So, I've put together a build and I'm looking for advice/critiques. This is the first time I've done this, so please do not hesitate to tell me if I did something dumb.

My budget is about $1100 for parts + OS. There's some wiggle room there, but not much. I am willing to upgrade things later down the line as needed, though.

The most important thing about this machine is that it needs to be able to run the Sims 3 very well. I will play other games but the only thing I'm really concerned about high performance with is the Sims 3.


The build is here

Some notes: it says i5-3570k but I'm planning on getting the i5-3570, there just wasn't an option for that for some reason. Same price tho, as the price listed for 3570k is a sale that's now over.

Also I'm not married to any of the parts, in fact I would be very much surprised if I didn't change anything. The only thing I'm really attached to is the processor, and at most that's an unofficial engagement rather than a marriage, ha.

I did have a bunch of questions though, so I hope you can indulge me and answer a few if you could.

1. Budgeting- One thing I've found really hard to determine is how much I should be spending on these parts, comparatively. Especially as regards to the CPU, GPU and mobo, what should I be spending on these parts in comparison with the others? I've heard that CPU and GPU should be around the same price bracket, but I'm not really sure about the motherboard.

2. RAM- Does the manufacturer of the RAM matter? I'm a bit nervous about the Patriot brand I chose because it was so cheap, but it had good reviews and I figure it's really easy to upgrade later. Is 8 gigs sufficient? Also if I buy additional memory later, is it a bad idea to mix and match manufacturers?

3. SSD- Will it make the computer significantly faster to use an SSD for Windows and possibly the Sims? Or would it be better to take the money I was going to spend on that and invest it in other parts?

4. Windows- Does the version of Windows 7 I get matter? Are the more expensive versions just because of add'tl features or do they run better? Is Home Premium sufficient for my needs?

4. PSU- So I've been told a million times in a million places not to cheap out and get whatever the hell PSU. What qualifies as good here, though? Are there certain brands I should prefer/avoid? Is 80+ certification good enough to make the PSU suitable no matter what the manufacturer?
Also, I've been looking at modular PSU, because they look like they might make my life significantly easier vis a vis cord management. Is it worth it in your opinion or is this not a big a deal as I think it is.

5. Cases- Are there any features in cases I should look out for to make my life easier? Any recommendations for manufacturers to look for?


I'm sorry about the abundance of questions and text. This is, as I've mentioned, my first time and I'm a little nervous.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this novella, hah, and especially thanks in advance to anyone who can respond with some answers/advice.

For the CPU the first thing you're going to need to decide is if you're going to overclock or not. To overclock you need three things: a K CPU, a Z77 motherboard, and an aftermarket CPU fan. The premium on the combination of CPU/mobo/CPU fan upgrades adds up to $100 and up. If you're 100% positive you're not going to overclock, save the $100 and get the cheapest i5 (of the latest architecture, which in this case is Ivy Bridge) that's standard voltage. Right now that seems to be the i5 3470 3.2 Ghz at $185.00. If your budget allows it, then get the K CPU + stuff.

Once you know which CPU you want, you can choose your motherboard. Get H77 if you're not going to overclock, Z77 if you are. This generation you can't really go wrong with motherboard. Just read up on the features each board offers and choose the one that has the features you want. They all perform similarly. What you get when you pay extra is more slots, more SATA, more USB, better look, integrated WiFi, better BIOS etc. If you don't need all those features then get the cheapest you can get as long as its one of the following brands: ASUS, GIGABYTE, ASROCK, MSI, INTEL.

The only additional thing to keep in mind is the form factor. The ones that concern you are Micro ATX and Standard ATX (or just ATX). Micro ATX is more compact, less features and usually cheaper. If you are ever going to use more than one videocard, do not get a Micro ATX board. It'll heat up fast. If you're only going to use one videocard, then get whatever is cheapest and has the features you want.

For RAM get the cheapest 2x4GB DDR3 1600 Mhz 1.5V RAM that appears on the motherboard's Qualified Vendors List for Memory. If you're still over budget after having cut everywhere else, you can get DDR3 1333 Mhz instead. Here's the link for the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 that you chose: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.u...=Z77%20Extreme4

OS: Windows 7 64bit Home Premium OEM should be good enough.

