Gaming PC Advice

[SpyderTracks]

My C drive (SSD) is currently half full and my D drive (HDD) is basically empty.

Your d drive is there for data, the whole point is that of qnything happens to the windows drive your data is unaffected. Best to organise it properly.

 

[TopeConHilo]

Your d drive is there for data, the whole point is that of qnything happens to the windows drive your data is unaffected. Best to organise it properly.

Then I shall do exactly that going forward! I may be misremembering but I think I was advised to store OS and games on SSD, everything else on the HDD (Something which I've unfortunately not followed) would that be correct? Thank you for the tip regardless, will definitely bare it in mind.

Having watched multiple How To's over the past few days I have decided to give the installation a crack myself, so I have ordered my components except the GPU for now, due to the sizing issue with both of the 4070ti that PCS currently have available. I am going to speak to PCS as advised to ensure I don't purchase anything too big. As I am still under original budget, would there be a benefit to looking at a different GPU (Without downgrading), or is a 4070ti as good as it could get with my updated build?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Then I shall do exactly that going forward! I may be misremembering but I think I was advised to store OS and games on SSD, everything else on the HDD (Something which I've unfortunately not followed) would that be correct?

Yes, although with the size of games these days, we're now recommending a dedicated games drive as that way again, if you need to reinstall windows, you don't have to redownload all your games again, so may be worth investing at some point in a dedicated games NVME drive.

Having watched multiple How To's over the past few days I have decided to give the installation a crack myself

Massive respect. There's a lot of notion out there that it's really complicated, but it's nonsense, building a PC is like adult lego, nothing more. The hardest bit tends to be the wiring, that can get quite complicated when factoring in RGB fans and controllers. But fitting components is literally just dropping it into a slot. Once you get the feel for it, and start to familiarise yourself with the individual components and where they are, you realise that all computers are the same, just with different tiers, and it starts looking very easy. It's also great fun!

As I am still under original budget, would there be a benefit to looking at a different GPU (Without downgrading), or is a 4070ti as good as it could get with my updated build?

Not for your current monitor, the 4070ti is overpowered really as it is for 1440p.

 

[TopeConHilo]

Thanks once again Spyder.

With the additional SSD I have just purchased, does that replace my current, or can I have both in use at the same time, as well as my HDD?

So my final setup could be;
New SSD - OS only
Current SSD - Games only (Potentially upgrading to NVME in future)
HDD - Anything else (Media, things used infrequently)

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thanks once again Spyder.

With the additional SSD I have just purchased, does that replace my current, or can I have both in use at the same time, as well as my HDD?

So my final setup could be;
New SSD - OS only
Current SSD - Games only (Potentially upgrading to NVME in future)
HDD - Anything else (Media, things used infrequently)

Yes, you can add the new one in the place the current one is, and then move the current one to the second slot at the bottom of the board under the heatsink

Your current SSD is an NVME by the way, no need to upgrade it.

 

[sck451]

I had no idea you could upgrade an previous order, thank you for pointing that out Stevey.

These are what I've selected to upgrade to;
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
1TB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2
CORSAIR 1000W RMX SERIES
CORSAIR H100I ELITE RGB CPU COOLER
12GB ASUS TUF GEFORCE RTX 4070 Ti OC EDITION (There were a few 4070 Ti's to choose from, is there a "correct" one? Also, pop up is saying this card is too big for my case, is there an alternative?)

I saw that there was an option for PC Specialist to do the upgrades, so I might talk to them and see what the expected turnaround time is, as what's an extra £69 when you have already laid out so much? At least then there is a bit more piece of mind that everything is done correctly.

Still undecided on whether to do it myself or not, but thank you for the heads up on the BIOS, will definitely look into that should I decide to install the components myself.

In terms of how to actually do this...

You could do everything in one go. It should work fine, but if it doesn't, if you make a mistake somewhere, it's going to be a nightmare to work out where.

So I would do it in stages, powering the system on between each one andchecking everything is working.

