Home Gaming I’m building a gaming PC again

I’m building a gaming PC again

2 min read
97

Patrick

In the words of Kurt Angle, yes it’s true. IT’S DAMN TRUE!

So here’s the genesis of the idea: My current work laptop ain’t cutting it no more. What I need, is a PC again. I’ll still have a laptop for events, but I’m at a point now where I require some more grunt from my hardware. Thing is, I can’t afford something which can double as a Borg cube, but as long as I can do some solid video editing without setting my room on fire, that’ll be great. And if I can play some games with a few of the fancier options turned off, all the better.

So here’s how the upgrade is going to work. I’m going to build my own PC.

Yes, it’s horrifying, I know. But stay with me here. This won’t be a packaged deal. I want to inspect each and every single piece of hardware I buy, and if I have to get certain pieces once a month, so be it. Fortunately, Geoff and Alessandro are on hand to advise, as they’ve already saved me a few beans when I almost bought a Quad-Core processor that was actually a poorly disguised and half-eaten Cornetto ice cream.

So what I’ll be building, is a mid-budget PC. Minus the monitor, I’m looking at spending no more than R8000 on this build over the next couple of months. Famous last words I reckon. My priority parts right now, happen to be a monitor and a case to keep all this hardware in. If I can, I’ll buy the motherboard, graphics card, RAM, and CPU in one fell swoop, to ensure compatibility.

I’ve been advised by Geoff to hold before buying that hardware, as AMD and Nvidia have some neat tech in the pipeline. I’m most likely going to favour Nvidia though, thanks to recent tech reports on their kit. As for the monitor, I’ll most likely stick to my trusted TV brand, Samsung. That’s the plan in a nutshell. It’ll be hard, and I’ll keep a log of it here on the site. A mid-level gaming PC will also help inform people as to whether or not their similar rigs can handle certain games. After all, it’s one thing to see a PC game maxed out, but it’s also nice to know if you’ll even be able to play it with certain sacrifices made to the game graphics in the menu settings.

But it’ll hopefully be fun when I apply some thermal paste to the CPU and agonisingly lock it into place.

Last Updated: March 10, 2015

97 Comments

  1. Everything is better with EXPLOSIONS!!!!!!!!!!!

    Also, keen to read your “nab assembles a pc” diary. 😀

    Reply

  2. Matewis Jubilai

    March 10, 2015 at 15:35

    Ugh thermal paste… the first gaming pcs a friend and me built, we forgot to add the thermal paste between the cpu and heatsink 😛

    Reply

    • Pariah

      March 10, 2015 at 15:37

      I did that with my first AMD processor. Replaced the MB and CPU a week later. >_< Never doing that again. XD

      Reply

    • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

      March 10, 2015 at 15:37

      Can you smellll that the CPU is cooking?!

      Reply

      • Matewis Jubilai

        March 10, 2015 at 15:41

        No but I did smell something when, just before we starting building I flipped the voltage switch on my old pc while it was still plugged in: blew a hole in the side of the casing 😛

        Reply

  3. Admiral Chief

    March 10, 2015 at 15:39

    TEAM RED DUDE!

    Reply

    • Pariah

      March 10, 2015 at 15:39

    • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

      March 10, 2015 at 15:45

      We need the day where we can have both team green and team red in the same machine.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        March 10, 2015 at 15:46

        Well, according to MS, that day might be soon…

        Reply

        • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

          March 10, 2015 at 15:48

          Power of Team Red with the physics of Team Green. Ultimate combo.

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief

            March 10, 2015 at 15:54

            Aye

          • Cyberats

            March 10, 2015 at 23:44

            Red has HW physics, green has SW physics FTL(oose).

      • Pariah

        March 10, 2015 at 15:47

        So team yellow then?

        Reply

        • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

          March 10, 2015 at 15:48

          As long as its not snow then its all good.

