Recommendations and tips on building my first PC from scratch.

[mike0z]

I recently made a pc build post where I asked about workstation suggestions, but I gave up on that idea.
I've decided to build a pc from scratch, suitable for gaming on most new titles, preferably high settings, 120-144 fps stable if possible so I can pair it up with a 144hz monitor.
Its hard to hit the number of frames and performance exactly, but Im just saying a rough range.

I need suggestions and build ideas.
I am unexperienced with building pc's so any tips on - case size , additional cooling, power supply pins and more will be greatly appreciated.

The budget for this is going to be roughly ~950$. Maybe its too little of a budget for playing new games on 144 fps, but lets see what we can come up with.
A few ideas and things I want the build to have -

- An Intel processor, preferably higher than 8th gen, since I've heard that after windows 10 gets no more support, windows 11 will not support intel cpu's lower than 8th gen.
I was thinking 6 or 8 cores, but I am not sure.

- At least 16 GB of ram, don't know what DDR version it has to be and I also don't know if its MHz matter in gaming and work overall.

- A normal sized motherboard (ATX?) that supports quad channel memory, has an M.2 slot, has built in wifi and all normal everyday uses like ports. Don't know if I will need to overclock my pc, so its not needed for the motherboard to allow overclocking.

- NVIDIA GPU - I don't know anything about graphics cards, so I have no clue what the number and names in the product mean, but I've heard that I will have a better time with NVIDIA, since I am also used to the control panel and I've just been using Nvidia for a while now.

- Nvme ssd or a sata ssd thats 500gb
- HDD 1 TB

I don't know how to pick the case, I will use pc part picker for compability checking, I also don't know what power supply or cooling I need to get.

I have no clue about today's market and whats worth it and whats not.
I also need to chose a monitor, which I will think about after the PC, but we will see.
I will be happy if I can get some reccomendations on builds, tips on what to watch out for and any other tips while actually building the thing. Thanks in advance!

[UserNotFound]

I'd pay a bit more for the cooler since it's a 5800X3D we're looking at, and a single tower cooler isn't gonna hack it. I'd look at the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE, would most likely spank the AK400 silly when it comes to cooling, beating the expensive Noctua NH-D15.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm4hyIHe1PM

As for GPU, AMD is now best bang for buck right now (faster and more VRAM in same price bracket), not worth waiting for the RTX 4060/4060 Ti 8GB, not worth the cost because....well, 8GB, instant obsolescence right there! The ASRock RX 6700 XT 12GB would be pretty good for high framerate gaming without worry about VRAM shortfall. At about $350, it is in the same price bracket as the RTX 3060 12GB BUT spanks the latter in performance.

[Introverted Gamer]

引用自 UserNotFound：

As for GPU, AMD is now best bang for buck right now (faster and more VRAM in same price bracket), not worth waiting for the RTX 4060/4060 Ti 8GB, not worth the cost because....well, 8GB, instant obsolescence right there! The ASRock RX 6700 XT 12GB would be pretty good for high framerate gaming without worry about VRAM shortfall. At about $350, it is in the same price bracket as the RTX 3060 12GB BUT spanks the latter in performance.

Radeon are the best for bucks for gaming, but are pretty much useless for the Average Consumer that want to use it for Workstation's, lack of CUDA Cores. It ain't easy to run Tensorflow, Python, Pytorch without writing a translation layer. Deep Learning, Machine Learning, and Ai a majority of them rely on CUDA.

[Wichtelman]

引用自 UserNotFound：

I'd pay a bit more for the cooler since it's a 5800X3D we're looking at, and a single tower cooler isn't gonna hack it. I'd look at the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE, would most likely spank the AK400 silly when it comes to cooling, beating the expensive Noctua NH-D15.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm4hyIHe1PM

As for GPU, AMD is now best bang for buck right now (faster and more VRAM in same price bracket), not worth waiting for the RTX 4060/4060 Ti 8GB, not worth the cost because....well, 8GB, instant obsolescence right there! The ASRock RX 6700 XT 12GB would be pretty good for high framerate gaming without worry about VRAM shortfall. At about $350, it is in the same price bracket as the RTX 3060 12GB BUT spanks the latter in performance.

i think 5800x3d is way over his budget and slow ram to compensate makes it worse...

