As seen in my previous post, I wanted to write this post as I did this build, but I just didn’t have the time. Instead, this is a summary of my experiences building a PC.
Over the last few years, I have always gotten second hand computers. I’m totally fine with that (I mean, free computer, what’s not to love?), but when running intensive tasks such as AutoCad, or some program that I wrote, these computer can become serious bottlenecks.
So I decided it was time to burn through my life savings a year before college and build a PC.
Here are a list of requirements that I had for my PC:
- Very strong processing power that can handle multi threaded workloads like a champ
- “Future – resistant” motherboard that can keep with the changes in technology for at least the foreseeable future.
- Strong cuda-enabled graphics – I’m definitely not someone who games, or even likes to game, but a cuda enabled graphics card is a killer piece of hardware when it comes down to running more intensive programs as well as code
- Overclocking capability – similar to the “future-resistant” part I mentioned before, I want to be able to overclock my system later on to squeeze all the performance that I can get out of it
- Fast OS – good boot up times
- Decent amount of mass storage – I plan on having this as my main rig, and a mere 128 gb system won’t cut it
- Mid tower – nobody wants to bring a computer that is bigger than their back pack to college
- Windowed case – I’m about to blow my life savings on silicon, and solder; I better be able to oogle at it’s beauty every day.
- AFFORDABLE – I ain’t made of money!
So based on these requirements, I came up with my parts list:
- Intel i7 – 6700k processor: I thought this was a decent processor for the task. I would have preferred a higher core count, but I feel like this is an updated/future resistant processor, not to mention the single thread performance and overclocking capability make it a solid choice for this build.
- z170x-UD3 motherboard: My motherboard options weren’t the biggest, as the skylake processors are still new, but this motorboard stuck out to me because of its M.2 and type-C connector, which means that this mother board will still be relevant when those protocols become the standard.
- GTX-970: My original plan was a GTX 960, or something even worse than that. I was about to pull the trigger on buying a 960, but then a friend offered me the 970 for the same price as a 960, making this card a no brainer-choice for the GPU.
- PNY 258gb SSD – I really wanted one of those fancy NVMe drives that are insanely fast for my OS, but my wallet held me back, making me stick with the tried and trusted SATA 3 ssd. I don’t remember the exact model number, but this drive was cheap, well rated, and the performance that I was looking for.
- WD 1TB hard drive – Again, don’t remember the exact type of hard drive, but similar story to the ssd: cheap, well rated, and good performance.
- NZXT S340 case – This is one of the cheapest cases that I have seen. What made this stick out to me is that is gorgeous for its price point, and it is so cheap that I won’t think twice if I ever have to mod it.
The rest of my parts list can be found at: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Ldtq3F
I really wish that I had taking photos while building the PC, but as you could guess, I was so excited to build this PC that I completely forgot to document the process. So, without future delay, here is my new rig (I know the LEDs are tacky, but I gotta have some fun :P)
