutt]

Hi,

I have been playing games a lot recently and was looking to invest my money in a good/worth the price custom built pc as it seems to be better doing and funner. Also this means the possibility of customization and removal of certain parts in the future. I am not very experienced in this sector and require assistance and suggestions. I have about 900euro/ $1,200/750pounds to spend. I do not mind whether it slightly exceeds my money limit, I am looking for the best build I can get with that money NOT including any monitors/peripherals .etc. I have looked at PCPartPicker and do not have much of a clue where to start, I've looked at videos and have the general idea of what I need - I would prefer Nvidia over ASD. Whatever suggestions and must haves will be a great help! I am not sure what the average price for each component should be and how to balance everything out. Not to forget, I do little work, only microsoft word .etc. I will also be watching bluray films, at the moment I have a DVD drive to use and plan to buy a bluray drive in the future, I don't mind whether it is included in the overall build for the moment. At the moment I play Rust, DayZ, Metro, Bioshock, Borderlands, Skyrim and a whole list of similar games quite similar. I will also be looking to keeping this for 2 years or more and be playing games such Titanfall and possibly other mainstream games.

 

[Robotmutt]

that looks good, everything is compatible and it will do awesome on games. id like to see some pictures of that beast.

Hi jshoop, just wanted to let you know I've ordered all the components including the monitor! I last minute switched the GPU back to Asus geforce gtx 780 as it was only 5 euros more and I much preferred how it looked as I will be installing a window on that side so the GPU is the main thing you will see. I will be building the pc once everything has arrived and will definitely post pictures and let you know how it goes!

 

[jshoop]

sounds fun if you need any help you know where to go

 

[Robotmutt]

sounds fun if you need any help you know where to go

Hi jshoop, all the components arrived and because it is my birthday I've built the pc early 😛 everything is great I ran into several problems but it's good and I still have some. The build looks great apart from my cable management which I haven't attempted! But I shall attempt to tidy it up once I've full got the pc running. The problems I've had are there are 2 case fans and they both has a 3 pin female thing and the motherboard only has a male 4 pin connector for the system fans therefore I have to buy an adapter. Other minor problems I overpassed easily, I installed windows vista temporarily to set up the pc then I shall install windows 7. A problem I currently have is in 'computer' I can only see my SSD where I installed my OS but I can't the HDD but when I go on system properties and go to drives or something it shows the SSD and HDD and says the HDD is performing normally...I am currently googling to try and find a solution, if i can't I will take it to the techs at my school and hope they will know what to do I'll post pictures once I've fully set it up and have done cable management!

 

[jshoop]

you can plug the three pin fans into the four pin connectors, they will still work. the four pin fans give more control for varying speeds, but are more expensive.

when you installed vista, did you only have the ssd installed? if not, try reinstalling it with only the ssd. then, once its up and running with the ssd, turn the computer off and back on, entering the bios. make sure the ssd is first in the booth order, and the hdd is showing up. then, continue starting the computer and make sure the hdd is showing up in disk management in windows. From there, you should be good to go.

a tip for cable management, put your psu in place first, and then run the psu cables to wherever theyre supposed to go. for example take the 24pin mobo power connecter and run it through the case to where the power connector should be. use cables ties and stuff to keep it neat. do that with all the cables (including front panel connectors), and then put the mobo in the case (with cpu, heatsink, and ram installed)

 

[Robotmutt]

you can plug the three pin fans into the four pin connectors, they will still work. the four pin fans give more control for varying speeds, but are more expensive.

when you installed vista, did you only have the ssd installed? if not, try reinstalling it with only the ssd. then, once its up and running with the ssd, turn the computer off and back on, entering the bios. make sure the ssd is first in the booth order, and the hdd is showing up. then, continue starting the computer and make sure the hdd is showing up in disk management in windows. From there, you should be good to go.

a tip for cable management, put your psu in place first, and then run the psu cables to wherever theyre supposed to go. for example take the 24pin mobo power connecter and run it through the case to where the power connector should be. use cables ties and stuff to keep it neat. do that with all the cables (including front panel connectors), and then put the mobo in the case (with cpu, heatsink, and ram installed)

Problem is my motherboard only has 1 4 pin male connector for the fans, so therefore I plugged the back case fan in and that works fine but I have nowhere to plug the front case fan in.

