'First time' PC builder that needs basic help.

[Plinax]

Basic questions and troubleshooting about building my first PC.
(Pardon any spelling mistakes etc.)


After a couple of years my time has finally come, and i've decided that i'll switch from my beloved Laptop to 'proper' PC. ("Gaming PC", <-- really hate calling it that...)
Now, as you might have guessed from the topic title, i've never done anything like this before. And thus I'am afraid of doing something wrong during the process.
(Pluging in something wrong on the Motherbord and killing my CPU and so on...) Which is why I'm going to ask you guys (and girls) some basic questions about building my first PC.

1. Now, first of, how big is the chance of me messing up badly by killing my CPU or something like that? How good are the instructions that come with the parts and does it help to watch a few videos and read a couple of guides on this?

2. I currently run the 64-Bit Home version of Windows 10 on my Lenovo lapto. If i download the ISO-tool that is delivered by Microsoft on their webpage and create a bootable USB-stick or something like that to install Win10 on my 'new' PC, can i use the Windows 10 Key from my current Laptop (found by using a key finder) to activate Windows on my 'new' PC? Or do I have to buy Windows all over again?

3. I've made a lot of research on this, and i think i've 'hit the sweet spot' of getting the best out of my budget. (700 - 800 Euros / something in that area Dollars.)
Now, here is a screenshot of my current idea of what my first build will look like, and I'm open to any suggestions or tips, thanks you!
(The price is in NOK because i live in Norway, 7000 NOK should equal 750 Euros)

Screenshot: http://imgur.com/nr0rkgE
RAM: 8 GB of DDR4
Thanks for any kind of help!

Edited November 7, 2015 by Plinax

[mark5916]

Basic questions and troubleshooting about building my first PC.

(Pardon any spelling mistakes etc.)

 

 

After a couple of years my time has finally come, and i've decided that i'll switch from my beloved Laptop to 'proper' PC. ("Gaming PC", <-- really hate calling it that...)

Now, as you might have guessed from the topic title, i've never done anything like this before. And thus I'am afraid of doing something wrong during the process.

(Pluging in something wrong on the Motherbord and killing my CPU and so on...) Which is why I'm going to ask you guys (and girls) some basic questions about building my first PC.

 

1. Now, first of, how big is the chance of me messing up badly by killing my CPU or something like that? How good are the instructions that come with the parts and does it help to watch a few videos and read a couple of guides on this?

 

2. I currently run the 64-Bit Home version of Windows 10 on my Lenovo lapto. If i download the ISO-tool that is delivered by Microsoft on their webpage and create a bootable USB-stick or something like that to install Win10 on my 'new' PC, can i use the Windows 10 Key from my current Laptop (found by using a key finder) to activate Windows on my 'new' PC? Or do I have to buy Windows all over again?

 

3. I've made a lot of research on this, and i think i've 'hit the sweet spot' of getting the best out of my budget. (700 - 800 Euros / something in that area Dollars.)

Now, here is a screenshot of my current idea of what my first build will look like, and I'm open to any suggestions or tips, thanks you!

(The price is in NOK because i live in Norway, 7000 NOK should equal 750 Euros)

 

Screenshot: http://imgur.com/nr0rkgE

RAM: 8 GB of DDR4

Thanks for any kind of help!

 

 

1) It can be a disaster, if you for example break some pins on the motherboards CPU socket OR if you put more thermal compound on the CPU heat spreader.

But if you take attention on some crucial steps to build your PC RIG, i don't thing there is something else you can break.

 

The most common problem would be thatyour PC will not boot, or boot with beep errors from the BIOS. (that's another example)

 

Your motherboards manual will help you a lot, for building a PC the right way. Also watching some YouTube videos would be a very good idea, for first time builders too.

 

2) Take a look here: http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/windows-10-upgrade-and-installation-frequently-asked-questions

 

3) If you want it as compact as possible, that's a nice case. However, larger cases with regular ATX motherboards are much more easier to build. !!!

Edited November 7, 2015 by mark5916

[obobski]

Basic questions and troubleshooting about building my first PC.

(Pardon any spelling mistakes etc.)

