PC Build suggestions?

bliss14

Hello!  I was wondering if anyone could help me do a parts list surrounding a video card I purchased recently.  I have an older desktop that started blue screening constantly, eventually wouldn't boot up at all.  I have never built a pc before and figured I'd give it a shot.  I've replaced parts here and there but that's about the extent of it.

The intent of the rig is gaming.  I play mmo's but also games like Stellaris, Total War, things like those that can become very slow late game.

The GPU is a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3050 8GB 8 GB EAGLE OC Video Card.

I would need a CPU, CPU cooler, motherboard, memory, storage, power supply and a case.  Anything else I'm missing there for core components?

Budget is ~$1500 USD, not counting the GPU I already have.

I don't really have any brand loyalty so whatever works best in your opinions would be great!  

Ridelynn

This is actually a recent article - a good read for a first time builder. The specific parts they recommend may or may not be useful, but the general advice is a good starting place.

Start with the CPU, that more or less will define everything else.

https://www.newegg.com/insider/building-a-gaming-pc-for-the-first-time-dont-panic-this-guide-can-help-you-out/

$1500 is more than enough to build a rig around that GPU you got coming. You don't need to go overboard. You will probably come in around a bit more than half that amount, even with decent parts in all the slots.

I wouldn't go too crazy on the CPU or components with that GPU. Pairing it with, say, a very pricey Core i9 or Ryzen 9 with a 1500W PSU would be ... I won't say a waste of money, but I would say a poor allocation of your funding.

Don't forget the peripherals -- keyboard, mouse, mousepad, headphones and/or speakers, monitor, a desk & chair, etc. Some of that you may already have, but I don't always assume. Prebuild systems often come with a good bit of that, but when you build your own, you are on your own.

bliss14

Thank you sir .

Vrika

What / How old parts does your old computer have? Even if something is broken, you should first think whether you want to:

 a) Do a repair / upgrade by switching parts inside your old computer

 b) Do a new computer build, but check if something from your old computer could still be used: For example computer cases don't really get old and very rarely break, so if your old case is good you could recycle it. Also you can often buy a new and faster hard drive for the new computer's primary drive, but then recycle the HDD/SSD from old computer as extra drive to get some storage space. Also, if you have DVD/Blu-ray/etc. you can normally just take that drive from your old computer and attach it to the new one

 c) Or do you want to just buy all new parts?


Then you should also decide whether you want a new keyboard / mouse / monitor / speakers / headset to fit that budget, or if you'll just use your old ones.

Especially monitors have improved over the years, and even if you already have perfectly fine decade -old monitor, you might want to consider whether you want to keep it or buy something new. For example this monitor is atm $300, and something like that could be fit into $1 500 budget:  
  https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-32-Inch-Odyssey-FreeSync-LC32G55TQWNXZA/dp/B08FF3HDW5

bliss14

Vrika said:

What / How old parts does your old computer have? Even if something is broken, you should first think whether you want to:

 a) Do a repair / upgrade by switching parts inside your old computer

 b) Do a new computer build, but check if something from your old computer could still be used: For example computer cases don't really get old and very rarely break, so if your old case is good you could recycle it. Also you can often buy a new and faster hard drive for the new computer's primary drive, but then recycle the HDD/SSD from old computer as extra drive to get some storage space. Also, if you have DVD/Blu-ray/etc. you can normally just take that drive from your old computer and attach it to the new one

 c) Or do you want to just buy all new parts?


Then you should also decide whether you want a new keyboard / mouse / monitor / speakers / headset to fit that budget, or if you'll just use your old ones.

Especially monitors have improved over the years, and even if you already have perfectly fine decade -old monitor, you might want to consider whether you want to keep it or buy something new. For example this monitor is atm $300, and something like that could be fit into $1 500 budget:  
  https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-32-Inch-Odyssey-FreeSync-LC32G55TQWNXZA/dp/B08FF3HDW5

A - I could try swapping parts out until finding the core issue but I don't have other old spare working parts so I think it would involve buying new parts piecemeal anyway.