          Reply

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 15:50

          • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

            March 10, 2015 at 15:51

            DON’T LICK THE YELLOW SNOW!

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 15:51

            THAT’S NOT SNOW!

          • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

            March 10, 2015 at 15:52

            It’s not fun if you get all technical like 🙁

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 15:54

            Oh but it is. Remember, the idea is to lure them in with false security, then watch as they spit and splutter the yellow “not-snow” lolly back out. 😀

          • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

            March 10, 2015 at 15:55

            On a slightly different note, if that’s the colour you’re going with then maybe you should drink more fluids. Kidney stones are not cool.

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 15:56

            That’s actually the colour when you mix green and red on a pc. Now you see the correlation I take it? Just saying.

          • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

            March 10, 2015 at 15:58

            I don’t trust my colour sense after that stupid blue dress.

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 15:58

            I don’t trust the internet’s common sense after that became a thing.

          • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

            March 10, 2015 at 16:00

            I see your mistake, the internet has no common sense. It’s the internet after all. How else can you explain certain Youtubers who make money by only screaming asinine drivel?

          • Admiral Chief

            March 10, 2015 at 15:57

            I had 5 once (3 right, 2 left). Was NOT fun.

            However, I have a cure for you.

            – 1 x 6 pack beer of choice
            – Drink all 6 non stop
            – Urinate frequently
            – If still painful / not urinating enough, apply 1 x 6 pack again

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 15:58

            BEST. CURE. EVER!!!

          • Admiral Chief

            March 10, 2015 at 16:07

            Best thing, it actually works

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 16:09

            I know. For once, there was no sarcasm in my comment. 😀

          • Cyberats

            March 11, 2015 at 23:38

            And helps replace those old stones with newer ones.

          • Matewis Jubilai

            March 10, 2015 at 15:53

            or orange/red because beetroot possibly

      • Cyberats

        March 10, 2015 at 23:44

        Blue is NSA, Green is inefficiency, get RED get good.

        Reply

  4. RinceThis

    March 10, 2015 at 15:39

    There goes the neighbourhood!

    Reply

  5. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    March 10, 2015 at 15:46

    Don’t worry, Uncle Banana is here to give some pointers. Always… use toothpaste instead of thermal paste. Never add two much memory. PCs don’t even need memory and WHEN you slide in the video card, remember to push it into the USB ports.

    Congratulations, you are now a PC MASTER RACE kind of guy.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      March 10, 2015 at 15:46

      Uncle Banana is bananas again

      Reply

    • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

      March 10, 2015 at 15:50

      Be kind to the peasant Jim. The path to enlightenment should be joyous not one fraught with evil and deceit.

      Reply

      • Pariah

        March 10, 2015 at 15:51

        But he is a peasant, even owning the empty box is enlightening and joyous. What more could he ask for?

        Reply

        • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

          March 10, 2015 at 15:54

          One that works?

          Reply

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 15:55

            He’s got a console already. Again, just the box is an improvement. 😛

          • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

            March 10, 2015 at 15:57

            As far as I recall Darryn uses Xbox mostly so…one that works and that delivers 60fps consistently 😉

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 15:59

            So a 386 will do him just fine then. 😛

          • Cyberats

            March 11, 2015 at 23:41

            Just so you can tease him with a 387SX math co-processor.

        • Cyberats

          March 11, 2015 at 23:40

          Correct, nowadays you can get boxes laced with LEDs in rainbow colors, 3 no 4 fans glittering with LEDs. The box will be the next thing to a christmas tree without being a christmas tree. BRILLIANT !

          Reply

    • Chaos Lord Norm

      March 11, 2015 at 13:58

      HAHAHA!

      Reply

  6. BMXWufam

    March 10, 2015 at 15:49

    I’m interested in the out come of this. I’m currently playing on a laptop as well. Getting harder to find games that run on it.

    Reply

  7. Uberutang

    March 10, 2015 at 15:50

  8. Sageville

    March 10, 2015 at 15:52

    Coolies!

