How To Build A Computer - Beginning A Build
When building a custom PC there are several different options you will have to think about. The sky is the limit when doing to something like this but for most people there are limitations. Cost, Purpose of the build, features and how long you want it to last are all things that should be considered.
The first thing that you will have to do is set a budget. Cost is the number one limitation of your build. With smaller budgets you will have to cut corners but should spend the money in certain places to improve reliability.
What is the purpose of the build and what are you going to use it for. Are you replacing an old obsolete computer or are you building for the newest game. You will need to know this so you know what hardware we can use. If you trying to run that new game you may run into an issue with cost but you won't know until you do some research. We can still build a budget gaming rig but you will have to turn down some of the graphics settings to keep a good frame rate. If you want to play music and movies you may want a nice sound card in your computer.
There are many different features to choose from that could be added into your computer. You will have to keep this in mind when at all times during the build. Many of the components will have to have support for some of the features that you may want. Think of all of the features you want and keep them in mind when researching your parts.
How long do you want this computer to last? This is question of both performance and reliability. Is it going to be depended upon everyday? Will you ask it to play new games 3 years down the road? This will determine where you will put your money.
Reliability of a computer can be increased by putting money in parts that are most likely to fail. Moving parts are the most problematic like the hard drive. Then stationary parts like the power supply and RAM are also prone to failure. Make sure you don't cut your costs in these 3 areas.
Performance is probably the main reason for a building a new machine and getting rid of your old computer. The biggest things that affect performance are RAM, hard drive, graphics card, and processor. To build a budget computer you have to know where to cut corners. Unless you are running games or graphics design programs you won't need a big graphics card. You don't need a top of the line processor to have a fast computer. Don't get the cheapest, middle of the line processor for a budget build will work fine. Do not cut corners on RAM and power supply. RAM can make or break your computer, with sufficient RAM your computer will run faster and be more reliable.
Now that you have an idea on what you want you can start researching the parts. take a look at what processor you can afford. Then you can base the rest of your system off of that. Make sure that all of your components are compatible with each other. So, when you know what processor you want then you only look at motherboards that support that processor.
Now you should have a enough information to get started on your build. There are a lot of things to take into consideration. This is all best to look at before you get started. If you go over budget then you can always take a couple features that are not totally needed to drop into your budget range. This article is just to get you started, there is more information to come before you make your purchase.
Thomas Milas works in IT and writes about computer related issues. For more information check out my blog, How to build a computer http://how-tobuildacomputer.blogspot.com/