B - What I can use out of the old one is the optical drive, wi-fi .  For storage I was thinking I would get a new 1TB SSD to house the OS (windows),  and a few of the heavier hitting games.  I have an external 250 gb SSD I would re-use for a little extra faster storage .  And I could use the old mechanical 1tb HDD for miscellaneous storage.   I do think a case would be my last purchase because I do want to see how it all would fit in the case I have.  Nothing is really wrong with it other than some of the plastic little partitions have gone missing apparently over the years.  If I clean up the fans really good I may also be able to re-use those.

C - I like the idea of going new with alot of it, a fresh start.  So at least the cpu, psu, memory, mobo.  Just spitballing but it seems like I can get those core parts for around maybe $700 for decent options.

I have all the peripherals although for quality of life I would probably upgrade the monitor, and I could use a fresh mouse and keyboard.

Thanks for the suggestions and questions.  Just started really thinking about this build.

Vrika

I'd suggest buying something like this:

   https://pcpartpicker.com/list/4bKbRv


What kind of wifi card your old computer has? I picked a motherboard with integrated wifi that would have:
  "WIFI 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, supporting 2.4/5 GHz Dual-Band
  Support for 11ac wireless standard and up to 433 Mbps data rate"

But that motherboard suggestion is only in case it would be upgrade to whatever you dedicated wifi card can do. If your dedicated card is better, then get a motherboard without wifi and transfer the card from old computer.



That list I made has CPU (includes CPU fan) + mobo + RAM (32 GB) + PSU (700W) + NVMe SSD (1 TB). Total price at the time I wrote this is 548.85$ before rebates. The list is made assuming that you don't need to buy case (or case fans), GPU, or operating system.



That motherboard I suggested might need BIOS update before it supports new Ryzen processors. If an update is needed, for that motherboard it means you'd need to have a free USB stick and use some other computer for downloading the update file.

Please note this is only what updating BIOS for that particular motherboard would require, if you buy a motherboard that might require BIOS update then you need to check how to do it with that mobo every time before buying.

Quizzical

That video card is a little out of place for a budget of $1500 excluding the video card.  Normally, that large of a budget would mean going higher end on a video card, at least for a gaming system.

How much storage space do you actually need?  A quick approximation to that is, how much storage space are you actually using on your old computer?  Someone who is using 3 TB on his old computer should buy more storage for a new computer than someone who is only using 200 GB on his old one.  So long as you're not using outlandish amounts of storage, buying double what you're previously using should last for quite a while.

Do you really need Wi-Fi?  Maybe you do, but if your desktop is going to be placed near your router, then running an Ethernet cable will be better than Wi-Fi in every way that you can think of and also most of the ones that you can't.

Quizzical

worldsbestdad said:

I wouldn't try using the 3050 with any screens past 1080p. Other than that, enjoy your new build.

That depends a lot on what games you play and what settings you like.  If you're playing older or undemanding games, then an RTX 3050 may handle 4K just fine.  Alternatively, DLSS upscaling can make displaying underlying rendering at 1920x1080 on a 2560x1440 monitor look better than on a 1920x1080 monitor, even if it's not nearly as good as actually rendering at 2560x1440.

Iselin

Quizzical said:

 Alternatively, DLSS upscaling can make displaying underlying rendering at 1920x1080 on a 2560x1440 monitor look better than on a 1920x1080 monitor, even if it's not nearly as good as actually rendering at 2560x1440.

I've been using that routinely with my 2770 super and 1440p monitor even in games where I can get 60+ FPS running at 2560 X 1440 and the quality of under-rendering + DLSS upscaling is plenty good enough.

bliss14

Vrika said:

I'd suggest buying something like this:

   https://pcpartpicker.com/list/4bKbRv


What kind of wifi card your old computer has? I picked a motherboard with integrated wifi that would have:
  "WIFI 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, supporting 2.4/5 GHz Dual-Band
  Support for 11ac wireless standard and up to 433 Mbps data rate"

But that motherboard suggestion is only in case it would be upgrade to whatever you dedicated wifi card can do. If your dedicated card is better, then get a motherboard without wifi and transfer the card from old computer.



