Building My Own Computer (HELP!)

[ILoveGregTech]

OK, so recently I've been playing on my mom's Mac, this computer, and I mean FTB is pretty good. I'm pretty sure it's an Intel Core 2 Duo, with 8GB of RAM.
I was searching through some Minecraft Forums for a good playing computer... Most of the forums are dated, and let's be honest: with more mods it takes a better computer...
SO, I was wondering if:
A) These parts would work together
B) This would run FTB pretty well (I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a yes)
C) Is this computer good for going into the future (CPUs are updating all the time so is this a longterm investment?)

If none of these turn out to be in my favor what would you change about the computer?
Thanks for your help in advance, and...
PLEASE do not be a know it all about computers...If you're good with computers explain it slowly for people out there who don't understand (Even I don't understand that much, if at all really)
Sure you can debate with people about GPUs and CPUs and their performance but don't get into an all out war over this folks...Too many a time have my threads instigated battles between people (silly threads too)

Additional Info:
I don't play any other CPU games, except for FTB
I know that this CPU is overkill for what I PLAN on doing, but it is future proof (I may use PhotoShop, etc.)
These things were made with cyberpowerpc.com and I'm looking to keep it AROUND $800...

SOOOOOO:
Case: Apevia X-Trooper LED Light Mid-Tower Case w/ Side Window

USB Module: Should I get a 6 port expansion module? (+19)

Case Fan: 120MM Case Cooling Fan

Processor: i7 3770 3.4GHz

Cooling Fan: (This I'm kind of confused about: I don't know what to get and the one selected is only a St. Patty's day sale) Cooler Master Seidon 120M Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator

Motherboard: [CrossFireX] GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3H Intel B75 Chipset DDR3 mATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, HDMI, GbLAN, USB 3.0, SATA-III, 2x Gen2 PCIe x16 & PCI (Also Confused: What is a good Motherboard?)

RAM: 2133MHz DDR3 8GB Dual Channel (Is 2133 really worth it or would 1866, or even 1600MHz suffice?)

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 1GB 16X PCIe 3.0 (PCIe 3.0 is in red does that mean my motherboard doesn't support it?)

Power Supply: 600 Watts Standard 80 Plus Certified Power Supply- SLI/CrossFireX Ready (Again, another sale I PLAN on only getting 500 watts)

Hard Drive: 500GB 7200RPM HDD (I KIND of want to get a 1TB but I don't know if I'll really use all of that...I have around 14,000 songs in iTunes, but that's only about 70GB and that's really all I use the Hard Drive for)(Is 1TB one of those future-proof things?)

Optical Drive: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (Should I get Blu-Ray as a future-proof?)

Sound: High Def On Board 7.1

Monitor: I DO have a 1080 TV screen (sadly only about 11'' or less, and another CPU screen, but I don't think it's HD)(Where to buy a good HD monitor?)

Windows 8

SORRY for all of these things to reply to, or maybe this is a well built CPU and doesn't need changing. Thanks again for the help in advance and happy FTB

EDIT: Same Case
No Expansion Module
i5 3570k
Case Fan: 120MM Basic Fan (Do I Need A Case Fan?)
Intel CPU Fan And Heatsink For Cooling Fan
[CrossFireX/SLI] ASUS P8Z77-V LK Intel Z77 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ IRST, Lucid Virtu MVP, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, 3x PCIe x16 (2 Gen3, 1 Gen2), 2 PCie x1 & 2 PCI (Extreme OC Certified)
8GB 1600MHz DDR3
NVIDIA 650Ti (Don't know if I should upgrade to 660)
240GB SSD
LG 12X Internal Blu-ray Drive & DVDRW, 3D Playback Combo Drive
Win 7 64 Bit Home Premium

Sadly this comes to around $1200 and quite honestly I can NOT afford that...Anyone know where to get those parts cheaper, and once again change any of them?

 

[Saice]

Not even going into your wall of text. NO cpu is furture proof. Depending if you build this yourself or not. And if your willing to upgrade parts down the road. A good CPU if its high end at the time you get it should last you 4-5 years before you going to run into issues with meeting the minium requirements for new games. Or about 2 years if your one of those that does not running stuff on anything but full max options.

