Building a new Gaming PC!

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
What you basically want is to look for an ATX compliant case. See, I've got a full tower case (nzxt h630, for reference.) which has the mounting points for basically every ATX standard available from pico to standard. Yeah, there's like five sizes for atx boards. The bigger the case, the more sizes of boards it will fit, but YES! Your motherboard is a micro atx model. So it will fit that case.

Micro and standard are the most common for desktop builds. With the case you've linked, it's a mini tower, so one of the smallest cases you can get. The orange is nice, but I prefer the purple myself.

I'd actually recommend getting a mid tower. It gives you more room to work. makes it easier to plan cable routing, and the bigger the case the more likely you are to get stuff like drive bays and slots. But that's my preference, and I have big hands. Also, more room for fans if you don't use watercooling, extra airflow never hurts. Ever.

Optical bays are kinda of hard to find these days, as the assumption is that no one uses them anymore. The standard has certainly changed and most companies opt for digital delivery of stuff, but it's also not hard to acquire an external USB bay or external drive too. And I say this as a guy whom only recently ditched his CD-rw, despite not having used it in years.

ALSO! Only one of those cases comes with a power supply, and the one that comes with is a 300 watt. You will need a bigger power supply. Especially since this is going to be a gaming rig and GPUs are complete and utter HOGS. Get a nice 750 or 800 in platinum or titanium (those are ratings, not metals.) and you'll never have to worry about releasing the magic blue smoke.
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Hmmn, good point. I see these two designs I like:


Comes ion white or black, and it looks lie the optical drive goes into the bottom hidden drawer? Is that correct or am I just imagining that?



Clearly shows the Optical drive bays, but I like the other design better, as it seems to be designed to have the cable management on the other side of the motherboard, out of sight. This one, while not bad, doesn't look as clean as the other.


I would rather go with the top one, if that is indeed a hidden spot for an optical drive. (I am planning on using my old Blu-ray drive from my last PC until I can get something better).
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
Yes, that's a hidden drive. You can use it for optical drives, or hard drives in that form factor (since I know you want an m.2, you could slap a secondary hard drive there.) since it fits 5.25 and comes with a 2.5 drive adaptor.

Keep in mind you will need to clean the dust out of the computer more often on those grillwork cases, also that the brand fractal generally the cheap option. I don't mean inexpensive (but that too.) but also "entry level quality".

ONE MORE THING!

You need to consider the size of your GPU and the power supply when considering the case. Neither cases nor GPUs have outright standards FOR SIZE and you need to check the GPU and PSU will fit into the bays on the case.

Which is another reason I simply decided to go with a bigger case. "Oh, the PSU is kinda loose... *tightens screw more*
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
So that bottom one seems to be bigger than the top one. So that would give more space. I don't have a GPU picked out yet. I don't plan on getting anything top of the line, just a a good mid grade card, so certainly that Mid tower would work right?



I know its on the cheaper end as far as cases go, but it should be fine for me, as I am not going to be pushing this Gaming PC that hard.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
The case is literally just the box the computer goes in. I built a working PC out of an old tupperware bin few years back. The only aspect that matter here are "do I like how it looks" and "will my parts fit", and now that you know you need to pay attention that: you're gonna get parts that fit.

It's gonna be awesome when it's done man, and you're gonna be so proud of yourself. It'll be great!
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Thanks! Ok, as much as I liked the color options on those Fractal Design caes, they didn't list on the item page that they were MATX compatiable, only on the search page for that did that show. So that made me a little nervous, so I went looking around some more and found this:


My last case was a cooler master, and its done a fine job for me, and this one looks like it will too! Now to look at how expensive power supplies have got over the years and cry......
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
So that leaves me to get the following:

Power supply
Windows
M2
Graphics card for better gaming performance
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
I like cooler master. My current CPU cooler is a CM and it's just awesome.

Good luck with the graphics card: they are very expensive these days, even midrange ones. I've heard some good things about the intel line (arc? I think?) but I've also seen some reports of wonkiness. Which is expected in a first generation attempt, even from a long standing chip producer like intel. I'm personally a long standing AMD user, and am probably overdue on replacing my rx480, but it's not worth it without upgrading everything else and I can't afford to throw into building a new computer unless something dies.

Remember: you want 750-800 watt platinum or titanium power supply, and apparently a m.2 2280 card. For the GPU you can get whatever you want: but you'll have better compatibility if you get one with the same chipset as your CPU. So optimally an AMD gpu.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Why do none of these cases seem to have any front-mounted ports at all?

Also, I noticed recently that all the ATX cases put the power supply at the bottom nowadays. I kinda get that you're getting fresh outside air that way instead of air that's already been heated by the internal components (especially if your CPU fan isn't ducted, which they usually aren't anymore), but do those tiny feet really give enough clearance to get air in that way?

I can't believe we've gone back to the Commodore 64 days of "You can't put the computer on a carpet or it won't get proper ventilation."
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
I do have a little PC stand that is on wheels, so that plus the feet on the case should get it high enough if I decide to put this one on the floor. I might just put it on the desk though.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
Why do none of these cases seem to have any front-mounted ports at all?

Also, I noticed recently that all the ATX cases put the power supply at the bottom nowadays. I kinda get that you're getting fresh outside air that way instead of air that's already been heated by the internal components (especially if your CPU fan isn't ducted, which they usually aren't anymore), but do those tiny feet really give enough clearance to get air in that way?

I can't believe we've gone back to the Commodore 64 days of "You can't put the computer on a carpet or it won't get proper ventilation."
You generally don't want to put a computer on carpet anyway, cause even if the airflow is fine: you're still sucking up all the dirt and carpet fibers. A mini ATX case usually sits on top of the desk anyway.

But yeah... if you've got a bigger case: no carpet please.

Front mounted ports tended to go the way of the dodo in favour of front mounted fans, so it's either on the tops or sides now.
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Some good news! After doing my taxes, I should be able to get all the remaining parts for my PC! Woot! Just got to wait for the deposit!
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
How about this power supply?


Its platinum, fully modular.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
1000w, reviews seem decent, and universal cables? Go for it man. If it's not defective from factory, should treat you well for years.
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
That should be good enough for me for a long time. The card comes with a free copy of the last of us, so that should be fun. I also ordered some paste to put the CPU on with.
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Now that just leaves me the M2 and Windows. I think that I will get Windows now and upgrade the PC later on to have an M2, as I am just really itching to get this PC built!
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
Corsair is a good brand, but realistically: their all built in the same factory. The GPU looks awesome, and it's reinforcing my own desire to build a new computer (which I do not need to do, or have the means to afford.).

The beautiful part of installing the M2 later is that you just need a wee bit of software on your PC to clone the old windows drive over, and you're done. Plus, you will notice a difference in response time. Makes the whole thing feel faster.

If you're buying windows 11, my suggestion is to take a look for a custom installer called "windows 11 tiny". It strips out most of the crap (like the advertising.) and further speeds up the build. But you do you on the OS man.
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
I will be honest, it was the ship logo on it that sold me on that PSU. :)

The MSI GPU is supposed to be pretty good, and I am sure that its miles beyond what my little 2014 Midrange GPU can do.
 


Top Bottom