Buying and Building a PC

[chris1089]

I'm going to build my first PC, having decided it's a no-brainer given the premium for not doing so. I'm upgrading from my 2011 dual core 1.7 intel Celeron 4GB RAM HDD laptop, and I want to build something that will last and be cost-efficient. My usage will be aoe3DE, some games from the last decade (and older), browsing, watching streams/ youtube and some programming (math modelling for dynamics, markets stuff etc.)

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/NhTGxc

This is the list I had a few days ago. Now the prices have jumped up for the processor and graphics so I will need to wait until they come back down. There are several things I am unsure about. At the moment I am trying to absorb as much information as possible, and would love any feedback/recommendations.

1. Size - how do I make sure everything fits well inside the mid-tower case? How do I know if parts will have the right orientation and dimensions (thinking of long graphics card or fat one that takes up three pins).
2. Monitor - I want to get at least an IPS 1080p monitor, with 60-75 Hz. From what I've read, going for 1440p is better than 144Hz, but idk whether to splash out the cash on a 1440p monitor (every £10 over 700 hurts, but I'm willing to spend £900 if I think it's a good investment. I'm trying to think long term and good value for money.)
3. Fans - I have no idea what I'm doing here. As decibel is logarithmic, I also don't know when something is going to become a pain noise wise. Idk whether noise accumulates from components, or whether you hear the noise of the loudest one (I assume it's a mixture of both closer to the first option.) Any recommendations on fans? How do I place fans in the case so that it helps the airflow and I get the most cooling from them?
4. Any recommendations on savings I could make, or cheap upgrades? Particularly things that would be a lot cheaper to upgrade now rather than in a few years time.
5. Where would you recommend spending another £50? What would you cut to save £50? How would this spending or cut affect how much money I am spending over the next 10 years?
6. Buying components - What are the best ways to track prices? Is pc part picker the best way to make sure websites are selling the same component, and that there aren't differences? Any money saving/ avoiding being defrauded tips?
7. Storing components and assembly - any advice?

[Riotcoke]

1. Everything you have listed will fit into that case
2. 1080p is fine with that setup, 1440p maybe not so much, you'll probably have to go for a beefier gpu if you go for 1440p so saying it's only a little extra for 1440p is kinda wrong as you'll end up with an extra +£100 for a better gpu to be able to run it well in a lot of games
3. Fans don't worry about, the ones in that case are going to run like normal pc fans, if you want something quiter it's not really worth getting anything on the cheaper end as you won't really hear a difference.
4. I would upgrade the motherboard to something with on-board wifi. Especially seeing as i know you're at Uni it's quite likely that you'll live in a house next year and might not have access to Ethernet easily so spending like £10 more to get a motherboard with in-built wifi is probably worthwhile. I would also invest in a HDD, this is only really if you want to play bigger games like GTA or something because when you're downloading single games that are 100GB+ 500GB will fill very quickly, honestly you can add this easily at a later date though.
5. The platform you've chosen with AM4 isn't going away anytime soon so it'll have a long shelflife in terms of upgradeability in the future, the gpu isn't the greatest but it's very easy to upgrade in the future.
6. PC parts picker will tell you the cheapest place to buy components, amazon is always good or in the UK Novatech tends to be pretty good.
7. Assembly is a peice of piss I wouldn't worry about it, just watch one youtube video on building a pc and it should be pretty straight forward.

[gibson]

Everything will fit in a mid tower case, even a 3090. If you’re gonna be playing aoe3 there’s really no need for a high end monitor, you’ll see a big difference for FPS games if you go up to 144hz and games will look better with higher resolution but based on what you described I wouldn’t splurge on a monitor right now. Right now I’d probably stick with just the case fans, I believe that case has 2, your temps with that processor and graphics card should be fine. The build looks solid for the budget. Where you’d see the biggest performance improvement is graphics card, but those also age the fastest. Processors from 7 years ago are still very usable, graphics cards from that time period are much worse. Pc part picker is okay, a quick good search works well too.

