Desktop Computers

It really is super easy; you won't have any problems. The biggest difficulty really is overcoming the fear that computer parts are super delicate and need to be handled like you're moving a house of cards--the reality is, though, that they are pretty hearty and just snap together. Everything is designed so even a novice can just "feel fit" most parts. If you get stuck on a particular part, just go to youtube and look up "installing X part in X case" and you'll fine a walk through.

However, if you like the idea of just being able to ship the thing back, or having a company test the parts before you get it--or really don't want to build it. I tell the relatives I can't build for to use AVA-Direct. If you build your computer from the DESKTOP or BAREBONES tab, their mark up on parts is between 10-15%.(Do NOT use the gaming tab, they charge extra for wiring a "gaming rig" for better airflow, which is essentially 100$ for nothing) Under the desktop or barebones tab you can pick your parts and they are all name brands; high quality.

I checked for my uncle who lives too far for me to build and ship--and essentially the system I set up there was 770$; I could have only done it for 700, maybe 650 if I waited for sales on everything. The only thing is,do your own video card--their cards are marked up the full 15% and it's a huge savings, but unlike other parts; they can still test it without the video card (they burn in each system for 72 hours to weed out bugs, which is the time most parts will break down as far as I know, and can even take pictures of the process.)

So if your dead set on buying, I'd go with them--underdesktop or barebones; and pick all your parts out, have them build it and then toss in your own vid card (Just make sure to select a good enough power supply from their parts list to handle whatever video card you want (I had them put a SEASONIC S12G-650 650W in my Uncles--which can handle most vid cards for my cousin to slap in.)

Volto!_sl said:

Thanks a bunch for the replies. I have always wanted to try building my own computer so the idea is as tempting as it ever has been. But I can't help but think building some Ikea furniture could be anything as difficult Installing the hardware is the only aspect of it that I would feel comfortable with. But installing windows and configuring BIOS (I honestly don't even know what BIOS is, just that it needs to be configured before you get everything working) and all the potential troubleshooting that is required if things don't go perfectly the first time you attempt to turn the thing on. Are there any really thorough guides out there that could help me cover all my bases if I were to attempt this? I googled some last night, but maybe there is something out there that serves as the definitive guide to PC builds? I have no idea! Like I said...I'm fucking clueless when it comes to all of this.

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A month ago I built my first computer. I have always bought from places like Voodoo PC, Digital Storm, Falcon NW. I timed everything I did and it took me a total of 2 hours to have everything up and running. There is a you tube video explaining just about everything you could possibly buy and how to install it. People here will also help you with any questions if you have any. You will save money and you will also get EXACTLY what you want. No shitty brand thrown in to cut down price. No stupid configs just because they are trying to get rid of inventory.

There are also links that have easy instructions on how to set up things like Windows with an SSD to get the most out of it. I felt exactly like you until I kept reading this thread and finally decided to stop being a pussy. You got free tech support here that isn't reading from a manual from India. Take advantage of it.

So I guess broadwell is the fourth straight generation that is near meaningless for desktops. I was really hoping for a reason to upgrade my i7-960 beyond dropping $550 for what, maybe a 20% performance improvement at most in some games? A bit of a hard sell considering a $400 video card every few years is around 80-120% difference.

Skylake (late 2015?) sounds like the first real desktop upgrade in almost five years.

I was more referring to actual game performance, where a 20% improvement is actually very generous and rare. But skylake supposedly is going to upgrade everything - DDR4-2400 RAM, SATA Express (4), PCI-E 4, etc. It's a hell of a lot more exciting than "uh, the on-board GPU is faster and your battery life is longer!" Whoopie.

I assume desktop sales are lagging not so much because of toys like tablets but more because you can't really get word and excel to run any faster.

Yeah, there's nothing in a computer that increases gaming performance anywhere close to the level that a GPU upgrade does, even jumping up multiple generations at once. Faster RAM won't really matter much, faster processor/more cores doesn't really matter. Sure, they're all small improvements, but who wants to spend $300 on a new CPU and motherboard for a 10% gain when you can spend an extra $300 on a video card for 10X that gain. Frequent CPU upgrades just haven't made sense for going on a decade now, and I'm actually fine with that. It's kind of nice being able to build a PC and then upgrade nothing but the GPU for a good 5+ years.

But SATA 2 /sadface

I'm really hoping Skylake eliminates the need for discrete graphics on the low end, and force Nvidia and AMD to bring down the price of enthusiast GPUs. It's getting out of hand.

If I can build a gaming rig with the equivalent of a GTX 670/760 integrated... I certainly won't bother upgrading to a discrete graphics solution if it means forking out $600+.

Kreugen_sl said:

But SATA 2 /sadface

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You can buy a cheap HBA with SATA 3 support from 50$ or so.

Don't buy the Titan Black video card, Its less than 5% faster than a 780Ti and it costs damn near twice as much.

By the time you would need 6GB of VRAM, the card will be obsolete, so that is a useless function over the 3GB 780Ti

Nvidia GeForce GTX TITAN Black Review - Battlefield 4 Performance | bit-tech.net

Take part of that extra $600 you save on the video card and get a better/bigger SSD. Something like this:Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE500BW 2.5

The thing with SSDs, the closer they get to being full, the slower they get, so ideally you'd want to keep your SSD at under 50% capacity so you don't start taking a performance hit.

So I've just gradually been picking up parts over the last couple months as I saw deals and this is what I ended up with. Most of these deals are no longer available, it's just an example of the type of savings one can get by waiting for good deals to come around:

i5 4670k$190 from Amazon
AsRock Z87 Killer MB$105 from Newegg after Rebate
CORSAIR Vengeance LP 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600$67 from Newegg after Combo deal
CORSAIR CX series CX500 500W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply$30 from Newegg after Rebate
Kingston Digital 240GB SSDNow V300 SATA 3 2.5$99 from Amazon
Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Video Card - 3GB$200 after TigerDirect deal and rebate
Rosewill Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case CHALLENGER$46 off Amazon
Asus 24x DVD-RW Serial-ATA Internal OEM Optical Drive$23 from Amazon

So I ended up spending ~$760. I was pretty much looking to put together this kind of system from the start, but everytime I put all the components together it was ending up close to $1k. So I maybe saved close to a couple hundred bucks taking my time and waiting for deals to land. Dunno if it was worth it, but I'm glad I can finally start putting it together.