What advice would you give yourself if you had to build your first pc all over again?

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Any_Cold5965@reddit

Mine's easy. Don't break the weird drive tabs on the (old?) Cooler Master HAFs. XD

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Ugh, I just had to replace a HDD in a HAF X case, forgot how those things even worked and had to look it up. I hated those "tool-less" cases, I would much rather just screw a drive in than fiddle with whatever nonsense custom tool-less thing they came up with, and I ended up just screwing the drive into said tool-less caddy anyway.

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Any_Cold5965@reddit

And the drive trays with the rubber peg rings were even worse!

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Cyber_Akuma@reddit

That's what my case has unfortunately

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Impossible-Switch127@reddit

Bite the bullet and buy the 4090. I could've gotten it for retail but didn't want my wallet to hate me. Instead I bought a 4070S then upgraded to a 4080S later in the year. The money I spent on both would've paid for the 4090.

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edcboye@reddit

Don't cheap out on a motherboard

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Scholar_Rude@reddit

I kinda have the opposite opinion. Buy a motherboard that has just enough. I bought a 500 dollar mobo with all the bells and whistles. Ended up never using a quarter of the features.

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Cyber_Akuma@reddit

Problem for me personally is that motherboards started cheaping out on features that used to be standard on any decent model. Things like power and reset buttons on the motherboard itself for testing/troubleshooting without having to put it in a case or a POST error code display went from being common to any decent motherboard to only available on the highest-end overpriced models.

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moragdong@reddit

Would you say a b840 m h enough then?

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edcboye@reddit

Yeah I agree, mine originally was completely fine, however with an upgraded CPU it lacks, one step above wouldn't have been much more cost initially and would have given me more upgrade headroom. Although to be honest if ram prices weren't insane I'd be going am5 instead with a whole new set up.

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Thien1o1@reddit (OP)

Okay now you scaring me LLOL

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edcboye@reddit

Don't get me wrong the motherboard has been fine, it's not some super cheap no name thing it's just a low end gigabyte motherboard, works completely fine.

However I recently upgraded my CPU from a Ryzen 5 5600x to a Ryzen 9 5950x. This CPU needs a whole lot more power that the motherboard simply can't let it have due to it's cheaper design. Upgrading the motherboard one "level/grade" would have completely solved this issue but I didn't know it would have been an issue originally so didn't choose to spec the slightly higher end motherboard. Pc works fine but with the upgraded CPU I actually get worse performance, so will need to buy that motherboard anyway.

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moragdong@reddit

Which one is that? I have b840mh with my 7800x3d, wondering if thats enough

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edcboye@reddit

I'm on am4 so it's all different for me. I have a gigabyte a520i AC but really would need a b550i for better performance. As long as it's not like a base model motherboard it should probably be fine.

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moragdong@reddit

Theyve said its just a renamed a620 for mine so thats why im asking

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brn1001@reddit

If you're hardcore overclocking, yes. I've never spent more than $130 on a MB and use the money I save for the rest of the system. Never been a problem.

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Sea_Perspective6891@reddit

Or a PSU also. I've seen so many problem posts where they list a low wattage PSU from an iffy off-brand maker. Makes me glad I went with a good 850 watt PSU.

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edcboye@reddit

True true, I went corsair both times but started with 550w then upgraded to 850w when I got my new graphics card even though 750w would have been more than enough so I'd keep a little headroom at least there

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AgreeableWash1667@reddit

This exactly! I have i7 13700f and H610M V2 DDR4 mobo, which limits my cpu I believe due to power delivery, VRMs also get hot. I go around this a little by undervolting but still it has its limits. I didn't know it was more suitable for i5's rather than i7's and cheaped out. In GPU intensive games it's fine but in CPU intensive games, it has its moments...

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Cyber_Akuma@reddit

Problem is I don't know what would even count as the first PC I built. My first 2-3 PCs were prebuilt that I heavily upgraded and modified... (I say 2-3 because my second one ended up in a Ship of Theseus situation where I had eventually replaced EVERYTHING, even the case and motherboard or small things like the floppy drive... this was early 00s, and basically became a third PC even though I never fully built it from scratch).

First PC I built from scratch... was not for me but for a cousin.

I guess my 3rd-4th PC is the one that would count the most since it was the one I built for myself without any parts re-used, and for that one I would tell myself: Just get one large SSD instead of putting two in RAID0, you don't notice the speed improvement and it just makes it a pain to move/upgrade, or even flash a firmware update, and to not bother getting a second cheaper GPU to use as a dedicated PhysX card... likewise replacing said PhysX-dedicated GPU with a second one to go SLI also was more trouble than it helped, just upgrade the GPU itself.

