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.

I realize that. I was just trying to give an example of where to find a bargain.

My current system is an Acer Nitro machine I found at Micro Center.
8th GEN Intel Core i7+ processor 8700
AMD Radeon RX 580X 4GB GDDRV
1TB HD w/16GB Intel Optane Memory
32GB DDR4 Memory (I upped it from 8GB)

Felt it was such a good deal I got two of them and put the 8GB of RAM from mine in my wife's machine so she's running 16GB.

To me that was a good buy at less than $1500, as we were both running machines that were over 6 yrs old.

c-list but it takes a bit of daily checking to get the real good deals
as there is a lot of over priced stuff on the higher end newer systems on c-list
but a bit of hunting over time real deals do pop up
like 911 hunting you need to know what you want exactly
and be able to act fast as the better deals donot last

the on M/B v-nand 970 evo chip replaces the hd and is 5 times faster then a sshd
so a (PCIe M.2 2280) slot is a new must have aka a NVM-e slot for a PCI-e card x4
read the M/B list carefully as there are m.2 slots that are not fast using the old sata3
much slower standard

tom's hardware https://www.tomshardware.com/
is a good place to compare what is good better best for computer parts m/b cpu's
and their gfx card list is very good

I paid 1/2 that last year for my 8700 system but less ram 16 vs 32
intel optane is a very high end un-needed expense and small capacity for the price

I first built a computer with my son who was 13 at the time - We had allot of fun putting it together. We used Newegg, Tom's Hardware and a local college computer club to select and buy components. My son got good at this and built several during his high school years.

Since that time, I have built my own. I have an art studio in my home. I do allot of photo editing and take photos of my art work. So getting the a very good graphics card and monitor is very important to me. I don't game either. I will spend money on upgraded components.

I didn't even KNOW what optane was when I bought them!
Oh, and that was $1500 for both of them, not apiece, and the new RAM too.

Main thing I was after was a computer with RAM that could be expanded.. I play with photo's sometimes so it helps.
These Nitro's were pretty decent specs from what I could tell and I was kind of in a hurry as my old computer had just died.:(

The alternative might be to price out a desktop tower from Dell, Lenovo, etc with the processor and graphics you want, but the minimum storage and RAM, then add drives and memory yourself. The PC companies pay far less for things like motherboards, CPUs, GPUs, etc than you will pay buying at retail, and they price their barebones machines pretty aggressively, looking to make margin with overpriced storage and memory.

When I bought my work PC, I got a Lenovo workstation with Xeon CPU and double nVidia GPUs, but the minimum of storage and RAM.

Doesn't seem to be much talk about the computer case and/or cooling.

Besides defining what you want the computer to do and then decide on the computer components, don't forget the case to put it all into.

Cooling is one factor that must also be considered. Air cooled and/or liquid cooled or both. Rule of thumb is to have more air going into the case than is coming out. Positive pressure.

In my last computer build, I got the Corsair Carbide Series 200R case. Big enough for my requirements yet small in overall size. I got the Corsair liquid cooler for the Intel CPU and also got the liquid cooled video card from EVGA. I installed the radiators in the back and top of the case with the attached fans in exhaust. I inverted the Corsair power supply to suck air out of the case and exhaust out the rear. Both the front of the case and the side of the case have two fans each forcing air into the case. So mine is a positive pressure system. 4 fans blowing air into the case and 3 fans blowing out. I haven't had any cooling issues and everything runs fairly stable even while playing a game of Modern Warfare. CPU or GPU never get above 40C during long episodes of game playing and cool down rather quickly afterwards.

I've built all my computers for the past 20 years....until my current computer I bought about 3 months ago. Funny thing, after I compared the cost of components I found the same build on NewEgg for nearly the same cost...including software! Yes, it was on sale, but my advice is to comb the the websites for the components you think you need, then look for sales of built computers with the same components. I love building them....but if you have one completely set up for the same price,....then.....

So we built one. I'll inherit the hp box I bought her not long after starting this thread. She can't play the games she wants to on it.
Can't seem to get the case fans to come on though. Not sure if they're triggered by temp and the temp just hasn't triggered them yet. There are three in the case and are all wired to this small board on the back side.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1629561965.jpg


There is only one plug left unconnected and I believe it's for some type of led strip add on.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1629562045.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1629562196.jpg

There should be a way whether via an app or something, that you can check the temps unless the OS has neutered that ability out.

Good stuff. I hope it works well for you.

Fans are typically run straight off the mother board so they can be triggered by component temps.

The three plugs on the bottom of the small board I would assume are plugged into the MB to draw power but I don't see them in the front pic.

I would ignore the small board and go direct to MB first and see what you get.

What did the small board come with, part of the MB set, the case, the fans?

Those breakouts are almost always for a 3rd party way to control fans and lights so there may be a utility that needs to be installed.

The small board came with the case, wired and hooked up already.

And how is it tied into the mother board?

Where is it drawing power from?