That list I made has CPU (includes CPU fan) + mobo + RAM (32 GB) + PSU (700W) + NVMe SSD (1 TB). Total price at the time I wrote this is 548.85$ before rebates. The list is made assuming that you don't need to buy case (or case fans), GPU, or operating system.



That motherboard I suggested might need BIOS update before it supports new Ryzen processors. If an update is needed, for that motherboard it means you'd need to have a free USB stick and use some other computer for downloading the update file.

Please note this is only what updating BIOS for that particular motherboard would require, if you buy a motherboard that might require BIOS update then you need to check how to do it with that mobo every time before buying.

Actually, the wi-fi is just a dongle hanging inside the case.  I actually am hardwired so I suppose it doesn't matter a ton as far as wi-fi goes.  Just in case, I would probably pick a mobo with it integrated if I do move my office, for example, and just haven't hardwired to the new one yet.  I'm not moving anytime soon so that's not a concern either.

Thanks for the notes about the bios and the partpicker list!  Checking it out.

Quizzical said:

That video card is a little out of place for a budget of $1500 excluding the video card.  Normally, that large of a budget would mean going higher end on a video card, at least for a gaming system.

How much storage space do you actually need?  A quick approximation to that is, how much storage space are you actually using on your old computer?  Someone who is using 3 TB on his old computer should buy more storage for a new computer than someone who is only using 200 GB on his old one.  So long as you're not using outlandish amounts of storage, buying double what you're previously using should last for quite a while.

Do you really need Wi-Fi?  Maybe you do, but if your desktop is going to be placed near your router, then running an Ethernet cable will be better than Wi-Fi in every way that you can think of and also most of the ones that you can't.

I tossed out that budget number before I really dove into the prices, thinking that things were more spendy than they actually appear to be.  If I get a well rounded system far under that budget, all good!

I am using about 1.5 terabytes of storage on my gaming laptop (which is what i've been using since the desktop died).  I suppose I was using about the same on the desktop.  So I'd be looking preferably at a 2 TB SSD.  I'd likely add the HDD from my desktop for another TB of space for music, etc.  

Wi-fi - no, don't really need it.  I have an ethernet cable run to the room i'd have it in already so it would just be a fall-back if at all.

Thanks everyone!  I always feel like there are great bits of knowledge that get tossed around in here.

Ridelynn

DLSS only works in games that support it — so don’t count on it unless you know it’s there

Iselin

Ridelynn said:

DLSS only works in games that support it — so don’t count on it unless you know it’s there

That is true for full fledged DLSS but the newish Nvidia generic image scaling (NIS) works on anything whether on full screen or borderless window and it also does a good job of upscaling games rendered at a lower rezz making the end result look like native 1440p or 4K.

Quizzical

Ridelynn said:

DLSS only works in games that support it — so don’t count on it unless you know it’s there

While that's true, I was using "DLSS" sloppily to mean "fancy upscaling", which could be DLSS, AMD's FSR, or some other way of doing it.  Older or less demanding games typically won't support any of them, but you don't need any of them if you can render a game in native 4K just fine.  Future games that are highly demanding on graphics will probably tend to support some sort of fancy upscaling, at least unless the problem is just one of terrible optimization.  To be fair, there is quite a bit of that out there, though "developers are bad at coding" tends to cause worse problems than just low frame rates.

Quizzical

bliss14 said:

Vrika said:

I'd suggest buying something like this:

   https://pcpartpicker.com/list/4bKbRv


What kind of wifi card your old computer has? I picked a motherboard with integrated wifi that would have:
  "WIFI 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, supporting 2.4/5 GHz Dual-Band
  Support for 11ac wireless standard and up to 433 Mbps data rate"

But that motherboard suggestion is only in case it would be upgrade to whatever you dedicated wifi card can do. If your dedicated card is better, then get a motherboard without wifi and transfer the card from old computer.