When I installed vista yes I only had the SSD installed as I used the power connector and sata cable from the HDD plugged into a optical drive outside of the case where I put the the windows vista disk. I'm guessing I have to now try reinstalling windows vista but that means getting another sata cable for the optical drive because I only have 2 which came with the mobo, and then making sure the HDD is installed when I reinstall vista. Oh and how do I reinstall windows vista? I already have it set up and stuff but that's all, do I wipe the SSD? If so I don't know how to do that properly.

 

[jshoop]

if the hdd wasnt connected when installing vista then you should be good. make sure the hdd is appearing in bios when you have the power and sata cable plugged in. for the fan problem, your options are getting a fan splitter or plug on of the fans into the psu with an adapter. the downside is it will run full blast on the psu.

i suggest getting some cheap sata cables, the cheapest ones should work fine.

so make sure the hdd is appearing in bios

 

[Robotmutt]

if the hdd wasnt connected when installing vista then you should be good. make sure the hdd is appearing in bios when you have the power and sata cable plugged in. for the fan problem, your options are getting a fan splitter or plug on of the fans into the psu with an adapter. the downside is it will run full blast on the psu.

i suggest getting some cheap sata cables, the cheapest ones should work fine.

so make sure the hdd is appearing in bios

Yeah about that, is the bios when it comes up with a display of everything first time you boot up your pc? Because I never got that... First time I booted it up it said connect PCI E cables properly or something along the lines then reboot, turns out I missed a 6pin cable so I did that then it said reboot and select proper boot device, I did not know what this was so I assumed it meant install the OS so I used the wires connected to the HDD and plugged them into a optical drive and installed windows vista. Also now if I need to reinstall vista and make sure the HDD comes up on the bios how do I do so? eg removing vista and then trying again and this time get the bios to work and the HDD to be visible.

 

[jshoop]

to get into bios you either have to click on your keyboard f2 or delete or something like that. it should say in the manual. once you figure out what it is, spam that button once you hit the power button to turn your computer on. a screen should appear that has some option menus and things. navigate with your keyboard (you might be able to use your mouse since its a newer mobo), and go to the disk management or storage or something.

once you plugged everything in, the computer saw there were no operating systems or anything to boot. when you put in the cd, it saw it can boot to the os disc. then it installed vista, on the ssd because it was the only thing connected.

you dont need to reinstall vista to look for the hard drive in bios. think of bios as the motherboard's operating system where you can only change settings of the hardware.

 

[Robotmutt]

to get into bios you either have to click on your keyboard f2 or delete or something like that. it should say in the manual. once you figure out what it is, spam that button once you hit the power button to turn your computer on. a screen should appear that has some option menus and things. navigate with your keyboard (you might be able to use your mouse since its a newer mobo), and go to the disk management or storage or something.

once you plugged everything in, the computer saw there were no operating systems or anything to boot. when you put in the cd, it saw it can boot to the os disc. then it installed vista, on the ssd because it was the only thing connected.

you dont need to reinstall vista to look for the hard drive in bios. think of bios as the motherboard's operating system where you can only change settings of the hardware.

I've managed to open my bios by spamming the delete button, I found the hard drive and the SSD. There are 6 tabs: M.I.T, System info, Bios features, peripherals, power management and save&exit. It is in peripherals>sata configuration. The HHD is on the Serial ATA Port 1 'Software Preserve: Supported', 'Port 1: Enabled', 'Hot plug: disabled' , 'External SATA: Disabled'. So yeah I don't know what to do...