1. Upgrade the power supply. You will have some extra cables that will need to be run for the new graphics card: run them, but don't connect them.
2. Update the BIOS on the motherboard. This is almost certainly necessary to install the new CPU.
3. Upgrade the CPU and CPU cooler.
4. Remove the old graphics card and install the new SSD.** Now install the new graphics card.
5. Re-install Windows to the new SSD.
6. Run Windows updates as long as there's anything to update. You should also make sure your graphics drivers are up to date.

** It doesn't matter a lot which SSD goes where as they're both PCIe 4.0 slots, but the top one should be slightly the faster one. I don't know where PCS will have installed the current one: on my build, which used the same motherboard as you have, they put it in the bottom slot. I don't know why!

 

[TopeConHilo]

In terms of how to actually do this...

You could do everything in one go. It should work fine, but if it doesn't, if you make a mistake somewhere, it's going to be a nightmare to work out where.

So I would do it in stages, powering the system on between each one and checking everything is working.

1. Upgrade the power supply. You will have some extra cables that will need to be run for the new graphics card: run them, but don't connect them.
2. Update the BIOS on the motherboard. This is almost certainly necessary to install the new CPU.
3. Upgrade the CPU and CPU cooler.
4. Remove the old graphics card and install the new SSD.** Now install the new graphics card.
5. Re-install Windows to the new SSD.
6. Run Windows updates as long as there's anything to update. You should also make sure your graphics drivers are up to date.

** It doesn't matter a lot which SSD goes where as they're both PCIe 4.0 slots, but the top one should be slightly the faster one. I don't know where PCS will have installed the current one: on my build, which used the same motherboard as you have, they put it in the bottom slot. I don't know why!

Doing it one step at a time like you've mentioned definitely makes sense, so will definitely go down that route. Thank you for the recommendation.

And thank you Spyder for the visual aid for the SSD!

Is it easy enough to reinstall Windows?

Getting rather excited by all this now, roll on the weekend.

 

[sck451]

Doing it one step at a time like you've mentioned definitely makes sense, so will definitely go down that route. Thank you for the recommendation.

And thank you Spyder for the visual aid for the SSD!

Is it easy enough to reinstall Windows?

Getting rather excited by all this now, roll on the weekend.

Yes, it's very simple. You'll just need an empty USB stick: you do "create Windows 11 installation media" from this page, then reboot and use the USB stick as the boot device, then it's all very simple indeed. Just make sure you're installing to the correct drive: with two 1TB drives it could be confusing!

 

[Martinr36]

Is it easy enough to reinstall Windows?

yeah its easy, just follow these instructions:

Download a new copy of Windows using the Media Creation Tool (Second option on linked page) to an 8GB (min) USB.
Boot that USB and choose a Custom Install.
Delete all UEFI partitions on the system drive (EFI System, Recovery, MSR Reserved, Primary).
Select the unallocated space that results and click the Next button. The installer will create the correct partitions and install Windows.
Run Windows Update repeatedly, even across reboots, until no more updates are found.
You may need/want to download and install the latest graphics driver from the Nvidia/AMD website (they change so regularly the latest version isn't always in the Windows libraries).

This is also worth a watch

 

[Scott]

I know it's a bit of a faff, but just to save any hassle with your secondary drive and Windows install going forward, I would only have your primary drive in for the Windows installation. It makes things so much easier and reduces any bootrec risks across the drives.

Once you have a nice clean install, you can put the secondary drive in place. I would then backup anything from that drive that you wish to keep and completely remove all partitions using the Windows Disk Manager (we can talk you through this at the time, it's quite straight forward).

The goal is to have a completely clean boot record and boot partition(s) on the primary drive, with a completely clean non-boot sector secondary drive.

 

[TopeConHilo]

@sck451 @Martinr36 @Scott - All bookmarked/taken on board. Thank you!

Is there any harm in updating the BIOS before doing anything else? My motherboard is ASUS TUF X570-Plus Gaming, and, just to double check, I am downloading the latest file here? Is it worth doing a backup of some sort at this point too?

I'm thinking download latest BIOS, putting on USB flash drive, update BIOS, then wipe the flash drive to prepare for the fresh Windows installation.

I'm not familiar with the workings of BIOS, so if I was to update it first, would my PC then boot up as normal, so I would be able to download the relevant files for the Windows install?