PSU is probably going to be your hardest decision to make. Take your time and the advice you got. Go research every single PSU you are considering and read the reviews. If you want a quick and dirty option, get the Corsair PSUs. They are reliable but not necessarily the cheapest. As for how many Watts you're going to need, that can be calculated. Find a review for the videocard you want, and see how much power their system drew. If they were using a 130W CPU and their total system draw at its highest load was 350W, and if you assume the graphics card drew 350-130=220W then that's a safe number. In reality the GPU draws less but its close enough and leaves room for error. So if you assume your GPU draws 220W, and your i5 3470 only draws 95W, then you need a PSU that can provide 220W+95W=315W on the 12V rail which comes out to 315W/12V=26.25A. So you need a PSU that says "+12V: 26.25A" approx. I like to add another 25% just to be safe, to leave room for overclocking and account for decrease in performance over the years. So I'd look for a PSU that has 32.5A+ on the 12V rail. Even with 32A you know that you have plenty of juice for the CPU and the GPU and all your fans and hard drives and overclocking. A quality 500W PSU should be able to provide 32A no problem. For example the Corsair CX500 v2 provides 34A.

There's more to PSUs than that, like noise, efficiency under load and cable issues, but the biggest is the one mentioned above.

For cases I like Cooler Master, Antec, Fractal Design, NZXT and Corsair. Choose whatever fits your budget and pick it last. Make sure it fits your requirements. Post back once you have all your other components and we can help you pick one out.

Adding my 2cents to ajaxsirius' post.

OS: Home Premium is enough unless you want to use more than the maximum RAM limit imposed or need the features the other editions offered. Which as an average home user we won't ever need to go beyond 32GB RAM, or have use for the networking-centric features the other editions have.

The recommended brands for RAMs, PSUs & Cases are all in the sticky. And it also has some other tips, if you have not read it.

PSU: modular does cost more, but if you can afford it, this gives you great flexibility. I love mine!

Case: look around your desk and see how many devices and other peripherals you need to connect. Scanner, printer, phone, tablets, cameras, speakers? Do you have USB 3.0 devices or hoping to get one in the future? Thunderbolt devices, etc etc. How many ports at the back supplied by the motherboard versus those for easy access at the front. Washable filters are a blessing if you have pets. Closing flaps/panels may be more of a hindrance if you swap music CDs/movie DVDs all the time. Also, decide now if it is going to be placed on the floor or desk.
Floor placement - do the USB ports cause the cables to stick out and get in the way of your legs? Are the ports reachable with just extending the arm or do you need to bend down? Ports "plug-able" at the top is preferable to the cases with ports at the front or even those at the middle of the front cover.
Table placement - noise cancellation foam if you're sensitive to the slightest noise, ports placement again. If you're gonna have the case on the desk, the ports need to be in the front and not the top.
Then with all those features you need, decide if the cost justify it.

Thank you both very much, your advice is very helpful. So I tweaked my build from my previous post, still at the same place: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/gSb8

And that's what I came up. I'd like some feedback.

The thing is, right now it costs like $850 without a case, as I still haven't decided on one. Assuming I spend less than $100 for the case, I'm still $150 under my budget, which I really did not expect to be. Is there something I'm neglecting that I should throw more money at? Any parts I should swap out for different parts? Anything I forgot entirely?

You didn't add RAM.

Edit: The G.Skill DDR3 1600Mhz 1.5V RAM that was officially tested (according to http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.u...=H77%20Pro4/MVP) was F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL, which is a 4x4GB kit. The 2x4GB kit, G.Skill F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL, should work just as well even though its not in the QVL. Personally I'd go with F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR, since it color matches your motherboard

I did have RAM listed, it's the custom part at the bottom. It was the cheapest I found on Newegg at the time that was on the vendor list. But I do like the G.Skill you suggested better and it is a coupla dollars cheaper, which is always good. One thing though, is that the one listed on the QVL is the low voltage edition (same part number except there's a 2 on the end.) So the regular 1.5V edition will work well even though it isn't on the list?

It should work. 1.5V is the standard voltage for DDR3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM). That's the baseline that every H77 motherboard and DDR3 RAM manufacturer is supposed to be able to meet, which helps ensure compatibility. Lower voltage RAM *should* also work but its a different standard and is usually more expensive and the motherboard might not necessarily support Lower voltage DDR3. It's usually for people who like to overclock their RAM. The H77 motherboard we're looking at right now does officially support F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2, but its also more expensive than 1.5V RAM.