 

[Zaswe12]

Do you really need to build a computer for Feed The Beast? It's just modded Minecraft, it's not like you are going to run Crysis 3, sheesh.

 

[ILoveGregTech]

Do you really need to build a computer for Feed The Beast? It's just modded Minecraft, it's not like you are going to run Crysis 3, sheesh.

Well I was going to get a new CPU anyways.
MY computer doesn't even run Vanilla. I was going to get a CPU anyways, but decided to ask the FTB community what they think.

 

[im_6s]

I have:

CPU: AMD Athlon II (Dual Core)
RAM: 8GB DDR3
500W Power Supply..

Only thing I did was upgrade from 2GB RAM to 8GB RAM and my computer runs 2 monitors

I can run FTB (Mind I have 6GB dedicated RAM) and about 4 web pages running at the same time with minimal lag..

The only real thing you need to look at is your RAM.. CPU's aren't necessarily helpful as long as you have Dual Core or up.. Not insane like a hexacore.. But, you should get what I mean.

With 2GB of RAM.. I couldn't even run FTB smoothly let alone MC.[DOUBLEPOST=1363490842][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, and I also run

Photoshop CS6
Sony Vegas Pro 11
Fraps
Camtasia Studio
Adobe After Effects

(I have 1TB HDD)

 

[ILoveGregTech]

I have:

CPU: AMD Athlon II (Dual Core)
RAM: 8GB DDR3
500W Power Supply..

Only thing I did was upgrade from 2GB RAM to 8GB RAM and my computer runs 2 monitors

I can run FTB (Mind I have 6GB dedicated RAM) and about 4 web pages running at the same time with minimal lag..

The only real thing you need to look at is your RAM.. CPU's aren't necessarily helpful as long as you have Dual Core or up.. Not insane like a hexacore.. But, you should get what I mean.

With 2GB of RAM.. I couldn't even run FTB smoothly let alone MC.

Thank you... Now I know 8GBis good

 

[Vtecem]

If you're going to build a new pc, just spend a little extra and buy at least 1 ssd to load the OS onto. You can use the platter drive for your game installs and other programs. You won't regret spending a little more for a ssd.

 

[wakafanykai123]

I would love to know how this goes :3 I'm in the same situation myself, I use my moms Mac because my own computer can't even run vanilla. I purchased a HP ENVY dv6-7220us Notebook PC,for a laptop but I was thinking of building my own desktop farther down the road.
Edit: Disregard that computer model, pasted wrong one.

 

[Eyamaz]

Go with 1600mhz ram. I also recommend going with an ASUS motherboard. Check out the P8B75-MLE, it should fit your needs.

When you purchase your ram, don't get a single module, buy them in pairs. If you only want 8gb of ram, get two 4gb modules instead of a single 8gb.

As for cooling be sure to get cooling fans on your hdd and sinks on your ram.

Sent from my HTC One X+ using Tapatalk 2

 

[ILoveGregTech]

Go with 1600mhz ram. I also recommend going with an ASUS motherboard. Check out the P8B75-MLE, it should fit your needs.

When you purchase your ram, don't get a single module, buy them in pairs. If you only want 8gb of ram, get two 4gb modules instead of a single 8gb.

As for cooling be sure to get cooling fans on your hdd and sinks on your ram.

Sent from my HTC One X+ using Tapatalk 2

Great input! Thanks!!

 

[zemerick]

OK, so recently I've been playing on my mom's Mac, this computer, and I mean FTB is pretty good. I'm pretty sure it's an Intel Core 2 Duo, with 8GB of RAM.
I was searching through some Minecraft Forums for a good playing computer... Most of the forums are dated, and let's be honest: with more mods it takes a better computer...
SO, I was wondering if:
A) These parts would work together

Companies like ibuypowerpc that build the computers for you, test for compatibility. Really though, compatibility issues are a thing of the past. ( Thank god too. My first computer was a nightmare of incompatibilities. )

B) This would run FTB pretty well (I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a yes)

As well as most any computer can run it. Don't expect 500 fps. Minecraft and the mods just aren't coded well enough for that, they bottleneck themselves a lot.