 

[TopeConHilo]

I have spoken to PCS today who informed me they don't offer any 4070ti cards small enough to fit my case. I have been having a look online and the only two I could find which were 300mm in length or under were these two - Gigabyte RTX 4070ti Windforce OC and Inno3D GeForce 4070ti. Does one top the other in terms of performance at all?

 

[TonyCarter]

The Gigabyte one is an OC card so will have a tiny bit extra oomph, but probably use 20% extra power to do it

Pity there was never a Founder‘s Edition as it would have probably been the shortest.

You could follow my suggestion and remove one of the front fans to give you another 25mm of room?

 

[sck451]

The Gigabyte one is an OC card so will have a tiny bit extra oomph, but probably use 20% extra power to do it

Pity there was never a Founder‘s Edition as it would have probably been the shortest.

You could follow my suggestion and remove one of the front fans to give you another 25mm of room?

It's actually the most miniscule overclock – it's only 15MHz (around 0.6%). Probably it's just fine in terms of power draw. (You could always underclock it again if needed!)

I'd definitely go for the Gigabyte option, I think.

 

[TopeConHilo]

Good afternoon all!

Quick question, can the 1TB Seagate Barracuda Sata-III 3.5" be accessed as an external hard drive? It looks like my PSU installation will be a lot easier if I am able to remove the HDD bay bracket. Also happy to do away with the HDD completely, assuming I can pull data from it externally after removal.

 

[TonyCarter]

Good afternoon all!

Quick question, can the 1TB Seagate Barracuda Sata-III 3.5" be accessed as an external hard drive? It looks like my PSU installation will be a lot easier if I am able to remove the HDD bay bracket. Also happy to do away with the HDD completely, assuming I can pull data from it externally after removal.

You can do it 2 ways:

1. Temporarily by leaving the side panel off and using the SATA data/power cables 'as-is'
2. Buying a caddy/dock/enclosure that lets you connect it via USB - may need mains power though

 

[SpyderTracks]

Good afternoon all!

Quick question, can the 1TB Seagate Barracuda Sata-III 3.5" be accessed as an external hard drive? It looks like my PSU installation will be a lot easier if I am able to remove the HDD bay bracket. Also happy to do away with the HDD completely, assuming I can pull data from it externally after removal.

Surely you can refit the drive cage once you’ve installed the PSU?

 

[TopeConHilo]

You can do it 2 ways:

1. Temporarily by leaving the side panel off and using the SATA data/power cables 'as-is'
2. Buying a caddy/dock/enclosure that lets you connect it via USB - may need mains power though

Thank you!

Surely you can refit the drive cage once you’ve installed the PSU?

The new PSU is a greater length than the one it is replacing, so there is less room to play with. I will try and get the cage back in, just need to nail the cable management!

 

[TopeConHilo]

Managed to get started yesterday and installed the PSU & updated the BIOS. PC turned on and everything was working as normal thankfully. I could not get the HDD bay back into the case unfortunately, there was just not enough space once the PSU was in and all the power cables were plugged in.

Will attempt to install the CPU + cooler this week sometime. (I'm following @sck451 step by step advice from earlier in the thread)

Thank you for the encouragement in attempting this myself, there really was a sense of achievement once I finished up yesterday. I appreciate it's hardly climbing Everest, and there's still a bit to do, but taking apart thousands of pounds worth of kit really was a daunting task.

 

[sck451]

Managed to get started yesterday and installed the PSU & updated the BIOS. PC turned on and everything was working as normal thankfully. I could not get the HDD bay back into the case unfortunately, there was just not enough space once the PSU was in and all the power cables were plugged in.

Will attempt to install the CPU + cooler this week sometime. (I'm following @sck451 step by step advice from earlier in the thread)

Thank you for the encouragement in attempting this myself, there really was a sense of achievement once I finished up yesterday. I appreciate it's hardly climbing Everest, and there's still a bit to do, but taking apart thousands of pounds worth of kit really was a daunting task.

It's a great feeling! Well done.

You can get an external USB hard drive cage for around £20. That's probably your best solution if you need the hard drive still.

Hope the rest of the upgrade goes well too. Looking forward to hearing more about it!