first pc build for elder scrolls

With Herrwizo's suggestion you could run Skyrim fully tricked out with ENB and all.

Keep your case if you prefer it, there will be no issues, sir.

Don't worry, just make sure you touch a large metal surface before touching the components. You can also try handling them in a way to avoid direct contact with metal parts, just plastic corners or bits. This is mostly precautionary, since in 99% of the cases nothing will happen even if you do touch them (unless you are one of those people who constantly shock other people with sparks when shaking hands or wear wool clothes

There are numerous videos on youtube to help you out, as are many guides here on tom's hardware. It is not difficult at all, and you will also learn something in the process

You only need your bare hands, a single phillips screwdriver and common sense. A pair of pliers maybe to reach lost screws. Source of light if you work in the dark. Basically nothing else

I do like this build, whenever you can fit an intel build inside your budget. Like he said it a better CPU, PSU, and GPU then your build. Just to try and keep you inside your budget I would swap out the corsair ram to these mushkin sticks http://pcpartpicker.com/part/mushkin-memory-997002 and maybe a cheaper optical drive. Try and see if you have an old one laying around or barrow one from a friend for a few days to get your OS installed. I just keep a cheap external one laying around, haven't had an internal driver for 6+ years in a build.


For Building a system try to have everything you need right there by you. I always do my builds on the kitchen table, large amount of space to work with. You don't want to put a part in and then have to get up and walk around for something, that's how you can build up static charge in you. I keep everything in their boxes right next to me on the floor and take it out when needed. A weird but good habit to do is always touch something, bend over to pick up a box touch the ground with your other hand. When you sit back up with your free hand touch the case, if you do something always take your free hand and touch something else. I know it sounds weird but your always grounding your self to something then and its a good habit to have. Next when taking parts out of the boxes, if the part is in a bag DO NOT lay the part down on top of the bag. I always see people post pictures of stuff they bought and have the part laying on top of the bag. Its called a static bag it keeps static on the outside of the bag so it doesn't get into the part. Same goes for any plastic clam shell. If you need to lay a part down put it on the cardboard box it came in.

Tools needed for install
Zip ties lots and lots of zip ties
pair of side cuts to cut the tails off the zip ties
Philips screw driver
good lighting
lots of time, I've taken as long as 3 hours to do a build before just for good cable management.

This is the build in my sig, took me a full day for this build, about 3 hours for install and cable management and the rest of the day making the fiberglass box around the PSU. About 95% of the cables are behind the Motherboard tray, the box only covers where the cables bend 90* and head off behind the tray.


If you need help with anything feel free to ask questions, always welcome to help anyone starting out. We were all there at one point and time.

Zip ties. Oh, zip ties. How could I have forgot about zip ties Yeah, you need them if you want your cabling to be neat.

I buy them in bulk :lol: small and medium size ones then in short and long and keep about 1000 of each in stock. I do a lot of run 2 cables and then go to do the third and find out that the first one in now in the way so I have to cut it back out. maybe tonight I'll take a picture of the ugly side of my case

Just a personal preference based on what I know about graphics cards, but if you're going to get an Intel CPU, don't restrict yourself to an AMD graphics card. From what I understand, AMD works best with AMD, but Nvidia works better if it's not an AMD CPU. Just my personal preference though. And yes, zip ties are important if you like things to be neat. Otherwise a great build!

I haven't done any testing but I would have to say the amd GPUs would work better with their cpus just because they are built with the same architecture in mind. I don't think there is a difference between NVidia amd when it comes to intel cpu's.

I just use Nvidia because I hate amd's drivers for their GPU's and ive never owned an AMD cpu, even back in the Prescott years. So the kinda makes me a Nvidia/intel guy

I'm in the same boat, to be honest. I'd go with Nvidia over AMD any day. And Nvidia is generally better at keeping cool (the cooling designs are generally better) than AMD, and CUDA is a specialized program for Stream Processing that is exclusive to Nvidia, so that's why Nvidia generally has better overall performance than AMD. But they're generally about the same if a CPU is Intel.

PC gaming is scores above console gaming but you'll need more time to get the most out of it. Modding Skyrim has been a particular craze of mine over the last 4 years. The Game I play now is SO much better than the one that came out in 2011 and not just graphically.

For your reference I'd suggest checking out the S.T.E.P.S community for Skyrim and the GEMS mods that are on the Skyrim Nexus and ALWAY remember to check you load order!

Oh yeah also try not to remove mods mid play through as this can cause errors that lead to crashes later down the line. ENB and graphical mods are not an issue for this but mods that add scripts like patrolling bandits or other factions will cause this issue.

The rig supports dying light, of course.

As for the graphics card issue, this can be hard to debug. It can either be a poorly written game, a glitchy driver or just a bad card, but sometimes also overheating. I would test at least a dozen of different games to see whether it happens with only one, several of them or all of them. Also, check your CPU and GPU temps while playing.

That is a lot of electrical equipment that's fried on you. Maybe you have a static issue in your house. Could be that your carpet is creating a static charge that is frying your electrical stuff or perhaps its an unstable power supply coming from your mains power (do your lights flicker from time to time?)!! You could try buying a power stabiliser.