Oh geeze, breaking a CPU is a scary thought indeed D: Since we've advanced enough with the planning, I'm going to list the build I've selected so far: (these prices actually change day-to-day, but they're recent enough to be viable projections) Motherboard: Asus X99-A (1,565 reais) Processor: Intel Core i7-6800K (1,800 reais) Thermal Paste: Thermal Fusion 400 (50 reais) Cooler: Corsais Hydro Series H45 (240 reais) Memory: Crucial CT8G4DFS8213 (200 reais) Power supply: Thermaltake Smart 700w (257 reais) SSD: Kingston SUV400S37 120GB (188,89 reais) Hard Drive: Seagate ST3500312CS (124,00 reais) Total: over 4.400 reais. And for a GPU I'm going to keep my current Nvidia Geforce GTX 750 Ti, because I just received the amazing news that this month's salary is going to be delayed and split in installments and that makes the above budget enough of a splurge as well as the entirety of my savings. I actually considered holding out on the new drives, but considering they're by far the cheapest things in the list apart from the thermal paste it seems a bit silly. Unless the case costs over 200 reais I might as well keep them in.
Well, rather then pointing out specific cases I will try and tell you what to look for in a case and why its important. Most cases come with front ports for USB and audio and such so I'm not gonna mention all that. Stuff You Gotta Have: 1. The case has to fit your ATX motherboard. This means you are probably going with a mid-tower style case, as most desktop style cases are ITX, and too small for the motherboard. Full tower cases are kind of silly if you don't need tons of drive bays. 2. Power supply mount at the bottom of the case. This is good because a bottom mounted PSU can draw cool air from under the case and exhaust its hot air without pumping it into the case proper. Whereas a top mounted PSU has to deal with the hot air from inside the hottest part of the case. Cases with bottom PSU mounts often come with a removable, washable filter for the PSU grille as well. 3. At least one 5.25 inch, external drive bay for your DVD-ROM drive. 4. At least two 3.5 inch, internal drive bays. One for your mechanical drive, one for expansion later. If the case does not also have a 2.5 inch drive bay you will need an extra 3.5 inch bay as well for the SSD and a cheap plastic 3.5 to 2.5 inch bay adapter. 5. At least one internal 2.5 inch drive bay, or an extra 3.5 inch bay and a 3.5 to 2.5 inch bay adapter 6. Fan mounts: You need an absolute minimum of 3 fan mounts. You will need at least one 120mm fan mount for your radiator and its fan. I recommend you install this fan in an intake position such that it draws cool air from outside the case across the radiator. The other two fans should be set as one intake, and one exhaust. Most newer cases have a fan mounts on at least the front, rear and top. Front should be intake. Rear with your radiator should be intake. Top should be exhaust as the most heat builds up at the top of the case. You want at least one more intake then exhaust. This configuration causes your case to have slightly higher air pressure inside then outside. This does wonders for the dust problem because the it causes air to blow out from all the various grilles, cracks and whatnot, and dust will no longer collect there. It does however collect at your intake points but those are usually much easier to clean. If you get a case with more fan mounts then three, great! The more airflow the better. Just remember more intake then exhaust and you are golden. Also, its a good idea to buy all the fans that will fit in the case now, rather then later. Its a big pain the the butt to tear your machine down just to install extra fans down the road. On fans in general, you want to avoid sleeve bearing, and single ball bearing fans, they tend to wear out fairly quickly. Optional Stuff: 1. Its nice to have a case where the right side is roomy enough to run you cables through. Its also nice when the manufacturer provides cutouts for the purpose of running cables under the right side cover. 2. Dust filters on your intake fans, another nice option, these makes cleaning the inevitable dust a whole lot easier. 3. Clear left side panel. This is very useful for owners of ASUS motherboards. ASUS boards have various diagnostic LEDs and its nice to be able to glance over and see them. These are also, in my experience, very useful for users of water cooling. There was a paranoid period for a while and being able to physically look at my cooler and radiator brought me peace of mind. :) Last but not least, "The Cool Factor" especially if you buy a nice light kit down the road. I got my light kit for $20, and love it. Some Things to Consider: You may indeed want to upgrade later, keep this in mind when buying a case. You might want a bigger radiator later, so two from 120mm fan ports, side by side, or two top ports to fit a 240mm radiator might be worth looking at. Modular internal layout is also a nice feature, this lets you change the internal bays and such based on your needs. Don't forget the zip-ties!
As it turns out, all decent cases are over 200 reais. However I just got a good commission request that'll cover for the extra expense. These are the two cheapest options I found that both had all the must-haves you pointed out and were from trustworthy builders: Corsair Carbide Spec 01 Coolermaster Elite 431 plus (for some reason the normal 431 wasn't even listed) They're both the same price. I think the corsair is a little ugly and I don't much like red leds, but I like its i/o connector area better (I keep my cpu on the floor on a wheeled support), and from the site pics I have a hard time figuring out what all the Coolermaster is trying to accomplish on that part. Apparently the reboot and on buttons are right there along with the i/o and I'm not sure how I feel about that. It also appears the corsair is wider, while the coolermaster is longer. What do you say?