[harcha]

1. Size of motherboard/graphics card/CPU cooler/power supply/other devices is restricted by the case. If your case is ATX, any motherboard ATX or smaller (mATX, ITX) shall fit. Then you must check the case description for any limitations regarding CPU cooler height, graphics card size, power supply size, and if necessary how many additional devices it supports (hard drives, PCIE expansion, additional fans). Check the compatibility section on your cases webpage.
A fat graphics card is no problem in an ATX case, but check the compatibility for length. Graphics cards also have certain power requirements, check that your PSU description and GPU description to make sure that you are going to have enough power. The ones in your link seem to fit nicely.
2. Google budget 1440p monitors and see what you find. Check lists, reviews, the usual stuff. If going to a desktop is something new, I wouldn't recommend going over 27 inches in size. Consider that the peripherals is what you engage with directly, so you don't want to spend all of your money on "power" but remain stuck with unusable mouse, annoying keyboard, hard to read monitor, desk that is falling apart.
3. The linked case comes with 2 fans preinstalled. Make sure that your motherboard has headers for 2 case fans (as linked it has exactly two, so no need to buy additional case fans). If you will find that the noise is bad, you can swap the case fans or CPU cooler fan later. This is not so for the GPU fan (saying this because some reviews said that the GPU is on the louder side). Generally noise shouldn't be bad with components this new, so I wouldn't stress too much about it unless you're particularly sensitive and don't like wearing headphones.
With 2 case fans you will probably want one to draw air in and one on the back to push air out. The case should come pre-configured this way. As a beginner the only thing you need to worry about is that you don't cover up the in/out holes of the case (in the places where your fans are mounted).
The Ryzen 3600 also comes with a CPU fan so no worries there.
Once your computer is put together and operating system is installed, you can go into the motherboard bios to look if there is a way to apply the "silent mode" for fans if it is not applied by default.
4. I can't say for sure because this is an area where you can do a lot of googling, and it also depends a lot on the prices in your area.
5. One thing I would change myself is I would choose a PCIE SSD like the Intel 660p, as it is not much more expensive than the Sata counterparts, but implies a nice future-proofing in terms of speed. It is also easier to install (less cables). With 500 gigs, however, you should plan an upgrade/expansion soon-ish.
Personally I like micro ATX cases for their smaller size, and often this implies a smaller price tag. But this is also implies additional size constraints, which would be better to avoid for a beginner.
6. When you are confident (probably not when making your first PC) the used market is a really nice place for saving £50 on the pricier components.
7. Use youtube tutorials to your advantage. The only thing where you can fk something up is installing the CPU - it is really easy to screw your CPU up if you bend the tiny pins on it's bottom. The next thing is cables/power - make sure that you are installing them firmly, but not in the wrong places. Check the included instructions when you are not sure.

[Dolan]

I can give some advice on the monitor

- Don't make decisions based on the spec sheet only, because one monitor's 250cd/m brightness rating is not nearly the same as another's same rating. So, for example, I got a Philips panel with 250cd/m brightness that on 0% brightness is way brighter than my main AOC monitor on the same rating, but on maximum brightness. So brightness varies a lot on the same rating. It's not like someone actually measures if companies stick to the same brightness rating before putting a product on the market. There's a lot of variation.
- Colour coverage is very important. Aim for as high sRGB spectrum coverage as possible.
- Try to get a panel with 10bit panel bit depth. Even if it's 8 true bits + FRC (emulated extra 2 bits), you will see a big difference in the smoother transition of colour gradients. Most basic 8bit monitors are bad at this and you see a lot of banding on the screen when it displays gradients.
- The more total colours it can display the better. If you can find one that can display above 1 billion colours, then it will have a better colour gamut.
- Finding a monitor with a good contrast is hard, you can't really tell based on the product's description. You have to read technical reviews to see how good they are at displaying deep blacks. This is one of the most important things in a monitor, because if blacks are grey, you're going to have a washed up picture quality. And you can't tell how they will perform based on their contrast rating, there's a lot of marketing involved in the spec sheet too.
- Don't overpay for gimmicky features like USB hubs in a monitor. Just focus on image quality first and make sure it has holes for a VESA bracket.
- Never buy glossy screens, make sure they have matte coating.
- You can rarely find good monitors under 200 bucks. Most of them are entry-level default panels with all sorts of issues, bad lighting, bad contrast, bad colour coverage etc.
You have to pay a bit more than 100-150 bucks to get out of this "just get a basic monitor bro" zone. Quality starts from close to 200 for the 24" ones.

