Light gaming PC build complete: my first external project

Light gaming PC build complete: my first external project


I recently built a light gaming PC for a colleague's son. This was the following build which all together only cost about £500.


Common components

Component	Selection	~ Price (£)	Supplier
Memory (RAM)	G-Skill 8GB Ripjaws X DDR3 2133 Dual Kit - Red from Amazon, CHECKED for compatibility @ 2133MHz w/Gigabyte MB	63	Amazon
Hard Disk Drive	Western Digital Caviar Blue, 3.5" 1TB	41	Amazon
Optical disk drive	Samsung 24X DVD rewriter SATA	12	Amazon
Power Supply unit	Corsair CX500/M, 80+ bronze high quality PSU	49	Amazon
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit w/SP1, OEM licence only	35	Ebay
Case	*Zalman T3 Mini M-ATX Tower Case Plus 1 extra fan Arctic Cooling F12	25	Amazon
Monitor	Acer G226HQLHBD 21.5" LED VGA DVI Monitor	77	Ebuyer

Product images

(I'll update this post at a later date when I get round to adding the photos. They won't paste directly from my source document).


Main components

Component	Selection	~ Price (£)	Supplier
Processor - CPU	AMD Athlon X4 860K, 3.7GHz, 4 cores 95W NEW with Cooler Actic Alpine 64 Plus 100W	70	Amazon
Motherboard - MB	Socket FM2+ : Gigabyte GA-F2A78M-DS2 AMD FM2+ A78 Micro-ATX Motherboard	34	Amazon
Graphics card - GPU	SAPPHIRE AMD R7 265 Graphics Card 2GB	105	Amazon

Product images

(I'll update this post at a later date when I get round to adding the photos. They won't paste directly from my source document).

Pros and Cons of this build:

+Pros: Best price / performance ratio - Athlon 860K processor is a steal, equivalent to an A10 Kaveri series (£100+) without graphics (but don't need it here, as getting a graphics card). Can be overclocked a bit with the improved cooler

+ This build will provide a very good gaming experience for the price, with the R7 265 being a very new card, offering good compromise between price and ability, with high frame rates for most games and will play all games on mid or high settings. A stretch to an R9 270 (£10 more) or even R9 270X (£20 more) is well worth it and will improve this further. Will blaze through Windows tasks as well

+ Fast 8GB RAM should work at 2133 MHz and nice new Ultra-Durable design Gigabyte MB

-Cons: Limited upgrade potential - the processor is currently the best (non-APU) available for the motherboard. However, graphics card and RAM can be upgraded
   

Once he had ordered all the components and they had all arrived, I arranged a Saturday afternoon to visit and put it all together. So how did the build go? 
Well, I got the machine fully up and running in the end. The main issue that was experienced (which can happen when the age of the processor you buy differs a bit from the age of the motherboard (mainboard)) was that the CPU was not recognised by the mainboard when I initially powered on. 

The monitor screen remained blank, which made it difficult to tell if it was the monitor, graphics card or something else at fault. Of course the obvious way to find out is by a process of elimination ,and so I changed the monitor first, no effect, then ran the display through the mainboard, again the same result was seen (or not seen, as was the case here!) 

That left the remaining most likely issue to be the one we were already aware of, namely that the revision number of the mainboard was an earlier one, which required the BIOS to have been updated in order to recognise the AMD Athlon X4 860K CPU. Of course, the manufacturer should have ideally done this before putting the board up for sale. But sometimes you are given a older model which has not been updated. It is definitely something to look out for when building a PC. 

When choosing your components, check the mainboard's CPU compatibility chart on the Manufacturer's website and note down the BIOS revision required for your chosen CPU. If this number is a higher or later number than that required for other listed compatible CPUs, there is a chance it will not work initially and you will have to "flash" the BIOS to update it. Of course, to do this, you need to be using a CPU which works in the first place. 

This is one reason at least to choose a motherboard which has all CPUs on the same BIOS revision, or at least you are using one with the earliest BIOS revision. If this is not possible the only way to overcome the problem is to install a compatible CPU first. This is why it was vital that I pre-purchased a cheap CPU that was definitely compatible with the mainboard, in order to complete the build in one session (and avoid disappointment!).

So I had to install an Athlon X2 340 (literally a £20 processor) in order to install Windows. I discovered that the BIOS version that was installed was F3 (F5 was required). That's another problem - you need to be able to boot the machine to even discover what BIOS revision you have (it says within the BIOS). It's not really possible to know before starting, unfortunately. I then used Gigabyte's excellent "@BIOS" application to download and install the required BIOS revision (F5) which went very smoothly. 

The app automatically re-wrote the BIOS then restarted and everything seemed OK. It was then just a matter of shutting down and physically installing the originally preferred CPU again. Once that was complete I did some cable tidying, closed the case up and checked Windows again. All was then OK and my colleague's son was soon playing Minecraft! It's a great feeling to successfully finish a build and help someone else at the same time!