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Allucation@reddit

4k max settings requires more than 16 GB VRAM

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Carnildo@reddit

First PC? "Go with a mid-tower case rather than a full tower. The board you've picked has the auxiliary audio input at the bottom-rear corner of the case, the CD-RW drive is at the top front, and they don't make audio cables longer than 24 inches."

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MildlyAgitatedBovine@reddit

Check the measurements ahead of time, don't just trust the sales guy. (Mostly my fault as I was aiming for a SFF). Added an angle grinder to my parts list... It turned out ok ish.

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Solid-Performer-420@reddit

You don't have to buy the most best or most expensive parts.

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Sad-Base1195@reddit

I don’t need it, but I want it, buy 64 gigs and not 32 before the price goes up

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greggm2000@reddit

If the advice was strictly about the build, I would change nothing. That 386DX25 was a great computer at the time, I have fond memories of playing Wing Commander 1, and, the system (including modem) was instrumental in the path that the rest of my life took. I doubt I would be alive today, had I not bought it when I did, and used it as I did.

So, probably not the kind of answer you were expecting :)

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SilentRevolution5516@reddit

Get more storage NOW if prices are low. I got 1TB SSD and I'm running out of storage now. The SSD I got for $100 on sale last year is now over $350. I should've just spent $200 or $250 and got the 2TB version. Or I could've spent $350 on a 2TB gen 5 SSD instead of having to consider spending the same amount on a 1TB gen 4 version now...

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Lucario-Mega@reddit

Ask the people online

And remember that there is a microcenter near you.

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AU_Cav@reddit

Paying $200 for 8 MB of RAM sounded cool, but wasn’t worth it.

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SkullMan140@reddit

Go for that 32 GB of RAM instead on 16

Oh, and try to get a good power supply from the very beginning

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51dux@reddit

Make sure you have enough clearance for both the AIO fans and the motherboard.

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b0wzy@reddit

Buy once cry once

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brn1001@reddit

My first build was a 486sx with 16MB of memory (4mb was the norm at the time). Can't remember the HD. Eventually added a 3DFX Voodoo card and a sound card.

I wouldn't change a thing. It was great.

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Zer0C00L321@reddit

Idk.... I was like 15. I used scrap parts I could find anywhere.

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killzone44@reddit

RAM is always the bottleneck

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vihila@reddit

Just because it is a physically huge ISA card, doesn't mean it's a hardware modem /s

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YoSpiff@reddit

My first pc was an AMD 386/40. Hard to recall details but one thing I won't do anymore is to buy a cheapo noname power supply. Now get offa my grass!

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Thien1o1@reddit (OP)

bye sir :)

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AceLamina@reddit

buy from amazon instead of micro center
and to get the 3070

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maxgeek@reddit

Fly to Microcenter

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otterplus@reddit

You joke, but the 3 piece I bought two years ago is now a two piece with a mobo and cpu at the same price. Kinda wish I had a better mobo though cuz this X Gaming X v2 is feeling a little short on usb headers

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poshbakerloo@reddit

Make sure the motherboard has more than 2 RAM slots

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ObjectiveOk2072@reddit

If the GPU didn't make a terrifyingly-expensive-aounding snap when you installed it, it's not in the slot all the way

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zpedroteixeira1@reddit

Think about the your monitor resolution and refresh rate, and the games you want to play and target a little above that. That general.

For me in particular: forget AIOs and better fans and so on, you'll only consider the noise acceptable with a custom loop.

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NoAirBanding@reddit

Save up for the Athlon instead of the Duron

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No_Entertainer_3052@reddit

tbh not really much built a 4560k/970 combo if i remember right and it worked great

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Mediocre-Ant-7178@reddit

Nothing. I had that shit on lock. maybe buy bitcoin

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Scholar_Rude@reddit

You should start the build around your GPU and CPU. Once you know exactly the pairing you’re going with the rest of build is pretty straight forward.

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Sea_Perspective6891@reddit

My PC is mostly pretty solid for a while but part of me does wish I got a bigger C drive& a bigger secondary drive given how insane prices on SSDs are. It's insane to think how cheap SSDs used to be only a few years ago & really wishing I went with a 4TB when they were cheaper. I did manage to find a 5TB external HDD for a pretty reasonable price.

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ThunderKats351@reddit

Well back in my days nothing really matter on your first PC, they where evolving so fast that was irrelevant what you put on them, was more about been able to play that game you like more than anything. In this moder age I would invest in a good monitor, headset and mouse and just sacrifice anything around performance, just get the performance in the future by upgrading the tower later on and never cheap out on the PSU or case as those can be reuse with future builds.

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nesnalica@reddit

dont just look for "amount of PCIe slots" but also how theyre placed on the motherboard.

with 3 or even 4 slot GPUs a lot of PCIe slots will be blocked.

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