That list I made has CPU (includes CPU fan) + mobo + RAM (32 GB) + PSU (700W) + NVMe SSD (1 TB). Total price at the time I wrote this is 548.85$ before rebates. The list is made assuming that you don't need to buy case (or case fans), GPU, or operating system.



That motherboard I suggested might need BIOS update before it supports new Ryzen processors. If an update is needed, for that motherboard it means you'd need to have a free USB stick and use some other computer for downloading the update file.

Please note this is only what updating BIOS for that particular motherboard would require, if you buy a motherboard that might require BIOS update then you need to check how to do it with that mobo every time before buying.

Actually, the wi-fi is just a dongle hanging inside the case.  I actually am hardwired so I suppose it doesn't matter a ton as far as wi-fi goes.  Just in case, I would probably pick a mobo with it integrated if I do move my office, for example, and just haven't hardwired to the new one yet.  I'm not moving anytime soon so that's not a concern either.

Thanks for the notes about the bios and the partpicker list!  Checking it out.

Quizzical said:

That video card is a little out of place for a budget of $1500 excluding the video card.  Normally, that large of a budget would mean going higher end on a video card, at least for a gaming system.

How much storage space do you actually need?  A quick approximation to that is, how much storage space are you actually using on your old computer?  Someone who is using 3 TB on his old computer should buy more storage for a new computer than someone who is only using 200 GB on his old one.  So long as you're not using outlandish amounts of storage, buying double what you're previously using should last for quite a while.

Do you really need Wi-Fi?  Maybe you do, but if your desktop is going to be placed near your router, then running an Ethernet cable will be better than Wi-Fi in every way that you can think of and also most of the ones that you can't.

I tossed out that budget number before I really dove into the prices, thinking that things were more spendy than they actually appear to be.  If I get a well rounded system far under that budget, all good!

I am using about 1.5 terabytes of storage on my gaming laptop (which is what i've been using since the desktop died).  I suppose I was using about the same on the desktop.  So I'd be looking preferably at a 2 TB SSD.  I'd likely add the HDD from my desktop for another TB of space for music, etc.  

Wi-fi - no, don't really need it.  I have an ethernet cable run to the room i'd have it in already so it would just be a fall-back if at all.

Thanks everyone!  I always feel like there are great bits of knowledge that get tossed around in here.

I'd be wary of assuming that an older hard drive will remain reliable.  They're nominally supposed to last five years, and a hard drive that has been used daily for longer than that could already be living on borrowed time.  Maybe that's okay if the only data on it is stuff that you can readily download again if the drive fails, but you don't want to lose irreplaceable data.

Now that you can readily get a 2 TB hard drive for around $50 or a 4 TB drive for around $80, there's no need to rely on an older drive that may not be reliable anymore.  If you need several TB of capacity, then get your 1-2 TB SSD and also a hard drive of whatever capacity you need.  It's not like it can't fit your budget.

Vrika

Quizzical said:

I'd be wary of assuming that an older hard drive will remain reliable.  They're nominally supposed to last five years, and a hard drive that has been used daily for longer than that could already be living on borrowed time.  Maybe that's okay if the only data on it is stuff that you can readily download again if the drive fails, but you don't want to lose irreplaceable data.

Now that you can readily get a 2 TB hard drive for around $50 or a 4 TB drive for around $80, there's no need to rely on an older drive that may not be reliable anymore.  If you need several TB of capacity, then get your 1-2 TB SSD and also a hard drive of whatever capacity you need.  It's not like it can't fit your budget.

You shouldn't assume that any hard drive is ever reliable: If something is important or valuable you should always keep a backup. But I think for use as secondary disk to store stuff like movies and rarely used games, even an old hard disk should be reliable enough.

This is just my opinion, but imho it's good idea to spend some effort worrying about backups, but for normal home use not really necessary to worry about hard drive reliability. The difference between a hard drives that should be more reliable or less reliable just isn't enough to be worth the price and effort.



