PC Builders

PC building is a fun hobby of mine and I've been doing it for a good while. To date, the only pre-built systems I've purchased are laptops. I used to game 13-14 hours a day but once I started dating/married/kids/life ended, I now am lucky to game 3-4 hours a week.

Anyway my buddy wanted to see if it would be possible to build a gaming system for around $500. We got close. Not including Windows 10, the parts bill came out to $533. Saved money by using an old eMachines PC for its case and optical drive. My buddy likes the idea of having an eMachine "sleeper" machine as he's a bit of a minimalist and doesn't care for flash or lights.

Anyone else out there build PCs for fun?

 

I do, I do I have never owned a name brand desktop home computer. I like you enjoy the satisfaction of getting it all together and firing it up. I see you are using an AMD chip, is that one of their chips that is receptive to over-clocking? To show my age I go back to when Intel had a Celeron 300 chip that was very easy to over-clock, but you had to get the chip from the right build source. Good luck and keep up the work

 

Yes its the Ryzen 5 3600. OC to 4.2GHz

Sounds like you were building about the time I started lol

 

Yep, enjoy building pc's whenever I can.
Just finished piecing together a r7 1700x / 1660 super build for about $740 could have been a little cheaper but styling choices and out of wack pricing bumped it up a bit.

Main system right now is a r5 3600 / 1080ti build, running open air at the moment since I can't settle on a case, might be going with a Sliger Cerberus though.

 

I am still using an MSi 980 Ti but it does everything I need it to

 

That's pretty impressive. I built my current computer in 2012 and I think it was just north of $1000. I put a new video card in it a couple years back but it needs some more work. I really need to upgrade to a solid state hard drive. The thing boots up like a diesel with molasses for motor oil in winter right now.

 

I built my first computer in 1993. It was a 386SX with 8mb of memory and a 40mb hdd.

My cousin and I saved all of our money for over a year to pool and build it, with some help from our scout master. We spent over $3000 when all was said and done. We eventually bought a modem and ended up spending a fortune on phone bills after calling every BBS around the country we could find.

I've built every computer I've owned since, which is several, and have built desktops for most of my friends and family many times over.

I haven't bought an Intel product since the Athlon 64 came out.

 

Can't go wrong with the M.2 SSDs these days. I have a TB and it still boggles my mind how it can hold all of that in something so small. Molasses in winter

 

Nice setup man. I remember the early modem days as well. Pretty sure I still have an AOL online disc lol

 

I built over 700 machines when I was in business from 97-08 before I went to work for "Da Man". Made some good money but also some really lean times. I was PC intergrater, networking, VAR whatever you want to call it. Yeah it was my hobby, still is but I mostly do LAN/WIFI networking now. I still have several old chassies in the garage. Only did a "gaming" system once when the genera was coming around, with lights and clear panels. Got hard making a living when Gateway (remember them?) and Dell were selling computers for what I was making off them.

Asus and Abit system boards were my go to for the most part. Relied on Tom's Hardware for guidance but I see they are very commercial now.

I did keep my home computer up to date with CPU and Video, got some awesome frame rates with Jane's Longbow with a pair of those Monster SLI video cards. Yeah, aging myself here.

Are Sound Blaster sound cards even a thing anymore?

 

I had an i5 7600k system for a couple years that I build. I got into vr and the wireless adapter for the HTC Vive uses a shit load of processor. When I was in vr it would be pushing my CPU at 95-100%....enter new system:

Ryzen 3900x 12c/24t
Asus x570 board
1070ti ftw2
16gb rgb ram
512gb 970pro m.2

Now on wireless vr it's at 20% max. I could have gone with a 3700x and a cheaper mobo, but I wanted something that will last me a long time. I don't see anything in the foreseeable future that I would need more processor than that. I'll post up a pic a little later. It's the first time I've cared about aesthetics.

I used my i5 system and turned it into an UnRaid server. I had a bunch of 2 and 3tb hard drives, so I dismantled my Wd 4 bay Nas and put together a 16tb array. Speeds aren't as fast as my raid5 Nas, but I'm not transferring a bunch of files back and forth.

