Questions about building a gaming/streaming rig.

[8-Bit Archeology]

So I have a Velocity Micro tower with a decent power supply and a basic dvd rom. It was a tower built with windows vista on an intel 4 platform.
I have since removed the gpu, motherboard and cd rom.
Now what my questions are is as follows.
If I buy a motherboard, CPU combo will the cpu be mounted?
If I buy a motherboard and cpu and gpu separately, other than the gpu slot what compatibility issues do I need to look out for.

I do know how to put silver on the cpu for the heat sink but do not want to do this.


Also and finally I am very low on money since loosing my job. I have donations coming in VERY slowly on my stream from my laptop but need a bigger rig. What sites or brands do you recommend. I have tigerdirect and newegg in mind but know that theres better options. I just don't know where.

Thank you all so much in advance.

[Flojomojo]

Wouldn't you rather be looking for a new job that can pay the bills?

[Jorpho]

Seconded. Whatever you have in mind, you probably won't turn a profit on this project.


If I buy a motherboard, CPU combo will the cpu be mounted?That depends on where you buy it from. I'd say it's pretty unlikely.


If I buy a motherboard and cpu and gpu separately, other than the gpu slot what compatibility issues do I need to look out for.Fancy graphics cards tend to have higher power supply requirements. At the high end you might also have to worry more about cooling.


I do know how to put silver on the cpu for the heat sink but do not want to do this.I really hated doing that the last time I bought a CPU. I ended up spending a lot more on an extra-fancy CPU cooler that had thermal paste pre-applied.

[Niku-Sama]

You might still need a new power supply. P4s are at about where atx went from 20 to 24 pin connectors and anything new is going to need 24.... Not to mention the wattage on the old power supply might not be enough and after trying to power a energy hungry p4 it's probably on its way out.

I wouldn't trust it but a psu should only run about 50 bucks for a decent one and they often go on sale

[Tanooki]

The tower case could be saved, but as said power supplies have changed, you'll need another.

If you want to save money since you're out of work, my advice is to find a solid board which has an Intel HD 4600 graphics chip on board along with an i5/i7 processor capable slot. Until you have good income rolling in, go with that and an i5, you can pop a 7 in later which cost more. As far as the RAM, your choice, but I'd think it wise to have a machine that can use 32GB of RAM, have 16 on it to give plenty of room for now and for later expansion. After that really, the parts are up to you because even the motherboard have the audio on them for years now. Since you're already with an existing thing and parts, you already have the accessories sorted out and potentially could farm out any dvd-rw or whatever is on the existing thing if the plugs still line up.

[SAV2880]

I'd say to start 16GB of RAM would be just fine provided the motherboard you have supports 4 memory chips, and you buy a pair of 8GB chips and leave the other two blank. You don't want to lock up your ability to upgrade that later.

Also, another question worth asking, what games do you play on your current rig, and do you plan on playing the same games on the new desktop, or do you want to extend to newer and better stuff? That's going to make all the difference in the world on the graphics card. The newer Intel chips can stream using built-in QuickSync, so that mitigates a lot of CPU strain, but if you're headed to newer games, you'll still need dedicated (and you can utilize simultaneously).

[sfchakan]

Wouldn't you rather be looking for a new job that can pay the bills?

Since this board lacks a +1 or Like feature, I'll just embolden this and say "Uh, yeah... that's probably a good idea!"

[Trebuken]

Thrift stores....for the last couple of years I have only found PIV's towers at the thrift stores. Recently I have seen a core2duo and an Athlon 64 which I bought for $12.99 - it just needed RAM.

You could get lucky. Even if you still need to upgrade you may get a power supply and another case for cheap...

