It seems when you own a golf simulator, there is always a want on the horizon. I want to upgrade my projector, change out the impact screen, add a tv to the wall, my shed needs gutters to stop the rain/water from coming in, I’d like to see slow motion impact with the ball, I need a better microphone for recording videos, and I need a new PC.
Wait, what? Yes, I have been getting lag with my laptop when playing GSPro on some courses and FSX Play is almost ummm errrr unplayable for me. Now I’ve reduced the graphics from ultra to medium on GSPro yet some graphic intensive courses still cause lag with my 2060 graphics card on the laptop. So around October or November of last year I got the bright (costly) idea of building my own PC which would in theory allow me to play courses seamlessly and without any lag. Nothing like hitting a golf ball and watching on the impact screen as your golf ball flutters sporadically through the air.
I built a PC about 25 years ago. I remember it being fairly easy as there were only about half a dozen parts that you needed to buy. My have things changed over the years. I watched a couple of YouTube videos and determined the parts I needed as well as the cost. This PC build is what I would later call my Johnny Cash PC. Meaning I would be buying one part at a time. The hope would be I would start buying a part in November and complete the project in either March or April.
PC Parts List
- Case
- Power Supply Unit
- Motherboard
- CPU
- CPU Cooler
- Thermal Paste
- RAM
- SSD Hard Drive
- FANS
- GPU
- Windows Software
- Keyboard
- Mouse
- Monitor or TV
Off the top of my head, these are the parts that I would need. You have to have some sort of idea as to the CPU that you want, GPU, and how much RAM. By knowing that info, you can determine the motherboard needed and size of the PC case. I’m sure others do it differently but that is how I approached this build. I literally researched each part as well as the cost of each before buying. My intention was to buy more than I need. Huh? Meaning, I wanted to future proof a PC so that it would last for at least a handful of years.
I Bought a PC Gaming Case
Around Black Friday, I purchased a case. They actually call it a gaming case. I never thought of my golf simulator as gaming. Little did I know beforehand that the case would not come with a PSU or power supply unit. Some 25 years ago you could get them as an all in one unit. So I decided to buy an ATX case as that seemed to be the most standard that would work fit most motherboards and GPU’s. I got a good Black Friday sale and saved about 30% on the NZXT H7 Flow case in a purchase at Amazon. The case got overall good reviews and would work great with what I had in mind. The nice thing is the case actually came with a couple of fans.
A 4TB M.2 SSD
Around the same time, I found a fantastic deal on AliExpress for SSD. In other words what I call a fast hard drive. I purchased a 4TB SSD for somewhere around $39. Yes, about 10% of what you might pay if going to a local store but there is a caveat here. The reason I chose a 4TB SSD is because I wanted plenty of space to save courses from GSPro. With my laptop and everything else that is on the 512GB hard drive, I was forced to delete courses from time to time. You need to do some hard research and find a good vendor if you ever look at AliExpress. Otherwise you may end up with nothing other than a piece of junk. Truthfully. I’ve bought flash cards from AliExpress that had a great price but the product received was not what was being advertised. As an aside, I used to buy bulk from Alibaba and resell locally. So I somewhat knew what I was doing but would still get taken from time to time.
With the case and hard drive in hand, I set out to buy the next affordable piece. Yes, my budget was dictated by my paycheck and other monthly bills. I was told I was making the purchases backwards but to me in the end it didn’t matter. I was following a website called pcpartpicker.com and that was telling me a giant part of this project. If one part was compatible with others being purchased. For instance, it makes no sense to buy DDR5 RAM if the motherboard is only good up to DDR4 RAM. You need a power supply that can handle the wattage, etc…
A Beefed Up Power Supply Unit – PSU
Speaking of wattage, in late December I purchased a power supply unit. It is the.. oh boy, here is a mouthful… be quiet! BN516 Straight Power 12-1000w 80 Plus Platinum which I found at 35% off on Amazon. Yes, I had my PC build setup on the parts I wanted through pcpartpicker.com but I also had alternatives in mind if a good sale presented itself. This PSU got great reviews and I learned a slight bit of the difference in power supplies with bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and titanium versions and how efficient they are. There is a way to figure out how much wattage you need and I decided to bump that up a little so as not to have any issues.