[Illusion of Progress]

引用自 Rod：

A620 motherboard and 7600x? The rams cheap now i got 32gb 6000mhz c36 for 121 uk pounds on amazon. That should all work. 1tb 980/990 pro also cheap atm. That is about 500-530 if you bargain hunt.

What about them?

I didn't say $950 was impossible. Far from it. Though posting links would help show this.

What I said was that $950 might struggle to do everything OP is asking (playing all new games at 144 FPS at high settings), and that going with nVidia will give you less performance (for gaming).

Why a 980 Pro/990 Pro though? Yes, they're cheaper now, but that applies to the entire SSD market, so other stuff is cheaper as well. They still represent a premium over other options, and we don't know if those would be superfluous drives or not. Going solely on the information OP gave us, they might be.

It would help if OP shared more on the needs/uses of the PC would be. I see no mention of workstation stuff in this thread (the prior thread mentioned it, but said thread was "scrapped" and going on this thread, it just mentions gaming goals and a desire for Intel and nVidia). I don't see a particular software or uses mentioned that tell use what sorts of CPU (core count, etc) or drives OP may or may not need. With a limited budget, but tall asks of what they want to do with it on the gaming side alone, OP would do well to share this so others can make the best suggestions without having to guess what may or may not be needed.

[Green]

RX 6600M 180$ on aliexpress good option for 1080p

[Zef]

If i was you i'd buy second handed parts to get as much bang for buck with that budget.

It's not a good time to build a high end pc for regular builders for affordable prices.

[mike0z]

Update-

I decided to build the pc without a GPU at first to make it more stable for the long run.
Here is the plan - around 700$-800$ without a GPU.
I still have some questions about the process-

1. I want it to be an intel CPU, stable enough for the long term, something like a 12th gen
I want to choose the i5-12600K, heard it good integrated graphics, that will suit my need for playing games a little bit while I am saving for a GPU.
Is it worth it, or should I go with 13th gen? The new stuff with p & e cores confuses me a bit, is 6 p cores enough, do the e cores come in clutch to boost performance more?

2. I don't know if I need a motherboard that allows for future DDR5 Ram upgrades , the CPU looks to be a killer, pretty good for the longterm, so will it ever need ddr5 ram? I heard that I can't put ddr4 ram in a ddr5 motherboard, so oh well.
I guess 12th gen with ddr4 ram is my best bet, but also what speed? 3200 mhz or more? does that make a difference?

3. should the ssd be gen 3 or 4? or will even sata be enough?

4. What psu should I get regarding the ratings? I want it to be a 800 watt unit, but I don't understand the ratings as far as gold, platinium and all other noise & other types of ratings.

As in for the GPU,in the future I will get a 3rd gen nvidia card like 3070, to pair up with the 12th gen intel
Or a 4th gen nvidia if I get a 13th gen intel.

I'd be glad if I can get some feedback on the stuff like , if the integrated graphics will be good enough for a little bit, the DDR situation, psu, ssd.
And now that the budget has changed, the system will be better overall.

[Wichtelman]

引用自 m1ke0z：

Update-

I decided to build the pc without a GPU at first to make it more stable for the long run.
Here is the plan - around 700$-800$ without a GPU.
I still have some questions about the process-

1. I want it to be an intel CPU, stable enough for the long term, something like a 12th gen
I want to choose the i5-12600K, heard it good integrated graphics, that will suit my need for playing games a little bit while I am saving for a GPU.
Is it worth it, or should I go with 13th gen? The new stuff with p & e cores confuses me a bit, is 6 p cores enough, do the e cores come in clutch to boost performance more?