Of the two I like the Corsair case better. A wider case usually, but not always, means more room on the left side to route cables. You can always replace that red LED fan with another color. In the U.S. LED fans are about the same price as non-LED fans. Blue, white or green would look handsome in that case. I recommend filling the front two fan ports with 140mm fans, and the top two 120mm fans. Your radiator will fit in the back port. You do not have to spend a fortune on ultra-high-performance fans. I believe you are more interested, from what you have said, in lower noise fans. So when picking a fan avoid sleeve bearings, and single ball bearing. Then pick the highest air flow (CFM), for the lowest noise (dBA). In the U.S. I'm looking at about $7 for decent fans, in lots of LED colors. And here is link to totally unnecessary swank for your new case. :D
I'm glad, because despite its ugliness I was actually leaning toward the Corsair myself. The swank is definitely swanky, but I'm not in a carnavalesque mood at the moment. I looked into some fans and found several Corsair and Coolermaster options ranging around 30 reais, but for some reason their descriptions in the search database I use to compare prices doesn't list whether or not they're sleeve or ball-bearing, and I'm not sure how to tell from pictures. That's a lot of googling I don't feel like doing right now, so I'm going to postpone it until I'm closer to the actual purchase. Edit: One more thing! No-breaks-- what should I look for in one? Asking because there was a blackout literally just now and I remembered I lost a hard drive to one of those already. I probably won't be able to purchase one any time soon, but I might as well have that stuff written down.
Hmmm, try looking at newegg.com you can't order from them, but they give tons of info on their listings. With that info it should be fairly easy to cross-reference with what can buy. You can also use the filter function in the left pane of the site to only bring up the sizes/brands you want to look at.
But is there anything I should take notice of when choosing? I seem to remember something about waves, but very vaguely. I had a no-break years ago, a very cheap one, and it fizzled out and took my power source along for the ride after one too many surges. Edit: OH WAIT, you were talking about the fans. Yeah, that's a good idea, I'll do that-- I'd forgotten about that site, even though I used it before. But yeah, about them no-breaks...
Okay, I'm gonna take a wild guess here. I think you are talking about surge suppression? This is a big topic, and I don't know how much knowledge of this topic you have, so forgive me if you know all this already. The power that is available from the outlets in you home is in the form of alternating current or AC. The power that most electronic devices need to operate is direct current or DC. AC is used in power transmission because it is easy to change its voltage. Very high voltage is used in power transmission lines and much lower voltage is delivered to your home. The power supply in your PC converts the AC coming from your outlet into the various DC signals that your PC needs to operate. In an ideal world the power coming from your outlet is a perfect sine wave, and would look like the following image on an oscilloscope: In reality the signal you get probably looks a lot more like this: The deviations from a perfect wave are called "line noise," and have many causes, from other items plugged into the same circuit, to sun spots, to old equipment at the power utility. Another problem is too much voltage this is known as a "surge" and usually looks something like this: The last problem is not getting enough power from the utility. In the U.S. this is known as a "brownout" as opposed to a blackout which is no power at all. The PSU in your computer has a limited ability to handle line-noise and surges, but no ability to deal with brownouts. Power supplies have a limited life, usually the capacitors fail, but most are built to last at least five years or so. Overheating and too much load for the available wattage will kill one fast, but if you live in an area that is prone to surges, line-noise, and brownouts then these conditions will shorten the life of your PSU. I once went through three of them in about a year due to crappy utility power. Most well-designed power supplies will fail in such a way as to protect the components connected to them, but not always. A strong surge can make it past those protections. Long brownout can do some damage as well, as your PC struggles to function on way to little power. There is no real protections built into the PSU to combat brownouts. There are solutions to these problems however Surge Suppressors: If your home is correctly wired, a surge suppressor will try and keep the equipment attached to it safe by redirecting over-voltages to ground. Most surge suppressors can only do this trick a limited number of times before they need to be replaced. Line-Conditioners: These devices even out noisy power lines. Not much more to say here. :) Uninterruptible Power Supplies: These units handle brownouts, and blackouts. They contain a battery and will power your equipment for a few minutes even in the absence of utility power. Most UPSs contain surge suppressors, and mid range models also do line conditioning as well. For all three of these products I recommend the following brands: 1. APC (American Power Conversion) The do have a Brazilian website. 2. CyperPower 3. Tripp-Lite (a very distant third)
is a pci express 3.0 video card backwards compatible with a 2.0 slot? We're trying to budget build a pc for a friend and all the amd motherboards that have 3.0 slots only accept the very newest chip - which is far outside the price range we have. Also. Why are the all the nvidia 900 series gpus so damn expensive. They're more expensive than the much newer 1050 card.