    Reply

  9. eXpZA

    March 10, 2015 at 15:53

    Only buy 1GB of RAM, use USB sticks and enable ReadyBoost. Saves money.

    Firewalls are known to reject packets, and packets lead to more FPS. Disable your firewall for a 13% FPS improvement (unless playing games made before 2002. Then enable your firewall, as Firewalls were only invented in 2002 so this should help.)

    A common virus is PnkBstrB.exe, make sure to alt tab out of games and kill that .exe in Task Manager. Also leads to 10% more FPS.

    Aeroplanes are faster than cars, therefore WiFi is faster than a LAN cable. Always game on WiFi, make sure you’ve set your channel to 6 and your WiFi type to a or b.

    The faster your hard drive spins, the more likely data is to go flying off of it. Make sure you get a 5,400 RPM drive and not a 7,200RPM. Don’t go for SSD drives, as they wipe your data as soon as you lose your PC (as they’re just fancy RAM hard drives).

    SMS me if you need more help.

    Reply

    • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

      March 10, 2015 at 15:54

      Steam.exe is malware. Remove it and install Origin instead #Giggles

      Reply

      • Cyberats

        March 10, 2015 at 23:46

        You forget: battle.net, u(bisoft)play, etc…

        Reply

      • Spy Master Tokashi

        March 11, 2015 at 06:48

        Uplay is a trojan!

        Reply

        • Cyberats

          March 11, 2015 at 23:42

          I didn’t know they were greek…

          Reply

    • Matewis Jubilai

      March 10, 2015 at 15:55

      “Don’t go for SSD drives, as they wipe your data as soon as you lose your PC” Hahaha

      Reply

    • Sageville

      March 10, 2015 at 15:55

      Didn’t you sell me my last PC?

      Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      March 10, 2015 at 15:56

      Magnificent!

      Reply

    • Brady miaau

      March 10, 2015 at 15:56

      Hey, thanks. A great piece of consumer advice there.

      Nicely in line with other advice I read off this page http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/ . It is about networks, but the principles apply nicely.

      Reply

    • The D

      March 10, 2015 at 15:57

      This. This is magical.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        March 10, 2015 at 16:14

        Aye, that just HAD to be featured!

        Reply

    • Gideon Venter

      March 10, 2015 at 16:50

      Admiral Akbar has some advice on this comment…

      Reply

    • CypherGate

      March 10, 2015 at 17:20

      I need some of that advice since i plan on building an ITX Gaming/Entertainment/Work PC. It wont feature super high end GPU’s though. Im looking at a 760 Mini ITX card or 970 one. My budget is like R13 000 since this will be used mainly for work as well. I might consider using my TV as a monitor instead of a PC monitor. Still need to decide. Cool advice by the way!

      Reply

    • Cyberats

      March 10, 2015 at 23:46

      Please post results in Disqus. I love a good laugh.

      Reply

    • Lisa

      March 11, 2015 at 13:08

      This is ridiculous. There is no way sufficient and suitable help can be given over a medium such as SMS. I would suggest the author ignore any advice from this eXpZA he is most likely a scammer.

      Reply

    • Chaos Lord Norm

      March 11, 2015 at 13:58

      Priceless!

      Reply

  10. Uberutang

    March 10, 2015 at 15:56

  11. FoxOneZA

    March 10, 2015 at 15:57

    The thing with modern builds is DDR4 is sneaking into the market and that makes the build now or later decision even harder. Also it’s nice to splurge cash on big brands but there are lesser known brands like Sharkoon that will give you more bang for your buck with premium quality and features.

    Reply

    • Cyberats

      March 11, 2015 at 23:45

      If you have an AMD MB & CPU, running 1866mhz RAM not OC. Are you going to see the difference to 2133mhz ??? Besides you need 4 sticks to run DDR4. It’s more for a workstation hungry for RAM.

