First build (newbie) advice

[bs0jdd]

Hi all,

Appreciate any responses in advance. I'm looking to build a gaming PC for son, to be honest he currently is just playing Fortnite on a console but will be interested in 1-2 other games and want to try and future-proof to a degree with a decent build.

I am new to PC building (well, maybe did some 20+ yrs ago!), so not up on all of the lingo and latest, so please be gentle

I want to go for a DDR5 motherboard, and for ease although perhaps more expensive I thought it might be easier to try and stick with Corsair components (case, CPU cooler, fans, PSU, etc) as my theory is it should be more straightforward to fit all together if same manufacturer...

I'm buying in bits every few weeks when I see something on sale and/or have some spare funds. I've already bought a CPU (oops, locked into Intel) and a PSU, so these are probably set in stone.

Already purchased:
CPU: Intel i7 12700F
PSU: Corsair RM750x (750W) 80 plus gold

Current plan (please advise/feedback on!):
Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow (or 3000D??)
Motherboard: MSI Z790 Gaming Plus WiFi ATX for Intel (??)
CPU Cooler: Corsair iCUE LINK TITAN 280 RX RGB Liquid CPU Cooler
RAM: Currently thinking a 4 x 16GB DDR5-6000, CL30 ??
SSD: Min 1TB NVME PCIe4.0 X4 of some sort
GPU: Probably something like a 4060 Ti or similar

I'm most concerned about choosing the right motherboard, I was looking at Asus Z790 but saw a lot of reviews saying poor customer support and issues with bios - I want as minimal post-build messing about as possible, so that put me off. I'm also drawn to a Z790 but this may be overshooting what I need (?) and is a Z790 board right in the price-point (around £200-250) that I am looking at for a Mobo?

Any other general thoughts and advice very welcome! Thanks v much.

 

[bs0jdd]

Awesome replies, thank you all very much and thanks for the warm welcome. Will look into each of these options in more detail! I think I might have to stick with the 12th gen i7 given the timing (I got it sub-£200 on sale but it is outside returns window...lesson learnt!), but hopefully intel will sort out in the next few years for post-14th gen, whatever their issue is?!

Thanks again, am sure I'll be back with more questions soon...

 

[bs0jdd]

Thanks again for all of the very helpful replies, some saving, planning and ordering to do! No doubt I'll be back at some point for build advice...

 

[bs0jdd]

Hi folks, hope all had a great Christmas and looking forward to the New Year.

I just wanted to bump this post up to say thank you to everyone who gave such helpful advice on this thread. I was quite nervous building for the first time, I think I lucked out (maybe?) that the original case I was going to get was OOS and so I went for the Antec C5 in the end - I cannot recommend this case enough (OK, n=1 of experience here), but for ~£95 it has 7 pre-installed RGB fans, a lovely glass case but importantly LOADS of room to install everything and it was very straight-forward on that side. It is a beast of a case though (quite wide)!

I finally finished my build the other day, switched it on and to initial horror, none of the case fans spun but it did enter BIOS and so my expensive (for me) GPU was working, lit up, and it recognised the installed RAM and CPU etc, and the CPU fans were spinning (phew!). My second horror was in BIOS under storage I couldn't see my SSD there, but that was overcome with some relief when I realised the MSI BIOS menu you could press left and right I think on the storage menu and it would switch between SATA and PCIe - relief when I saw my SSD in there (I have no SATA HDD).

I then thought it must be a power connection to the fans, the only downside of this case is the fans at the bottom block accessing some of by Mobo's connections (such as the case USB/LED/button control, and the system fans, etc), so you have to unscrew 2 of these fans, that was easy enough though (good case!) and I noticed the sys fan cable appeared perhaps not quite fully plugged in. Powered up, didn't fix it to my dismay, so then accessed under the SATA panel below the PSU where I thought the case ARGB control was, and noticed surprise, surprise (Duh) there was a power connector with nothing in it that looked unlike anything I used so checked my Corsair unused power cables and realised it was a SATA power cable. Plugged that in, easy cabling from the PSU, reassembled and boom - all lit up, spinning etc, and then onto figuring out how to download windows onto a USB stick from my laptop and install.

Big thanks to all for your help with picking the setup! In the end I went for:

CPU: Intel i7 12700K
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE dual tower
MOBO: MSI MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast 2 x 16GB DDR5-6000 CL30
Storage: Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB PCI-e 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD
GPU: Zotac Twin Edge OC GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12GB
Case: Antec C5 ARGB ATX
PSU: Corsair RM750x
OS: Windows 11 Home

PS - I know, I know, cable management is not great, but this is not a strength of mine and was just pleased I got it built and working!!

 

[bs0jdd]

Normally you mount a cooler facing front to back so it draws cool air from the front of the case. You will be drawing hot air off the gpu which is not ideal but I dont know how much difference it will make in reality.

Thanks for this, I wasn't thinking as much about the direction of airflow as much as the physical fit. It seemed to me as I was playing with this way or the reverse that the Phantom cooler is actually asymmetric. Having it the other way meant that it clashed with the RAM slot, at least it was directly over the closest installed RAM and likely touching/pushing it which I thought was not going to work at worst and at best sub-optimal.

If you look at the first picture you can see how close it is to the installed RAM and if you imagine that the unit is asymmetric in that installing the other way it is closer to the RAM, you might see why I ended up in this configuration!