Albert asked for my help putting together a gaming pc. I used to assemble our pc's quite a bit. He has saved grade money, birthday money, christmas money, job money for 8 years. This is what he has decided he wants to do.

My wife and I think this is super cool, great way to show him how the whole process is done.

His main goals for this PC are
1) Video games
2) Edit Videos and Music editing
3) 3d modeling for 3d printing.

So far this is what he is looking at, again these are his choices and his money.

i7-7700K kaby lake 4.2 ghx lga cpu
Evga gtx 1070 graphics card
32 gig (4 8gig sims) of ram
Asus mother board with 2 M.2 ssd ports
Water cooling heat sink
Cpu case
850w powersupply
(2) 24 inch 4k Monitors
thermal paste for cpu
windows 10 pro
525 gb ssd
Gaming keyboard and mouse.

This above seems to be a good blend of capabilities and expandabilities. It will allow him to add or change out bits as he can afford while getting him into a good cpu.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DSgrouse,

thats really cool. I built one 6-8 years ago and it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. with getting parts that were DOA. like ram and a sound card. But it is a great learning experience.

I would reccomend buying from New Egg. they have great records when you sign up for tracking warranties and such.

All I have to offer is that this is the beginning of a very expensive addiction.... And also a very educational one. I've built many PCs, although none recently, and have had a lot of fun doing it.

(Not that any of us here would know anything about these types of addictions....)

NewEgg is your friend - helped my 3 sons build theirs.

- an I5 will meet his needs - paying for a premium CPU no real benefit.
- Water-cooled Heat sink is likely overkill
- Get a case with very good fan/cooling control
- Don't skimp on quality of the power supply

quote:

Originally posted by IntrepidTraveler:
All I have to offer is that this is the beginning of a very expensive addiction.... And also a very educational one. I've built many PCs, although none recently, and have had a lot of fun doing it.

(Not that any of us here would know anything about these types of addictions....)

Tell me about it, I have gotten the stink eye from the benevolent dictator every time i mention how hard it is to do all my internetting via phone or laptop.... Realestate man, i need realestate. We just set up her home office with two wonderful 24" 4k monitors. I am so jealous.... And there is the glare again...

Looks like a pretty good system, just short of top of the line. Very similar to my system when I built it. Should cost around $1500 before the 2x 4k monitors.

Why the two monitors? If he's going to game on two monitors he's going to have a bezel right down the center.

I'd suggest an ultrawide gaming monitor and then put the saved cash towards a 1080ti. His video editing will benefit from the better GPU.

quote:

Evga gtx 1070 graphics card

Not sure what type of video editing he is doing but looks like most of the requirements are covered in your list.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-...em-requirements.html

Rendering 1080 or 4k videos can take awhile as they get past the 10 minute mark, so if you can afford the fastest I would get it. Video editing and effects are only getting heavier on the requirements.

old article but worth the info.
https://www.premiumbeat.com/bl...r-rendering-effects/

If you have experience, buy a nice Dell PC that is capable of playing his games and then take it apart and put it back together with him. You will know that the parts work and are not DOA. God Bless

quote:

Originally posted by Deqlyn:

quote:

Evga gtx 1070 graphics card

Not sure what type of video editing he is doing but looks like most of the requirements are covered in your list.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-...em-requirements.html

Rendering 1080 or 4k videos can take awhile as they get past the 10 minute mark, so if you can afford the fastest I would get it. Video editing and effects are only getting heavier on the requirements.

old article but worth the info.
https://www.premiumbeat.com/bl...r-rendering-effects/

Right now just simple videos.

Looks good, I too am in the process of building my next gaming pc. the last one is 6 years old and can't shoulder the load anymore. Monday the remainder of my parts arrive.

I went with
I7 8700k
asus maximus hero x
evga supernover g2 850
samsung 960evo nvme m.2
corsair vengeance 32 gig 3600
corsair h115i 280 water cooler
asus gtx 1080ti
thermaltake view 31 case
acer predator 27 inch gsync monitor
odds and ends cable, fans, hubs

I waited for sales and shopped around but the price was still about 2800

I typically limit the pc builds to 2k but the builds are lasting longer and longer, so if this is my pc for 6 or 7 years then 3k doesn't bother me.