Edit: Since it looks you're still under budget, I would recommend waiting a few weeks to see if the 660 Ti drops in price, then upgrade from the 7850 to a 660 Ti for about $60 more. There are rumors that price drops are incoming for the 660 Ti.

Edit: OR! Get a Asus DCUII 7870 2GB for $253.49 - $10 coupon code: SCRIMMAGE (Expires September 10, 2012) - $20 Mail in Rebate, expires September 30, 2012 (Apply at Checkout) + $49.99 Free game coupon for Sleeping Dogs (Truly great game, ajaxsirius approved!) = $223.49 Free shipping

More info from: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2268523

Oh, cool! I had looked at the 660 Ti, but decided the performance increase wasn't worth the price difference. If it's going to drop soon, though, that might make it worth it. I was thinking I'd try to get the rest of the parts within the next week or so, but I think I could probably stand to wait a little bit for the graphics card. I'll see.
The Asus also looks pretty good. I missed the $10 coupon but it looks there's a $5 one that's still valid. I already have Sleeping Dogs for the PS3 though, lol.

I think I might have decided to go ahead and get the Z77 motherboard and the i5-3570k. I have never overclocked before, and I'm not even 100% sure it's something I wanna do, but I have been reading about it and think it's certainly something I'm capable of, if I do it carefully. I think I'd prefer paying a little extra to have the option and never using it, rather than saving a little money and locking myself out of something entirely. I'm weird like that. I think I'm going to wait to buy the aftermarket CPU cooler until I actually decide to bite that bullet.

So newegg's giving away RAM with the Z77 motherboard I was looking at, but I would actually have to purchase it by the end of tonight. So I don't know about all that, ha.

I completely agree with that. I got myself the 3570K even though I only plan on overclocking when it is no longer running new games at the fps I want. Right now, today, the 3507K at stock is powerful enough for all single player games. Even Skyrim with mods. If that changes in three or four years, then I'll be happy to have spent the extra money and be able to over clock to 4.2, 4.4 and beyond. It'll extend the life of the entire system just long enough to make a complete overhaul worthwhile.

Exactly what I thought. Now I feel validated, ha.

Well. It feels so weird to have all this stuff picked out. I have no idea what do with my time now that I'm not researching parts, ha. It was fun! I did have a few more questions though:

So Windows... given that I don't plan on changing out the motherboard for the forseeable future and I've literally never called Microsoft support, I plan on getting OEM Windows 7. Is there something I'm overlooking that would make the retail version at all worth the extra hundred bucks or so?

Also, the SSD I have picked out is 128gbs. Will that be enough for Windows and Sims 3 + expansions? Based on the install sizes, it seems like it would be okay, but I don't know how much space Windows 7 needs to play nice.

And finally, the question of my nightmares: If I happen to get a part that's defective, and as such the whole shebang doesn't work, how do I determine which part/parts are faulty? Because this has kind of been haunting my dreams. Ha

There's no diffrence about OEM and retail version when it comes to content, the diffrence is that with OEM it gets locked to the computer it's first installed on when activated, the retail one doens't have that limitation.

128GB should be enough, it depends though how much you plan on keeping in user folders, like pictures, videos and of course amount of cc, saved games and other stuff related to game, it can grow quickly, i had to "move" my folder to another drive since i was running out of space on C: (my Sims3 folder with saved games and other stuff have grown to about 25GB, i have been playing almost from game release, and just copied back folders when doing reinstall).
To put it like this Windows wants about 20-25GB free space to operate smoothly.

About if something isn't working, that's trial & error approach, using parts one know is working if something isn't working, trying on another computer.. i think you get the idea.

like Belzader said, OEM ties itself to the first machine it installs itself to. The Key can legally only be used once. Retail can be used on only one desktop and one laptop at any given time. Which means if you buy retail, you can install it on one machine and a laptop that you personally own and use yourself. Then if you decide to get rid of the old desktop, you can legally re-use the retail key on a new desktop, provided you don't use the old one. You may or may not have to re-activate. Also the Retail package comes with discs for both the 32bit and 64bit versions of Windows and the key is valid for both versions, if that is worth anything to you.

Most people buy OEM Win7 64bit when they build their own machine.

And like Belzader said 128GB should be just enough for Win7+TS3+expansions+mods. However you may need to move all other documents (and you should anyway) to another hard drive.

Troubleshooting faulty parts can be a pain in the ass and it's not something I can or want to summarize in a post, I'd take too long >< You basically look for certain cues that hint at what parts are faulty, do trial and error. Replacing parts with known good parts helps a lot too.

