My (possibly disastrous) attempt to build a PC

Ah, I didn't consider that. Would you say that's still worth it if I plan on upgrading it to 16 gigs in the somewhat foreseeable future?
Oh, I can do that with even more 4gig...thingies. Thanks for the tip!

And yes, I am in germany. That is probably why I screwed up the budget (noone will get this joke and I can't blame them)

Edit: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/2lTnF hey it got cheaper overn - no wait some parts are unavailable

Some of your parts seem needlessly expensive. Be careful what you are buying, you do not want to overpay. DVD burner can be had for 20 Euros, and a 2TB hard drive can be had for around 80-100 Euros, try to get one with 7200RPM, it will be faster then 5400RPM.

Also, you do not need a separate cooler for your CPU, the box should come with one, and the factory one is fine unless you plan to overclock your CPU.

If you plan to upgrade you RAM in the future, get an ATX motherboard, they usually have 4 slots. So you can put in 8GB now, and 8GB in the future. Or up to 16GB, 32GB or 64GB depending on the motherboard.
But unless you plan to run virtual machines on your PC, or Planetary Annihilation Server(s) you do not need more then 8GB of RAM for gaming.

Assuming your budget is still 1000 Euros, this might serve your needs:
http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/2mpaA


Refer to these charts to determine relative power of CPU and GPU:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

Remember to also order and anti-static wrist wrap, so you can wear it while you build your PC.
http://www.amazon.de/Antistatik-Man...TF8&qid=1387317599&sr=8-2&keywords=Antistatik

Oh dear, I still haven't managed to do this yet (this was in 2013? Holy **** ), but it looks like I might be able to soon, so i guess uhm...THREAD REACTIVATE!
I'm sure a lot of the advice given here is still relevant but since computer hardware out dates rather quickly, some of it some of it probably isn't up to date any longer. At the moment I'm mostly wondering which operating system I should go with. Since I also want to be able to play some older games win7 still seems like a good option but I'm not sure how much lasting potential it still has.

So yeah, uh...my budget is still pretty much the same, I just might be able to afford it now. Hopefully. Maybe. Sorta.

He is NOT being cute neither. You will BRICK your expensive electronics. Exposed electronic circuit boards and complex processors and card chips WILL fry to static electricity. Thin non-cotton static-free cloth is best. Or wood.

Oh, this is a necro. Anyway, same principles apply. As far as OS, you can use Wine for most things. Besides that, you can risk starting with Linux, and getting Win7 or 8 later. By time you need it, you may possibly be able to get a cheap copy.

So like @arseface said,
If you want to make a gaming computer, pick the GPU you want first.
Find a motherboard that'll take it.
Find a CPU that'll go in it.
Add some RAM.
Steal a hard drive from a previous machine.
Get a power supply with some power to spare.
Get a case.
Put some fans in it.
If the case doesn't come with a disk drive, get one of those.
Use your old monitor.

I've actually had better backwards compatibility with the Win10 tech demo than I did with Win7... up until a couple weeks ago.

Hopefully they'll fix whatever it was they broke, because it was AWESOME not having crashes in old and/or foreign programs.

Here you go, I'm assuming you're still in Germany:
http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/bYQqXL

I did not add an OS because it was not letting me add the proper one.
The OS is about 100-120 Euros.

You need either Windows 7 or Windows 8 64-bit Operating system.
Make sure it is 64 bits, I cannot stress this enough!

I recommend Windows 8 because it is newer and more optimized then Windows 7. But You can always install Classic Shell to get rid of the Metro Interface and get the start button back.
You may want to upgrade to Windows 10 for free when it comes out, up to you.

Stay away from the Nvidia GTX 970, it has memory issues that cause games to slow to a crawl if they use more then 3.5GB. Which is why I opted for the R9 290 instead.

This gaming grade PC should last you for a good long while.
The only thing you may need to upgrade down the line is the GPU, and that is subjective for each person.

I have read up on this some and I suggest that you do the same, teju. There are some memory issues because of how Nvidia created the memory to core interface that results on the last 1/8 (512MB) of the vRAM being WAY slower than the rest of it. However, the card intellegently avoids that 1/8 and I know of no games that use 3.5GB+ of vRAM in 1080p. It's seems to be an issue mostly affecting SLI users, but as I said, read up on the components you're looking at and learn as much as you can about possible faults to see if they will affect you and to watch out for them.

also GPU before CPU, what the balls.