C) Is this computer good for going into the future (CPUs are updating all the time so is this a longterm investment?)

Uhm, I hate to break it to you, but it's very likely you are on the back end of a nice lull. With the consoles being stagnated, we have seen little improvement in PC games for awhile. However, the next gen is now coming out. Expect to see some leaps and bounds with stuff over the next 3 or so years before things stagnate again.

This is, unless we truly are at a bit of a peak for quality. Some believe it will just be too difficult to produce a higher quality game within the standard development cycle, so we have pretty much peaked. I personally doubt it though.

It's pretty much as future proof as you can get from a budget PC ATM though.

If none of these turn out to be in my favor what would you change about the computer?
Thanks for your help in advance, and...
PLEASE do not be a know it all about computers...If you're good with computers explain it slowly for people out there who don't understand (Even I don't understand that much, if at all really)
Sure you can debate with people about GPUs and CPUs and their performance but don't get into an all out war over this folks...Too many a time have my threads instigated battles between people (silly threads too)

Additional Info:
I don't play any other CPU games, except for FTB
I know that this CPU is overkill for what I PLAN on doing, but it is future proof (I may use PhotoShop, etc.)
These things were made with cyberpowerpc.com and I'm looking to keep it AROUND $800...

SOOOOOO:
Case: Apevia X-Trooper LED Light Mid-Tower Case w/ Side Window

USB Module: Should I get a 6 port expansion module? (+19)

Case Fan: 120MM Case Cooling Fan

Processor: i7 3770 3.4GHz

Good choice here for budget. There's a 3.5 ghz model for a bit more, but it also doesn't boost as much, meaning actual performance under load if cooled properly is pretty much the same.

Cooling Fan: (This I'm kind of confused about: I don't know what to get and the one selected is only a St. Patty's day sale) Cooler Master Seidon 120M Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator

This is water cooled. That is definitely excessive, and requires proper maintenance. Are you sure you want to go this route? I would really recommend just a good sized quality CPU Cooler. I like Zalmann personally.

Motherboard: [CrossFireX] GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3H Intel B75 Chipset DDR3 mATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, HDMI, GbLAN, USB 3.0, SATA-III, 2x Gen2 PCIe x16 & PCI (Also Confused: What is a good Motherboard?)

With motherboards you look for features you are interested in. For example, a key feature for me is a large number of the latest PCI Express version, as well as a large number of the latest SATA. You might want something different. Most general users though will be fine with basically any motherboard.

RAM: 2133MHz DDR3 8GB Dual Channel (Is 2133 really worth it or would 1866, or even 1600MHz suffice?)

For your uses ( that you mentioned ) size trumps speed. Drop it down to the 1600 mhz, and up to the most you can use. FTB will not really use it, but photoshop could potentially. However, remember that prices of RAM are always falling through the floor. So, 8 gigs would probably be more than enough for now...and if you ever need more in the future, it'll be a lot cheaper then.

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 1GB 16X PCIe 3.0 (PCIe 3.0 is in red does that mean my motherboard doesn't support it?)

Correct, yours says "Gen2 PCIe x16" so it is not 3.0

Power Supply: 600 Watts Standard 80 Plus Certified Power Supply- SLI/CrossFireX Ready (Again, another sale I PLAN on only getting 500 watts)

Hard Drive: 500GB 7200RPM HDD (I KIND of want to get a 1TB but I don't know if I'll really use all of that...I have around 14,000 songs in iTunes, but that's only about 70GB and that's really all I use the Hard Drive for)(Is 1TB one of those future-proof things?)

Definitely consider a SSD, especially since you don't need much storage. Figure 30 gigs for windows, a few gigs for FTB, a few gigs for PS, then your 70 gigs of music....and you are only looking around 75 gigs. You should always leave a good chunk of free space on a HDD, so call it 100 gigs. 500 is clearly on the high end for you. Hard drives are always getting cheaper as well, and you should have plenty of room to add another drive or 2.