2. I don't know if I need a motherboard that allows for future DDR5 Ram upgrades , the CPU looks to be a killer, pretty good for the longterm, so will it ever need ddr5 ram? I heard that I can't put ddr4 ram in a ddr5 motherboard, so oh well.
I guess 12th gen with ddr4 ram is my best bet, but also what speed? 3200 mhz or more? does that make a difference?

3. should the ssd be gen 3 or 4? or will even sata be enough?

4. What psu should I get regarding the ratings? I want it to be a 800 watt unit, but I don't understand the ratings as far as gold, platinium and all other noise & other types of ratings.

As in for the GPU,in the future I will get a 3rd gen nvidia card like 3070, to pair up with the 12th gen intel
Or a 4th gen nvidia if I get a 13th gen intel.

I'd be glad if I can get some feedback on the stuff like , if the integrated graphics will be good enough for a little bit, the DDR situation, psu, ssd.
And now that the budget has changed, the system will be better overall.

1. i5.13600k is certainly better but i would decide based on price between the two... you dont have to worry about p vs e cores it will be enough for gaming... igpu are pretty weak in my opinion but depends on which games you want to play i guess...

2. ddr5 for intel cpus is not needed specially if money matters and the fps differences are minimal... i think 3200 is enough but again decide based on price...

3. i think you would not notice a difference if it is a quality drive...

4. everybody probably says minimum gold rated but personally id say pick a solid company like corsair or seasonic and ignore this rating...

gpu preference is your choice...

[boy]

引用自 m1ke0z：

Update-

I decided to build the pc without a GPU at first to make it more stable for the long run.
Here is the plan - around 700$-800$ without a GPU.
I still have some questions about the process-

1. I want it to be an intel CPU, stable enough for the long term, something like a 12th gen
I want to choose the i5-12600K, heard it good integrated graphics, that will suit my need for playing games a little bit while I am saving for a GPU.
Is it worth it, or should I go with 13th gen? The new stuff with p & e cores confuses me a bit, is 6 p cores enough, do the e cores come in clutch to boost performance more?

2. I don't know if I need a motherboard that allows for future DDR5 Ram upgrades , the CPU looks to be a killer, pretty good for the longterm, so will it ever need ddr5 ram? I heard that I can't put ddr4 ram in a ddr5 motherboard, so oh well.
I guess 12th gen with ddr4 ram is my best bet, but also what speed? 3200 mhz or more? does that make a difference?

3. should the ssd be gen 3 or 4? or will even sata be enough?

4. What psu should I get regarding the ratings? I want it to be a 800 watt unit, but I don't understand the ratings as far as gold, platinium and all other noise & other types of ratings.

As in for the GPU,in the future I will get a 3rd gen nvidia card like 3070, to pair up with the 12th gen intel
Or a 4th gen nvidia if I get a 13th gen intel.

I'd be glad if I can get some feedback on the stuff like , if the integrated graphics will be good enough for a little bit, the DDR situation, psu, ssd.
And now that the budget has changed, the system will be better overall.

1. the uplift from 13th gen over 12th gen is decent at best but if you're getting a 13th gen you need to invest in a more than capable cooler due to how power hungry these chips are compared to 12th gen.
i bought a 13700k over a 12700k/12900k and i made a mistake not getting a strong 360 AIO cooler and now i'm struggling to tame it when it pulls over 250Watt and hitting 90C in workstation related projects so i needed to undervolt it and limit the power consumption by a large amount for comfort of mind. for gaming they are completely fine and a 13600k will rarely push 100w in some case scenarios so either that or 12600k.

2. ddr5 kits are much cheaper than they were in 2021-2022 and you can find decent kits around 6400mhz CL34-6000mhz 30CL 32GB which go around 100+$ and were costing 300% more not that long ago but you can get ddr4 kits for half that price so it's your choice.

3.how many SSDs are you buying? for boot speed and gaming the difference between gen 3 to 4 is imperceptible so it's whatever.
the only benefits would be if you were moving large size amount of files everyday or you need DRAM for your SSD.

