Ultimate Value Gaming Build Guide
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
2,574 words · ~12 min read
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So above land in a rocket ship the night
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night made of mega. Ladies and gentlemen, leave the world and bring
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your friends. Step inside and close the door.
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Shut it out. Plug it in. Press
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your walls.
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Today's build guide is one that you've asked for, pleaded for, demanded.
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Lionus, you said, "If you don't do some
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valueoriented content about stuff I can actually afford, I'm going to
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unsubscribe." Well, I heard you. I heard you. This
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video isn't about getting a zillion frames per second in Crisis 6 while
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running on three 8K TVs and surround.
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This video isn't about liquid cooling your CPU, your graphics card, and that
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cheeky smirk off your buddy's face all at once. It's about getting good value
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and upgradability out of your new gaming PC without spending a whole lot of
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money. Welcome to the ultimate value gaming PC build guide, Intel Edition. To
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start with, a safe static-free workstation is a must. I use a mod mat
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and an anti-static ankle strap. Now, the only tool we really need for assembly is
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a multi-bit screwdriver, but a magnetic parts tray, a pair of side cutters, and
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a pair of needle-nose pliers is nice to have. Before you begin, I always
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recommend verifying that the system posts or powers on and outputs to the
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display. You can use your motherboard box as a free non-conductive test bench.
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And since this is a basic motherboard without an onboard power button, a handy
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trick I'd like to show you is that you can use your screwdriver to short these
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pins if you don't have your power button connected yet and you want to try the
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board. Our CPU choice was all about
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compromises. The Pantium G3258
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gives up multiple processing cores. It
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gives up hyperthreading and it gives up turbo boost. It also gives up the
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massive cash that the higherend Haswell and Haswelli processors in its family
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enjoy. But darn it, this chip has spunk.
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And with a little overclocking, it'll hold up surprisingly well in all but the
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most demanding AAA titles, even when fighting well above its weight class, as
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we demonstrated in this little video a couple of weeks ago. You can easily swap
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it out for a Core i3 or a Core i5 if you want a little bit more horsepower though
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without changing anything else in this build guide. Hold your CPU by the edges
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and identify the corner with the gold triangle. Align that with the corner of
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the socket that has a triangle as well. Lift up the retention ARM. Lift up the
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socket cover. Place the CPU into the socket with no force. Lower the cover
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and fasten the retention ARM. Again, fancy coolers are the kind of thing that
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rich kids with their H2Os and LN2s might
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get to enjoy. But if your dad is a bluecollar, honest working man kind of
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guy, well, you might just find that stock cooling does a good enough job for
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a mild overclock and doesn't cost you a penny. Unless you grab a can of stove
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paint for six bucks to make it look badass, that is. Besides, you can always
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game on it now and splurge, you know, 30 bucks on a cooler next time you've got
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some walking around money. Check the bottom of your heat sink to ensure the
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pre-applied thermal compound is intact. Then unwrap the four pin fan connector
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from the clips around the outside of the fan. Orient the cooler so that your fan
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wire will have the closest path to the CPU fan header on your motherboard. Then
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put it down on top of your CPU with the plastic push pins at each corner
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sticking through the holes in the motherboard. Push down on opposite
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corners until you hear a click. Plug the fan connector into the board. Then
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double check the nubbins at the back of the board to make sure that they look
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like this. Buying RAM is easy for a
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value gaming build. Don't get fussed about which kit we're using. Just go to
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your favorite store or shopping website. Find the least expensive dual channel
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DDR3 kit in the capacity of your choice from a reputable brand like Kingston,
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Corsair, Gskill, or Adata and buy it.
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XMPP support is a bonus, but the speed
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of the RAM doesn't matter too much. Pull back the tabs on the two gray RAM slots.