Optical Drive: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (Should I get Blu-Ray as a future-proof?)

Sound: High Def On Board 7.1

Monitor: I DO have a 1080 TV screen (sadly only about 11'' or less, and another CPU screen, but I don't think it's HD)(Where to buy a good HD monitor?)

Def. consider blu-ray since they are fully backwards compatible and should be just about as cheap as the DVD anyways.

For a monitor, you can get 1080p anywhere. There isn[t really much of a price difference either between stores and on-line here ( the shipping will usually equalize it. ), so you can just walk into best buy with about $200 and come out with a good 1080p monitor.

4k monitors ( about 4,000x2,000 instead of 1920x1080 ) are supposed to be coming out this year, but it will be awhile before they come down to reasonable prices. Unfortunately the 2560x1600 monitors never took off enough to come down, so they are still mostly over 1,000 unless you are willing to get a B grade monitor off of youtube, even then you are looking at $450.

[quoteWindows 8[/quote]

I recommend staying with Windows 7. Windows 8 just is a terrible desktop OS. Tried several times, and it just makes everything more difficult and annoying. Only benefit of 8 over 7 is a faster boot time, but you won't see much of that unless you go SSD.

SORRY for all of these things to reply to, or maybe this is a well built CPU and doesn't need changing. Thanks again for the help in advance and happy FTB

NP, let me know if you have more questions.

 

[343N]

I run FTB at 60 fps constantly with some webpages up, along with steam/dropboox/ms security essentials running in the background

 

[ILoveGregTech]

Companies like ibuypowerpc that build the computers for you, test for compatibility. Really though, compatibility issues are a thing of the past. ( Thank god too. My first computer was a nightmare of incompatibilities. )



As well as most any computer can run it. Don't expect 500 fps. Minecraft and the mods just aren't coded well enough for that, they bottleneck themselves a lot.



Uhm, I hate to break it to you, but it's very likely you are on the back end of a nice lull. With the consoles being stagnated, we have seen little improvement in PC games for awhile. However, the next gen is now coming out. Expect to see some leaps and bounds with stuff over the next 3 or so years before things stagnate again.

This is, unless we truly are at a bit of a peak for quality. Some believe it will just be too difficult to produce a higher quality game within the standard development cycle, so we have pretty much peaked. I personally doubt it though.

It's pretty much as future proof as you can get from a budget PC ATM though.



Good choice here for budget. There's a 3.5 ghz model for a bit more, but it also doesn't boost as much, meaning actual performance under load if cooled properly is pretty much the same.



This is water cooled. That is definitely excessive, and requires proper maintenance. Are you sure you want to go this route? I would really recommend just a good sized quality CPU Cooler. I like Zalmann personally.



With motherboards you look for features you are interested in. For example, a key feature for me is a large number of the latest PCI Express version, as well as a large number of the latest SATA. You might want something different. Most general users though will be fine with basically any motherboard.



For your uses ( that you mentioned ) size trumps speed. Drop it down to the 1600 mhz, and up to the most you can use. FTB will not really use it, but photoshop could potentially. However, remember that prices of RAM are always falling through the floor. So, 8 gigs would probably be more than enough for now...and if you ever need more in the future, it'll be a lot cheaper then.



Correct, yours says "Gen2 PCIe x16" so it is not 3.0



Definitely consider a SSD, especially since you don't need much storage. Figure 30 gigs for windows, a few gigs for FTB, a few gigs for PS, then your 70 gigs of music....and you are only looking around 75 gigs. You should always leave a good chunk of free space on a HDD, so call it 100 gigs. 500 is clearly on the high end for you. Hard drives are always getting cheaper as well, and you should have plenty of room to add another drive or 2.



Def. consider blu-ray since they are fully backwards compatible and should be just about as cheap as the DVD anyways.

For a monitor, you can get 1080p anywhere. There isn[t really much of a price difference either between stores and on-line here ( the shipping will usually equalize it. ), so you can just walk into best buy with about $200 and come out with a good 1080p monitor.