4.ratings are determined by power efficiency with gold rating being in the middle with 90% efficieny and titanium around 94%. basically let's say you're pulling 200w from your power outlet for 10 hours which sums up to 2kWh and with a gold rated unit being 90% it rounds up to 2.2kWh. you have saved up about 5% not skimping on a gold unit over a bronze with 85ish% efficiency and depending on the region like germany where they pay over 0.6 Euro per kWh it can save you a ton of money especially if you're running a worksation 24/7.
that's just the basic explanation but it really does matter what brand you go for like the guy above mentioned you should aim for well respected brands like corsair and seasonic.

[mike0z]

Thank you all for the replies, quick question about the mobo
I have 3 options

ASUS Prime B760-Plus D4 - 198,68$
Asus TUF Gaming B660-Plus WIFI D4 - 246,25$
Asus PRIME Z690-P D4 - 275,64$


I think only the Z one allows for overclocking, the B660 one has wifi
I can get a wifi module for the prime b760plus d4 and it will still come out cheaper in total than the b660 plus d4.

Are these any good? I picked them because they are within my budget and have pci-e 5
Which one should I choose?

[boy]

引用自 m1ke0z：

Thank you all for the replies, quick question about the mobo
I have 3 options

ASUS Prime B760-Plus D4 - 198,68$
Asus TUF Gaming B660-Plus WIFI D4 - 246,25$
Asus PRIME Z690-P D4 - 275,64$


I think only the Z one allows for overclocking, the B660 one has wifi
I can get a wifi module for the prime b760plus d4 and it will still come out cheaper in total than the b660 plus d4.

Are these any good? I picked them because they are within my budget and have pci-e 5
Which one should I choose?

it really depends on what cpu you're going for here.

prime boards are the entry level boards of asus and i'd personally avoid them if i were you.
since the b760 are essentially the same as b660 boards except for minor improvements like 4.0 PCIE lanes instead of 3.0 PCIE then the b760 prime is as bad as b660 prime.

it will not be able to sustain the power draw of the 12600k at high loads.
it has sufficient VRM phases but insufficient VRM cooling to support the stock 125W load and will thermal throttle in that situation.
i'm not familiar with the z690 prime but it should have a much beefier VRM cooler and more phases to sustain high loads.

the b660 tuf is good but if you can get a z690 tuf instead that's even better.

[mike0z]

引用自 boy：

引用自 m1ke0z：

Thank you all for the replies, quick question about the mobo
I have 3 options

ASUS Prime B760-Plus D4 - 198,68$
Asus TUF Gaming B660-Plus WIFI D4 - 246,25$
Asus PRIME Z690-P D4 - 275,64$


I think only the Z one allows for overclocking, the B660 one has wifi
I can get a wifi module for the prime b760plus d4 and it will still come out cheaper in total than the b660 plus d4.

Are these any good? I picked them because they are within my budget and have pci-e 5
Which one should I choose?

it really depends on what cpu you're going for here.

prime boards are the entry level boards of asus and i'd personally avoid them if i were you.
since the b760 are essentially the same as b660 boards except for minor improvements like 4.0 PCIE lanes instead of 3.0 PCIE then the b760 prime is as bad as b660 prime.

it will not be able to sustain the power draw of the 12600k at high loads.
it has sufficient VRM phases but insufficient VRM cooling to support the stock 125W load and will thermal throttle in that situation.
i'm not familiar with the z690 prime but it should have a much beefier VRM cooler and more phases to sustain high loads.

the b660 tuf is good but if you can get a z690 tuf instead that's even better.

Im looking into some other boards as well, how do I figure out how many VRM phasees I need, VRM cooling? I am very unfamiliar with this, the specs on the website that I am making the purchase from don't always show the VRM information. What do I need to know about VRMs besides phases and cooling?

Also what makes a motherboard more expensive, except form factors, pci.e 5, ddr 5 , audio and other expansion slots? The vrms?