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Here's the thing. My little brother wants gaming computer. And he's deadset on building it from pieces(why? Especially as likely I'll be the one doing the actual assembly...Grumble grumble). But he's not 100% sure what is good so he asked me for help. But I'm not up to the task anyway. Last time I seriously played with PC at least modern games(games from 80's and 90's don't really help here!) and last time I checked parts was around 2008 when I built my last computer...And when parts broke I actually downgraded computer. Lol. So basically I'm sooooo out of loop for what's good parts for good game PC.

I figure key parts are going to be processor and graphic card. For RAM 8gb should be enough at least to begin with right? SSD drive probably also handy so was planning 128GB SSD+1TB secondary.

For processor was eyeballing 3.4Ghz quadcore I7-4770. Any good? Should be for the price I hope. For graphic card I was leaning toward nvidia(last time I checked they had good reputation). 1080 seems way too expensive so was aiming for 8GB memory 1070.

Should that cover enough? But that results in tad expensive(aim is around 1200 euros including windows and monitor plus at least one game would be good). Would i5 3.5Ghz quadcore processor and 6gb memory 1060 nvidia be sufficient?

Also how much separate coolings I would need to buy. For processor sure but one thing I'm not sure do those graphic cards really need separate coolers? Noticed they are on sale which is news from last time I was buying parts! (last time I was suprised to find out graphic cards needs own power cable! )

edit: Also he's insisting that German is good place to buy(cheaper than Finland his friend claim). Anybody can recommend online store that has english site so I could compare and not just rely on "friend told so"? Not that it would surprise me but still hard facts would be good.

From what I hear Germany can be marginally cheaper, but then again you will be paying extra shipping on top so I don't think it will really be worth the hassle. It's true that German VAT is 5 points lower so maybe it works out.

If you want to compare specific components you may check www.caseking.de or alternate.de

One thing Germany is much cheaper is musical instruments. Thomann can be 20-30% cheaper than anything around here.

I have no idea about part availability or pricing in Germany, but as for what you should look for,

Computer Case: These often come with a power supply, so you can sometimes save some $$$ this way by not purchasing the power supply separately. Just make sure the listed power supply is compatible with all the parts you order.

Graphics cards are one of those things where you don't want to cheap out, but nor do you need to splurge as you get some diminishing returns as you'll spend more and more money for proportionally less gain. And the processor is often a bigger limiter. Something like a GTX 960 will be plenty for a while.

8gb of RAM is sufficient for gaming, but more is always better. And RAM is cheap, so if you can afford more no reason not to.

As for a processor, anything in the 3.2+ range with an I7 is good.

The above things are what my PC has, and actually for cooling I kinda had a jury rig something since for some reason the integrated Fan in my tower was incompatible with the power supply I'd gotten(one part I didn't check). My solution was to just take the side off my tower and have a desk fan blow on it if it gets hot, and normally I don't even need the fan. A bonus is that it doesn't collect dust as much and it's easier to clean. Never had heat problems so it obviously works. It does depend on the ambient temperature of the room it's in. If you're playing in a very warm area or have poor ventilation you'll need more cooling. A computer with the above specs I mentioned won't need anything super fancy for cooling though, it's not going to be overclocked like the highest end gamers do to their PCs which makes them into furnaces.

Dunno about else were but often times newegg has a lot of great deals.

What is your bro trying to do with this PC?

is he going full ham gamer mode?

just casual minecraft?

netflix?

An easy way to get back in touch with what parts are good is to read the Tech Report System Guide - http://techreport.com/review/31624/the-tech-report-system-guide-march-2017-edition#

They update it every few months, the current one is from March so it is a bit old but it's newer than your knowledge from 2008 at least

In your position I would definitely buy prebuilt. The cost difference isn't huge and at least you know it's been built well. Either that or just tell your brother to build it himself.

Also if you are building from scratch go check out PC part picker

they have a compatibility page where you can build the PC and make sure everything works together.

 Desubot wrote:
Dunno about else were but often times newegg has a lot of great deals.

What is your bro trying to do with this PC?

is he going full ham gamer mode?

just casual minecraft?

netflix?

Presumably play lots of FPS games at least Also if there's any boxing/wrestling games in PC probably those since he's into those. Seems he wants pretty heavy duty gaming PC. Been hoping for one for years and now he has saved enough cash to fund hefty chunk of it(mother handing out some as well and I'll probably be providing bit cash as well. At least game or two at the very least!).

Don't think he's into minecraft. That's more like the younger 4th grader but I doubt he'll be allowed to touch elder brother's computer much...(oh dear oh dear. I forsee fights over that!)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

El Torro wrote:
In your position I would definitely buy prebuilt. The cost difference isn't huge and at least you know it's been built well. Either that or just tell your brother to build it himself.

Haha sure would make sense for me but ah well it would be quite a fight over it. Well biggest hurdle is figuring out suitable parts. Assembly itself is peace of cake. That I have been doing several times so actual assembly will be easy one(well I might ask if he would like to do parts himself under my superivision)

Thanks for the link.

You should be fine to build a nice PC with about 1200 euros

i spent about 1500$ on my pc with a GTX 1070 and maybe a few hundos more on nice peripherals.

I'm afraid I'm not sure if it is going to be of much use in finland, but I found this website invaluable when making my computer. Checks to make sure the pieces will work with each other, and gives you price comparisons on many (US) companies.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/