Sorry for the late reply. Yes, a PCI-E 3.0 card is generally backward compatible with the PCI-E 2.0 standard. Double check the specs on the card just to be sure, but as a general rule, you should be fine.
@adisagestar Let's start at the beginning. Components needed: Case Power Supply Motherboard Video Card(s) CPU CPU Cooler Ram SSD HDD Optical Drive: Windows ships on a DVD Input Devices: Keyboard, Mouse Case Fan(s) Monitor(s) Multimedia Stuff: Headphones, Webcam, Speakers, etc. What country are you in? I deal mainly through Newegg for all my stuff, but if for some reason you can't use them I'll need to find a source of links/prices you can use.
Sorry to double post but... @adisagestar Let talk parts for a bit: Case: You can't skimp here. The case you buy defines your total build experience. A good case can last you a decade or more and host many computer builds over time. The case I recommend is the Enthoo Pro M by Phantex It runs about $80 and is a breeze to build with. I own this case and will use it for my next upgrade. It has great airflow, can be used for water cooling and has a clear side panel. The side panel lets you keep an eye on the motherboard indicator LEDs and later on you can put pretty lights in to impress your friends, lol. Power Supply: A good name brand 80+ bronze or better power supply of 700watts or better is my recommendation. Do not try and go to cheap here either, PSUs (power supply units) are the heart of the whole machine, and stable power delivery is vital to everything. PSUs also wear out so get a good one: here is a link with some suggestions. LINK CPU: I recommend the AMD Ryzen series CPUs. The outperform their Intel counterparts on almost every task at a much lower price point. They are totally compatible with Intel. The aren't quite as fast as Intel on older single/dual core games, but only by a few FPS. (frames per second) You should be looking at at least 6core/12thread CPUs, but 8core/16thread CPUs are a better long term investment. The X at the end of the Ryzen model number denotes a full-featured processor. LINK Motherboard: I am a very loyal ASUS fan and for your build I recommend: this Motherboard. This is a full featured board with an M.2 socket for a lightning fast onboard SSD. Don't be afraid to ask questions, I'll answer them in my long-winded meandering way :D
hey, @PrinzVyper, is the enthoo pro m with tempered glass worth the price increase? Also, will it hold a 140 mm tall heat sink? I might be looking to upgrade my case...
@NevermorePoe The tempered glass variant is just for scratch resistance on the window, if you take reasonable care of the acrylic you should be fine. It will fit heatsinks up to 195mm. You will love this case! I've never had an easier build.
Take the opportunity to clean your CPU heat spreader and apply fresh thermal compound. I recommend Arctic MX4. When transplanting, I leave the CPU and RAM installed. Buy a couple of zip-ties and a zip-tie gun, a few bucks at a hardware store, and use them for cable management. Run the cables on the right side of the case, and "In the Basement" as much as possible, this way you aren't blocking that all-important airflow. If you are really brave and have an EVGA video card, you can buy some thermal pads and use them to refresh the thermal paste/pads on your video card. *I know EVGA won't void your warranty if you do that. I would buy a couple of small 40mm or 60 mm fans and use them to blow cool air onto your VRMs, North-Bridge, and South-Bridge, if you have room under that monster air cooler. lol. Buy every fan that will fit in the case, check the specs on that score. Front fans should be intake and top exhaust. use the rear fan for intake as well, you want the air pressure in the case to be higher the outside pressure. This will help keep the dust problem manageable. Lastly, buy a slot fan and place it in the slot next to your video card. Doing so will significantly lower you GPU and VRAM temps. Transplanting is labor intensive, First, disconnect all wires, then remove PSU then all drives and cards. then the motherboard. Install is just the reverse. Plan for a couple of hours.
so, since I only just installed the cpu cooler a few months ago, is it even worth it to reapply? It'll probably be easier to put together in the new case, it was a bit of a squeeze to fit everything in my current case, just because i got large compenents in a mid tower case. The gpu has fans built onto it, and the cpu cooler is blowing air down over the motherboard. It's so over sized that the components don't really heat up, or haven't in any games i've played so far anyways.
To get the motherboard out without undue hassle you will need to remove the air cooler anyway, and you must use fresh paste when re-installing it. The slot fan is a good investment as games will not be getting less graphic heavy as time goes on.
I know i have to use fresh paste when installing, i think there might be a way to remove the radiator only on my cpu cooler though, which, just leaves the plate that holds it to the cpu. [Edit:] Oh, I think I still have a few applications of the paste I used before. It doesn't go bad, right? I'm assuming it doesn't but, might as well check.