If your priority is gaming, get a 24" monitor with a fast response time (under 5ms). Some of them might also have support for specific GPUs, like FreeSync or G-Sync, to improve frame rendering.
If your priority is work, get at least a 27" monitor with 1440p resolution, 24" is really small for multitasking. I'm using two monitors: a 32"-er and a second 24" one and it's really great for multitasking.

You can use this site to make comparisons between monitors, though this is just between spec sheets: https://www.displayspecifications.com/
Shouldn't rely on spec sheet comparisons only, but also on technical reviews.

[iNcog]

1080p144 would be my go to over 1440p60. The higher refresh rate is amazing.

[chris1089]

Thanks for the feedback. Gleaned some really useful things there.
On the monitor, Idk whether to get a 1080p IPS monitor for £120 monitor with IPS, or whether to invest in a more expensive monitor. The Wi-Fi is quite slow at home (about 8Mbs even though it's supposedly fibre.) Not sure I'll be able to make use of 1440p for anything I have to stream and then also not sure I'd be able to use 1440p on modern games anyway. However, it helps you read text in smaller windows so you can have more open at once? I have no idea because I'm always hitting that alt-tab combination on my laptop. Idk how much I'll work from home after this year either, so hard to know what balance of work and leisure I will be using the build for. HDMI or DisplayPort? And which version? Also when I'm shopping for monitors it doesn't seem to say which version it is, just that it has a DisplayPort or HDMI. Any more opinions on what to do for a monitor? Not larger than 27" for 1440p or 24" for 1080p and making sure it's IPS is about all I'm sure about rn.
Thanks for the point about peripherals @harcha . On that point, idk what to do for my keyboard. I'm used to the low profile keys on a laptop, but I don't want that to limit me. What's the difference between mechanical and not? What makes a keyboard more ergonomic?

[gibson]

I’d use display port by default although for a 60 hz monitor it doesn’t so much matter

[harcha]

@chris1089 it doesn't matter what port the monitor has, as it should have at least 1 port that can saturate the resolution and framerate that it can deliver. Worst case scenario you don't have the right adapter, and you have to buy one (but even this is unlikely).
Personally I have a 25 inch 1440p monitor that I can use for work real nice, but also do two things at once like watching youtube/twitch or twitch/forum or something else. If you're not gonna be playing FPS games, 60 hz is certainly enough. If you wanna play mostly FPS then 144hz is worth more than 1440p resolution.

Keyboards are mostly preference. Unless you feel that your hands are strained and are starting to hurt, there is no need to pay out the nose for ergonomic options (which are often cheaper feeling too). Speaking of ergonomics, a chair is another thing that you can invest before some costlier components.

[harcha]

just as I recommended you the 660p (it has sick value where I live) it would seem that mine is starting to show signs of imminent death less than 2 years after purchase

[Dolan]

@chris1089
It basically doesn't matter which monitor around that price mark you get, because under 150 they're all different shades of bad.
I'd recommend Philips 245E1S/00, which is a very good value for money monitor. You might be able to find it in the UK going for £159 (link)

Typically, under 200 bucks all monitors are entry-level, so they all have some drawbacks or big trade-offs: mediocre image quality but some incorporated USB hub to compensate, or nice design but awful brightness and contrast, or OK image quality but no VESA mount, etc.
This Philips I've tested personally checks a few good marks:
- it's very bright - so much that I had to turn it down to 0 from the menu, just to use it normally, otherwise it can get as bright as a spotlight
- colours are OK, there's no abnormal tint and you have enough controls in the monitor's menu to adjust it (including gamma, which for example many Dell monitors lack)
- on a DisplayPort connection it goes up to 75 Hz refresh rate, so it's slightly above an ordinary rate
- 4ms response rate makes it OK to use for gaming
- 1440p resolution for under 200 bucks is a steal, you can rarely find this resolution at this price
- support for VESA mount
- small bezels

I've been using this one as a 2nd monitor for a few months and I couldn't find any issue with it. If you try to find something with similar features from Dell, it's likely to cost 200+ without necessarily having better image quality, though maybe better ergonomics. If you buy Dell you pay for the branding and ergonomy about 30% more. Meaning they have very nice stands, build quality and design, and lots of ports, but image quality is about the same as a monitor that is 30% cheaper but made by a company that is not as hyped as Dell (or Apple).

