The process for building the computer started with research. I found a website called pcpartpicker which allows you to see if all your parts are compatible. This also shows me the cheapest prices online. The first thing I wanted to decide on was which platform I would base the system on. I had to decide between new and old; and also AMD or Intel. I decided on new because I knew it would work first try and because they come with a warranty. After looking around and watching comparisons on the AMD chips vs Intel chips, I saw that Intel was the better choice for gaming. But my computer is not just for gaming, I also want to edit 4K videos on it. To edit the fastest you need a lot of cores and threads on your computer. I read some blogs about people editing and the sweet spot seemed to be 6 core and 12 thread. When I went to the Intel side the 6 core 12 thread CPU was $349.99. I was baffled at this price for such a small piece. So I looked into AMD and their cheapest 6 core 12 thread was $189.99, this was essentially $200 cheaper. So I compromised and decided to switch to AMD. I revisited gaming performance and the difference was just 1-10 FPS. I finally settled on getting the AMD 2600 for $189.99.
The second component in the computer that is necessary is the motherboard. This houses and powers the CPU and also connects all the components to the CPU. Yesterday I decided on the AMD platform and the CPU's that they make fit in the AM4 socket. This is different for older CPU's and Intel CPU's as the socket is made by the CPU company for their needs. AMD last year released the Ryzen 1000 line up which brought the B350 and the X370 motherboards. Science the new Ryzen 2000 CPU's launched along came B450 and X470 motherboards. The older boards brand new are still cheaper than the new ones so I decided to research if they are compatible with the Ryzen 2600. It turns out they are! But you need to flash the BIOS on the motherboards to get it to work. After researching how to do this I learned that this is also highly risky. If the computer looses power or you flash the wrong BIOS you would brick the motherboard and possibly lock the CPU. The price difference between X370 and X470 board is $30. I decided I would rather spend $30 now then have to buy a new $150 motherboard and $200 CPU. After I decided on the newer boards, I started reading about the differences between the B450 and X470 I decided that the features that the Asus ROG Strix X470 brought were worth the premium. This board brought M.2 slots and a lot of overclocking headroom.
The CPU generates a lot of heat. The actually transistors in the CPU are only on a 12 nanometer piece of silicon. But all that generates heat so to disperse it you need a cooler. The CPU comes with a cooler but many articles say if your going to overclock to get something bigger. A lot of my friends who have build computers have air-cooled their computers, so I want to be different by liquid cooling it. There are two ways to do this one is to make your own loop, this is way to risky for me for my first time as any leaks will fry all the components. So instead I am getting a AIO cooler. This is manufactured by companies with warranties and are tested for leaks. This only goes on the CPU which is perfect for my situation. After looking around at different ones I ended up choosing the Thermaltake Floe Ring 240. This is the middle size between 120 and 360, and it has RGB around the fans and cooler. This will help add a nice effect to the overall system.
Another component that computers need is ram. After some research I learned that there are many different speeds of ram. From 2666MHz to 3200MHz. This meant nothing to me but I wanted to know if it would effect my system. As is turns out AMD Ryzen CPU's heavily benefit from faster memory. They work faster and make the system faster. This is not the case if Intel CPU's the are not as greatly affected by faster memory. Since I am on a budget instead of going for the top of the line ram I am going with 3000MHz. This should help my system but is cheaper. If though its not much the money saved can be put toward other things. Also after watching YouTube comparisons the difference was negligible. I also wanted to continue on the RGB theme so I picked the cheapest one with RGB. I ended up choosing the G.Skill Trident Z RGB (2 x 8) kit of ram. My decision on getting 16gb instead of higher or lower is that video editing takes quite a bit of ram, but when you go higher than 16gb the prices get exponentially larger.
For storage I went with a duel drive set up. SSD's are new technology and it is significantly faster than normal hard drives. They are also smaller and more compact. For that reason my OS will be put on a SSD. I am going with the lowest capacity 250gb which also allows me to put frequently used apps on it. Along with this to make it faster I am going to use the latest M.2 form which allows it to connect directly on the motherboard. This makes it even faster and is well forth the premium. For my mass video and game storage I am going to get a normal hard drive. Since 4K video files and triple A title games are pretty big I am going for a 3 terabyte hard drive. This is the best value as per gigabyte it is cheaper and it is faster. So for the boot drive I got the Samsung 970 Evo 250gb, or mass storage I went with the Seagate BarraCuda 3TB 7200rpm.