 

[jshoop]

is there a boot order? make sure the boot order is your dvd drive, then your ssd, then your hdd. the hdd is appearing in bios, which is good. you may need to format your hdd. i think it should work anyway though.

see if its in device manager: open up the control panel, open hardware and sound, then click device manager. it should appear under the disc drives tab. if it is there, right click it and see if you can enable/disable the drive. if its not enabled, enable it

 

[Robotmutt]

is there a boot order? make sure the boot order is your dvd drive, then your ssd, then your hdd. the hdd is appearing in bios, which is good. you may need to format your hdd. i think it should work anyway though.

see if its in device manager: open up the control panel, open hardware and sound, then click device manager. it should appear under the disc drives tab. if it is there, right click it and see if you can enable/disable the drive. if its not enabled, enable it

Boot order as in a tab with boot order or somewhere written boot order? At the moment I do not have a dvd drive installed but I managed to pick up a sata cable so I can connect a dvd drive if I want. I just checked and in BIOS features there is 'Boot option #1' and that is set on P5: Crucial (SSD).

 

[jshoop]

thats what you want set as the bottable drive. since its newer hardware (im going off what my 2007 motherboard bios shows sorta) it probably auto detects if theres bottable data in the disc drive, and if not just goes straight to the ssd to boot up.

 

[Robotmutt]

thats what you want set as the bottable drive. since its newer hardware (im going off what my 2007 motherboard bios shows sorta) it probably auto detects if theres bottable data in the disc drive, and if not just goes straight to the ssd to boot up.

So I should install an optical drive? and set that as the Boot Option #1?

 

[jshoop]

you dont need to, you should have your optical drive plugged in and stuff to use but you can leave the ssd as boot #1. is there a boot option #2?

when you install windows 7 or 8, just go into bios and boot from the disc drive instead of the ssd so you can install windows from the disc.

 

[Robotmutt]

you dont need to, you should have your optical drive plugged in and stuff to use but you can leave the ssd as boot #1. is there a boot option #2?

when you install windows 7 or 8, just go into bios and boot from the disc drive instead of the ssd so you can install windows from the disc.

At the moment there is no boot option #2 but I am about to connect my disk drive. Tomorrow I am also taking my pc into school to have it looked at by the technicians so they can help with various problems such as the hard drive and installing windows 7 and also I have a problem with connecting to my home network so yeah I don't have internet connection :/

 

[jshoop]

thats the best bet, theyll be able to put their hands on it and probably make it work alot faster then trying to get it to work over the forum. and im just brainstorming, they probably know what to do already.

for the internet connection, make sure you have your drivers installed. if they arent or your not sure, go to the motherboard manufacturers website and download the drivers onto a usb drive, then plug it into your new computer and run the driver installer

 

[Robotmutt]

thats the best bet, theyll be able to put their hands on it and probably make it work alot faster then trying to get it to work over the forum. and im just brainstorming, they probably know what to do already.

for the internet connection, make sure you have your drivers installed. if they arent or your not sure, go to the motherboard manufacturers website and download the drivers onto a usb drive, then plug it into your new computer and run the driver installer

Ahhhh yeah, I have no drivers installed. Anyway, just sat with my pc for a good hour, put my disk drive tray back into the case and connected the cable got another sata cable from an old pc and got another sata power cable from the PSU box. I inserted the disk drive and connected it and made sure the HHD and SSD were connect! I had a realllyyy hard time trying to fit my GPU in when the disk drive tray was in!!! The 8pin and 6pin connector on top were hitting the tray so that was really tough but I managed! Anyway, booted it all up, spammed delete, and yes, there is now a Boot option #1 & #2! Boot #1 is the blue ray disk reader and Boot #2 is now the Crucial SSD. In peripherals it sattes that the blue ray reader is in Serial ATA Port 1 and the 'Software Prserve' is 'N/A' whereas for the HHD and SSD it says 'supported'. I went onto my desktop and opened the control panel like you said and went to device manager, under drives there was my SSD and HHD, I disabled and enabled the HHD yet it did not change anything I checked if there was something 'update' I think cant remember yet it said there was no problem. Anyway I guess the techs will be able to sort that out and then all I need is windows 7 and from there I shall install all the needed drivers for the mobo and gpu etc should be good!

