6 Tips when building a PC at home

Nowadays almost everyone is capable of building a PC at home, a not easy task, but perfect for building a performance PC on a budget. If you are planning to build the PC of your dreams soon, the 6 tips I am going to give you may be really in use, especially if you are new in this field.

Before starting to buy parts, the first thing to think about is what you are going to use the computer for. Most of the time people build PCs on a limited budget, that’s why they really need to think of the purpose of their new PC. If your budget is over $2000, then you can skip this step, but if it is lower, you may better think about it.

The main things PCs are used for are gaming, multimedia and surfing on the web, CAD and 3D software or everything in once. For example, if you are going to use the computer mainly for gaming, you do not need the most powerful CPU or the best motherboard, better buy better GPU and cool monitors to play on. If you are going to build a PC which will mainly do rendering and use CAD software, a powerful CPU + GPU are required. Forgot to mention RAM, this type of memory is always useful, especially when you are going to run multiple applications, so a good amount will be needed independently from the use of the computer. So let’s assume you already know the purpose of your future PC, let’s start with the tips which you may need.

AMD is better than Intel for Gaming

Sounds strange, but this is true. Why? For gaming you really do not need the latest Intel i7 4/5th generation. AMD is a far better choice, mainly because it will fit your budget and will give you the required performance for the most games. Do not forget that the motherboard itself is the slowest part as it connects all others PC parts and the full potential of the CPU cannot be always used. Intel CPUs are awesome when having a server or using software that calculates a lot, while AMD saves more power with a bit less performance. In my personal experience, a difference between AMD A6  3xxx vs. Intel  4th gen is not noticeable if you are running only games and software like Adobe CC and similar.

SSD over HDD

Last year statistics showed that the sales of HDD have fallen down, while SSD was sold much more and there is a reason behind this. SSD is faster than HDD, but do not forget that you need SATA 6GB/s do use its full potential. SSDs may vary a lot, from a $50 price to $10000, giving also a different performance. Here you should be careful about matching the motherboard and SSD.

The better motherboard, the bigger potential

The better motherboard you choose, the bigger opportunities you will have afterwards. Buying a good motherboard means you can put more RAM, a better CPU and use the full potential of an SSD. Also if your motherboard is good and has a good CPU socket, you won’t have to update it soon, as you will be able to change the CPU, SSD and RAM for further performance if you want in the future, so investing in a good motherboard is a good long-term invest for your PC.

Power supply is important

Here you will be required to do some simple math, to sum up the power requirements from all parts you will build up together. So if you have a 375W general power consummation, 400W would be recommended, but 500W or even 600W would be better so you could easily upgrade your GPU later with a newer one that may require some more power. Of course if you are building a power saving pc, you will have to do some more math and pick the right parts that give good performance in exchange for little power.

PC Tower size factor

Though you should first think about this when building a PC, it does not have such a higher priority. Picking the right size factor for your PC tower will give you different opportunities to choose a mainboard. That’s why when building the pc, tower box is what I choose last, because it is according to the mainboard size factor.

Save money with some limits for your PC

Buying a 120GB SSD would be much cheaper than 256GB one, or an Intel i5 CPU would be also cheaper than an i7 one. Knowing what your PC will be used for (as mentioned before), can save you a good amount of money. So if you are building a PC and have limited budget, focus on the main parts that will give you the performance needed for the purpose of the computer. There are a lot of good websites on the web where you could pick parts for your PC, according to the motherboard support, so try choosing similar website and pick the right parts for your PC. Also do not forget that extras like a 7.1 sound card or super-fast network adapter are not always needed.