Every computer needs a graphic card. Recently there was a mining craze that drove GPU prices 250%. This was ridiculous and buying a card at that time would have been a waste of money. After waiting it out the prices are normal for Nvidia card, not so much on the Vega side. So this instantly made me want a Nvidia card which one? To work on videos and photos you need to be able to render them after the edits and effects. For this a beefy GPU is necessary. This locked me on either a 1070, 1070ti, 1080 or 1080ti. Making progress down to four cards, but there was a problem, 1070 and 1070ti's are nowhere to be found. I can't find them for their MSRP. So that put at two cards. Now as I have said I am on a budget so I went with the lower tier 1080. Not to say that its bad, it can run 4K games at 120fps and is great at rendering. The 1080ti my be faster, but it costs double a 1080, but doesn't give double the performance. I do not want to mess with the card because it is the most expensive part so I am getting a branded card that has already been overclocked for me. This insures that if anything goes wrong it will be in my warranty. Since the motherboard is an Asus ROG Strix, the 1080 ROG Strix was the best choice. Also it was the cheapest as it was below its original MSRP. This took forever to decide as their are many options for graphics cards, and then you have to decide from which brand to get it from.
All the parts to computer have been acquired besides the thing that powers it all. The PSU takes power from the wall and transfers it to all the components. Pcpartpickers is great in that it tells you how much power your system is using so you can buy an appropriate PSU. The website currently states that the system will use 374W. This is the average the system will use while running normal tasks like games and other apps, but since I will be editing 4K this could push all the cores to run at max which could draw 550W. So to be absolute sure that I have enough wattage I got a 850W Gold power supply. The Gold signifies its quality which means this is second best. The 800W makes it so I gave me 100% confidence in that I would have enough power for the system. I went with a EVGA Super Nova 850W. This is more than I needed but the best value and had the highest ratings. If your power supply is bad it could destroy the entire system.
The final piece to the puzzle is the case. The only requirements I had for it were that its COOL and that its under $200. My first choice was the Cooler Master H500p Mesh. This case I really wanted because I loved the previous iteration but it had some flaws, especially that the panels were flimsy and the front was cover. So when this one came out they fixed all the issues and its perfect. At $150 its a little on the high end but it has everything I want and looks amazing. It is all white which will be nice as the motherboard and graphics card are black.
The second component in the computer that is necessary is the motherboard. This houses and powers the CPU and also connects all the components to the CPU. Yesterday I decided on the AMD platform and the CPU's that they make fit in the AM4 socket. This is different for older CPU's and Intel CPU's as the socket is made by the CPU company for their needs. AMD last year released the Ryzen 1000 line up which brought the B350 and the X370 motherboards. Science the new Ryzen 2000 CPU's launched along came B450 and X470 motherboards. The older boards brand new are still cheaper than the new ones so I decided to research if they are compatible with the Ryzen 2600. It turns out they are! But you need to flash the BIOS on the motherboards to get it to work. After researching how to do this I learned that this is also highly risky. If the computer looses power or you flash the wrong BIOS you would brick the motherboard and possibly lock the CPU. The price difference between X370 and X470 board is $30. I decided I would rather spend $30 now then have to buy a new $150 motherboard and $200 CPU. After I decided on the newer boards, I started reading about the differences between the B450 and X470 I decided that the features that the Asus ROG Strix X470 brought were worth the premium. This board brought M.2 slots and a lot of overclocking headroom.