 

 

After a couple of years my time has finally come, and i've decided that i'll switch from my beloved Laptop to 'proper' PC. ("Gaming PC", <-- really hate calling it that...)

Now, as you might have guessed from the topic title, i've never done anything like this before. And thus I'am afraid of doing something wrong during the process.

(Pluging in something wrong on the Motherbord and killing my CPU and so on...) Which is why I'm going to ask you guys (and girls) some basic questions about building my first PC.

 

1. Now, first of, how big is the chance of me messing up badly by killing my CPU or something like that? How good are the instructions that come with the parts and does it help to watch a few videos and read a couple of guides on this?

 

2. I currently run the 64-Bit Home version of Windows 10 on my Lenovo lapto. If i download the ISO-tool that is delivered by Microsoft on their webpage and create a bootable USB-stick or something like that to install Win10 on my 'new' PC, can i use the Windows 10 Key from my current Laptop (found by using a key finder) to activate Windows on my 'new' PC? Or do I have to buy Windows all over again?

 

3. I've made a lot of research on this, and i think i've 'hit the sweet spot' of getting the best out of my budget. (700 - 800 Euros / something in that area Dollars.)

Now, here is a screenshot of my current idea of what my first build will look like, and I'm open to any suggestions or tips, thanks you!

(The price is in NOK because i live in Norway, 7000 NOK should equal 750 Euros)

 

Screenshot: http://imgur.com/nr0rkgE

RAM: 8 GB of DDR4

Thanks for any kind of help!

 

 

 

Welcome to the club; building a PC can be a very fun experience, but the first one is usually a bit more daunting. I'd highly suggest leaving an entire day available to yourself for this - don't rush or try to cut corners, and you should be in fine shape.

 

To your itemized questions:

 

1) Modern CPUs, especially Intel ones that don't have pins, are pretty resilient, and can only be inserted into the motherboard one way; the heatsink may be a little annoying to install, but there's little risk of cracking the die or anything like that (this isn't the AthlonXP days). I'd always encourage people to educate themselves, so if you've got some videos or guides to watch/read, go for it! More info never hurts.

 

2) Technically yes, legally no. You can only activate an OEM key on one machine, once - what that means is that key is tied to that machine. It cannot be legally transferred. You can re-install it as many times as you want on that original machine though. I'd also be a little leery of Win10 due to the forced driver updates (there's a thread on Nexus exemplifying why this is a very bad thing); go pick up Win7x64 or (if you must) Win8.1 x64.

 

3) That could be trimmed significantly and achieve the same performance. First, biggest thing I'd do is dump Skylake and the DDR4 right into the sea. It provides little to no measured, verifiable, objective performance upgrade for gaming - Haswell is as good as it gets and has been for over a year, and DDR4 is silly expensive compared to DDR3 for no measurable material gain. Save your money and get an 1150 with a Z97 or Z97x, grab either an i5 4670/4690 or i7 4770/4790 (there's almost no difference here; only go for the i7 if you have something that can benefit from HyperThreading (e.g. you do tons and tons of video encoding)).

 

Sources:

http://anandtech.com/show/9320/intel-broadwell-review-i7-5775c-i5-5675c/8

http://anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/15

(you will want to click around in both articles, but the salient point is there is no good reason to dump all that extra money on Broadwell or Skylake for gaming - Haswell and even Ivy Bridge are completely good enough even today)

 

I'd also dump that PSU for something both more robust and not Corsair (unless you move up to a higher end series from Corsair); Corsair's entry level stuff has dropped off dramatically in quality in recent years and even if it hadn't, 450W is pretty slim for everything that you've got in there + leaving upgrade potential. Dump the DDR4, Skylake, etc and upgrade to a ~600W PSU.

 

You also only have a single DIMM - that's not the best scenario. Ideally you want two of matched capacity, for dual channel operation. I'd change that up too (and again, with DDR3, on 1150).

 

Otherwise looks good - nice looking case, nice hard-drive, nice graphics card, Asus makes good motherboards (I'd honestly just switch to an Asus Haswell board; ASRock is also worth considering - just see what prices are like), G.Skill makes good RAM (if you want to comparison shop, Kingston, GeIL, and Corsair are all good too), and away you go.