The 'Build Me A PC' Thread

[MisterNoisy]

A little late, but I've been super happy with my Corsair SP2500s, but I'm not an audiophile.  They sound great to me, though and are way louder than any sane person needs at a desk.

[Arinon]

What's a nice, small mATX case for a gaming system?  Been a while since I put a system together but presumably I don't need a 5" optical drive given that you can plug in a USB one for the odd time you need it.  If it doesn't have to be crammed full of drives I'd hoped to see smaller enclosures then I do.  Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

Needs to hold:
•   SDD x 1
•   HDD x 1
•   Full sized PSU
•   Full sized GPU (GTX 970, exact model TBD)
•   Modest after market air cooler for the CPU (i5-4690K)

Overall system budget will probably be in the $1,200 - $1,400 CAD range so I'm thinking the case should be around $100-ish.

[Trippy]

How much pain and suffering are you willing to go through to get it assembled?

[Arinon]

Let's say a moderate amount.  I haven't built too many systems so I'm not confident enough for any serious cable gymnastics but by the same token, once it's built, it's done.  My old systems immediately have a new home elsewhere so there aren't any piecemeal upgrades mid-cycle.   My larger concern is making sure everything I get will actually fit.

I see the Fractal Mini R2 (16 x 8.5 x 19) and the Corsair 350D (17.5 x 8.5 x 17.5) mentioned a lot but was hoping to go a bit smaller.  The Sugo SG10 (11.5 x 8.5 x 14) was more what I was after but it seems to be finicky about power supplies and a fair chunk of people complaining about getting everything in it.

[Trippy]

I use the Fractal Mini R2 with my main gaming computer. It's very easy to work with (basically the same as a mid-tower ATX case) but it's not that small a case. The Corsair looks about the same. I originally tried the SilverStone PS07 which is a bit smaller than the Mini R2 but it was much harder to work with even though it's not particularly small.

The BitFenix Micro-ATX cases are more compact and look pretty easy to work with. Something around that size and design is likely what I would build for myself now if I was to build another Micro-ATX PC.

The "cubes" I looked at at the time all looked difficult to work with. Looking at what's available now I see Fractal has a new Node cube design that might be worth looking at if you want a shorter but fatter case.
 

[Chimpy]

I built a PC for my dad a couple years ago with a Silverstone SUGO SU02 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0AJ2CC7345

It is not super difficult to get everything into on first assembly (cable routing is the hardest thing) but taking things like expansion cards out would probably be a bit more problematic as you need to remove the power supply and a couple of metal brackets with not super easy to get to screws. I did not use an aftermarket CPU cooler or put a fullsize GPU in it though.

Finding a mATX case in the sizes you are looking for that can fit an aftermarket cooler might be your biggest issue. That and a "full size" GPU as those are usually pretty long.

[Lantyssa]

This Cooler Master is the one I got for the server I set up.  It uses mounts along the edges of the case to keep things compact, and it takes a full-size PSU.  (Also did the USB optical drive with it.)

I'm not sure about the cooler and video card clearance since it wasn't built to be my primary machine.

[Arinon]

I'm looking real hard at switching to a standing desk in the next year or so and would want to put the tower on the desk rather than under it.  That's what driving the decision to go small, but it's not a deal breaker.  The more I investigate the more hassle saving a few inches seems to be.

Also, when did water cooling become a thing for non-crazy people?  Lots of case reviews and videos spend an inordinate about of time talking about radiator compatibility.   

[Trippy]

3 years ago when maintenance-free systems were developed that fit entirely inside the case.

[Arinon]

An afternoon of indecisiveness left me with the following:

CPU:  i5-4690K
CPU Cooler: Phantek PH-TC12DX 68.5 CFM
Memory: G. Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1866 8GB
Mobo: ASRock Z97M Pro4
GPU: ASUS GTX 970 STRIX 
SSD: SAMSUNG 850 EVO-Series 250GB
HDD: WD Blue 1TB
Case: Fractal Design Arc Mini R2
PSU: SeaSonic SSR-650RM 650W
OS: Win 8.1 64-bit

Any serious flaws in that?  The cooler will be a close fit but specs seem to imply it's fine, and one of the drive trays has to come out for the GPU.

Depending on vendors, this clocks in close to $1,500 CAD which is a bit over budget but not disastrously so.  Given the main load would be 1440p gaming, I'd considered dropping the (likely moderately OC'd) devil's canyon and cooler for a stock i5-4460 and switch to an H97 board.  That'd shave off ~$150 but sounds a lot less sexy. 

[Rendakor]

Since my current PC has been BSODing with increasing frequency (including during troubleshooting) I've decided it's time for a new one. Here's what I'm looking at:
CPU: i7-4790K
Mobo: MSI Z97 PC Mate
Memory: G. Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600 16Gb
SSD: Crucial MX100 128Gb
HDD: WD 2TB 7200 RPM
Graphics: Gigabyte GTX 960
PSU: Antec TruePower 650W
Case: Thermaltake Chaser A41

Total is just over $1200 on Newegg; I haven't shopped around for bargains on specific parts yet. The big reason for the i7 over an i5 is that it's supposedly much better for video editing, rendering, etc.; that stuff takes forever on my current i5 system and I'm hoping for a big performance boost with an i7 in that regard.