As for the editing, one thing that makes a huge difference is the drive. The samsung 960pro nvme drive will read/right consistant 32gbs. That is truly a life saver. The evo will only read at that speed and write until the cache is full, then it drops down to about 10gbs. I wouldn't consider anything non nvme, I would make sure you check your drive stats before you pick one if video rendering is going to be important. My first pick for price/performance would by the samsung 960 pro.

Do NOT buy a 7700k, the Z270 boards are not compatible with upgrades, get something Z370 if you want to stay intel.

I'd go for a Ryzen 1700 based on what he wants to do.

quote:

Originally posted by sgalczyn:
NewEgg is your friend - helped my 3 sons build theirs.

- an I5 will meet his needs - paying for a premium CPU no real benefit.
- Water-cooled Heat sink is likely overkill
- Get a case with very good fan/cooling control
- Don't skimp on quality of the power supply

The I5 is great for gaming. It's how gamers save money. Content creators, video editors need the Hyperthreading from the I7 for transcoding and rendering. Must haves for a video creator/editor. You'll get by with an I5 but it will take longer, I don't have real world time increase but it will take longer.

As for the cooling, you can get 120 and 240 aio's for less then a hundred dollars. Considering the better air coolers cost 50-70 I don't see why an aio wouldn't be used.

Pushing 4k monitors at video game frame rates I'd going to be a chore for the video card. For gaming, I'd go with dual QHD.

I prefer dual screens over a single wide screen. I like having the game in full screen on one monitor and web browser or music on the other.

.

While not perfect, www.PCpartPicker.com allows you to pick each component of your build and it verifies compatibility.

Pick a CPU with a socket that is different than the Motherboard you've chosen and it warns you of the problem.

For a 1st time builder, it also helps shape the build as a system vs. individual components.

For prices, still research for the best deal especially with Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, after Christmas, and New Year's sales all coming up.

PC Part Picker also has their own build guides. It helps new builders understand what areas should be focused on and where to save money. Here is their build guide for a Gaming, Streaming, and Editing desktop system:
www.PCpartPicker.com/guide/xDNnTW/Gaming-Streaming-and-Editing-Build
.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sleepla8er,

quote:

Originally posted by FenderBender:
Do NOT buy a 7700k, the Z270 boards are not compatible with upgrades, get something Z370 if you want to stay intel.

I'd go for a Ryzen 1700 based on what he wants to do.

i7 7700k is a gen 7 processor the z270 is the gen 7 chipset. The two are garunteed to work together.

my bad. you were talking about upgrading, yeah the z270 wont work with anything beyond the 7700 processor. I don't typically upgrade pc's. A lot of people end up upgrading a piece here and there and end up being bottle necked by the one piece they didn't upgrade. I just build and use them till they are obsolete.

As an engineer, I thought I should warn you that your son may have "the knack"

Link to original video: https://youtu.be/g8vHhgh6oM0

I have no idea how to build a PC but my 13 year old did it (with his Uncle, a PC gamers help).

He loves it and has upgraded it several times (video card and RAM, I think).

There is always some cursing (he's 17 now) about compatibility or reloading software over the course of 3-8 hours it takes to replace said parts, but in the end it all turns out ok.

quote:

Originally posted by FenderBender:
Do NOT buy a 7700k, the Z270 boards are not compatible with upgrades, get something Z370 if you want to stay intel.

I'd go for a Ryzen 1700 based on what he wants to do.

Friends don't let friends buy AMD.

Been an Intel Channel Partner for many years.
Gave up on AMD light years ago.
As for the Gen 7 vs Gen 8 ~ sure G8 is a little better but only marginally so but what you get with the 300 series chipsets is some of the latest motherboard features more so than any real CPU enhancements.

I built an I5 gaming system about four years ago for my kids, still running well. I like your list of components, make sure you get some fans in there as others have mentioned- ours has 8 fans with controls on the front of the case.

You might also consider increasing the size of the HDD. I originally put in a 1TB HDD, and they ran out of space within a year. I upgraded the PSU to a 600W EVGA and added a second 2TB HDD, and now that is at half capacity. Your 525GB won't last long in terms of available space.

The games today are huge and take up considerable disk space.