Did you decide what case you wanted to get?

Okay good, that's what I thought. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking anything. OEM it is, then

I do have a computer case picked out, I think I'm going to get this one
I had planned on getting a plain but well made case for less, but apparently I'm more influenceable by exciting things than I thought, ha. But it seems like a solid case anyways.

Yes that case looks good. And you know what they say, "DA RED WUNZ GO FASTA!"

Lol! Perfect.

So I have everything purchased except the PSU and the SSD. Oh, and the video card, but I'm going to wait until next week or so to get that.

So I had some questions (of course)
I was thinking about getting this power supply: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/ocz-po...pply-ocz600mxsp
instead of this one as I had originally planned: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/pc-pow...pply-ppcmk3s500

Except the first one is 600w and I'm not sure if that would be overkill or not. You had recommended 500W for me which is pretty in line with calculators I've used, and PC Part Picker currently has my build at 311, I believe.
The 600W one is like 20 dollars cheaper? So not a huge deal, but certainly a deal. From the reviews I read it doesn't seem like a thing that's going to set my house on fire, ha.


So for the SSD, I decided to upgrade from the Kingston SSDnow V200 I had picked out to... anything else, because it didn't get very good reviews. Write now I'm trying to decide between a 256gb OCZ Agility 4 for 160 (140 after a rebate) or a 128gb OCZ Vertex 4 for 100 (90 after rebate). The vertex 4 definitely looks like it performs better, but I honestly have no idea how those numbers translate to everyday use. I'm not sure if the difference is something I'd notice?
I'm going to want more than 128 gbs eventually, but it's a thing that can totally wait if the difference in quality is appreciable. So what do you think?

As far as I can tell both PSU's are of similar quality, so if the OCZ PSU is cheaper, I can't see why not.

I would really recommend against OCZ for the SSD though. Apparently they're really unreliable. I would go with either Samsung 830 series, or Intel. I have a Samsung 830 myself and I've had no problems.

Well. I just wanted to pop back in and let you guys know... I BUILT A COMPUTER! I had some minor setbacks, and I'm not entirely done yet, as I haven't installed Windows and right now my cables look like they were thrown in there by a pack of drunk monkeys, but I did assemble the rest of it and it turns on like it's supposed to. I'm terribly, terribly excited, proud, and most of all thankful, because there's no way I would have even attempted this without this forum. I just wanted to thank you guys, especially ajaxsirius, for helping me do this and answering all my dumb questions. Thanks guys!

Yay! Congrats! It's fun, isn't it

Make sure to keep your receipts, photocopy the ones printed on thermal paper, in case you have to RMA anything later on. I also keep the original boxes and packaging just in case I want to gift it later or resell it, but that's just me.

Also when you install Windows, make sure the only hard drive connected at the time of installation is the one you want it to be installed on. If you're using any other additional drives, connect them after windows is installed.

Here's a starter video on cable management: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xKIiAu4rio

It was! It was crazy satisfying too. It was one of the prouder moments in my life when I booted it up for the first time and it actually worked.

I do have a question though. I did install Windows with only the SSD connected, and I just got around to connecting the HDD today. I went to format it and realized that it was set as Disk 0 and my boot drive was set as Disk 1 in the storage device manager. Is this a problem? And if so, how do I fix it? I checked the BIOS settings and as far as I can tell, they're set in the correct order of priority.

I'm not sure. I haven't encountered this myself. I would turn off the computer, disconnect the traditional HDD and do the following:

1. Make sure the SSD is connected to the SATA port labelled "SATA3_0", assuming you're still using the ASRock H77Pro4 MVP from your previous build.
2. Boot into BIOS and check that SATA setting is set to AHCI mode.
3. Boot into windows and check that SSD is now set to disk 0.

If that works, reboot with HDD connected to a SATA2 (!) port, like the one labelled SATA2_2 and then check again.

How the drives are physically connected doesn't matter, what matters is how one set them up in BIOS, like for example you have can 3 drives and boot from the 2:nd.or the 3;de, by changing the order of them in BIOS or by setting which drive is the boot one.
Though in this case since m-board have SATA-3 like ajaxsirius wrote the SSD should be connected to that.

I have nothing to add to ajaxsirius' and Belzader's suggestions in their post. I just wanted to congratulate you on your first System Build!