My first new desktop PC since 2002

[GranteedEV]

I did this on a total whim. I mean I've always toyed around with the idea of getting a gaming PC but I've never really been much of a PC gamer. But today I just... I just went and did this spontaneously on my drive home. I bought the parts for a new mid-tier Desktop.

Case - Fractal Design Midi r2
Power Supply - EVGA 600B
CPU - Intel Core i5 4670k
CPU Cooling - Antec Kuhler H2O 1250 and a tube of MX4
Mobo - MSI Z87 G45
Ram - 2X4GB Kingston HyperX
GPU - MSI Twin Frozr GeForce GTX 760

I did get price-beats on pretty much everything, so despite the spontaneity I don't think I made a dumb move and I had kind of been on the fence all week... but this is definitely a surreal experience for me. I'm such a consumerist.

What should I do with the new PC first?

 

[Adam]

What should I do with the new PC first?

Put it together.

Congrats on the new gear! What OS are you planning to run on it?

 

[its phillip]

congrats

 

[slipperybidness]

Looks like you did pretty good for selection.

I'm not a big fan of those flashy gamer PC cases, I like a plain black box. Also, I prefer Asus over MSI for the Mobo (I've had several MSI boards fail at work, never had an Asus fail at home).

When I built mine a few years ago, I sourced everything from Newegg.

What about HDD? And audio?

 

[its phillip]

The case he chose is certainly not flashy: Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 FD-CA-ARC-R2-BL-W Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com

Looks like a nice and compact case. Plenty of hd bays, cable management grommets, and a nice open spot on the mobo tray so you can replace the backplate. I like how all of those things are pretty much common on every case nowadays

 

[slipperybidness]

The case he chose is certainly not flashy: Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 FD-CA-ARC-R2-BL-W Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com

Looks like a nice and compact case. Plenty of hd bays, cable management grommets, and a nice open spot on the mobo tray so you can replace the backplate. I like how all of those things are pretty much common on every case nowadays

Yeah, I guess you are right. I just saw the window on it and thought flashy. I suppose if you keep lights out of it, then it ain't bad (meaning it ain't too flashy).

Actually, that case looks a whole lot like mine. Except mine does not have the window, mine has more external bays up front, and mine has a mobo tray for easy install (I can't tell for sure if this one has it or not). I think this is the one I use: Newegg.com - LIAN LI PC-K7B USB3.0 Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

By the way, very good decision to get the case that has the ports and buttons on the top surface rather than the middle of the front surface! More often than not, these tower PCs get set close to the floor, under a desk. It is much easier to access the ports and buttons when they are up top (and you can always add more to the front slots if you need to.)

 

[ReUpRo]

Also, what OS are you planning to run?

The rig will be too powerful to use as a HTPC or NAS, but not powerful enough to run games at full tilt graphics. Perfect for a home web server. Are you starting your own AV blog ?

 

[Matt34]

Pretty close to what I'm going to build soon, except I'm going with 16GB of ram and this case.

 

[darien87]

What should I do with the new PC first?

Battlefield 4

 

[its phillip]

counterstrike

1.6 for life

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

What about HDD?

Great question, without fast ssd this build will be dragging it's feet

 

[GranteedEV]

Put it together.

Congrats on the new gear! What OS are you planning to run on it?

Already put it together!! Right now I've got Windows 7 Ultimate up and running since I'm just using the OS and hard drive from my dead HP laptop. Reuse, recylce, all that good stuff! I don't think I could afford a new commercial OS. That said eventually this PC will see a Linux Mint install.

Looks like you did pretty good for selection.

I'm not a big fan of those flashy gamer PC cases, I like a plain black box. Also, I prefer Asus over MSI for the Mobo (I've had several MSI boards fail at work, never had an Asus fail at home).

When I built mine a few years ago, I sourced everything from Newegg.

What about HDD? And audio?

I've never really been partial to asus. If I had to pick a brand I'd have gotten EVGA but the price on this one was more attractive and at the end of the day I'm not made of money.

As for sound, my preference is to HDMI direct into the receiver downstairs. This PC will probably see a lot of being carried upstairs and downstairs depending on the situation. For now though, I'm going to give the onboard Soundblaster Cinema a shot through my Dayton DTA-1 amp powering my pair of EMP E41-Bs. =)

Great question, without fast ssd this build will be dragging it's feet

I'll get an SSD eventually. I didn't buy an HDD yet, but it's one of those things that are easy to upgrade just like RAM. I really wanted to spend money as barebones as I could.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Right now I've got Windows 7 Ultimate up and running since I'm just using the OS and hard drive from my dead HP laptop. Reuse, recylce, all that good stuff!

I'll get an SSD eventually. I didn't buy an HDD yet, but it's one of those things that are easy to upgrade just like RAM. I really wanted to spend money as barebones as I could.

Wow, first I have nothing against recycling - in fact my main boot disk is an SSD I bough back in 2010. It works fine - I saw no reason to replace it at last refresh to current Core I5-2500k system, But using optimized for low power hd from laptop in a fast desktop is really not great idea...

What I would do is to get a smaller 60-64gb ssd and do bare metal backup from laptop drive and restore it to new ssd to make it a boot disk (without purchasing new os) - Nothing wrong with Windows 7 Ult - In fact this is what I am running at home and have Zero future plans to upgrade it

 

[GranteedEV]

But using optimized for low power hd from laptop in a fast desktop is really not great idea...

Bare in mind that I'm not a big time desktop user. The main reason I'm building such a powerful machine is because Dolphin and PCSX2 are so demanding on CPU that I need to overclock this haswell to around 4.2+ ghz to be adequate. More often than not my main system is a different laptop which has to be used anyways because that's where all the licensed software is and there's no way of moving some of that over to another system because the licenses aren't mine.

What I would do is to get a smaller 60-64gb ssd and do bare metal backup from laptop drive and restore it to new ssd to make it a boot disk (without purchasing new os) - Nothing wrong with Windows 7 Ult - In fact this is what I am running at home and have Zero future plans to upgrade it

Definitely agree, and that's the plan - either way a 300GB 5400RPM drive was never a long term solution. You have to realize though, I barely had a budget of $700, yet ended up already spending over $1100 already >_>;

When I get new hard drive I will probably get 120GB SSD and later add a 2TB HDD