Thoughts?

[Chimpy]

I would spring the extra cash to go up to 256GB on the SSD, or even 512 if the price is right.

[Rendakor]

Going to 256 is only $35 more so I'll go for that. 512 is another $100 over the 256 so I'll pass.

[Trippy]

Total is just over $1200 on Newegg; I haven't shopped around for bargains on specific parts yet. The big reason for the i7 over an i5 is that it's supposedly much better for video editing, rendering, etc.; that stuff takes forever on my current i5 system and I'm hoping for a big performance boost with an i7 in that regard.

In theory Hyper-threading can give you a boost in performance in multi-threaded apps. However these days for video rendering GPU accelerated rendering is where it's at. You'll get a much larger boost if you use an app that supports that compared to just being able to use the extra HT psudeo-cores.

[Rendakor]

Hmm, everything I've heard says that GPUs are crap for rendering; specifically, they're sometimes faster but always lower quality.

[Trippy]

It is true that the GPU-accelerated option, if available, usually doesn't give you kinds of quality settings that using x264 or equivalent directly does. So if that matters it's probably best to stick with CPU rendering in which case HT can give a modest boost in performance.

[Rendakor]

Alright, thought so. Going to stick with the i7. Since my current box is taking a shit, I think I'm going to gut it and reuse the case and PSU.

[Engels]

Make sure your PSU has the correct connection plugs for the motherboard and has enough PCI-E 12 volt rails for your new card. Also, wattage.

[Hawkbit]

I need a new notebook and strongly considering the switch to Mac because I'm mostly on Rails anymore. Rails and Windows is possible, but I spend a lot of time working through third party solutions for things that are supposed to just work in a Mac environment.

Does anyone know how often Apple updates Macbook specs? I'm hoping to buy it and not be surprised next week when the system is upgraded for the same price.

[Trippy]

No you do not want to run Rails on Windows.

The MacBook Pros are expected to get an upgrade (probably to the Broadwell CPUs) sometime around the middle of the year and likely announced at WWDC in June. The redesigned MacBook Air is rumored to released sometime in early Spring.

[Hawkbit]

Thanks, Trippy.  I might wait to see how the summer updates look then.  Current systems are solid, but we're getting close enough I should just wait.

[Rendakor]

Make sure your PSU has the correct connection plugs for the motherboard and has enough PCI-E 12 volt rails for your new card. Also, wattage.

Good call. I'm still on the fence; I'd save ~$200 by reusing my case/PSU/BR Drive but then I'd lack a backup PC (which is most important for troubleshooting when the new one inevitably fails to POST on assembly ).

[Salamok]

The redesigned MacBook Air is rumored to released sometime in early Spring.

aka tomorrow.

[Trippy]

If that does happen it would just be a CPU-refresh. The redesigned model will be announced at some sort of event.

[Salamok]

If that does happen it would just be a CPU-refresh. The redesigned model will be announced at some sort of event.

Not a believer in the Job's birthday release?

[Trippy]

If that does happen it would just be a CPU-refresh. The redesigned model will be announced at some sort of event.

Apple Watch event is March 9th. They may announce some other stuff there too.

[Salamok]

I was looking forward to the new Air but now that Dell has released something competitive I'm tempted to do that instead.

[Trippy]

Updates to the MacBooks today.

New MacBook with 12-inch retina display. This is the redesigned Air everybody's been talking about. Thinner and lighter than the Air blah blah blah.

MacBook Airs still around and have received the expected Broadwell CPU updates and well as Thunderbolt 2.

MacBook Pro 13" got updated with Broadwell CPUs and the force touch pad that was introduced with the new MacBook today. The 15" is still waiting on quad-core Broadwell CPUs so that's still likely to be announced at WWDC.

Edit: http://www.apple.com/live/2015-mar-event/

[Engels]

Hmm, really expected a touch screen MacBook. I guess they think that with the iPad they're done?

[Trippy]

Yes the larger screen iPad is still rumored to be coming out this year.

[Hawkbit]

I think I'm going to snag that $1399 Macbook Pro in a month. I wonder if bumping the CPU to an i7 is worthwhile for $180. Maybe spending that on the memory upgrade would be a better purchase.

[Trippy]

In this case going from i5 to i7 is just a clock speed bump plus 1 MB more cache. The i5 has hyper-threading as well so it's not like the traditional distinction they had with some of the desktop CPUs.

[MrHat]

Bah.  Went to play some games during lunch and my SSD finally died after 4 years.

Prices have come down so damn much though, so not too stressed about it.

Any brands in particular to avoid?

[Trippy]

May want to avoid the 840 EVO. If you care about long-term reliability you probably don't want a TLC drive, though even a TLC drive has enough write endurance for most people's usage.

[MrHat]

May want to avoid the 840 EVO. If you care about long-term reliability you probably don't want a TLC drive, though even a TLC drive has enough write endurance for most people's usage.

That's the same drive that crashed. Samsung said they'd RMA though so there's that.