With that said, if you're looking for 2TB SSD then this one would be good if it's in stock:
    https://pcpartpicker.com/product/dBBG3C/crucial-p3-2-tb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-ct2000p3ssd8

If that's not in stock, then this one is also decent, and it's on sale at Newegg at the moment:
  https://www.newegg.com/team-group-2tb-mp33-pro/p/N82E16820331564?Item=N82E16820331564

If you want to spend money on it, you could get even larger SSD. For example this 4TB SSD is $290:
   https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1710647-REG/crucial_ct4000p3ssd8_4tb_p3_nvme_pcie.html/DFF/d10-v21-t1-x1183896/SID/87431X1560958Xa78ac8ed6d91e37984f0739dc88ada94

EDIT: But if you want more than 2TB, at that point it becomes a lot cheaper to buy 1TB SSD plus a large mechanical hard disk for extra storage.

bliss14

Going to go with a 2tb SSD and a HDD, maybe another 2tb.    Thanks Vrika.

bliss14

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/bliss14/saved/#view=qQqyWZ

i already have the GPU so that's less off the cost (kinda).  ordered most of the parts now.

Going to use my big ass old case

bliss14

@Quizzical
You said something about being near the router, i have a line run from it to the room the pc would bein, about 25 feet.  Is there a length of cable where connection starts to deteriorate?  i ping great to games, chicago servers espeiclaly at about 25 ms.

Vrika

bliss14 said:

You said something about being near the router, i have a line run from it to the room the pc would bein, about 25 feet.  Is there a length of cable where connection starts to deteriorate?  i ping great to games, chicago servers espeiclaly at about 25 ms.

Max length of ethernet cable is about 90 meters (295 feet). If you wanted to reach that you'd need a decent quality ethernet cable, but for something like 25 feet you don't need to worry about distance.

I think Quizzical meant more along the lines "If the router is on different floor at far end of the house WiFi might be better so that you don't have to place cable through multiple rooms, hallways and stairs", rather than signal deterioration.

Vrika

bliss14 said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/bliss14/saved/#view=qQqyWZ

That link isn't working.

Pcpartpicker.com gives you a build link inside yellowish box that's above your part list. You need to copy-paste that to get a link that works for others.

EDIT: Look for this kind of box and copy link from it:

Quizzical

bliss14 said:

@Quizzical
You said something about being near the router, i have a line run from it to the room the pc would bein, about 25 feet.  Is there a length of cable where connection starts to deteriorate?  i ping great to games, chicago servers espeiclaly at about 25 ms.

The usual reasons why someone doesn't run an Ethernet cable from a router to their computer are:

1)  the computer needs to move around a lot,
2)  having a cable wind around through doorways across rooms is tacky, risky, or otherwise obnoxious, or
3)  the person doesn't know any better.

These aren't mutually exclusive.  Option (1) is common for laptops and rare for desktops.  Option (2) is more of a judgment call.

There is a maximum length of Ethernet cables before the signal degrades, but it's probably not relevant to you.  A cat 6 ethernet cable (and if you're buying a new cable, get cat 6, as it's basically the same price as lesser grades) is rated at 10 Gbps up to 50 meters, or 1 Gbps up to 100 meters.  The former is important for some enterprise uses, but the latter is probably what's relevant to you.  The latency difference from a longer cable will be under a microsecond, and even a very long ethernet cable is still going to be lower latency than Wi-Fi, even if not by a large enough margin to actually matter.

If you think you need a 25 foot cable, then buy a 50 foot one.  You don't want to pull the cable tight and potentially trip over it.  Extra length can allow the cable to follow the perimeter of a room and keep it out of the way rather than cutting across the middle.  If you own your own home, you can also drill a hole through a wall to feed a cable through it, though this may not be an option if you're renting.

Mendel

Don't forget the OS, either.  A Win-10 computer is a bit different than a Win-11 computer.  Linux is also an option.  64-bit Home version is probably the way to go for a gaming rig.  Microsoft will probably want to sell you a base version, just watch the recurring charges.  A clean install rather than an upgraded version will probably be what you will need to go with if you're getting a new drive.

bliss14

Vrika said:

bliss14 said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/bliss14/saved/#view=qQqyWZ

That link isn't working.

