I Finally Did It! (Built My Own PC)

Guys! I finally, finally, did it!! I have accomplished something that I have been trying to do for a while now, I officially have a custom built gaming desktop PC. What I mean by the fact that it took me a while was that I have been trying to build this computer since this February. At that time I've been buying parts for the build. I got most of those parts on Newegg, the best shopping site to find hardware-related items. Prior to that, a couple friends of mine inspired me to build my own gaming computer, because they've build their own PCs. Plus some people on WinWorld have inspired me to do that as well. I got inspired to do all this in September 2017, when my friends and me were talking about our computers, and when they told me that they were "custom builds", I got inspired to build my own, and so, I did. The reason it took me almost five months to complete building my PC was because I kept running out of money, so I just had to wait some time, which kinda sucks. So, about this custom build, it has hardware designed for gaming and mid-to-high-end tasks, but I decided to just get normal hardware pieces since I'm not really a high-end gamer, so it's a gaming PC, but with a consumer-oriented design. It has 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB hard drive, and 256GB solid state drive (really wish I had 32GB RAM, but that would have been a little too expensive). It has an AMD Ryzen processor, which I heard is better than the Core i7. Therefore I call this PC my "AMD Ryzen Build". It runs Windows 10 Pro, I burnt my own DVD of it with an ISO image for Windows 10 Pro that I got from the official Microsoft website, so it's not pirated, and I didn't have to worry about a product key because I heard Windows 10 can be installed with or without a product key. I use this machine to play my games, programming, and making virtual machines. It's connected to a 21.5 inch ASUS monitor with HDMI, and a Dell keyboard and mouse with a gel pad for the keyboard, and a memory foam mat for the mouse. I didn't get one of those blacklit keyboards, because like I said, I'm not really a high-end gamer, so that stuff is all I need, but sometimes I think about getting an additional monitor as well. The motherboard lights up red, and the heatsink lights up blue, therefore, when my PC is turned on and it's dark in my bedroom, it gives a bit of a purple glow :D Yeah, I'm very proud of myself for accomplishing this build.

Here are the specs,

Case: Antec VSK VSK3000E U3 Black SGCC steel Micro ATX Mid Tower Case
Motherboard: MSI B350M Gaming PRO AM4 AMD B350 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
CPU: AMD RYZEN 3 2200G Quad-Core 3.5 GHz (3.7 GHz Turbo) Socket AM4 65W YD2200C5FBBOX Desktop Processor
Power Supply: Logisys Corp. 480W 240-Pin Black Beauty ATX 20+4 Power Supply PS480D-BK
Memory: Team T-Force Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200) Desktop Memory Model TLRED416G2400HC14DC1
Hard Drive: WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD10EZRZ
Solid State Drive: ADATA XPG SX850 2.5" 256GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSD-SX850-256G
Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1050 DirectX 12 GV-N1050OC-2GD 2GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card

Here are some pics of my custom build,

Pretty cool, huh.

Any comments would be highly appreciated.

Comments

  • Looks good! Just a note: Windows 10 can be installed without a product key, but you will be locked out of some settings. I'm not sure if updates will work or not.

    The only thing I might have done differently is get faster RAM, the 3200 instead of the 2400. Oh, and install something other than Windows 10 ;) As for the amount of RAM, 8GB is fine - just watch how much you give your VMs. I have 8GB in my desktop and have no plans to upgrade it in the immediate future (although I did upgrade my laptop to 16).

  • @nick99nack said:
    Looks good! Just a note: Windows 10 can be installed without a product key, but you will be locked out of some settings. I'm not sure if updates will work or not.

    Yeah, I heard that ISO images are considered "fake" copies of an operating system or software, and without a product key, other people might get into your system and it can just stop working.

  • Personally, I would have installed a GNU/Linux distro instead of Windows 10 because of privacy concerns, bloat, and lack of customization. Other than that, nice setup.

  • @ubuntuxp said:
    Personally, I would have installed a GNU/Linux distro instead of Windows 10 because of privacy concerns, bloat, and lack of customization. Other than that, nice setup.

    But Windows is better than Linux because it has more compatibility for more software and things like that.

    I might just uninstall the entire system and install Windows 10 over again with a legit legal copy of Windows 10 Pro.

  • @nick99nack said:
    I'm not sure if updates will work or not.

    Updates work.

  • Yes, that's what I'm also worried about @Erito17, updates. Because I actually got this ISO image for Windows 10 Pro back in 2017, when it might have had an early build number, so I think it would look a little outdated to have this build for Windows 10 instead of the current build number. Therefore, I might just reinstall it with the current build.