A CPU Cooler
As it hit the end of December, I wanted to squeak in another purchase so I’d remain on the timeline of finishing my Johnny Cash PC by late March or early April. The money on hand allowed me to purchase a CPU cooler. I got the Noctua NH-D15 chromax.Black • Dual-Tower CPU Cooler • 140mm • Black from Amazon. I don’t think I need to tell you but anytime you can find a product with 80+% good reviews on Amazon, it is typically a very good product. This one approached 90%.
64GB Total of RGB RAM
Next came the RAM. We rolled into January and I had a few hundred dollars of expendable (is that the right word?) cash. At the present time I can’t remember the exact product I wanted but they were out of stock. So again, here comes a mouthful. I purchased the G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series (Intel XMP 3.0) DDR5 RAM 64GB (2x32GB) 6400MT/s from Amazon at around $218. No deal on this one but I was happy. I’ve heard of many folks (including myself) using 16GB memory when running GSPro and I wanted to be fully covered to future-proof in case graphics become even more intensive. So I bought 2 sticks of 32GB each for a total of 64GB. Now, the one thing I didn’t care for is that these RAM sticks are RGB. Yeah, maybe I’ll get used to the colors glowing inside of the PC case but the end result is there. Plenty of RAM.
Let’s Cool Things Off With Some More Fans
About 2 weeks later and I bought a couple of fans. We are now into early February. Just to have more air circulation and keep the temperatures down. These fans again got good reviews and I purchased from Amazon. ARCTIC P14 PWM PST – 140 mm Case Fan. I’m not exactly sure of intake versus outtake when it comes to air as it wasn’t something I had to deal with when building a PC 25 years ago but I figure with the way the case is built (grates and filters) along with the fans and I should be good. That purchase was about $26.
A Powerful CPU
Now I needed a CPU. I did a lot of research and the bizarre thing was that I found out I really didn’t need the latest and greatest. Yes, a GPU (graphics card) needs to be recent but according to others with golf simulators, you can save money if you would like with the CPU. Still, I purchased the 14700K from Intel at Microcenter. They have a website at microcenter.com but I went directly into the store since they wouldn’t ship this product. Because I was buying it without a heatsink, I could save $30. I didn’t need a heatsink since I already had the CPU cooler. When I asked questions, I was told I was doing things backwards but to me, parts is parts. In the end if they all worked together then I’d be a happy camper.
I also picked up some thermal paste with another household Amazon order but in the end it really wasn’t needed because thermal paste came with the purchase of the CPU.
At this time I am researching GPU’s like crazy. The reason being is because NVIDIA announced some new “Super” models that would be coming to market. So whatever I had on pcpartpicker.com may be changed if I decided to go with a newer GPU. This is all about future proofing but gheeeeez, the GPU that I am looking at has an MSRP of $999 and what I found once released is that the products are almost immediately out of stock or selling for quite a bit above MSRP. I was seeing prices of $1150 to $1650. So I’ve put a slight hold on this purchase.
A 14th Generation Motherboard
Next for me came the motherboard. Once yet again, the motherboard I liked was out of stock. I did choose a nice one though. Saved a little bit of money and got this… ASRock Z790 Riptide WiFi LGA 1700(14th,13th,12th Gen) from newegg.com. Not that it mattered but it seemed like it took about 10 days to get it to me. And something else I realized. At this very point, I could actually put the PC together. Yes, I don’t have the GPU yet and the PC would run like a turtle in slow motion but it could be put together and run because the motherboard has integrated graphics. So that is exactly what I did.
Here Comes The PC Build
Again, I scoured through a few YouTube videos about the right and wrong way to add components to the motherboard, insert the parts into the PC, and then route the cables. I was told it was a 1 to 4 hour job. Cough, it took me probably 5 hours. Only because as I like to say, you don’t know what you don’t know. I put the power supply in first before realizing I couldn’t see or get my hands in to add the cables to hook up to the backside of the PSU. I put everything together while scratching up fingers, realizing even my small hands had knuckles get in the way, etc… I couldn’t get power to the PC and was wondering what part was broke.
With the motherboard, you install the SSD and put the CPU in carefully with the product and arrows facing the right direction. I then put the RAM into place. This was followed by removing fans from the CPU cooler and then putting that on top of the CPU but not before putting thermal paste on top of the CPU. Then you put the CPU cooler fans back in place. With the power supply unit removed, you hook up what you think are the necessary cables. So a motherboard cable, power cable, etc.. You can then install the PSU and put the other end of the cable(s) in the appropriate place on the motherboard.