[Horsemen]

imagine living romania and spending entire year salary on monitor

[harcha]

imagine living romania and spending entire year salary on monitor

imagine being a native english speaker but still having worse english than some romanian kid

[Dolan]

imagine living romania and spending entire year salary on monitor

We are the planet's last hope, since we consoom less, thus keeping our carbon footprint low compared to wasteful Westerners.

[Horsemen]

spend $50 on monitor no food for 10 year :(((((((((((((

[Horsemen]

selled my wife for internet connection so i can make shitpost XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[Dolan]

spend $50 on monitor no food for 10 year :(((((((((((((

I think you're just jelly you don't have such an OP battlestation like me

[Rohbrot]

spend $50 on monitor no food for 10 year :(((((((((((((

I think you're just jelly you don't have such an OP battlestation like me

Is that room cold?

[occamslightsaber]

spend $50 on monitor no food for 10 year :(((((((((((((

I think you're just jelly you don't have such an OP battlestation like me

Is that room cold?

Saving big on exhaust fans, I guess.

[Dolan]

Is that room cold?

It's not cold when the CPU from 2012 loads a "modern website" with 5MB of Javascript and multiple page transitions.
The room really warms up when the CPU loads JS scripts.

[RefluxSemantic]

1. Everything you have listed will fit into that case
2. 1080p is fine with that setup, 1440p maybe not so much, you'll probably have to go for a beefier gpu if you go for 1440p so saying it's only a little extra for 1440p is kinda wrong as you'll end up with an extra +£100 for a better gpu to be able to run it well in a lot of games
3. Fans don't worry about, the ones in that case are going to run like normal pc fans, if you want something quiter it's not really worth getting anything on the cheaper end as you won't really hear a difference.
4. I would upgrade the motherboard to something with on-board wifi. Especially seeing as i know you're at Uni it's quite likely that you'll live in a house next year and might not have access to Ethernet easily so spending like £10 more to get a motherboard with in-built wifi is probably worthwhile. I would also invest in a HDD, this is only really if you want to play bigger games like GTA or something because when you're downloading single games that are 100GB+ 500GB will fill very quickly, honestly you can add this easily at a later date though.
5. The platform you've chosen with AM4 isn't going away anytime soon so it'll have a long shelflife in terms of upgradeability in the future, the gpu isn't the greatest but it's very easy to upgrade in the future.
6. PC parts picker will tell you the cheapest place to buy components, amazon is always good or in the UK Novatech tends to be pretty good.
7. Assembly is a peice of piss I wouldn't worry about it, just watch one youtube video on building a pc and it should be pretty straight forward.

Couldnt it be worth it to get a 500 gb ssd and then upgrade with more ssds if you need it. I saw that low/medium speed ssds are only like 40-50 bucks. If it turns out that 500 gb is not enough, you can easily upgrade. With the current price of ssds, I dont see how you could justify getting an HDD just in case.

But maybe this motherboard doesnt have the slots or sth, idk Im not an expert.

Edit: so yeah, a 500 gb sata3 samsung ssd is 50-60 euros. It might not be as fast, but the applications or games that you really want that extra performance on can just be put on your main ssd.

[Horsemen]

spend $50 on monitor no food for 10 year :(((((((((((((

I think you're just jelly you don't have such an OP battlestation like me

The poop bucket beside the table is a nice touch

[Dolan]

Yeh, you can't just leave the battlestation when a big dump is coming, but you're just about to get a penta

[chris1089]

So with the increase business demand due to pandemic and crypto mining bubble making graphics cards inflated in price (and appearing to be here for a while yet) I decided to buy a custom build pc. Also upgraded to m.2 samsung.
Need to decide on a monitor which is the hardest thing I've had to do tbh. Space is a bit of a thing so I think I'm going to go for 24". Decided to get the Philips recommended to me, we'll see what it's like. Hoping with the fact that I play a few older games it will be worth it on balance.

[Dolan]

It's a decent monitor in terms of image quality/price. The only issue I noticed is that font rendering can be a bit uneven if you set sharpness to 100%.
But that might be the case because I'm using it only in 1080p, because my video card doesn't have 2 display port outputs and the only one is taken by my main monitor.
So if you're going to use it on a DP port, you're probably gonna get even better image quality and actual 75mhz refresh.
Another cool feature is that it only draws 18W in power consumption.