The CPU generates a lot of heat. The actually transistors in the CPU are only on a 12 nanometer piece of silicon. But all that generates heat so to disperse it you need a cooler. The CPU comes with a cooler but many articles say if your going to overclock to get something bigger. A lot of my friends who have build computers have air-cooled their computers, so I want to be different by liquid cooling it. There are two ways to do this one is to make your own loop, this is way to risky for me for my first time as any leaks will fry all the components. So instead I am getting a AIO cooler. This is manufactured by companies with warranties and are tested for leaks. This only goes on the CPU which is perfect for my situation. After looking around at different ones I ended up choosing the Thermaltake Floe Ring 240. This is the middle size between 120 and 360, and it has RGB around the fans and cooler. This will help add a nice effect to the overall system.
Another component that computers need is ram. After some research I learned that there are many different speeds of ram. From 2666MHz to 3200MHz. This meant nothing to me but I wanted to know if it would effect my system. As is turns out AMD Ryzen CPU's heavily benefit from faster memory. They work faster and make the system faster. This is not the case if Intel CPU's the are not as greatly affected by faster memory. Since I am on a budget instead of going for the top of the line ram I am going with 3000MHz. This should help my system but is cheaper. If though its not much the money saved can be put toward other things. Also after watching YouTube comparisons the difference was negligible. I also wanted to continue on the RGB theme so I picked the cheapest one with RGB. I ended up choosing the G.Skill Trident Z RGB (2 x 8) kit of ram. My decision on getting 16gb instead of higher or lower is that video editing takes quite a bit of ram, but when you go higher than 16gb the prices get exponentially larger.
For storage I went with a duel drive set up. SSD's are new technology and it is significantly faster than normal hard drives. They are also smaller and more compact. For that reason my OS will be put on a SSD. I am going with the lowest capacity 250gb which also allows me to put frequently used apps on it. Along with this to make it faster I am going to use the latest M.2 form which allows it to connect directly on the motherboard. This makes it even faster and is well forth the premium. For my mass video and game storage I am going to get a normal hard drive. Since 4K video files and triple A title games are pretty big I am going for a 3 terabyte hard drive. This is the best value as per gigabyte it is cheaper and it is faster. So for the boot drive I got the Samsung 970 Evo 250gb, or mass storage I went with the Seagate BarraCuda 3TB 7200rpm.
Every computer needs a graphic card. Recently there was a mining craze that drove GPU prices 250%. This was ridiculous and buying a card at that time would have been a waste of money. After waiting it out the prices are normal for Nvidia card, not so much on the Vega side. So this instantly made me want a Nvidia card which one? To work on videos and photos you need to be able to render them after the edits and effects. For this a beefy GPU is necessary. This locked me on either a 1070, 1070ti, 1080 or 1080ti. Making progress down to four cards, but there was a problem, 1070 and 1070ti's are nowhere to be found. I can't find them for their MSRP. So that put at two cards. Now as I have said I am on a budget so I went with the lower tier 1080. Not to say that its bad, it can run 4K games at 120fps and is great at rendering. The 1080ti my be faster, but it costs double a 1080, but doesn't give double the performance. I do not want to mess with the card because it is the most expensive part so I am getting a branded card that has already been overclocked for me. This insures that if anything goes wrong it will be in my warranty. Since the motherboard is an Asus ROG Strix, the 1080 ROG Strix was the best choice. Also it was the cheapest as it was below its original MSRP. This took forever to decide as their are many options for graphics cards, and then you have to decide from which brand to get it from.
All the parts to computer have been acquired besides the thing that powers it all. The PSU takes power from the wall and transfers it to all the components. Pcpartpickers is great in that it tells you how much power your system is using so you can buy an appropriate PSU. The website currently states that the system will use 374W. This is the average the system will use while running normal tasks like games and other apps, but since I will be editing 4K this could push all the cores to run at max which could draw 550W. So to be absolute sure that I have enough wattage I got a 850W Gold power supply. The Gold signifies its quality which means this is second best. The 800W makes it so I gave me 100% confidence in that I would have enough power for the system. I went with a EVGA Super Nova 850W. This is more than I needed but the best value and had the highest ratings. If your power supply is bad it could destroy the entire system.