Why not? GPU performance is more important than CPU for most people.

Agreed, I'd probably do the same thing.

not for simulated projectile mass-scale RTS gamers, definitely not.

really depends on the person. you can't generalize like that.

FA requires almost no GPU to run. PA can run with intel HD graphics on local but can't run with things lower than an i5 on local.

beginner's mistake.

I doesn't matter. It's stupid either way to choose GPU first because EVERY modern GPU is compatible with EVERY modern motherboard.

there's only one standard and that's PCI-E

as for CPU to motherboard and motherboard to RAM it's much trickier, you have to check the motherboard's compatibility list.

for motherboards there's no significant difference from one to another apart for overclocking so you just want the cheapest one that's compatible with your CPU and your RAM.

again for GPU it REALLY doesn't matter.

this is a constant noob question I get : "I can't put a ATI gpu with and intel CPU or a nVidia GPU with a AMD CPU, can I?"

Yes you can. so there is strictly no GPU that's incompatible with whatever mobo you choose.

I build my cases around my CPUs, not only is it thus better adapted to what I do but it also is a way more logical and simple way to do things. (and considering in my build the CPU 60% of the price of it all, it definitely seems more reasonable to give it a more central importance)

suit yourselves if you wanna do it GPU first.

Then doesn't that mean you can pick your GPU first as it doesn't matter what else you get, it'll be fine?...

Running PA locally with i3-4130 just fine.

From my expirience people usually overspend on CPUs, getting an i7 or FX 8xxx and GPUs like gtx 760 or r9 270 for AAA games.

Dang, that's a lot of advice already, thanks everyone, have some likes.
Regarding the question of picking cpu or gpu first, I'd say solid performance is more important to me than super fancy graphics (I'm not even sure if that affects the choice and having both would be kinda nice of course) and I'll probably mostly play shooters and some PA (I backed the damn thing and couldn't play it yet. I even had beta access :| )

basically you need both a good cpu and gpu to cover all your bases. A while back (especially forthings like shooters) the best option value wise was as much gpu as possible and little cpu. That's not really the case now, as many games are pushing cpu harder.

A core i5 is a nice sweet spot for a good build, its fast enough for any single gpu card. A haswell (4000) core i3 cpu is your best budget cpu at the moment (thanks to a bump in performance on haswell, its actually quite close to the i5 in most games now), however in some titles it may hold back a high end card a bit.

As for gpu, I'm a fan of the r9 290. It's a solid card, very good value and doesn't have any potential strange behavior with high memory use. The only reason people rave about the gtx 970 is the lower power consumption, however I don't view that as an issue in a desktop (laptops is where the nvidia 900 cards shine).

my experience is rather the opposite. people buy Titans (when the 980's right there) to play minecraft....

on the other hand one cannot overstate the importance of cpu.

as for your i3, it IS an i3 of the fourth generation "-4130", not exactly your intel-atom. but are you sure it was truely offline? PA does not inform you of this, as such the only way to be sure is to turn of the wifi or unplug your ethernet cable.

When I get back on my PC (keyboard!) I'll give you some more serious advice. Just to warn you, I'll be as vague as I can because it's not for me to build plus a lot of the fun is reading up on all of it.

For reference, I've used i3-i7, phenom ii x6, a10-7850k and FX 8350 cpus and have a decent understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. I've also derped around with gtx 770 and 780, gt 8200, Riva tnt 64 pro (lol), amd 6770, 7770, 7790, 7970, r5 240 and crappy on board gpus. Most of this is based on benchmarks, stress testing, ocing and gaming.

Edit: forgot about my C2Q Q6700 and my C2D E5200 adventures.

More edit: I've also messed with different ram speed, timings and manufactures, along with SSDs, SSHDs and regular HDDs.

AND I ran Minecraft on a P4 and AGP gpu until 1.3

Performance kinda depends on both CPU and GPU, you wouldn't have good fps if your CPU cant keep up and no point of having powerful CPU if graphics card would limit your fps. In most games i5 can handle any GPU these days, though highest end GPUs (and anything else) are overpriced anyway.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm offline, I don't use launcher and don't sign in in game. Sim fps drops happen only during ~500 units clashes, which isn't often for me since I play on small single-planet systems.