Planning my first PC build.

Tomcat I'm curious, what was the motherboard and memory model?

its a protectli device, i guess custom motherboard.. vp4650. They sell it with ram and without ram, i looked up the "manufacturer" by word, so they sold some with kingston so i bougt kingston, but the one i bought (talking about ram) did not boot. compared the ram serial numbers with the list they had tucked deep in their website and yeah, it was not on the list.. bought other ram from the list and it worked.

Its not often but sometimes it happens. Better be safe and get the ones that are certified to work with your motherboard and save few weeks on shipping and a headache later.

Also, my latest pc build came in few days ago, booted it dry no OS, plugged in the USB flash with some linux on it, and BAM... it wont boot from it.. Secure boot is enabled, and grayed out in the BIOS. Cant disable..

Reformated with different distro, and different methods and it booted.. installed OS, and now i can turn the secure boot off in the bios..

the motherboard was MSI.

For the OP, if youre a noob, and have money just get pre built comp, if it dont work you can return it and tell them to make it work.

If youre smart then build it yourself.
Or if you already have pc, 2060 isnt that bad. i forgot what cpu u had. Either way you could build a pc from used parts. Just dont buy used hard drives, you might get swatted by fbi.

I didn't read the entire thread, but noticed some posts about compatibility. One option is to look at prebuild computers from a dealer that knows his job and then buy those parts and build it yourself for less money. My last pc would have been ₁₀% cheaper, but I was too lazy.

Jdellis6656 why not go AMD?

My main pc runs 5900x, and its not bottle necking my 3090 gpu.
Everything runs smoothly.
Modern CPus are good enough to run your average game. Well if you need to run some othr software that does lots of calculations, for instance one might look at photogrametry using meshroom, this uses lots of CPU power, so faster CPU calculations here is needed to reduce render times...

kuligs2 i guess custom motherboard.. vp4650.

Ah, so it's a custom motherboard — there could (should) be problems with it. But I have a feeling that if you had gotten a Crucial, you might have avoided problems.

kuligs2 If youre smart then build it yourself.

Jdellis6656 I also have friends I can get to supervise me so I don't screw it up.

It doesn't depend much on smarts — luck is more important. Faults happen with all manufacturers and there is a non-zero probability of stumbling upon them.

trizZzle One option is to look at prebuild computers from a dealer

Our dealers cram the cheapest components into such assemblies.

Jdellis6656 What cpu would you recommend?

I have never taken AMD and don't plan to in the foreseeable future.

Tomcat I have never taken AMD and don't plan to in the foreseeable future.

I have never had an intel and don't plan on the foreseeable future

every time I had to open an intel machine I remember having a bad experience removing the cooler. intel also has a reputation for overheating, being not as performant for a higher price, bad drivers, vulnerabilities and making bad GPUs. I don't know about today, but they have a bad history.

Jesusemora every time I had to open an intel machine I remember having a bad experience removing the cooler.

What could it possibly be? I quickly switched to custom coolers and had no problems.

intel also has a reputation for overheating, being not as performant for a higher price, bad drivers, vulnerabilities <…>. I don't know about today, but they have a bad history.

The same can be said for AMD

making bad GPUs

Intel's GPU is a misunderstanding, yeah. But they are not designed for serious work. I use NVidia.

Jdellis6656 a Intel Xeon Platinum 8160 SR3B0 24-Core / 48 Threads 2.10GHz (3.70 GHz Turbo) 33MB L3 Cache LGA3647 Processor - (Renewed) is $252.00 USD

That's a very strange price. Is there something wrong with him?

I could take it just for the fun of it, but… how much is the motherboard for it?

0. Xeon should not be recommended at all. Only those who know exactly why and what they need it for should take it.
1. If you take our case, you should take Xeon-W (workstation) rather than a server variant.
2. Xeon is very different from home processors. With home processors, everything is clear: the more expensive, the better — more cores and frequency. Xeon is not like that. Note that the Base Frequency of expensive processors is reduced. Maximum frequency stays at the same level, but this is a new technology — older CPUs don't have it. Many cores and threads can only use a very limited number of specific programs — mostly server software. I think that in our case it is more advantageous to have fewer cores of higher frequency. At the same time it is much cheaper.
3. Components for this platform are usually noticeably more expensive.

what would you recommend for an intel cpu in my budget range?

I would suggest waiting for the announcement of Arrow Lake (less than a month left), see the reaction to it and then decide.

But from my experience, it's better to ask those who will help you build it. Unfortunately I don't have the opportunity to come to build it personally.