Help with building my first gaming pc

Warlock87 · 6 Nov 2018 at 22:50

Hi there, I'm building my first gaming PC with very little knowledge, was wondering if anyone could help me. The parts I've chosen are all second hand apart from PSU.

MSI B75IA-33 Motherboard and
I7 3770 CPU
£120

CORSAIR Vengence DDR3 1600mhz 8GB 240 pin
£26

Seagate 500GB, 7200rpm, SATA III, 6Gbs sec, 16mb cache
£13

Bitfenix phenom Mini ITX case £40

Aero Cool Integrator MX 500W Semi Modular PSU
£37

Total £236
My first question is are all of these parts compatible?

Would u call this a respectable gaming PC (obviously with the addition of a GPU)

Will this motherboard need driver and software updates or should it be good to go in the system (this may be a silly question) but as i said im not very experience at this

Does this system support xmp RAM overclocking?

Will I be able to overclock my GPU (when I get one)

Whats the latest version of window I can have on this device.

I've purchased all parts above (so am hoping I've not build a slug) I'm currently looking at a 60gb SSD that comes with Windows 10 64 bit pre installed (with things like Windows office and other handy software pre installed) for £30 hence my last question.

Which brings me to another is a 60gb SSD big enuff/have enuff space left to operate well or should I get a 120gb with Windows etc pre installed.

Any advice on which second hand GPU I should get for this build my budget is £150 max I think.

What will be the bottle neck if I pick up a great deal for sub 150, should I spend more on GPU.

Hope someone can help, thanks.

Big Frank · 7 Nov 2018 at 00:18

Look up the motherboard manual online on the manufacturers website and you should be able to find out the compatibility of the rest of the parts from that.

I think this is it;
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B75IA-E33/Specification

At first glance it looks like the cpu and ram are compatible the only thing is that the board only has 1 sata 3 header the rest are only sata 2.

I don't see any reason why you couldn't run Windows 10 on it.

I'd go for the biggest ssd you can afford because windows will take up around 16-20gb.

Have a look at the date on the hard drive. If it's years old it might not be very reliable so I'd recommend backing up any important data regularly.

Warlock87 · 9 Nov 2018 at 02:52

Thanks for the link and the advice.

Regarding sata 1 2 3, I understand how they work, but the number of sata 3s was something i did overlook (had intended to get a ssd and hard drive)

So due to the, i think 300mbs speed restrictions of sata 2 should I just go with one drive OR Would SSD sata 2 + HDD sata 3 be a good option or vice versa?

I understand sata 2 losses about 150_mbps either way on SSD, but i don't understand how sata 2 would affect a sata 3 hard Drive, will it reduce itself to 5400rpm?

My last question, does anyone have a good guide/link for a beginner who has already built a pc (I want a guide on what to do after u turn it on) do u install windows first then fresh MB and GPU drivers, do i benifits from doing a clean install of all relevant drivers. U get the point I HAVE NO IDEA What to do after I build it!

Any advice on a good basic kit of software like a reliable tool for benchmarking, FPS monitoring, cpu temp monitoring etc?

Thanks again

Lemin · 9 Nov 2018 at 17:24

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/useful-videos-and-information.18801005/

Id look for RX580, GTX 1060, GTX 980ti, for £150 ish

Big Frank · 9 Nov 2018 at 18:57

Sata 3 is simply faster read write speed than Sata 2 it doesn't have anything to do with rpm.

After building it I'd install windows then install drivers from the mobo and gpu manufacturers website and download windows updates.

Warlock87 · 10 Nov 2018 at 14:14

Lemin said:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/useful-videos-and-information.18801005/

Id look for RX580, GTX 1060, GTX 980ti, for £150 ish

Thanks for the link and advice!

I was considering (RX580 8gb, GTX1060 6gb) but after finding the GTX 980ti and looking at benches etc, this card seems to be the best bang for buck (coming just behind the gtx1070 and amd fury x GPU) and at only £150 mabi closer to the £200 mark it seems like the right move

Warlock87 · 10 Nov 2018 at 14:27

Big Frank said:
Sata 3 is simply faster read write speed than Sata 2 it doesn't have anything to do with rpm.

After building it I'd install windows then install drivers from the mobo and gpu manufacturers website and download windows updates.

Thanks for the install steps!

Regarding sata 2 n 3 (i won't to run a ssd and hard drive) if i run 7200rpm SATA 3 HD on sata 2 (so i can take full advantage of ssd 500-550 mb read and write) what speed will my HD run at (i know sata 2 read and write is 300mbs max) but thght ever sata 3 HD had really low read and write speeds anyway?