New PC... Build or buy?

[Vonrd]

It's about time for a new PC. My current is long in the tooth (I can't remember actually how old it is... surely a sign to upgrade). I'm trying to decide to build or buy a turnkey and am asking for advice. I know several of you have built your own and/or are involved in the IT industry. I have no qualms about installing the hardware. Yes, I know about protecting from ESD from doing avionics work. What concerns me is the initial setup of the BIOS, OS, Software and drivers.

 

Additionally, I would like to clone my existing machine's load to the new machine (I have a complete image backup in Acronis). This would be necessary even with a turnkey purchase machine. My question is should I upgrade the existing Win 7 to 10 before cloning? I suspect that some of the registry files in 7 aren't compatible with 10. Could I load 7 on my new build... not sure if the new MB will accept 7 or if 10 is required. A turnkey would certainly have 10 installed. 

 

So these are the components I'm considering from the PC Gamer Build guide:

http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-build-guide-high-end-gaming-pc/

 

CPUIntel Core i7-7700K

Asus Maximus IX Hero

G.Skill RipJaws 4

32GBNvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

EVGA Supernova 850 watt G2 80 Plus Gold

Samsung 960 Pro 512GB

Corsair H100i V2Cooler

Master MasterCase Pro 5Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5

 

Any thoughts?

 

Would anyone be willing to volunteer to walk me through the initial set-up?

 

 

Vonrd

[Lipfert]

Vonrd,

 

Go with a fresh Win10 install, Win7 will be EOL before you know it. Also, I think the 850W PSU might be a bit on the low side. Not a bad idea to get a storage HDD aswell.

 

S!

[IRFC Hawkeye]

Yes, best to go with clean install Win10... trying to clone your old machine onto all new hardware is going to cause a big mess.

 

However if for some reason you absolutely had to, Win10 has a feature called "reset this computer" which basically causes the entire operating system to reinstall from scratch, so all the proper hardware drivers would install. If you picked the correct options on the reset, it will save all your old software. I used that method when I moved my old SSD with Win10 and software to a new machine. More later, GTG now...

[Lee]

In June I picked up a new turn key PC. It has an i7-7700 and gtx 1080. Your doing the right thing specifying a K processor and Ti graphics card. Mine is certified Oculus ready, so as long as you have four or more USB3.1 ports you should be able to handle anything out there. The more USB ports of any flavor the better, I have nine and wouldn’t mind a couple more.

 

You are probably better doing your own build and installing windows 10 yourself, if for no other reason than you won’t get all the extra crap the system manufacturer’s put on your hard drive. I had to spend a couple of days getting rid of worthless stuff.