4k monitors ( about 4,000x2,000 instead of 1920x1080 ) are supposed to be coming out this year, but it will be awhile before they come down to reasonable prices. Unfortunately the 2560x1600 monitors never took off enough to come down, so they are still mostly over 1,000 unless you are willing to get a B grade monitor off of youtube, even then you are looking at $450.

[quoteWindows 8

I recommend staying with Windows 7. Windows 8 just is a terrible desktop OS. Tried several times, and it just makes everything more difficult and annoying. Only benefit of 8 over 7 is a faster boot time, but you won't see much of that unless you go SSD.



NP, let me know if you have more questions.[/quote]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! I followed you because you're so awesome... Helped a TON!

 

[NosePicker5555]

Companies like ibuypowerpc that build the computers for you, test for compatibility. Really though,



NP, let me know if you have more questions.

I have an IbuyPower and I don't get good fps

 

[zemerick]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! I followed you because you're so awesome... Helped a TON!

NP, glad I could help

I have an IbuyPower and I don't get good fps

While they do check for compatibility issues, they also allow you to build truly low quality computers. This is for those that wish to get a cheap computer just to browse facebook and such.

Minecraft is also a bit of an oddball. It's very sensitive and if you don't have your computer set up right for it ( correct versions of java for example ) it can cause severe problems.

 

[Quesenek]

Correct, yours says "Gen2 PCIe x16" so it is not 3.0

I would like to point out that while its isn't a 3.0 the 3.0 slot will work with a 2.0 card and still get the 8x/16x speeds that it normally would with a 3.0 card.

also windows 8 with a start button + always boot to desktop is in my opinion the same and slightly better than windows 7. As is the case upgrading from any os, windows 8 gives you a little overall speed boost and even with an i5 3570k + ssd I can tell the difference. Along with the speed boost as someone who runs a lot of things through wifi like a media-server and a storage server I have to say that with windows 8 things respond and work a lot faster and my connections dont mysteriously disappear like I have happen on my windows 7 PC's.

To the OP,
Your build looks fine I would personally go with a z77 board but yours works BTW the CPU fan isn't a real watercooling setup like your thinking, its pretty much carefree.

 

[Slaagathor]

One thing... if you're not planning on overclocking at all, then the stock heatsink/fan that comes with a retail (i.e. not a OEM) is plenty adequate, and you can save yourself a little money (or use the savings towards an SSD)

 

[Quesenek]

One thing... if you're not planning on overclocking at all, then the stock heatsink/fan that comes with a retail (i.e. not a OEM) is plenty adequate, and you can save yourself a little money (or use the savings towards an SSD)

Yeah what ever you can do to get an ssd. it will make your PC experience amazing. People who say ssd's are not worth it are in denial.

 

[DZCreeper]

Don't pay out your ass for a computer, build it yourself. Check this link out: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/KfdB

Basic Ideas:

Your case and power supply are slightly less important than the rest.

Playing Minecraft means you want an SSD and good processor.

Software assumes you are upgrading your computer roughly every 5 years, stop thinking about future proofing and just know that every 5 years expect to spend a couple hundred dollars. Avoid cutting corners, it will save you money and headaches later.

This machine is pretty damn high end, even for games outside of Minecraft. Its not a concern for everybody, but I leave my computer on a lot with slightly higher end hardware and the power bill gets high, think twice before using this as a 24/7 server.

Edit: Sorry, hit submit before I entered the link to the parts, give me a sec.

Added link, its a fair bit over $800, but to cut costs, my suggestions are use a copy of Windows you already have and possibly use the hard drive(s) from your old computer instead of buying the 1tb drive.

 

[thomaslzw]

To be honest, that cpu is not going to be utilised to it's full potential. I recommend dropping down to perhaps a i5 3550 and getting a much better graphics card (Especially if running certain Adobe software).
My current setup has a i5 3450 and a GTX 670. Runs games very nicely. Even exporting is much faster due to CUDA.