Mornroc said:My advice? Unless you are going for a real high end gaming rig, don't build. In my experience the profit margins on lower end PC's are so low, that you aren't going to save much (maybe a hundred or two at best), and you are giving up a good warranty and technical support on the final product which is hard to put a price on.
Let me give you a case in point. I built a PC for a friend and the motherboard had a manufacturing flaw that caused the CPU voltage regulator to wildly overclock the CPU randomly of course causing the machine to crash under any kind of load. After sending back memory, CPU, and graphics card and finally motherboard over the course of a year I was ready to throw the whole thing in the trash and start over. Yes, my example is an extreme one and really hard to pinpoint that didn't show up during hardware diagnostics, but you get the picture. Unless you are a technical enthusiast that doesn't mind their own troubleshooting or are building a machine that is expensive enough that has a higher cost savings (like 3k plus types of gaming rigs), then you are wasting your time and money.
I bought a Dell rig 7 years ago for 1200 that I am still using and that still plays current games on mid to high settings. I've upgraded the RAM once and the video card once, but that's about it. Not bad for a 1200 machine :)
But if you are really dead set on building. Try newegg and tiger direct. Both have bare bones kits and cost saving bundles that will get you started for cheaper and ensure you have compatible components.
This is more of an exercise to get him engaged in building the PC, understanding what goes where, what does what, etc... It's not about saving $$ at this point. I remember how much I learned when i built my first pc, it's what eventually drove me to be an EE. I also want him to realize the value in what he has, just buying a rig won't imprint as much value as doing the research and building it from scratch.
-Ini
Ah, I understand. Honestly, given your motivation it sounds like a fun project to do with your son and a great learning experience. I did this myself at that age. I built my first computer using the huge 'computer shopper' phone book sized magazine they had back in the day. My dad knew nothing about computers and agonized over me spending that much money on something he didn't understand, but ultiamtely my mother came to my rescue and I built my own 8088 IBM compatible PC when I was 11 :) I even got them to spring for my own dedicated phone line and I ran a BBS out of my bedroom when I was 12. I loved it.
Well... in that case, I would still suggest newegg and tiger direct as where I usually get my stuff. IHowever, I agree with a previous poster that if you don't know what you are doing as far as compatibiluty, etc. that the website pcpartpicker will really help you put together a fully compatible system. It also helps you navigate the whole compatibility thing without having to go that long list of questsions someone else posted (does this fit, is this power supply big enough, etc.).
Another tactic I have personally used in the past is to go find the rig I really want on falcon northwest or Alienware, and then I 'copy' it. I check and see what the specs are under the hood, and then I go to new egg and try to find all those parts. I built a falcon northwest cadillac 5000 dollar computer many many years ago for like 1900 for a friend. Similiarly if you google 'computer benchmark scores' there a a number of different software / websites that do benchmark scoring of different components and different fully built PC's. When I building and trying to decide between this graphics card or that one, having a diffinitive benchmark score and reviews of comparisons to read definately helps when making those kinds of choices. userbenchmark.com is one such site, but there are others. Looking at some of the 'builds' of other people will give you some ideas as well on how to build a good performing rig.
On final recommendation. If you are buying this PC specifically for a game like Pantheon, I would wait until alpha is about to end first. Unfortunately it's the nature of MMO's to get delayed repeatedly and for long periods of time. As an example, the origonal FAQ for Pantheon had it coming out of beta in 2017... we'll be a good 2 years past that by the time it actually gets released and that's assuming current guestimates are correct. If it gets delayed another year or two, that's an eternity in computer parts age and price...
If you are looking for a project to learn PC building you might want to think about building around an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G, as you can avoid the graphic card market for now. While it is a built in graphics to start with its really not too bad of a CPU and will not bottle neck you once you upgrade to a dedicated video card when prices come back down. You will really only see a performance drop on software that can truly multithread over 4 threads and there really are not many that do. If alpha hits before cards get back to MSRP then this is the way I will go.
Would not be too surprised if AMD is seeing an unexpectedly high volume on these.
TripleD said:Watemper said:What's the budget if you don't mind me asking. I like trying to build budget builds.
I've given him a $1000 budget.
Pretty nice, the budget build I suggested to Taldaas is 871.33 without mailing rebate. So if you wanted you could probably upgrade to a 1060 and still be in budget with the setup I did. Or you could go for an upgrade to the processor. the 1050 ti is great...and if you want you can teach your son to overclock and get it up to the equivalent to a 1060 and be able to be in the minimum range for VR. Anyways for now if you want the budget I would cap at the 1050 for now since they are reasonable priced still, like the msi brand.
Regardless of what your son considers give him the hint that right now in the market the most important piece to obtain first is a graphics card that is new and good priced. Everything else is usually in stock. So that should be the first thing he looks for.
Take a quick look at this vid, as mentioned before by others here getting started right now with a ryzen isn't a bad option at 1080 res. Buy a used card afterwards when you find a good deal.
https://youtu.be/wNaz4hBNQDA?t=1m45s
I'm a long time [H]ardforum junky and there's decent deals on used and new discounted GPU's posted there all the time in those forums.
I'm a bit partial to getting my parts from New Egg for an Online store, and we have Fry's for a brick and mortar that has a good selection in store, don't know if you have that in your area. Do not, I reapeat Do not buy from Tiger Direct, I've had bad experiences with them, especially with a laptop where they gave me cheap ram when I paid for more expensive. (The Cheap Ram failed, when I went to replace it is when I found it it wasn't what I paid for.) As for what parts to get, I always do some research imediatly before selecting and havn't been in the market for anthing new for a couple years so I don't know what is out there right now.
Aayden said: Go to pcpartpicker.com ... It will let you know if parts are incompatible.
Quoted this ^ for emphasis. Imo it is the most useful tip that has been given for someone new to building their own computer.
I think everyone is aware of the state of the current gpu market.
philo said:Aayden said: Go to pcpartpicker.com ... It will let you know if parts are incompatible.Quoted this ^ for emphasis. Imo it is the most useful tip that has been given for someone new to building their own computer.
I think everyone is aware of the state of the current gpu market.
i think its broken because none of the processors and motherboards says the yare compatable with each other lol.