 

Holy crap man you were mainstreaming it. Bet you had quite the build station going. I still pull up Tom's for info on "older" systems (Ex. I just spruced up a hand me down PC for my 9 year old who uses it for Roblox and Fortnite). My dad bought my brother a Gateway back in the day and I still remember the dairy cow colored box it came in. The speakers it came with were solid... I use them to this day (Boston Acoustics I believe). Funny you ask about Sound Blaster as I swear its the on-board audio I'm using with the Gateway speakers lol

 

Never got into VR. Maybe one day. Hopefully by then hardware prices will have become more reasonable. That Ryzen CPU you have is beast mode! I've never spent that much for a CPU and we are talkin AMD here...Intel is out of touch with their pricing. PCIe 4.0 is barely here and there's already talk about 5.0 on its way. I realized a long time ago that the race for newest tech is a rich man's benchmark game lol. Gotta love AMD though as it is thanks to them Intel hasn't taken over the world. GPU-wise thought I'm an Nvidia man due to driver stability.

 

Yeah, Y2K was great for me.

 

I was a one man shop, I'd get some guys in when I had a good order, we'd drink beer and build in the back of the shop. I'd look over their shoulder as we went. I hada good run during the ReFi boom for mortgage industry.

 

Any NOS?

 

this is my first amd processor i've had. so far so good. Its an absolute powerhouse. It was a bit painful to drop that coin, but i shouldn't have to do it again for a loooong time

 

AMD is worth every penny. Intel is where I'd shit my pants. To think 8 cores was pushing the envelope...

 

Man I use to tinker with fixing up old preboughts for my friends to game with. But I’ve neglected my own pc for years.. wondering if later this year I finally upgrade my 8 y/o rig

 

Do it and share some pics with us

 

There's a guy who used LN2 on a Ryzen 3 3100 to get it to 6 GHz. Tell me Ryzen ain't worth it...

 

All depending on finances later this year I just might. I was thinking start with mobo/ram/cpu/nvme
My gtx 1080 still games good enough to be used for now.

 

Oh yeah have built 3 in my day. I also used to PC game 10+ hours a day before 144hz monitors. No time for that anymore either haha.

I play a couple hours a night now on a HP omen I purchased about 2 years ago. I will probably build my next one again though.

 

Uh yeah man ain't a damn thing wrong with that 1080. Like I said earlier I'm still in love with my 980 ti

 

I’ve been building PCs for almost 25 years. The first thing I built on my own was a 486DX2 66mhz (0.066ghz) with a turbo button in middle school.

I just recently joined the RGB craze and moved my current setup over into a fancy looking case.

 

Is that a Corsair case? Looks a bit like mine

 

Hell yeah. I remember the TURBO button on my 486! That thing was a powerhouse LOL.

I build all my own stuff as a hobby and have been building them for local business and friends and family for a couple decades. Where does the time go...

When windows 8 came along I detested it and moved to MACs for my laptops. You just can’t beat the quality of the older Mac book pros. I got used to the os and bought a couple of iMacs over the years as the screens were so good I got less eye fatigue. If only I could get that gorgeous glossy contrasty 5k monitor to hook up to the pc I just built to replace my old video//pic editing machine for work.

I had an 8 yr old intel system running an i7 2700k if memory serves and it was rock solid for the longest. When it came time to replace it I put together an AMD 3900x system, my first AMD system and It’s been ok though not as rock stable as the intel based system I had. I just couldn’t say no to that price performance ratio though.

I gutted an old Mac Pro tower and turned that into an ATX compatible case so it’s a nice classy looking PC and that case is SOLID it reminds me of the old Lian Li cases.

 

I love building PCs, but most of the time my other hobbies eat up all my money.

I'm still using my first build:

• I7-4790k
• 2x - MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970s in SLI
• HyperX Fury 1866Mhz 16GB RAM
• Asus Z87 Pro mobo
• Cooler Master Silencio 652S

She's getting older, but she still runs everything I want to play.

I've built multiple computers for my friends as well.
Most recent one was an upgrade from an AMD 9370 to a Ryzen 5 3600 w/ a refurb 970 he had lying around.

 

Since I don't know what NOS is I'd have to say no. Nitrous Oxide?

 

I had the other one, SX? Think it was slower than the DX, had some cache stick that I added to it. Never knew if the turbo button ever had an effect.

When I was in business I got in on an Intel program. Was able to buy a Pentium MMX 200 CPU for dirt cheap, I got it so soon there wasn't a motherboard that supported on the market yet. I had it on display on a shelf.