Pcpartpicker.com gives you a build link inside yellowish box that's above your part list. You need to copy-paste that to get a link that works for others.

EDIT: Look for this kind of box and copy link from it:

oops!

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mvxBzf

bliss14

Quizzical said:

bliss14 said:

@Quizzical
You said something about being near the router, i have a line run from it to the room the pc would bein, about 25 feet.  Is there a length of cable where connection starts to deteriorate?  i ping great to games, chicago servers espeiclaly at about 25 ms.

The usual reasons why someone doesn't run an Ethernet cable from a router to their computer are:

1)  the computer needs to move around a lot,
2)  having a cable wind around through doorways across rooms is tacky, risky, or otherwise obnoxious, or
3)  the person doesn't know any better.

These aren't mutually exclusive.  Option (1) is common for laptops and rare for desktops.  Option (2) is more of a judgment call.

There is a maximum length of Ethernet cables before the signal degrades, but it's probably not relevant to you.  A cat 6 ethernet cable (and if you're buying a new cable, get cat 6, as it's basically the same price as lesser grades) is rated at 10 Gbps up to 50 meters, or 1 Gbps up to 100 meters.  The former is important for some enterprise uses, but the latter is probably what's relevant to you.  The latency difference from a longer cable will be under a microsecond, and even a very long ethernet cable is still going to be lower latency than Wi-Fi, even if not by a large enough margin to actually matter.

If you think you need a 25 foot cable, then buy a 50 foot one.  You don't want to pull the cable tight and potentially trip over it.  Extra length can allow the cable to follow the perimeter of a room and keep it out of the way rather than cutting across the middle.  If you own your own home, you can also drill a hole through a wall to feed a cable through it, though this may not be an option if you're renting.

Sounds good.  I own and have run two cables from the router to two locations in the house.  One is to my work laptop area and the other is to my "fun" office where the desktop will be and where i'm currently hardwired in with my personal laptop.  My ISP cut me a couple of 50 foot cables at the time for pretty cheap.  I think they're cat 5 so maybe it would be worthwhile to get a cat 6 cable.  I ran it through the ceiling so it's kind of a pain but maybe worth it.

bliss14

Mendel said:

Don't forget the OS, either.  A Win-10 computer is a bit different than a Win-11 computer.  Linux is also an option.  64-bit Home version is probably the way to go for a gaming rig.  Microsoft will probably want to sell you a base version, just watch the recurring charges.  A clean install rather than an upgraded version will probably be what you will need to go with if you're getting a new drive.

yep I included that in the budget, good thought.

Microsoft Windows 11 Home OEM 64-bit

$119.95

FREE

$119.95

Asm0deus

bliss14 said:

...snip...

Sounds good.  I own and have run two cables from the router to two locations in the house.  One is to my work laptop area and the other is to my "fun" office where the desktop will be and where i'm currently hardwired in with my personal laptop.  My ISP cut me a couple of 50 foot cables at the time for pretty cheap.  I think they're cat 5 so maybe it would be worthwhile to get a cat 6 cable.  I ran it through the ceiling so it's kind of a pain but maybe worth it.

Whats is your internet speed?

I mean really upgrading from cat5e to cat6 may be worth it or it might not be it depends on if you actually need the higher bandwidth of the cat6 cable.

Basically the category 5e or 6 or 6a means the specifications are higher which provide certain benefits and help future proof your installation.

https://www.truecable.com/blogs/cable-academy/ethernet-mhz-speed-does-it-make-a-difference#

https://blog.tripplite.com/which-ethernet-cable-should-you-use-cat5e-cat6-or-cat6a

I personally ran some cat6 cable recently, 100 foot of it, and stuck to cat6 as it wasn't worth the extra cost to get cat6a since it does the same job at that length.

Also while cat6 is technically rated for 250mhz the one I bought is suppose to be 550mhz.  Read the first link to learn more about that.