Building a Gaming Computer

[jimhelm]

I am.

I went to CompUSA yesterday and bought all the stuff I need. And some stuff I just wanted.

Here's what I got:

A big huge gaming case,CoolerMaster HAF 932 with 4 big fans inside, 4 USB 2.0 ports and 2 USB 3.0 , HDMI port on the front.


Corsair GS800 Watt power supply


Then I got the motherboard... a Gigabyte Z68ap-D3

[jimhelm]

dvd burners are way cheap I think this was $29

[jimhelm]

video card:

[jimhelm]

intel i5 3.30 ghz cpu




corsair H80 liquid cooler for that

[jimhelm]

solid state Primary drive to put the OS and current games on:: w00t!



Seagate 1.5TB LP Serial ATA Hard Drive
5900/64mb/SATA-6G

[jimhelm]

Also got a Wireless PCI adapter for like $19 .... some of these components are ridiculously cheap. You can't buy a good T Shirt for $19.



and I went with 16 GB of Ram... 4 x 4 with heat sinks on them

[jimhelm]

OK!

so now what do I do?

[glatt]

Originally Posted by jimhelm

solid state Primary drive to put the OS and current games on:: w00t!

cool!

[Undertoad]

I was able to talk with Mr. James about some of these fine purchases, especially regarding the video card and I do believe you are right in the sweet spot with that one sir. Well done. I'm jelly, as the youth of today will say.

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by jimhelm

OK!

so now what do I do?

I believe this is overkill for reading The Cellar.

My first step is to study the docs for the motherboard and the case and figure out how all the wires for the power switch, case-mounted USB ports, etc. hook in to the motherboard.

[Happy Monkey]

Just plug things in wherever they fit, push the power button, and hope!

[Beest]

Is that i5 quad core?

You should be abble to run BF3 on modest settings

Recommended

OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Processor: Quad Core CPU

Memory: 4GB RAM

Hard drive: 20GB

Graphics card: DirectX 11 compatible with 1024MB RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 or ATI Radeon 6950

Having poked around a little bit, pretty much the sockets and plugs only fit in one place and one way round., it really doesn't look hard with a little patience and read the instructions (sacrilege I know)

[Happy Monkey]

If I remember correctly, the power button cable is the same as the various LED cables, but pretty much all of the other connectors really only plug in one way.

[jimhelm]

Yeah...lol... I was kidding a little. Spencer is assisting with the construction, and very excited about it. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to teach him how computers work.

I thank you tony, for your advice. Helped a lot. I'm sure I will need some guidance along the way here, so I thought I should start this thread listing the components.

And I wanted to make sure tw was ok with my power supply.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by jimhelm

And I wanted to make sure tw was ok with my power supply.

He won't be until you build the thing, start it up, run a dozen different things at once, and then start taking measurements with your digital multimeter to 3 decimal places.