I'm building a PC

[thatguyif]

And I decided to make a little thread about it

I've been getting the parts all week, and will build this weekend

Progress so far:

Sunday


Monday


Tuesday

I get more stuff tonight

Let me know your thoughts or if you have questions on parts and building

PART LIST:
AMD Ryzen 3900X (Getting tomorrow)
MSI MEG X570 ACE (Getting tonight)
MSI Ventus GP Geforce RTX 2080 Ti
32 GB Crucial Ballistix Sport RAM (DDR-3200)
Sabrent Rocket 1TB nVMe SSD
Seagate Exos 12TB HDD
Creative Labs Soundblaster AE-7
EVGA Shockwave G5 750W PSU
Razer Deathadder Elite mouse
Azio MK Retro keyboard
Dell Alienware AW3418DW 34" monitor
Fractal Design Define R6 USB-C case

[thatguyif]

Update #1: Mobo is here

[Awoo]

Where does one even start these days? I was considering doing one of the builds that was here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PCMasterRace/wiki/builds

but it's been like 12+ years since I actually built a desktop tower.
Can you take a CPU out of a laptop and use it in a desktop motherboard still these days? I have an older model Core i7 laptop that has a busted monitor connection/video chip and was wondering if I could just salvage the CPU from that. I remember older Pentium 4 chips could be taken out of laptops and repurposed into desktop motherboards back in the day.

[thatguyif]

Where does one even start these days? I was considering doing one of the builds that was here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PCMasterRace/wiki/builds

I would say the first thing you should always consider is your budget. Write down a soft and hard stop. Having that is critical if you're going to plan it out. Make sure to take sales tax/VAT/GST into consideration if you live in a place that has that.

Once you have a budget, consider what you want for the build, i.e. what you want to do with the computer. I'm guessing gaming will be a primary function in your case? If so, GPU will probably the biggest expense. CPU will not be as important. Figure out what parts are most important for you, and budget around those.

From there, I would highly recommend using PCPartPicker. It allows you to build out your PC by letting you select a variety of parts from its lists. Each part set has its own array of filters, so if you have something specific in mind, you can narrow it down some. It also takes into account compatibility issues, including power supply stuff, whether or not your build requires a cooler, and so on. That helped me a lot

On that subject, I take issue with PCMasterRace's builds for one simple reason that the Ryzen builds have an additional cooler. Honestly, the stock cooler AMD supplies on almost all of its CPUs works really well in most situations, including gaming. While nowadays, practically every gaming build requires a cooler of some kind, I wouldn't recommend getting something too over-the-top unless you intend to really go deep into the business of overclocking. If you're getting a Ryzen CPU, for example, the stock cooler works fine. Intels...budget like something around $100 at most unless you're getting something beefy.

I would also recommend looking at Google Shopping when hunting down parts.

Update: I did a quick look-up on the stock cooler situaish, and it turns out that, even with the 3900X (which is not only what I got, but was the top of the line for this CPU generation until last week, and is the highest end CPU of the Ryzen line that comes with a stock cooler), the stock cooler performs equally well to a high-end third-party cooler. If you get a Ryzen CPU, just stick with what you're given.

Can you take a CPU out of a laptop and use it in a desktop motherboard still these days? I have an older model Core i7 laptop that has a busted monitor connection/video chip and was wondering if I could just salvage the CPU from that. I remember older Pentium 4 chips could be taken out of laptops and repurposed into desktop motherboards back in the day.

Sadly, no. Most laptops these days use distinct mobile variants of their types that have their own unique sockets. It's highly unlikely you'll be able to put a laptop i7 into a desktop mobo.

[thatguyif]

Update #2: All parts are here. Build...tomorrow? Sunday?

[rena]

Where does one even start these days? I was considering doing one of the builds that was here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PCMasterRace/wiki/builds

but it's been like 12+ years since I actually built a desktop tower.
Can you take a CPU out of a laptop and use it in a desktop motherboard still these days? I have an older model Core i7 laptop that has a busted monitor connection/video chip and was wondering if I could just salvage the CPU from that. I remember older Pentium 4 chips could be taken out of laptops and repurposed into desktop motherboards back in the day.

https://www.logicalincrements.com/

[thatguyif]

So I never got around to updating this, but this happened to me last Saturday: THE BUILD (with some clean-up)


This is how the day began. I had to clean out this space. Including....


This desk. It's this desk - a canvassing table left behind by a roommate that moved to San Diego - that determined the size of my monitor. I was hoping to buy something bigger (the Samsung CRG9 48" UW), but the desk would ONLY be able to fit the monitor, maybe a keyboard and mouse too. No room for my speakers :(

Plus, I needed to clean the room


A couple hours later, I had a clean desk (that would later get a big stain because I placed one of those "natural" cleaners on it and it leaked a little)


My standing desk finally being put to use by letting it serve as the place for my laptop now (with special guest appearances by The Hard Times and two rubber duckies)


And a cleaned up floor space (Don't mind the area around the desk, that's three years of sitting in that area taking a toll)


After a few hours break, IT BEGINS


CPU, SSD, and RAM mounted (along with heatsinks galore). Latching on the Wraith cooler was a bit of a struggle, and I'm worried the paste(?) on the heatsink, which I accidentally touched with a fingernail, would go bad. Seemed fine though


And now the mobo is mounted into the case. That one screw on the upper left hand corner was such a pain in the ass to put in, though, because of the IO shield being a nuisance


HDD mounted, with a taste of cable hell


GPU and sound card installed. Note that I switched out the daisy chain cable on the CPU for two 6+2 pin cables. I learned that the daisy chain cable is not a good idea before I tested


After a break, I unpacked the monitor in all its glory. TIME TO TEST


FIRST TRY, BIOS BOOT! WOOOO! (Technically second, but it was basically a slight adjustment in terms of using a different DisplayPort on the GPU. Sooooo, first day was a success-ish. After 7 hours, I had a functional PC

The following days...I'll talk about that tomorrow. A lot of stupidity involved