Poll: Can you build a PC?

[Not-here-anymore]

No, but I certainly intend to try next term when my student loan comes through!

 

[SovietSecrets]

I have built mine computer about three times, my dads computer over 5 times in a day trying to solve a problem with his graphics card, and a few of my friends computers.

 

[justnotcricket]

I haven't made a hobby out of it, but I know the ropes.

I can and do build lasers though, which in my totally unbiased opinion is way cooler =P

 

[ezeroast]

Intel i7 920
EVGA Intel X58 SLI3 Motherboard
GeForce GTX 285
Thermaltake 850W toughpower
Seagate Barracuda 1tb HD
CoolerMaster Cosmos S (case)
Corsair CMT6GX3M3A2000C8 6GB (3x2GB) Dominator GT
Prolimatech Megahalems Rev. B (CPU cooler)
Zalman VF3000N VGA Cooler (had to cut and modify this to make it fit, massive pain in the arse!)

Put this together about a year and a half ago and still running sweet. Coolers were added about 6 months ago.

Feels great to put it all together and fire it up. Better still that it worked 1st try and didn't have to screw around with anything else!!

 

[MrTub]

Yep. I don't trust any system I or some specific people I know didn't build. I'm still using a three year old system that hasn't had a gaming hiccup yet. Some people don't believe me when I say it runs Crysis turned up to the nines... but most of those people have it installed on slow hard drives...

You do know that slow HDD pretty much only affects the load times? And may i ask what resolution you are using?

Load times, precaching texture maps, accessing game data that isn't precached... You'd be amazed how many different things speed up with a faster hard drive.
But yeah, I only run it in 1280x1024. Limits of my cheap monitor.

I've played with SSD and with my normal hdd which read around 80-90mb/s and I havent noticed anything difference except load times for maps and such so to say a normal hdd slows down the computer in game is quite wrong. And the reason that you can play it with quite high settings is cause you're using such a low resolution, and most ppl use 1920x1080 these days and that is probably why people are so suprised that you can play it on "high" settings.

eh, *shrug*
Depends on the game. You're right about Crysis, though. It's not really my mainstay genre in gaming anyway (I never actually finished Crysis. Got bored with it quick).

God I hate that *shrug* if you don't believe me or something else please tell me then.

Might be a bit outdated article:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/SSD/downloads/SSD_vs_HDD_is_there_a_difference_Rev_3.pdf


Difference between a SSD and a 7200rpm HDD
6.4% improvement in frames per
second was measured

and a SSD is alot faster then a raptor HDD so would be even less difference between a normal HDD and urs.

 

[Lbsjr]

I will... at some point this year at least. I love computer games a whole lot more than console games with notable exceptions. But I'm not really hardware savvy. Basically I'll just try to make an upgraded version of my uncles computer, which he got from PC laptops and its just about top of the line. I'm currently stuck on a Compaq Intell 4 with barely 1.5 Gig of RAM and only the on-board video card but I do have a slightly older Soundblaster so I'm pointed in the right direction. At least I have an uncle(not the same as before) who works in them for a living and therefore will help me with what I need. Yay family ties!

 

[Thedayrecker]

Yes, and I've helped my dad build some, including my own

 

[BreakfastMan]

Nope, wouldn't know the first place to start. I have never really needed to know how to, and I do not plan on learning anytime soon.

 

[Zeriah]

Yep! It was actually surprisingly simple, just needed a couple of youtube vids and was finished in a few hours.

 

[Fangv2]

Motherboard: ASUS M4A77TD AMD770 R
Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 640 3.00GHz
RAM: Kingston 4GB DDR3
Hard-drive: 1TB Samsung
Graphics-card: Radeon HD 5770 1GB
Powersupply: OCZ 600W
Case: APEX Black-ATX Mid-tower

Cost: 500 or so

And yes I built it by myself. I'm 14.

 

[Jedoro]

With no knowledge of a car's inner workings whatsoever, I replaced my old Honda's alternator with parts left over and it worked fine. I think I could figure out a computer.

 

[Zaverexus]

I would love to learn how, but my most available teacher (my dad) is always too busy to teach me. I really should ask though

 

[loc978]

Yep. I don't trust any system I or some specific people I know didn't build. I'm still using a three year old system that hasn't had a gaming hiccup yet. Some people don't believe me when I say it runs Crysis turned up to the nines... but most of those people have it installed on slow hard drives...

You do know that slow HDD pretty much only affects the load times? And may i ask what resolution you are using?

Load times, precaching texture maps, accessing game data that isn't precached... You'd be amazed how many different things speed up with a faster hard drive.
But yeah, I only run it in 1280x1024. Limits of my cheap monitor.

I've played with SSD and with my normal hdd which read around 80-90mb/s and I havent noticed anything difference except load times for maps and such so to say a normal hdd slows down the computer in game is quite wrong. And the reason that you can play it with quite high settings is cause you're using such a low resolution, and most ppl use 1920x1080 these days and that is probably why people are so suprised that you can play it on "high" settings.

eh, *shrug*
Depends on the game. You're right about Crysis, though. It's not really my mainstay genre in gaming anyway (I never actually finished Crysis. Got bored with it quick).

God I hate that *shrug* if you don't believe me or something else please tell me then.

Might be a bit outdated article:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/SSD/downloads/SSD_vs_HDD_is_there_a_difference_Rev_3.pdf


Difference between a SSD and a 7200rpm HDD
6.4% improvement in frames per
second was measured

and a SSD is alot faster then a raptor HDD so would be even less difference between a normal HDD and urs.

Ye gods I hate chatspeak... thing is, this is the internet. Get used to people not caring enough to argue.

But if you must have an answer:
It's not that I don't believe you. I know a faster hard drive has little effect on graphics rendering speed (which is all the benchmark you cited tests). As I said, most of my games aren't of the small, but graphically impressive persuasion. I'm not too concerned about my frames per second, so long as they stay above 20. What I am concerned with is load times that happen during combat, which happens a lot in large, open-world games. Makes all the difference in the world for the new Fallout games, or even something like Diablo II.
This is a similar argument to the one about more processor cores being effectively useless for gaming. Might not help in your linear shooter, but my RTS can support and effectively use up to eight cores (so yeah, my current system build runs Crysis better than it runs Supreme Commander... much to my shame).

 

[AwesomeExpress]

Does making one out of carboard count? Cause if so.. I voted wrong.. Because I have done that.

 

[NardBasket]

I built my last two PC's, the last one being all pretty with an Antec 900 case and blue and purple case fans So far I've used Intel processors but I may use an AMD next time

 

[AK47Marine]

I built a frankencomputer before I enlisted but damned if it didn't work well.... till the cooling unit died of age and the CPU fried sniff... I miss you hal


probably will build again further down the road.

 

[SpAc3man]

I am actually pleasantly surprised at the large number of people here that can build a PC. I was under the impression that the Escapist community was a bit more....casual. This makes me happy.

It is such a wonderful skill to posses. Useful for earning money on the side (tax free of course) and the occasional box of beer for an issue that was fixed in 5 min with a google search.

 

[LandoCristo]

Yep, made a mid-range desktop about a year ago. If I were to upgrade it, I'd get a new motherboard (I bought a cheap one with only one socket for the GPU, so I'd replace it if I had the money).

 

[silverleaf81]

I just learned how to do it last year, when i had to move everything from one computer case to the other. I'm very proud of myself, being 14 and knowing how to install hardware.