The final piece to the puzzle is the case. The only requirements I had for it were that its COOL and that its under $200. My first choice was the Cooler Master H500p Mesh. This case I really wanted because I loved the previous iteration but it had some flaws, especially that the panels were flimsy and the front was cover. So when this one came out they fixed all the issues and its perfect. At $150 its a little on the high end but it has everything I want and looks amazing. It is all white which will be nice as the motherboard and graphics card are black.
Blog Posts
June 8th 2018
Finally decided on my CPU. I ended up with AMD as they are cheaper and preform about the same. This probably the second hardest thing to choose, the graphics card is going to be tough. Today I learned what value for performance means. Intel preformed a little better but AMD had similar performance for a better value.
June 9th 2018
The motherboard I am going to get is the Asus ROG Strix X470. This looked better and had a few more features that I liked. Also I will not have to update my bios which is to risky for me. This also allows me flexibility as I can get a second graphics card. This was a true test of patience as there are SO MANY different ones to choose from. But I am on summer break and got nothing better to do.
June 12th 2018
The hardest choice of all! Which graphics card to choose! So many options with so many advantages. The Asus card is the best, its under MSRP and preforms like a beast. It also matches my motherboard which is an added bonus. Also its already overclocked, which saves me from doing it as it is the most expensive part in the system.
June 13th 2018
The case is great and looks fantastic, but I have hit a major snag. Its not available at microcenter or on Amazon for MSRP! Looking around I found a few on Newegg, but they are charging $10 shipping. I think I am going to have to pay for that as the cases at microcenter are not really that pleasing.
June 15th 2018
The case is here and it looks amazing! Its go time. Went to microcenter and bought the parts. Started building, the first steps easy to follow, but now I am on my own to install the cooler.
June 16th 2018
Installed the GPU and finished the build. Booted and posted on first try! The CPU cooler did not work the first time because I accident disconnected its power cable! Called my friend over after going to his Grad party and we decided that cable management is useless and slapped the back panel on. Started working on the USB windows installer.
June 17th 2018
Got windows installed an working. Major network issues couldn't figure out the problem, but it turned out the be the router. Used a different method and got all the drivers installed. Got a few games going to test the system and it handled it with ease.
June 18th 2018
Installed RGB sync software and the stress testers to verify that the system was good. The fans did their job and the system stayed cool. The computer is now complete and working at 100%.
Finally decided on my CPU. I ended up with AMD as they are cheaper and preform about the same. This probably the second hardest thing to choose, the graphics card is going to be tough. Today I learned what value for performance means. Intel preformed a little better but AMD had similar performance for a better value.
June 9th 2018
The motherboard I am going to get is the Asus ROG Strix X470. This looked better and had a few more features that I liked. Also I will not have to update my bios which is to risky for me. This also allows me flexibility as I can get a second graphics card. This was a true test of patience as there are SO MANY different ones to choose from. But I am on summer break and got nothing better to do.
June 12th 2018
The hardest choice of all! Which graphics card to choose! So many options with so many advantages. The Asus card is the best, its under MSRP and preforms like a beast. It also matches my motherboard which is an added bonus. Also its already overclocked, which saves me from doing it as it is the most expensive part in the system.
June 13th 2018
The case is great and looks fantastic, but I have hit a major snag. Its not available at microcenter or on Amazon for MSRP! Looking around I found a few on Newegg, but they are charging $10 shipping. I think I am going to have to pay for that as the cases at microcenter are not really that pleasing.
June 15th 2018
The case is here and it looks amazing! Its go time. Went to microcenter and bought the parts. Started building, the first steps easy to follow, but now I am on my own to install the cooler.
June 16th 2018
Installed the GPU and finished the build. Booted and posted on first try! The CPU cooler did not work the first time because I accident disconnected its power cable! Called my friend over after going to his Grad party and we decided that cable management is useless and slapped the back panel on. Started working on the USB windows installer.
June 17th 2018
Got windows installed an working. Major network issues couldn't figure out the problem, but it turned out the be the router. Used a different method and got all the drivers installed. Got a few games going to test the system and it handled it with ease.
June 18th 2018
Installed RGB sync software and the stress testers to verify that the system was good. The fans did their job and the system stayed cool. The computer is now complete and working at 100%.