 

[jshoop]

sounds good im not sure on the hdd not showing up, but they should work it out

i bet its a tight fit, but how much pressure is being put on the cable? you dont want it to be too much where its being stressed. the techs should look at that and make sure its good

 

[Robotmutt]

sounds good im not sure on the hdd not showing up, but they should work it out

i bet its a tight fit, but how much pressure is being put on the cable? you dont want it to be too much where its being stressed. the techs should look at that and make sure its good

All perfected!! Went to the techs with my pc and left it with them as I had an exam. They fixed the hard drive problem, I don't know what the problem was. They also recommended windows 8.1 and they installed this thing so instead of the typical windows 8 panel home scroll thing it's like windows 7 with the windows button but just windows 8 style if you understand. I then joined them and they installed all the necessary drivers and I managed to get lots of adobe programs for editing and what not! They were very kind and helpful and said the build was great, I am currently installing a game (Metro Last Light) as I am itching to test it out, but after testing the game I shall do cable management to my best with zip ties and try rearranging everything then I will put up photos as soon as possible. I want to put it up on pcpartspicker but I don't know how! 😛

 

[jshoop]

i know what your talking about with windows 8, i would have it but im still running windows 7 haha. and nice with the programs, i get some free ones through my school too, but i having tried any of them. they arent as useful as adobe ones.

it should play metro last light maxed out by the way, dont bother fiddling with the settings except to turn them all up

cable management is a big one for a small case like that, try to tuck any extra cables away and hidden. it will probably take you more than one try to get it just right (so dont zip tie everything down right away, its best to have a plan before tying a bunch of cables down randomly)

for pcpartspicker, at the top of the saved parts list it says "show of your work" or something like that, i think thats how you post it.

also, watch your temperatures. use msi afterburner for you gpu (you can also set custom fan profiles, really helpful) and for cpu temps you can use hwmonitor or core temp or something like that, just make sure neither exceed around 75 or 80 degrees celcius

 

[Robotmutt]

i know what your talking about with windows 8, i would have it but im still running windows 7 haha. and nice with the programs, i get some free ones through my school too, but i having tried any of them. they arent as useful as adobe ones.

it should play metro last light maxed out by the way, dont bother fiddling with the settings except to turn them all up

cable management is a big one for a small case like that, try to tuck any extra cables away and hidden. it will probably take you more than one try to get it just right (so dont zip tie everything down right away, its best to have a plan before tying a bunch of cables down randomly)

for pcpartspicker, at the top of the saved parts list it says "show of your work" or something like that, i think thats how you post it.

also, watch your temperatures. use msi afterburner for you gpu (you can also set custom fan profiles, really helpful) and for cpu temps you can use hwmonitor or core temp or something like that, just make sure neither exceed around 75 or 80 degrees celcius

Just did some gameplay and wow!! It's freakinnn awesomee!! ahaha but for metro last light there weren't many options to change and fiddle with according to graphics and stuff, I put it on very high and in cut scenes strangley it was hitting 20-30fps but in gameplay moments where you interact and shoot etc it never dipped below 60fps always around 70-80!! But after a fair amount of time I felt it was quite warm around the cpu. I think I need better airflow, I had my leg next to the back of the case and it was fairly warm near the rear fan but I don't have the front connected so maybe that's playing a role...no cool air in from the front so yeah I am looking now for a 4pin female to several 3pin male adapter so I can connect the other fan, I also got a bit of money for my birthday and am thinking about installing a larger or better fan at the front from bitfenix, I'm not sure about that. Also I need some help with my colour scheme! I am getting the razer deathstalker which is a green backlit keybaord, my mouse has blue lights on top and on the side you cant vary between blue, red and green. On the side of the bitfenix there is a strong blue light for the power switch and my gpu is red....I've had different suggestion from friends but I dont know what colour scheme to do! Therefore if I buy a fan I can get it with a led colour.