[Tanooki]

That's not a bad idea. I can't remember the last time I ever saw a computer at a thrift store. The sad truth of it which is computers themselves stopped really advancing heavily in quite a few years now, perhaps that moore's law heat barrier bit. We got to this point of speed, then it went almost to a critical stop and instead spread laterally with cores, and then video cards stepped in and started really upping the ante on how much they could do taking more of the draw away from the processor. In my back closet I have this Dell we got before I was a year into my job I'm still at now back in 2006 (pc is from 07) and it's an intel quad core PC and it's got I think 3 or 4 GB of RAM on it, crappy windows vista, 2 optical drives of which one is a burner of dvd/cds, a 9in1 card reader in a drive slot, 8 USB ports(front and back), and some other nice goodies and the good reliable realtek audio on board. It still works, sluggish as hell due to vista sucking, and it has a 2GB video card in there too from the ATI/Radeon family that still is respectable enough today(dx9 card if I recall.) That computer I do not believe is PCiExpress, I don't recall, but still there's far better parts and more RAM that could go into it yet as I just went high on the CPU at the time on a budget. Also wiping that ugly vista install and replacing with win7 would do wonders too.

That quad core could run a LOT of stuff still, and if you can start coming up with dual and quad core PCs at a goodwill of all things for very little cash, getting parts old enough for those online would be cheap too and an acceptable way to build a nice computer as long as you're not expecting to play a lot of DirectX11 games.

[Gamevet]

What kind of games are you trying to play with this new PC build?

I'd suggest checking out youtube videos on how to build a PC. I did a lot of my research for my 1st build back in 2010 (I started out by replacing my dual-core with a Q9650 in my store bought PC in 2009), by watching videos on how to apply thermal paste for the CPU, programs to use to check out if your CPU is running cool enough, and what kind of builds you can put together for a reasonable price. Linus Tech tips has a lot of information on doing everything to build PCs and hardware that is available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Q8ksRI1Eo

[boatofcar]

What kind of games do you want to run? What is your budget?

Building your own system, as opposed to buying off the shelf, has a certain fanatical following, but in many cases you can buy an off the shelf system for less than you can to build, and you don't have to worry about seating a CPU incorrectly or any of the other things that can go wrong where you end up with a hunk of worthless plastic and metal.

Example: Earlier this year, I bought this system

Intel Core i7 4790K (4GHz)
Intel Z97 Motherboard
AMD Radeon R9 285 2GB
8GB RAM DDR3 1600
1TB HDD | 24x DVDRW
Wi-Fi
600W Power Supply | Thermaltake Versa Case
Windows 8.1 64-bit
Liquid Cooling
Keyboard & Mouse

prebuilt on Newegg for $800. There's no way you could build that system for that price at that time (the graphics card has gotten cheaper now, so it may be closer). Not saying that your situation might be different, but don't automatically think building is going to get you a cheaper system.

Keep an eye on Slickdeals (http://slickdeals.net/), especially their forums, where good PC deals get posted all the time, but they don't always make the front page.

Don't discount Intel HD graphics. Before you spend a ton on a dedicated card, see if you can get by with that. Chances are, if you've been playing on a P4, you can.

[Gamevet]

He doesn't have a job. I doubt he can afford an $800 build.

He should give us a better description of what he is trying to build. The price, type of games he's trying to play, and if he wants a system with a good future upgrade path.

[boatofcar]

If you read my entire comment, I was using my build as an example of how it's not always economical to build a system yourself. What I actually recommend is that he buy a system with integrated graphics.

[Gamevet]

If you read my entire comment, I was using my build as an example of how it's not always economical to build a system yourself. What I actually recommend is that he buy a system with integrated graphics.

I know. I'm just saying he should give us a ball park figure of what kind of money he is looking to spend. If he only wants to spend around $450, building it himself might be the best option.

[JSoup]

If the goal is to just have a machine what streams games, it might be a better idea overall to just get a cheat capture card, some HDMI cables and stream whatever consoles are handy, maybe even picking up a cheap one along with the rest of the tools. It doesn't take much horse power (and is considerably cheaper) to stream directly from a modern system or, hell, just stream whatever is on your TV screen.

Hell, if all that's on hand are Steam-type games or emulators, download OBS, learn how to use it and stream at pretty much no cost besides time.