  • ~~~~> @JonathonWyble said:

    I might just reinstall it with the current build.

    You can just update it using the Windows 10 Upgrade Assistant.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3159635/windows-10-update-assistant

    Major Windows 10 updates are no longer pushed through Windows Update iirc

  • Okay, I just reinstalled Windows 10 Pro with a legit legal copy. Therefore, I can now have all the features you can have, and this time, I did enter a product key, which came with the disc.

    I also have a USB wireless WiFi adapter to connect to the internet with, therefore I don't have to have internet with all those hideous Ethernet wires. And I just got a 2TB external hard drive for additional storage, because I'm thinking of creating my own HTTP/FTP server with this PC.

    P.S. Why do I feel like this thread is just becoming an argument about the OS I have on my custom build? I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but let's focus on what this discussion is about :)

  • It is indeed a beauty. I remember the tremendous kick I got out of building my first DOS/Windows PC (back in the '90s) - a veritable beige monster (tall tower!) - just a little bit slimmer than the MicroVAX II that I used at work. Have rebuilt/upgraded it many many times since - so there's probably at least some small part of its spirit in the much more compact box on my desktop now (which still carries the same NetBIOS name).

    You never forget your first.
    So enjoy! :)

  • I'll never forget the first I built.
    It was for profit.

  • wow, Great!
    I also build a retro gaming PC that works on Windows 2000, the most Stable and the best OS ever :smiley:
    it has an i7 processor with 2 cores, 16 GB of RAM, (1GB for Windows, 15 GB extended), 2 harddisks, 2 floppy drives (USB), 1 CD drive, All the last updates of Windows 2000, a 64-bit color Video Card, (Yes I have 64-Bit version of Win2K), a sound card, (IMPORTANT lol), Windows XP, Vista and 7 apps compactible, and... Each hard disk has 1To.
    i'm happy with it :D
    oh, and I posted this comment with this computer! have fun!

  • There is no such thing as an AMD64 version of Windows 2000. If you have an IA-64 CPU, that does exist.

  • @VicWith3Numbers said:
    wow, Great!
    I also build a retro gaming PC that works on Windows 2000, the most Stable and the best OS ever :smiley:
    it has an i7 processor with 2 cores, 16 GB of RAM, (1GB for Windows, 15 GB extended), 2 harddisks, 2 floppy drives (USB), 1 CD drive, All the last updates of Windows 2000, a 64-bit color Video Card, (Yes I have 64-Bit version of Win2K), a sound card, (IMPORTANT lol), Windows XP, Vista and 7 apps compactible, and... Each hard disk has 1To.
    i'm happy with it :D
    oh, and I posted this comment with this computer! have fun!

    For the money, yeah, I absolutely love my custom build!

  • edited January 2019

    UPDATE: I had a couple notes I forgot to add when I wrote this topic last July. When I received the CPU, it came with a heatsink, which was a little devastating because I already bought a heatsink before I bought the CPU, so I didn't know what to do with the original heatsink. I also ended up having to buy a legal USB copy of Windows 10 Pro, because when I tried to install Win10 using the disk I burnt of it, it didn't let me as it kept showing a "media test failure" error. I also successfully installed some drivers for my hardware components, such as my Gigabyte Geforce GTX graphics card, MSI motherboard, and my USB WiFi adapter used to connect to the internet without all those hideous Ethernet wires. I also have a fancy BIOS, known as an "MSI clickable BIOS", with a mouse pointer interface with a red theme and settings with gaming themed button styles, therefore my PC's firmware is not some 20th century annoyance, which you can only use your keyboard to change BIOS settings. So yeah, those are some more facts about my custom build.

  • edited February 2019

    Try a Ryzen 5, there better than the Ryzen 3, Trust me.

  • @lolcat said:
    Try a Ryzen 5, there better than the Ryzen 3, Trust me.

    I thought about getting a Ryzen 5, but it was a little expensive. I actually got my CPU (Ryzen 3) for a pretty good deal on Newegg. I like my Ryzen 3 as it's got great process cooling and what not.

  • edited February 2019

    Nice build bud. I'm still running the FX-8350. Works well. Don't game as much as I use to.

  • @Metzerr said:
    Nice build bud. I'm still running the FX-8350. Works well. Don't game as much as I use to.

    Thanks! And yes, I was originally going to get an AMD FX as my CPU during the planning of this build, but then I found out that FX processors have been discontinued, and so I decided to get an AMD Ryzen.

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