The fans need to be installed and then the cables for the fans need to be hooked up. What, those plugins are under the CPU cooler and I can’t get to them? Ok, remove the CPU cooler and plug in the fans, then put the CPU cooler back on. I think the thermal paste is still ok. Not like it went anywhere. Just smudged all around. I did all that but still didn’t have power once I plugged everything in. The motherboard seemed to be seated and I thought (key word) all the parts clicked in but after maybe an hour of undoing and putting parts back in place again, found the power socket didn’t click down in place. The power cable was ever so slightly sitting on top of the motherboard cable. Nearly impossible to see but by unplugging and plugging things back together, I knew things fit properly. Got that to work and then realized I needed a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Hmmmm. I have some old one’s laying around that will suffice.
Booting to Bios
So it booted up to bios. Woohoo. I’m jazzed. Finally working. It recognizes the RAM, although the RAM shows a lower speed. The temperature seems to be around 30 degrees celsius which is fantastic. Now I need a copy of Windows. I found a highly discounted copy of Windows online but you need to download it to a flash drive. Off to Meijer (because we were grocery shopping) to buy a flash drive. $20 was not a bad price for 128GB’s.
I downloaded Windows, put it on the flash drive but my new PC would not recognize what they call an allocated drive. So a few Google searches and a video found on YouTube and I was in business. Windows is loaded on the new PC. I’ve installed GSPro but don’t want to get the license transferred over (or that of FSX from Foresight) until I have the GPU bought and installed. At this point I realize I need something other than a clunky heavy keyboard, wired mouse, and a monitor that looks like it came from the 90’s. I’ll start searching for a wireless keyboard and mouse soon.
No Sound
Why aren’t my speakers working? I downloaded the latest and greatest drivers and updated Windows. For some reason my speakers weren’t working. Took me about an hour to figure that one out. My laptop has a built in speaker. The PC.. umm err.. has no speaker. It works great with my JBL Bluetooth speaker however. Sometimes I can’t believe how dense I am.
A Monitor or TV?
When I inquired about a new monitor to buy, more often than not I got a push towards getting a TV instead. So I went out looking at TV’s yesterday. We were at Target. Told my wife I was off to look at electronics. When she asked what I was looking at, I said a 43″ TV but I didn’t care for the brand I saw. Westinghouse. I don’t know anything about that brand. I expected a gasp from my wife but it wasn’t what I actually got. She asked why I was looking at a TV and I told her for the golf cave and the new PC I was building. Basically a monitor that was nearly that size would cost too much and a TV would be a much better buy.
She had a recommendation. She didn’t care for the last TV we purchased for the living room that I got on the ummm errrr cheap. Even though it is 4K and is a Samsung, the picture quality just isn’t there. So she said if I got a new TV for the living room, she would let me take the not so great 4K TV and put that in my golf cave. A 55 inch TV. Wow. I’m thinking a 55 inch TV is almost a little too big for the side wall in my golf cave. Maybe that’s just crazy thinking. So before she changes her mind, I’m looking for a new and good quality TV replacement.
The GPU is Next
I still need the GPU. When speaking to the folks at Microcenter, they were of the belief that as the weeks passed, the 4080 Super (what I had my mind on) would be more readily available and should be able to be picked up around MSRP. Previously, I had it in my head to buy the 4070TI graphics card which I’m finding for about $750 at the present time. So although it is a big price jump up to the 4080 Super (getting tax money back should help), at the present time the wait is mostly to get these GPU’s back in stock before I purchase. That and another couple paychecks so most likely in early to mid-March.
So here I sit with a new PC I’ve built and I’m happy. I just need a GPU to be up and running. Yes, I’ve mentioned a new keyboard, mouse, and TV but they aren’t a necessity at the moment. Then on to the next thing for the golf cave. It is never ending. But first, a new water heater for the house. Believe it or not, that will make my wife happy as our current one is some 25 or so years old.
Update: 2/20/2024 – This SSD that I purchased from AliExpress stopped working. Had been running fine for a couple of months as I loaded courses on this SSD for use with GSPro. I loaded Windows and it worked for a day. While uploading software, I received a Windows error and could never load again. The bios stopped recognizing the drive and it did not work when plugged into my laptop. The SSD showed as disk unknown and not initialized. Attempted a dispart amongst other things. Absolutely dead. Time for a new SSD.