      Reply

  12. Scruff304

    March 10, 2015 at 16:02

    Good luck. My suggestion (which you seem to be doing anyways) get all your hardware in one go. If you get it month on month, there is every chance that by the time you have picked up your last piece of kit, the first item you got 4 months ago would of had a massive price drop, and something new and fancy would of come out in its place… And trust me, that stings.

    Reply

  13. Brady miaau

    March 10, 2015 at 16:04

    Looking forward to your journey here Darryn.

    When I used to build my own PC’s, when laptops had to be used only by Real Men (TM) and Noah asked me for computing advice, I would always start with best bang for buck, i.e. best price per MB or GB for equally fast disks. CPU’s also, middle ground + 1. BUT, in the old days, buying a GREAT motherboard made a massive difference, same CPU and RAM in a different motherboard could really benchmark wildly differently. Is this still the case?

    Reply

    • Andre Gabriel Coetzee

      March 10, 2015 at 16:13

      Not from what I`ve seen. I`ve seen it vary only by something like 0.20fps to 0.30fps between a few motherboards. Roughly the same negligible performance increase you`d gain by overclocking your RAM from 1600mhz to 2133mhz.

      Reply

  14. Worthless Comment

    March 10, 2015 at 16:06

    R5000 for the GPU
    R3000 for the CPU

    then spend the next few months buying the other worthless shit that’s needed.

    Reply

    • Pariah

      March 10, 2015 at 16:08

      Motherboard, RAM, PSU, case, cooling and monitors are all very important. In fact, each of those can make or break your entire setup.

      Reply

      • Worthless Comment num2

        March 10, 2015 at 16:20

        You don’t need the expensive motherboards. The cheapest board that fits the CPU should be fine.
        You don’t need the expensive RAM’s.
        Get your watt calculator and get the right PSU.
        Case with air intake holes should be fine.
        Cooling = fans

        Other than the CPU and GPU, you don’t need the fancy stuff. If you have the money then sure get something nice. But you should be fine without fancy shit.

        Reply

        • Pariah

          March 10, 2015 at 16:28

          Nothing like a cheap PSU (with more than enough wattage) blowing up a year into its lifespan. This has happened to me twice. Now I fork over for the quality stuff, and don’t put my entire rig at risk of power overload.

          Also, a good motherboard can be the difference between ok-ish performance, or great performance (with the same other components).

          RAM’s latency and MHZ rating is very important. No debate, no question. DDR 1333 is NOT 1866. (FYI, with a good MB and good RAM you can overclock 1600 to 1866 and beyond without hassle).

          Reply

          • Worthless Comment num 3

            March 10, 2015 at 16:43

            If getting a less powerful CPU and GPU because you wanted a performance boost from a nice motherboard and ram to overclock.

            Decent motherboard, PSU and ram is already going to cost R6000. R2000 left for CPU and GPU. If you have the money then go for it. But the cheaper stuff is fine and can be replaced later down the line.

            Initially, GPU + CPU. That’s where you should get decent stuff. That’s where most of the budget needs to go. The rest you can worry about later.

          • Pariah

            March 10, 2015 at 16:45

            I can see where this is headed. You enjoy your bottlenecks and blown pc parts. Meanwhile those of us who actually care about our PC’s will enjoy proper components, well-sourced and effective. (None of that means expensive, by the way).

          • Worthless Comment num 4

            March 10, 2015 at 16:55

            LOL. From get go I said it was a worthless comment. The budget is R8000 and I gave my worthless feedback.
            After 3 worthless comments you only now want to see where it’s heading. lol.

