New build advice please, newbie!

Allotmentman

Allotmentman

Allotmentman

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Joined
20 Jul 2014
Posts
47
Hi

I am on a very limited budget and I am new to the ole self build thing. I have done a lot of research and have specced the following but want to be certain I haven't overlooked anything so would greatly appreciate any advice that you can offer. My budget is £400 and I have managed to price the below at £390 posted. I already have a keyboard, mouse and screen and a DVD rewrites/drive and will only need to source a windows package.

AMD Athlon X4 760K

MSI A78M-E35

Sapphire Radeon R7 260X

8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport

1TB Western Digital Black

430W Corsair CX430

Corsair SPEC-01

Wi-Fi Adapter – Asus USB-N53

Case Fan – Corsair AF120

So is the anything I am overlooking or anything I can improve for a little more money? I'm mostly looking to game as well as work on my photography. Thank you again for all of your help.
 
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Any other opinions before I order and build. I'm definitely going to be gaming a fair bit so would like the best graphics card I can get, even if it's another £20-30. Shiny has certainly given me food for thought but as a newbie I want to get a couple of options to compare, like buying a car.

All help and opinions appreciated.
 
Hi Shivy, just a quick question. If I wasn't confident with the Pentium chip what would be the next best option. I only ask as I have been researching everything you say and I am very impressed but in this review I got all excited until the end where it's basically suggested that this shouldn't really be used as a gaming pc chip. Please don't think I'm doubting, I am again just trying to learn.
 
Shivy011 said:
Hmm, from the benchmarks I've seen the Pentium is a very capable gaming chip, utilising very strong single core performance - perhaps in more multi-core games like BF4 it falls behind cheap quad cores, but definitely I'd stick with the Pentium. Anyway, for the photo editing the Pentium will destroy anything else at the same price point.
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Hi Shivy, thank you for that, much appreciated. So going forward as I'm keen to get these bits ordered tomorrow if I look forward to upgrading when I have more money what would I look to do next to improve the gaming credentials on the computer. What would my next step be processor wise, i5/ 7 and with the graphics what would be the next sensible jump up? Anything else I should know?

I'm sorry to ask so much but you have been so kind to offer the information you have I feel compelled to keep asking as you clearly know your stuff and have the respect of others here. Thank you again!!
 
Brilliant, I'll make a note of those add ons then. So finally as I nearly forgot, would I have to have windows 8.1 or could I run something earlier as I'm not a big fan but appreciate I need something.
 
Ok I'm just adding my order now but I love the idea of the r9 270 x. There is quite a few though so which at £130 should I order? And Shivy which I3 would you suggest?
 
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Shivy that's absolutely wonderful, thank you very much. So now I have a decent spec pc which can run games on higher setting and allows me to process big file photos. Next step is the build.......might need help on that too. Perhaps I can post pics of me doing it like your wonderful build.

Thank you all very much, what a super community!
 
Well as of this morning all of the parts have been ordered, the only change being the case which is still the same one but is now black and red as opposed to white but that's it. Wish me luck in the build. Whilst I appreciate I have been told it's easy I'll wait to judge if that's really the case. I have still yet to set up all of the systems and understand that in fact that's the trickiest bit. All parts arrive tomorrow so will post up a pic of it all. Postman is going to love me!
 
Doomedspeed said:
Best of luck. :)

These delivery people will be used to it one of our member gets (it seems) 4 of the newest GPU delivered on release day.. At least you aren't that bad. :D

Build wise each person has their own method, just figure out what you want to do and do it, don't do more than one thing at once.

The way I approach a build is like this:

1) Assemble Motherboard, CPU and RAM (outside of case)
2) Add air cooler (trust me this is much easier than doing it while in the case, attach the fan cables to the motherboard at this point too)
3) Put PSU, HDDs, ODs and SSDs in case and attach PSU cables to these and attach SATA cables (use the case tidying system).
4) Drop in your assembled motherboard and Connect PSU cables and case cables.
5) Drop in GPU, assemble to Case and attach PSU cables.

Though there is no definitive way. :)

We are here to help if/when you need us. :)
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Great advice and it will be adhered to I promise. If anyone needs advice on cars or photography or in business I can reciprocate the help.

I'll keep you all posted!
 
P.s If you want a laugh I doing this because my previous computer purchased in 2004'gave in just over a year ago; an Evesham Axis 64 MKR. I had great time on that discovering the Elder Scrolls series as well as Battlefield, Call of a Duty 2 and age of a empires 2, ahh those were the days.
 
Ok so the parts didn't arrive today due to the motherboard being out of stock so I ordered the same one with a few more connecting points. Oc didn't let me know until I called and asked why my order was still showing as in a queue but alas the parts will be here tomorrow so I shall let you all know when they are. Have a lovely evening all.
 
I'm almost finished building but I've put in two old DVD RW, Sony DWU18A but I can work out how to connect them to the motherboard. I have power for them but the old connectors don't seem to have a place, any ideas or have the cable ends changed?
 
Idleman said:
You could get an IDE-SATA adaptor, but for the price, be just as cheap to buy another DVD RW. :)



Is your monitor connected to the Gpu or mobo.
If connected to the Gpu, check that you have the relevant PCIE connectors from your Psu plugged in.
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Good morning Idleman. My monitor is connected to the mbo. I've double checked inside and I can't see anything I have missed. I was careful on the build and had an anti static wrist band on at all times and I built the mbo outside with ram, graphics and chips/fans so as to be as gentle as possible. I'll go out in a while and buy a new CD-ROM drive and get a new dvi cable and if it's not the cable I'll run through a process of elimination.
 
The one I was going to order did but I got the same models with extra ports so it has a dvi and VGA as well as hdmi. I've tried the VGA and that's not working either and I have selected between the two channels my Viewsonic screen has. The screen works fine but there is no input to it. It's the socket 1150 version.
 
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