After seeing everyone build there own computers, I always wanted to build one from scratch. However I have not kept up with technology and not really an enthusiast and just forgot about it. I still keep using my working but consider ancient computer. With the end of Windows XP.. I am still using it as I just mostly surf the web, youtube video and a bunch of other small stuff.
LONG STORY:
My brother asked if it was a good idea to get a pre built machine or start from scratch.. He plays games with his friends online all the time. It is mostly him that does gaming and somehow our good ol Pentium 4 3.0ghz with 3 GB of DDR2 memory would be playable with most games on very low settings and sometimes pauses in between. We have Nvidia GT 610 512 MB DDR3 on PCI slot as a video card. Since he wanted a gaming computer he asked me for some guidance since I like to tinker around the inside of computer cases...
I was horrified, I swap parts and only add a few things because everything else already worked... So I asked him what he wanted and what his budget was.. He wanted a "gaming" computer that is good for about 6-8 years. He says he prefer if he could just throw in a new video card if needed, instead of starting over everything from scratch again every few years.. The budget was up to $1,000 with shipping.
Why $1,000? This is what we spent on our Intel Celeron 500 Mhz 64 MB SDRAM with 20 GB hard drive back in the early 90's. Since prices of stuff have gone down and technology has really improve he was hoping for something really nice around that price range.
So I looked online and since this is a horrible time for desktops as everyone is using tablets and laptops.. Every specification I saw was quite disappointing especially around that price range.. The prebuilt ones were overpriced..and not that impressive for specifications around that price range..I know they have to pay people to assemble it, but either it had a good CPU and bad GPU or the otherway around. The computer cases were... to extreme for any of our liking..
Finally I said screw it and took the weekend to read up on stuff and tried to plan out something within that price range that would last and would work together. This is what I end up pulling the trigger on.
CPU: i7-4790k @4.0Ghz - Why K instead of a standard version? I don't plan to overclock or even touch anything related to overclock. I just wanted the faster clock speed.
Graphics: Geforce GTX 660 - Non Ti version. Mid range card should be good enough for everything since he doesn't play in 1080p.
Motherboard: MSI Z97-G55 - This was the most annoying and hardest one to choose because I had a PCI x1 b/g/n wireless card I need to install so I needed a useable pci x1 slot.. Of course from what I read and look at video cards today... they are HUGE! I thought the last PCI x1 slot on the bottom would be useable when I put the card in on the last pci x1 slot.. of course putting in the video card it covered the bottom 2 pci x1 card...
I would have gotten a better motherboard if I knew how big modern video cards are.. and what slots will be available Instead I use the pci x1 on top of the video card instead..
Power: Coolmaster GXII 750w - Was price on the lower end, Although I don't really expect this to actually provide 750w when needed I hope it was at least useable if it got to 400-500w.
Hard drive: 1.0 TB Western Digital Black - Might have gone blue to save a few bucks
RAM: 2 x 4 GB DDR3 - I would post brand, but RAM is RAM? I tried to avoid the fancy gaming ones and pick out a standard one that will work out.
Case: NZXT H230 Black - Another one that just drove me insane... It had to have good air flow and good price. Also he did not want a case with tons of LED lights because it will sit on the floor and if he left it on at night he didn't want it to be brighter then the lamp post.
Other: DVD Drive - Needed a SATA CD Drive because no motherboards support any IDE or PATA slots anymore.. Had to install Windows 7 somehow...
He is sticking with his large CRT monitor PS/2 keyboard and USB mouse.
Total for this build: ~$945.00 before rebates ~$915.00 after rebates. So I did meet his price goal.
So everything is assembled and put together... It took me 5 1/2 hours.... tons of sweaty palms trying to figure everything out, because I was so worried about braking something or shorting something out.... or plugging in something wrong... or something might not fit correctly... or if it doesn't turn on figuring out what went wrong..
It is up and running now however I am having trouble with the Intel OEM CPU cooler that I was hoping to figure out. The CPU idles at 38-40 c however once you put a load on it, like cinebench it shoots up to 97-98c... some what fast and not gradual. I can hear the fan speed increasing a bit as it is trying to keep it cool. *sigh* Hoping I won't have to go out and get another CPU cooler.. Room temp is currently around 75 f
Other then that.. Yay, I built my first computer from scratch... without getting anything already pre assembled and upgrading components. Although this did sorta kill the mood for me to try and build another one in the future.. who knows what else might change in terms of technology.. I mean 5 hours of trying to figure it out and to put everything together carefully..
So now he has an i7 "gaming" computer and I am still using my Pentium 4 3.0Ghz computer
P.S. We are using a
3.0Mbps DSL connection still since 2003-2004
We do have Fios and Cable where we live.. but seeing everyone complain about prices we are stuck with the $29.99 DSL price for life from Verizon that was offered around that time.