  15. Andre Gabriel Coetzee

    March 10, 2015 at 16:41

    Buy a decent power supply, please don`t overlook that. Last year, I helped a friend build a high-end rig, the graphics card was the GTX 780. Anyway, we ordered everything at the same time and the power supply was a Corsair VS550. We built it and everything went smoothly, only he discovered soon after that he cannot play any game for longer than 20 minutes. At some point while gaming the PC just keeps restarting, within half an hour. We checked EVERYTHING and eventually concluded that it had to be the power supply. I had to fight with the retailer we bought it from to try and explain to them what`s wrong and eventually he paid a small amount extra and they sent us a Gold Rated Antec power supply. As far as we could conclude as to why that happened, it seems as though the graphics card demanded more amps from the 12V rail than the Corsair PSU could handle. You`ll see on the box of some GPU`s, next to the power supply requirement they state (42 A required) or something of the sort, that is very important. When you`re looking at a potential PSU, make sure that either the 12V rail is a single huge rail, as in can handle 60 – 65 amps+, or make sure that it`s a dual 12V rail which at the very least can handle like 30 – 35 amps each. Also, to be safe, I`d urge you to get a power supply that is at the very least bronze rated or certified. a Lot of people overlook the importance of the PSU and buy a cheap-ass made in china thing to save money, I used to do that too. That is honestly a horrible thing to do, the PSU is one of the most important parts, especially with all this load shedding going on. More expensive PSU`s will have Over-Voltage, Under-voltage protection etc. Which to me, is amazing. That little extra money spent on the PSU for a mind at ease is totally worth it.

    Reply

  16. DrKiller

    March 10, 2015 at 16:55

    Can I get ebucks on this??

    too soon? 😛

    Reply

  17. Peter Kooiman

    March 10, 2015 at 17:38

    @eXpZA – what a load of hogwash !

    Today’s OSs require more than 1 GB to start off with and limiting RAM will result in virtual memory demand which will make the PC MUCH slower due to disk access.

    Firewalls were invented WAY before 2002 and indeed reject packets according to the firewall rules. However to suggest that a firewall will reduce FPS is utterly silly.

    No known malware reduces FPS.

    WiFi in ‘N’ mode will give you 300 Mb/s; LAN will give you 1 Gb/s, or more than 3 times faster. Your analogy sucks (airplanes vs cars). Also the channel will NOT make a difference, and I have never heard of a “type a or b” WiFi.

    Data “flies off” a hard drive ? What utter crap ! No weight gets added to a hard drive because of data and for centrifugal force to fling data off a platter is absurd. The faster a drive spins, the faster the transfer from platter to drive cache. Therefor a 7200 rpm unit with at least 64 MB cache will give you the best performance, excluding SSD.

    SSDs “wipe your data as soon as you lose your PC” is similarly nonsense. While it is true that SSDs have a limited lifetime, today’s technology will provide at least 4+ years of no hassle service, and could last as long as 8 years. Oh, and SSDs aren’t just “fancy RAM” HDs. Why don’t you do a bit of research instead ?

    If the PC is used to run disk based games, an SSD is your best option. There are several hard drives on the market with an hybrid configuration providing one with both electro-mechanical drive space as well as SSD – Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital and Samsung have such offerings in various configs. A 256 GB SSD and 1+ TB conventional HD combo will probably provide one with a good price / performance ratio.

    For a mid-range graphics solution there is little to choose between AMD or NVidia. You probably want a 1GB+ VRAM card with 2 GB probably the best for today’s games, if you wish to avoid 4K and are satisfied with 1080p.

    On the motherboard side I suggest Asus, MSI or Gigabyte, in that order, but there are good mid-range MBs out there from other manufacturers. This is a particularly flaky time to choose a mobo since Intel will be releasing the Skylark Core i series, which will have a different socket than the current Haswell and Broadwell series (1151 vs 1150) while the Skylark chipset will provide for both DDR4 and DDR3.

    As far as the screen is concerned one needs to decide between LCD and LED, with the latter being more expensive. One should also remember that larger does not necessarily equate to better.