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Then position each dim so the notch in the bottom lines up with the notch in
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the socket and press firmly on both ends
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until the tabs at the ends snap back into place on their own. Sometimes I
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choose a component for these build guides because it's a super expensive
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piece of hardware that I just want to touch. Sometimes I do it because the
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features and performance call to me and it's a perfect match for the rest of my
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build. And sometimes I'm just morbidly
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curious. So, today we'll be building in the Spec01 because I just wanted to know
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if this $50 gaming case can deliver an
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experience that still lives up to the Corsair name. Pull the side panels off
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and stash the thumb screws somewhere safe along with the rest of the included
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hardware. The case's only included 120
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mm cooling fan is already installed in the front, which is a good place for it
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since that intake is filtered to keep the PC's guts both clean and cool. If we
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had beefier hardware, a rear or top exhaust fan, though, would be a good
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addition. Now, the motherboard choice is
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always tough, and in a value build, it's even tougher. The board doesn't impact
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performance, so I could literally buy the cheapest thing that will accept my
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CPU and graphics card and RAM and call it a day. But it does affect features.
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So, we went with a Z97C from ASUS because it has official support for
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overclocking, although lower-end boards, even business grade ones, are known to
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do it, and it's got a good balance of features, quality, and expandability to
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price. Press firmly on the four corners of the IO shield until they snap into
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place. Then plug the eightpin power supply connector in now to avoid a cable
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management nightmare later on. Place the board down on the integrated standoffs
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and install the screws that look like this into the five positions around the
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perimeter of the board. The middle one can be left blank. This is just a post
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to hold the board in place while you secure it. While you have easy access to
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the board, plug in the front power and reset switches, as well as the power and
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drive activity LEDs. Follow up with the block style connectors for USB 2, front
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audio, and USB 3. Then finally, plug
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your front fan into the header on the motherboard here so we can use software
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to control it later. To practical folks, there's only really a couple things to
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consider when shopping for a budget power supply. Price and quality. Me, I
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can be a bit of a sucker for looks. So, when I saw that the 430 W CXM is on with
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a $20 rebate for only 40 bucks, I went for it. It's black, semi-odular, and 80
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plus bronze, making it a solid deal compared to the CIC gray unit that I
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normally use for budget builds. For another 15 bucks, to 600 W version,
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though, would be good if you want a bit more growing room. Uh, but other than a
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quad core or a slightly better graphics card, this system isn't really being
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built to be super upgradable. So, the 430 W is a great choice. Slide the power
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supply in grill side up for better cooling and attach it to the case using
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four of these screws. You already ran the 8 pin connector when we cheated a
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bit in the last step. So, plug in the 24 pin connector being cognizant of the
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space you'll need behind the motherboard tray for cable management when you try
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to close the rear panel. Plug in a modular SATA cable and run that over to
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the front bay. Then plug in a PCI Express connector and run that to this
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cable management hole right here. An SSD is still a no-brainer to me. Even on a
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value build, a hard drive doesn't cost much more than a night out at the movies
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with a friend who won't stop shoving popcorn and nachos into his or her face.
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So, in my mind, it can be added later, but an SSD makes the whole system
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snappier and more responsive. We went with an Intel 530 series 120 gig drive,
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but frankly, a 300 or 700 series drive
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would also be fine. Grab whatever series and capacity gets you the most gigabytes
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for your dollar and go with that. Pull one of the hard drive sleds out of the
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side of the case and use four of these screws to secure the SSD to it. Please
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note that if you're installing a hard drive at this stage, you'll want to use
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these screws instead. Slide the cage
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back in. Plug in the SATA power connector that you left hanging before.
