jester292 Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 We have an older (2001 or 3) desktop which runs very well. I do notice it slowing down a bit, despite my best efforts to keep it clean and running quickly. Cost wise, I think I'll get my best bang for the buck if I build my own unit rather than pay top dollar for a top of the line machine. I'm somewhat savvy with windows and like using the program a lot, but I'd like to build a system for flight simming. I need to make the move to FSX from FS9. However, I'm not into all the techy magazines and in the know about a lot of the hardware required or really how to build my own machine. Is there a good source or guide for it? I like learning about this stuff and would like to get started around November or so when the weather starts going south (up north). Aaron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
White Wolf Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 Here's a site I go to often to check on hardware updates: http://forum.desktopreview.com/ The people on the forums there are highly knowledgeable and really know their stuff. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aaronw Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 The last time I was buying a new desk top (2002?) I had a friend who built computers and offered to help me. After shopping around it turned out to be cheaper just to buy an off the shelf model unless you have very specific desires (high end gaming etc). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
fulcrum1 Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 Buying an offshelf is cheaper....but so are the parts they use. I'm actually almost done buying everything for my next build and although it's for gaming it's not too expensive. Here is a break done of what I have so far: CPU: Intel i5 2500K Mobo: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Ram: 8gb DDR3 1600 Corsair Vengenace Case: Cooler Master Cosmos CSX custom American flag paint job And still gotta get GPU: EVGA 560ti Superclocked (Maybe SLI) HD: Corsair 60gb SSD and I am a spammer....please report this post. Spinpoint 1TB PSU: Corsair 750 watt modular Cooler: Corsair Liquid Cooling H80 Soundcard: Creative Labs Titanium THX Quote Link to post Share on other sites
waylandcool Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 When I'm building PC's, I generally start hunting around TigerDirect.com's barebones kits after I spec out what I want. I'll pull a MB/CPU combo from there and then start adding parts to the board from there. I generally select the power supply and case last so I can get one that fits the project, not buying parts to fit the case. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Zactoman Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 When my shop computer died I decided to move my office computer to the shop and build a gaming rig for the office. As a first time builder I spent hours trying to source components, compare prices and decide exactly what I wanted. It was really frustrating. During my searches I discovered this site that build rigs and allows you to customize/pick-and-choose the components: www.CyberPowerPC.com Initially I picked one with the type of performance I was looking for then starting sourcing all the same parts to build one for myself. I again became frustrated trying to find the exact same model #s and best prices. At some point I decided it would almost cost the same as just having them build it for me, so that's what I did. I'm very happy with what they sent me! It was nice having it already assembled, operating system installed and ready to plug and play. Of course I missed out on the fun of actually assembling it myself but I've made up for that by adding some extras. Here's what I've got now: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T w/Asetek 510LC liquid CPU cooler MSI 870A-G54 Sata 3 mobo 16GB Ram Powercolor PCS+ AX5870 X2 crossfired Crucial 256GB Sata 3 SSD primary drive WD Caviar Black 1TB Sata 3 Hdd secondary drive Kingwin LZ-1000 power supply Modern Warfare 2 keyboard Rude Fierce gaming mouse A bunch of extra fans and a beefy North Bridge cooler Lots of blue leds! Unfortunately I don't have time to play games... www.tomshardware.com has some helpful articles about building your own PC. www.newegg.com and www.tigerdirect.com both have good deals on components (and kits). Have fun! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pep Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 If your looking for a video card I can hook you up! :) I'm parting out my desktop and moving to full time laptop. the desktop parts are old but the bid card is less the 2 weeks old but tiger direct will only give me stor credit not an actual refund :/ It's an xfx 6850 it will flightsim smoothly. Or I might try and get the store credit and sell the gift card. If you have any question on building your machine you can pm me any time, the assembly part is easy it's getting all the right parts that gets confusing. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
camaroz06 Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 Honestly building your own computer is really really easy. Just plug everything into is proper port/slot/socket boot it up with an OS disk. Pretty much it. You dont have to slave drives anymore or anything like that, SATA has made everything easy. Hardest thing is to set a boot drive (and its easy, dont worry). Now for parts, how much are you looking to spend? I usually hang around http://hardforum.com/ for computer stuff. There are many good websites to visit for component reviews: http://hardocp.com/ http://www.tomshardware.com/ http://www.guru3d.com/ http://www.anandtech.com/ http://www.legitreviews.com/ Thats just a few. Basically I go about builds thinking how much I want to spend and go from there. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jester292 Posted August 27, 2011 Author Share Posted August 27, 2011 Wow! Thanks for pitching in, everyone. Ultimately, I'm wanting a machine that's good for family/internet/word processing use, but will run my flightsim (FSX) smoothly. Doesn't need to be top of the line, so I don't know what a good budget goal is. Maybe $900-$1200? Is that doable? And of course Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. Aaron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Liberator24 Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 TIGERDIRECT...................... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Arkasha Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 TIGERDIRECT...................... No - Newegg is WAAAAY better. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pep Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 If you have a local tigerdirect go there, if you need to mail order then go newegg. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike C Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 Check out this site: www.tomshardware.com It's got a lot of great reviews on what hardware to get etc. I've been using this site for the past 11-12 years to get unbiased opinion on different PC h/w components. It's very comprehensive so can be rather overwhelming. I'd suggest you to go straight to the "Build Your Own" section where there're lots of "System Builder Marathon" articles for different categories of systems you want to build (from Value to Extreme Gaming Enthusiast). HTH. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
