PC PC Building Headache

GothicSyn

GothicSyn

Blue Mage
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
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218
Age
41
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Leeds, UK
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It amazes how far tech has come from the days I built my first PC, cosnidering my first jaunt as a "PC" user was never technically a PC as I started out on the Amiga and old A500+ before buying and seriously upgrading an A1200, that thing had HDD and a modem (A 28.8k). So I started there, and my A1200 finally gave up the ghost in 2009 (At a guess it looks the floppy disk had just had enough).

I built my first PC somewhere around late 99 early 2000 and old 900Mhz Processor, Soundblaster Sound Card and Voodoo 3 3000 GFX card. Was so proud I managed to assemble this together carefully following the Motherboard Manual to make the assemble, complete with shock straps to prevent static discharge.

Not the point of this story I promise, I built another PC in around 2004 before pretty much playing console exclusively after that, it was only in 2010 after my laptop blew its board (Yup I kill tech alot!) That I went back to PC, between 2010 and now I've pretty kept a single system running harvesting parts from others PC's to keep it going (2 HDDs from Sky HD boxes).

So finally saved up enough to make a MASSIVE upgrade to my ageing AMD 64 X2 380+ Dual Core system, new system is part new and part cannibalised but it all helps. My ageing rig is struggling to cope with game development and the compilier taking 30 minutes or more to make even small changes to game code is starting to annoy me! Not to mention I have FF14 on PC now and while it runs I have to turn the GFX all the way down to get it to work fluidly. I cant steam from my PC either which is another kicker, nor can I run half of my emulators now without severely stressing the CPU.

So here's the kicker, I assemble it, seat the motherboard in the case, try and fire up not power :( Turns out old PSU isn't enough to power new rig, turns out new board takes a 8pin on the 12v rail, old PSU has a 4pin 12v rail. Fine I spend extra cash to grab a 550w PSU, get this installed and fans spin up but system doesn't fire up, so take it all apart, sit the board on the box to run tests still no luck.

So I go back to ebay to check the parts and low and behold the idiot I am I bought High Density RAM which has a whopping 10% compatibility with any system, yea my board isn't one of em! Gah I feel dumb, had to buy MORE RAM and take an 8Gb loss in the process. When did PC building ever get so damn complex!! New RAM arrives tomorrow and I am sat praying that it fires up first time!

Old System
AMD 64 X2 3800+
500GB HDD
4GB DDR 2 Memory
Nvidia GeForce 610 GT
450w PSU

New System
AMD FX 6300 Bulldozer 6 Core
1TB HDD + My old 500GB HDD
8GB DDR 3 Memory
Nvidia GeForce 610 GT
550w PSU
 
PCPartpicker.com

It's what I used to build my system, and it will let you know of any incompatibilities.

I have a rig running 650W and cost me 1700 to build, well, 1200 initially.
 
Yea it was just a stupid oversight on my part had I read the description before I bought the RAM it would never have happened but I've buil the new system for less than £300 so it will serve me for the next few years, only really the GFX card letting it down after the upgrades.
 
(new here, don't mind me)

PC building has become relatively easier since the turn of the century. Nearly every part is compatible (Minus AMD boards matching up with Intel boards, but that's another story). RAM has DROPPED in price. When I can pick up 2x4gb of DDR3 for less than $40 something is working wonders.

The only concern I see with your build, the PSU. I'm worried it isn't a noteworthy one. I personally build with either EVGA or Corsair PSUs.

Otherwise, I hope that you are able to get a few extra frames and possibly graphic performance out of that build. I would suggest an aftermarket heatsink for your CPU as it IS an AMD part. I exclusively run Intel and nVidia for CPU/GPU.

Anyways, good luck to you. I currently have a decently high end system, probably sitting worth $1,000 or something. I upgrade all the time.

Oh yeah, and PC Part picker is great.
 
Best of luck - hope the new RAM solves the problems for you. Personally i've only ever gone through the process once and that was 3/4 years ago (spec is still holding up strong, though :grin) so I can't remember the anguish as freshly as you when something went wrong! haha.
 
Much apprecciaate the replies guys, as it turns out the RAM was the issue, stupid High Density RAM has only 10% compatability. Had to grab Corsair and take a slight hit and for the moment drop to 8gb instead of my intended 16.

However I am up and running and the system is stable and running well, had an issue getting my Windows 7 key to validate but MS Support manged to resolve that as well, which now means I'm happily back on Windows 10.

So the mistakes were fairly simple ones my old PSU's 12v rail wouldn't power the CPU so it's been replaced with a 550watt one and my RAm was simply incompatible with the board which again was resolved. Get anothger 8gb in and I'll be a very happy boy though only rendering through Daz3D really taxes it right now.
 
Here's a question, what are you doing with the machine? Because 8 gb is fine for nearly anything out there, if you are gaming. Going up to 16 gb ram I can only assume you are doing video editing?
 
Primarily it's built for Game Development, but I also render 3DArt whih as I said pushes the system from around 20% load to stressed, the extra RAM is just to remove some of that pressure, UE4 and Unity will also appreciate the extra power.

I also aren't too keen on running just a sungle bank of RAM on a dual channel board.
 
Hmm...I don't know much about game development, but I would assume (If you could shell out of the money) an Intel CPU would perform much greater. You are right, 16 gb of RAM would help immensely. I don't know how much pressure those programs put on the GPU, but I would assume a fair portion. I'm just going to assume you know more about what you need sense I don't know anything about Game Development.
 
Its one of those things where writing and compiling code is the job of the system rather than the GPU, which basically handles the results outputting the "game" everything with Unity for the most part sits live in the RAM and then displays when run.

The GPU is less important than the rest in this instance which is why I'm still running my entry level GT610. As for Intel been better you're right but at the trade off in terms of porice my Athlon Black was simply a better choice on my budget, I've alos buried 2 Intel dual cores over the last couple of years so i needed something with a tonne more power again budget consrtraints pushed me toward the Athlon.

I've also pretty much always had Athlon systems aside from two intermediates that were Intel, but for what I need now it should handle it, a GFX card update at a later date will put me just about upto date in terms of what I can or cannot run as a gaming rig.
 
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