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Then plug the right angle end of a SATA data cable into the drive and the
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straight end into your motherboard. Choosing the best graphics card for a
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value gaming rig can be done one of two ways. Method number one, find a recent
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video card roundup. Find the lowest price you can for each of the cards in
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it. Then divide the frame rates the reviewer gets in the games you want to
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play by the price and buy whichever one
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delivers the best FPS per dollar. Method number two, buy everything else cheaping
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out wherever possible and then spend whatever is left of your budget on the
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best graphics card you can find. We ended up with a Radeon R seven260X
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because there was a good deal at Amazon when we went pricing this out. So, your
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mileage may vary on that, but the general rule is that the low 100s to
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high $200 range is generally where
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you're going to find the FPS per dollar sweet spot. Installing expansion cards
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is the one area where Corsair let me down a little bit with this case because
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it's otherwise very good for the price with folded edges to keep my fingers
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safe being an awesome inclusion. Take out the two screws that hold in this
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random piece of metal at the back. Then take out the two screws holding in these
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two PCI covers that correspond with our PCIe16x slot. Align the card carefully
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with the slot. Push it in firmly. Put the two screws back in. Put the random
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piece of metal back on. And then plug in that PCI Express power connector that
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was cable managed earlier. Cable management is a bit of a bear on this
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case, or at least it appears at first glance to be. There isn't a ton of room
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behind the motherboard tray and there aren't a lot of places to tie down
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wires, so we're just going to kind of do our best with it. The good news, though,
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is that the rear side panel bulges out.
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So, installing it over top of our slightly rat's nesty wire arrangement
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here is actually no big deal. If you're not looking to spend much on
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peripherals, I still recommend something halfway decent for the mouse because it
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doesn't cost that much and makes a big difference. Grab an M45 optical gaming
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mouse or a no frills optical mouse from someone like Zi, for example. The
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keyboard is one that's not as big a deal to me. And a basic PS2 keyboard will do
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as well as most gaming membrane keyboards until you start spending
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several pretty pennies on them for features like macro keys and
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backlighting, at which point I would almost suggest just foregoing it for now
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and saving up a few more pretty pennies for a mechanical keyboard later on down
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the line. for the monitor. Anything with gaming specific features will cost a lot
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more than a commodity 23 in 1080p display. So unless you really need HDMI
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pass through, virtually no input lag like on BenQ's RL series, just go with a
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TN for faster pixels or IPS for better
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colors, commodity monitor. Pick one that looks nice to you and call it a day.
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Press delete or F2 to get into the UEFI BIOS for the motherboard. Hit F7 to get
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into advanced mode and turn your CPU multiplier up to something in the 42 to
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44 range. You shouldn't need to touch any other settings, but while you're in
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here, you might as well check and make sure your RAM is running at its rated
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speed. Enable XMPP if that option is
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available. To install your Windows operating system, create a bootable USB
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drive and then reboot while mashing F8 immediately to get into the boot device
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selection menu where you'll pick your USB drive. Once the setup process has
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begun, it's basically a matter of clicking next until you land on the
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Windows desktop. Once you're booted, drivers can be found on the manufacturer
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websites for ASUS, Intel, etc. And this is a good time to hit up nite.com to
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pick up your favorite free applications in a nice easy to use junkwearfree
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package. The last stage here is to find out just how well our little budget
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gaming rig performed. So, we took it for a spin in the most popular games, many
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of which are very inexpensive or even free to play, being streamed on Twitch
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TV, and discovered that if your objective is to have a capable,
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inexpensive gaming box to play League with your friends, then a machine like
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this is going to be right up your alley. If you want to get the most out of
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Crisis 3, uh, quad core Core i5 or i7
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CPU and a GPU upgrade might be in order, but this will at least get you started
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as a member of the PC gaming community. Now, sit back and enjoy some glam of our
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finished system, which I really wish I had painted the heat sinks on the
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motherboard gold on. Uh, well, I thank everyone involved in making this video
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possible. Intel, our sponsor, Brandon, Luke, Taran, and Edzel, the members of
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my team who helped make it. The musicians who provide their music to us
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free of charge and don't pursue copyright strikes against us, even though I forget to credit them half the
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time. And of course, you, the viewer, for sitting through this video and maybe
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even giving us a like or a dislike, depending on how you felt about it.
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Thanks for watching. Don't forget to subscribe, and I'll see you guys again next time.