 

[jshoop]

google some color themed builds and look at them. see which colors call to you and what not. whatever looks best for you should be the most important, all your friends are gonna have different opinions. you could always go rainbow themed 😉

anyway, im a white/black person myself. but since you case is black, you can make any color scheme. green and black, red and black, blue and black, whatever looks cool.

your temps are probably high because of the lack of an intake fan. i would try to get the adapter sooner rather then later. the stock fans should be fine but you can get a colored one if you want. corsair makes some good fans, im not sure if they have any led ones though. noctua has the best fans but theyre that brown color which wouldnt work if your going for a color scheme.

if your feeling adventurous, you can take off and spray paint shrouds to parts. for example you can take off the gpu fan and fan shroud, make sure you cover the parts the move, tape it all straight, and spray paint it into a green and black or blue and black type deal instad of red. it would be risky though, im not sure even i would do that.

 

[Robotmutt]

google some color themed builds and look at them. see which colors call to you and what not. whatever looks best for you should be the most important, all your friends are gonna have different opinions. you could always go rainbow themed 😉

anyway, im a white/black person myself. but since you case is black, you can make any color scheme. green and black, red and black, blue and black, whatever looks cool.

your temps are probably high because of the lack of an intake fan. i would try to get the adapter sooner rather then later. the stock fans should be fine but you can get a colored one if you want. corsair makes some good fans, im not sure if they have any led ones though. noctua has the best fans but theyre that brown color which wouldnt work if your going for a color scheme.

if your feeling adventurous, you can take off and spray paint shrouds to parts. for example you can take off the gpu fan and fan shroud, make sure you cover the parts the move, tape it all straight, and spray paint it into a green and black or blue and black type deal instad of red. it would be risky though, im not sure even i would do that.

I reckon I will buy a bitfenix green led fan, I think Im gonna go with black and green build if I can try adding green where ever I can!

http://www.amazon.it/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?__mk_it_IT=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bitfenix+spectre+green&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Abitfenix+spectre+green

Not sure what size fan I should mount on the front...

 

[jshoop]

it says you can have one 140mm fan or 2 120mm fan. id go with the 140mm fan. its quieter and pushes more air.

http://www.amazon.it/BitFenix-Spectre-Pro-Green-140mm/dp/B008BG9IEY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402358085&sr=8-2&keywords=bitfenix+spectre+green

that leaves you with the 120mm in back. you can add the 120mm from the front to the top of the case as an outake fan but you still only have the 1 fan header. one 140mm intake and 1 120mm exhaust will perform fine, right now i have a 140mm intake and 140mm exhaust, (plus an 80mm intake i stuck to full blast just cause).

 

[Robotmutt]

it says you can have one 140mm fan or 2 120mm fan. id go with the 140mm fan. its quieter and pushes more air.

http://www.amazon.it/BitFenix-Spectre-Pro-Green-140mm/dp/B008BG9IEY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402358085&sr=8-2&keywords=bitfenix+spectre+green

that leaves you with the 120mm in back. you can add the 120mm from the front to the top of the case as an outake fan but you still only have the 1 fan header. one 140mm intake and 1 120mm exhaust will perform fine, right now i have a 140mm intake and 140mm exhaust, (plus an 80mm intake i stuck to full blast just cause).

I have intake at the front and exhaust at the back with my current 2 120mm fans right? Well at the moment I only have exhaust and no intake. I just check I can in fact install a 230mm on the front and a 140mm on the back.