    Hope this helps

    Reply

    • RustedFaith

      March 10, 2015 at 17:44

      Very true but I think he was sarcastic, anyone that uses that advice shouldn’t own a pc 🙂

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        March 11, 2015 at 07:27

        XDXDXD

        Reply

    • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

      March 10, 2015 at 18:04

      voooooooooooooooooooooooooooossshhhhhhhhh! 😛

      Reply

      • Pariah

        March 10, 2015 at 19:09

        Right over the head. XD

        Reply

    • Mossel

      March 11, 2015 at 07:02

      Google the word “sarcasm”

      Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      March 11, 2015 at 07:29

      Hi Peter,

      Thank you for the great info, however, he WAS talking hogwash, but intentionally, as the author of the article is a bit of an admitted amateur with PCs, hence his trolling of the writer.

      We all fear when he powers on his rig, since it might cause a massive explosion

      🙂

      Reply

    • Nitro

      March 11, 2015 at 10:59

      He’s not crazy, his mother had him tested…

      Reply

    • Lisa

      March 11, 2015 at 13:03

      Well said Peter. There are some terribly uninformed people on the internet and the only way to counter them are someone with knowledge and wisdom to set them straight.

      Reply

    • Cyberats

      March 11, 2015 at 23:48

      You missed the sarcasm. He didn’t go far enough as to say he installs a Blue-Ray Cup Holder to improve his optical performance in video games. 😉

      Reply

    • Cyberats

      March 11, 2015 at 23:49

      As far as monitors, 16:9 is for movie watchers, 4:3 is for high resolutions.

      Reply

  18. James Blacksmith

    March 10, 2015 at 21:01

    Have to say I’ve given up on spending R10,000 for a piece of hardware purely to play computer games.

    My current PC (8GB Ram, Core 2 Quad) runs fine for just about everything. Virtual PC’s, HD movies).

    What I just can’t justify is spending R5,000 + for a new graphics card (which means new MB, memory)… and OS reinstall so that I can play the latest games at R500 per title.

    Only if I can find a reason to have to upgrade my PC, might I consider getting a new graphics card and play some of the new games. As it stands, I quite like waiting a year for a title like Bioshock Infinite to drop to R150 (instead of the premium R500)…

    Good luck with that machine Darren, quite keen to see what you end up with. And good choice with the Samsung TV.

    Reply

    • Avi

      March 11, 2015 at 10:02

      Monitor, not TV 🙂
      With a monitor no licence required

      Reply

  19. The D

    March 10, 2015 at 21:20

    There’s too many of you to reply to, but a big thanks for all of your advice so far. It will be put to good use. Maybe. Ooh pretty lights.

    Reply

  20. Cyberats

    March 10, 2015 at 23:36

    Wannabe expert calls everyone else noob then ends up at Frys/Microcenter/Bestbuy fixing their expensive rig – priceless.

    Reply

  21. Cyberats

    March 10, 2015 at 23:41

    The problem is with corporations mega greed not lowering prices on components despite the cost dropping to 10x what it used to be. Hanging on to outdated “branding” concepts and claiming artificial expenses on account of certifications, despite everything imported by weight wholesale from China.
    It will always be Money vs. Performance, although you can get an AMD setup cheaper than an Intel for nearly same performance, the difference not perceivable for the average user eye if choosing comparable technologies.
    Stupid shortcuts will result is SNAFUBARS, please post results on Disqus, I love a good laugh.

    Reply

  22. Cyberats

    March 11, 2015 at 00:19

    Nothing is needed, everything is wanted.

    Reply

  23. theseasonswither

    March 11, 2015 at 07:42

    You can use Nutella as Thermal Paste!!!

    Reply

    • Cyberats

      March 11, 2015 at 23:53

      Again, post the lifetime of that CPU/MB.

      Reply

  24. Cyberats

    March 11, 2015 at 23:35

    You’re under 18yo. ? You’re interested in computers ? Study & take the A+ exam. & certification. THEN build your computer.

    Reply

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