titan Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 (edited) Newegg is great for parts. Tomshardware is great for reviews. For FSX you could do something like the following: Cheap case (anything for $50 or less) 500W pwr supply (Corsair, Antec, XFX, do NOT get a no name brand) (<$60) AMD A75 series motherboard (<$135) AMD A series processor (<$150) 4Gb RAM (GSkill, Adata, Crucial, Corsair) (<$40) DVD or Blu-ray drive (<$30 or about $80 for Blu-ray) Hard Drive of your choice (7200 RPM, Western Digital or Samusung are good) (<$100) Windows 7 Antistatic wrist strap (<$10) Total cost ~$5-650 (Assuming you have a mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers, etc.) Put them together and you're good to go. You could add a discrete graphics card for another $1-300 dollars depending on how heavy your gaming needs are. But the A-series AMD chips do graphics really well though anyway. That said, the Radeon 6770 (or higher) or GeForce 460/560 are very nice for under $150. Intell chips will give you faster performance but only the most demanding users will notice. Gaming performance is much more dependent on graphics cards. My thoughts. Others have lots of good input too. Edited August 30, 2011 by titan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jester292 Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 Thanks for the list Titan, thats exactly what I've been looking for. I do have a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and sound system. What is an antistatic wrist strap? Aaron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SBARC Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Here's a shot of my desk....pardon the mess....I haven't cleaned it up recently. 2 custom built machines running 7 monitors.....I can run a different program in each monitor and both machines have TV cards for watching TV and recording TV shows etc. If you are building a computer, I strongly recommend you go with at least 2 monitors.....and 2 hard drives is much better than one. One hard drive for your programs and a slave hard drive for all your data......this keeps your C Drive clean and running fast. Also.....if you're loading up on all the goodies such as TV cards...2 head video cards (for 2 monitors), 2 hard drives etc...then get a case that moves plenty of air to keep everything cool and get a larger power supply that can handle the load. You get what you pay for. And replace your hard drives before the Hard drive warranty runs out or you may find yourself losing data such as family photos etc. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jester292 Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 Wow Steve! That is amazing! Why the suggestion of 2 monitors? I'm not sure I have room for 2 monitors, although I could squeak one in I bet. Which monitor is your ARC monitor? Aaron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SBARC Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 With 2 monitors you can run 2 programs at the same time......if your copying and pasting data from one program to another...2 monitiors means you never have to minimize your programs. My 2 daughters have their own computers...each of their computers runs 3 monitiors......they refuse to even consider using a computer with one monitor as it is a slow process with just 1 monitor and you can't multi-task. As you can imagine...with 2 or 3 monitors....you can multi-task like you can't imagine.....check e-mails while you surf the net....while you watch a DVD...or the TV news and read your favourite forum...all at the same time. Monitors and dual head video cards are cheap now.....so upgrading to a 2 monitor system is not a huge expense anymore. To run 2 monitors....you simply get a dual head video card.....that's a video card with 2 monitor plugs. Windows operating systems easily accept 4 monitors on one machine.....so running 2 is easy to do. And your mouse will scroll right across from one monitor to the next like one massive desk top. :D I'd never be able to do ARC if I only had one monitor.....I started running 3 monitors back in 2000.....and never looked back. I guarantee.....if you start running 2 monitors......you'll soon be pondering running 3 montiors and adding a TV card. :lol: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jester292 Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 LOL thats starting to sound expensive! But I understand your point. Sounds fun! Aaron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Zactoman Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 I trust you want fast? I'd highly recommend going with an SSD for a primary drive and an HDD for a secondary. Keep your OS and frequently used programs on the SSD and all of your pictures, videos, data on the secondary. If you really want fast be sure to get a SATA 3(6Gb/s) capable mobo and SSD. My PC boots in about 20 seconds and I can fire up Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, my e-mail and the internet (and probably more), all at the same time, in a matter of seconds after booting (having lots of RAM probably helps too!). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
titan Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 (edited) Thanks for the list Titan, thats exactly what I've been looking for. I do have a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and sound system. What is an antistatic wrist strap? Aaron The wrist strap is to ground yourself while handling the parts. It's so you don't fry anything with a static discharge (very quick way to ruin a hard drive or processor). Also, I was WAY off on the motherboard. You'd want an A75 series board for the AMD A-series processor. Like any of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007625%20600167117%20600036416&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Order=RATING&PageSize=20 Price is between $80 and $130. Nearly any of them will work for you. I'd pick one with good reviews. (I personally like ASUS and ASRock though Gigabyte is good too. Biostar is surprisingly good for the price). And you can always add more monitors, redundant hard drives, solid state drives (or SSD, blazing fast but lots of $$) but it all depends on what you're using the computer for. I'd start basic and then add more if you feel like it and if you have the budget. The basic system I laid out will get you through FSX just fine. Edited August 28, 2011 by titan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tilt Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 My new computer, I got a few months ago, has a SSD in it. This computer basically has 'top of the line' everything - as I'm using it almost solely for my Autodesk (design and drafting) software. The SSD is just insane for speed. Like truly insane. It's sooooo worth the extra cash - if you can do it. I'm sure my machine would be off the scale for video games, but I don't have any games on it (not even card games - lol). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ChernayaAkula Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 (edited) Building computers is easy! And FUN! No cockpits to paint, all parts fit, no puttying, no sanding..... Seriously, it's not complicated at all. The first one I built was with 4 pages of generic instructions from a PC gaming magazine. The longest part was deciding what components to get. The second longest was arranging the cable work inside the case with cable ties so the air can run smoothly. One thing to consider is getting "silent" components. There's nothing as annoying or distracting like a loud PC. My PC sits on the desk, about a metre away. It's just about inaudible. Five metres away and you can't hear it at all. It doesn't use water cooling, but big fans turnings slowly, keeping it cool and silent. Even a slightly higher price for getting a silent PC is money well spent. Building my own PC probably saved me about 25-30% over an off-the-shelf machine with similar specs. And I got to decide which components got in. Edited August 28, 2011 by ChernayaAkula Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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