Building My Own PC...
 

Should I even bother? I haven't done it in years. I went a few years way back when where I was able to build something that blew anything Dell offered out of the water as far as bang for buck went. That with a good, clean, adware free OS install it was hard to beat. But many years have gone by now and I have no idea where to start.

My daughter needs something to run Adobe After Effects on. I figure building it with her won't hurt either. She's 12. What say ye?

If someone can point me in the direction of a case, motherboard, processor combo, I can probably figure out there rest from there. I think she's gonna need a pretty good video card too.

Adobe After Effects Requirements:

Intel Core2 Duo or AMD Phenom II processor with 64-bit support.
Microsoft Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (64 bit), or Windows 8.1 (64 bit)
8 GB of RAM (16 GB recommended)
5 GB of available hard-disk space; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on removable flash storage devices)

I’ve got a folder of bookmarks for a similar project for a gaming computer for my son.

I came up with my list by searching for gaming pc under $. That lead me to a few articles, blogs, etc. with recommendations for hardware that will work together.

I have built my computers for years. My current system is a screaming monster I needed for my business.

I bought alomst most of the parts from New Egg. Just set up a user name and password, and build a wish list. Add and remove components as you decide on what you need.

My system is a i9 CPU 16 cores, 3.16 GHz, 256 Gig of RAM, two 2-TB M.2 drives and a 15TB Raid 5 Five spinning drive hard drive system built in. It also has A pair of video GeForce GTX cards 1080 Ti with more memory than many computers I used to have.

The best part about building it from scratch is it is all 100% off the shelf compatible components, so special parts that only work with a custom driver and zero bloat ware.

A decent laptop with 3rd or 4th gen m.2 SSD (1-2tb), 16GB of ram and a latest generation core i5 or i7 will be plenty.

AMD's latest perform best with multi-threading processes, but very few apps/games support it properly.

After Effects will benefit from a large SWAP file on the SSD and at least 16GB of memory. Actually, all Adobe products do.

Edit: Also look at a 2+ TB HDD for storage. If external, make sure it's USB3 enclosure

Back when I was poor, I built several computers. Mostly trying to maximize performance for minimal $$$. I then bought a couple of cheap computers (sales, or Dell outlet) because I couldn't buy the parts for the cost of buying the whole thing. My last two computers have been more expensive, but fit criteria that I couldn't manage building my own.

It very much depends upon your goal, but, especially if she's 12, it seems like a great way to bond and her to learn some things. I vote build your own.

GG Allin,
I would take a look here: https://www.cpusolutions.com/store/pc/home.asp. I purchased a computer last year from them and spec'd the entire system. I compared the price for the total system versus what the current prices were on NewEgg and, as my memory serves me, it was less than $100 difference in the two. It was a no-brainer for me - this desktop is a workhorse!

I loved it when I turned on the computer for the first time an only two icons appeared on screen. I hate the bloatware!!!

Yea, building a tower desktop is the way to go. Put in a good video card, and lots of memory. It will be easy to expand in the future if she needs more hard drive space. Hard drives always fill up. And she will be able to easily replace a component in the future. Don't forget to get some extra fans, and you can set them up to only crank up speed when the system is hot.

I have one computer that I built about 10 years ago as a home email and cheap computer that went through several upgrades, and new motherboards, and now that same case has 6 hard drives in it, and a is mostly a 36 TB raid 5 and not used for much else. Just a big storage space.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/

That site will go a long way to help with compatibility of parts...I was doing the research to build one when my son decided to upgrade, so I just bought a box and used his old parts.

I would suggest that building a computer is a good idea if you want a project to do with your daughter. If you are looking to save money, I am not sure that is going to be the case.

You have the specs already, and they are not high performance. I would suggest you could build a desktop for under $300.00 (minus the monitor), but you could buy a laptop that will have higher performance for about the same price.

Very good info here to start with. I'll try this place and work from there.

Thanks.

Or why not just buy this?

https://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=607590&Sku=42124444

Speed, speed, speed! I have been using Asus motherboards, AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPU (video card) for several years now, actually a lot. Figure to build a machine that would be a high end gaming machine since it will be used for graphics both serious and games too. Look for a small shop run by a family from Vietnam or Korea or Japan as they give great service:
- Multi-core CPU such as Intel I9. You can use two or three cores to do one thing and two or three to do something else and all run fast.
- GPU such as the fastest Nvidia card you can find.
- ASUS motherboard that will run 64 bit Windows 10 with 64MB RAM at least.
- DVD reader/burner
- 2 or 3 terabyte sized hard drives, one SSD drive for the OS for speed, the other for applications and backups.
- The fastest internet access you have in your area and use another router on top of the box the ISP gives you for extra security. No Wifi if possible otherwise set certain NIC access only.
- 40 inch flat screen video/tv set with HDMI input ( they are cheap now as I just bought a 50 inch 4k Vizio set for $200).
- Largest case and power supply with several fans for cooling.

This won't be cheap BUT it will last for 4 or 5 years so the cost will even out. She'll learn a bunch doing this.

Couple of years ago: we decided our son needed a new gaming computer. We bought all the components with the help of a friend who owns a computer repair shop. Our son built the computer with that same friend's assistance. The price was about the same as if we just bought the computer but the experience of building and trouble shooting issues was part of a learning experience.

I think planning and having your daughter help build her new computer is a great idea. Even if she never builds another one, she will understand what goes into it.

Good luck on narrowing down the components. So many options to choose from.

Last year I built a PC on the AMD Ryzen platform. You can build something really fast with a Ryzen 5, 500G MS2 SSD, a decent video card (I picked and RX580).
Thing have probably evolved already, but you get the idea.
I used:

https://pcpartpicker.com/

AMD is quite on par for much less afaik.

Intel is going more for big server farms and big money the last I heard.
And then there is this:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15962/intel-data-breach-20gb-of-ip-leaked
"Intel today became the apparent victim of a massive internal data breach, as roughly 20 GB of various Intel documents and tools have begun showing up in a data cache uploaded to the wider internet."

https://www.tomshardware.com is another good website for general computer info in addition to the ones already mentioned.

I buy kid-gamer built last years stuff for about 1/2 the parts cost

as they always want to up grade to the bleeding edge

current box is a i7 8700 [6 core] with 16 g ddr4 and a pci-e 4 chip with 500g storage
gtx 980 and 750 w power

Where do you usually find such boxes for sale?

Check Craig's list. I've noticed a lot of stuff comes up there.

One year I walked into Best Buy not intending to buy a computer and walked out with last years best selling gamer machine for less than $600. That was a number of years ago though.

A good gamer video card is two times that just for the video card. A car like the RTX 2080 Ti XC from Nvidia.

I use those cards for my aerial photography programs. I have no games at all om my systems.

Depends on what monitor you use and what games you play. A 1660Ti or Super will run triple monitors (5750/1080) for all but the latest AAA titles and even those if you turn the settings down. Even plays Crysis! Those are under $300.