Tutorial - How To Build Your Own Computer
This brief tutorial should allow users to understand what is inside a computer and hopefully give them enough confidence to create their own desktop from basic components. Komplett sometimes allow you to build your own desktop online and allow users to select the specific components they want in their desktop. If this is available, I would highly recommend using it.
I am only going to go through how to build the desktop from components. This will not include what monitors to buy or any other accessories. These accessories generally have a common interface so it really doesn't matter what you choose as most will work. I will leave this up to the discretion of the user.
Here are some of the components that I would consider vital for a personal computer:
There are several places online which offer great offers for computer components. These include videocardshop.co.uk, komplett.ie, elara.ie and maplin.co.uk. My favourite and the one I would recommend is Komplett. If the component is in stock, they are very fast and reliable to deal with.
Start with why do you need this computer. A reliable motherboard if you want it to last forever and be easily upgraded. A good graphics card for gaming. A lot of memory for running several programs at the same time. A big power supply if there is lots of hardware on your computer. A good case and some casemods if you want to spruce up the way it looks. A big hard drive if you want to hold lots of video and music.
Once you have decided which parts of your computer that you want to focus on, you can easily adapt my tutorial to fit your needs. Please note that a component does not have to be expensive to be good. I would recommend getting each component from a well known company instead of a newly created company. I will go through the big names of company components in detail as we go through each component
This the heart and body of your computer. I will go through a sample motherboard that is available on Komplett and explain what all the important jargon words are.
Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5 Motherboard:
The most common motherboards are Gigabyte and Asus. Both of these motherboards are very reliable. I would however choose Gigabyte over Asus as I have had small problems with Asus ones before.
This needs to hold all of the hardware components of the computer. It is also what is seen by most other people so this is the thing that you would want to look epic. You might even consider having see-through walls so passers-by can see your cool motherboard and graphics card. I would not recommend ordering these on the internet as they can be easily damaged during transport. You are better off going down to your local Maplin and buying it there instead. At least then you can get a real concept of size etc.
The two main types are AMD and Intel. Although AMD seem weaker, this is because their processors need less cycles to the same thing. This means an AMD 2Ghz processor is equivalent to an Intel 3.6Ghz. Make sure the socket matches the supported socket on the motherboard and also the motherboard can support that amount of cores on the processor.
Sample processor that works with the motherboard:
AMD Athlon II X4 630
I would always choose either Corsair or Crucial for memory. Depending on the motherboard, you will have a certain amount of speed of ram you can get. Some higher speed rams require cooling so be careful. I would recommend buying in sets so you can be assured that they can be properly matched together and are compatible.
The two main competitors are ATI Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce. I would recommend ATI for people who need a reliable easy to use graphics card and I would recommend NVIDIA for those who want powerful graphics. If you want to use fancy technology like Crossfire then make sure your motherboard supports this.
Sample graphics card that works with the motherboard:
XFX Radeon HD 5870
I do not have any preference of DVD player but LG and Sony are a pretty good bet. Blu-Ray is pretty popular so you might want to spend a little more so you don't have to upgrade to it in the future. Just make sure the drive supports DVD +- RW. This means it can read and write all formatted DVDs. This saves you time and money trying to figure out which DVDs are supported by your DVD player.
I definitely recommend Western Digital hard drives as I have had tonnes of problems with the others. If you are very concerned about the speed of accessing the hard drives I would recommend getting a SSD although this is at a major cost of space and money. For a normal desktop I would always get an internal 3.5” hard drive. This is because all cases allow multiple 3.5” hard drives and only a few allow 2.5” hard drives.
I would recommend getting Corsair power supplies. I have had many problems with others but so far no problem with theirs. When choosing a power supply, remember how much hardware you have in the computer. Make sure that the power supply has enough of the correct connectors to match the components in your computer.
Windows 7 is brilliant. Windows 7 will usually find all of the correct drivers associated with your hardware so there is very little setup time involved. Ubuntu is also a good choice but this is only good as a backup Operating System as I have had many problems finding the most up-to-date drivers for my components.
Usually the motherboard comes with instructions but I will go over a brief overview:
I am only going to go through how to build the desktop from components. This will not include what monitors to buy or any other accessories. These accessories generally have a common interface so it really doesn't matter what you choose as most will work. I will leave this up to the discretion of the user.
Here are some of the components that I would consider vital for a personal computer:
- Motherboard
- Case
- Processor
- Memory
- Graphics card
- DVD player
- Hard drive
- Power supply
- Operating system
Where To Buy?
There are several places online which offer great offers for computer components. These include videocardshop.co.uk, komplett.ie, elara.ie and maplin.co.uk. My favourite and the one I would recommend is Komplett. If the component is in stock, they are very fast and reliable to deal with.
Start with why do you need this computer. A reliable motherboard if you want it to last forever and be easily upgraded. A good graphics card for gaming. A lot of memory for running several programs at the same time. A big power supply if there is lots of hardware on your computer. A good case and some casemods if you want to spruce up the way it looks. A big hard drive if you want to hold lots of video and music.
Once you have decided which parts of your computer that you want to focus on, you can easily adapt my tutorial to fit your needs. Please note that a component does not have to be expensive to be good. I would recommend getting each component from a well known company instead of a newly created company. I will go through the big names of company components in detail as we go through each component
The Motherboard.
This the heart and body of your computer. I will go through a sample motherboard that is available on Komplett and explain what all the important jargon words are.
Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5 Motherboard:
- Form Factor: ATX. This describes the physical size of the motherboard. ATX is the most common size. This is only needed when deciding on your case. Other form factors include micro-ATX.
- Processor: AMD – Socket AM3. This shows us the maker of the processor. Generally speaking once you put a processor on a motherboard, they are usually paired for life. This means, when the processor is out-of-date then likely so is the motherboard.
- Multi-core Support: Triple-core / Quad-core. This shows how many cores a processor must have to be accepted. This also allows us to see how reliable the motherboard will be at accepting new technologies allowing you to choose a greater range of processors.
- Supported RAM: DDR3 SDRAM. This gives us the memory which is supported on the motherboard. Memory is something which is commonly upgraded in the future so try and make this support as much type of RAM as possible. The higher the DDR, the more RAM it supports.
- RAM Speeds: PC3-10600, PC3-8500. This restricts the motherboard to only allowing certain speeds of memory. Although a high number allows greater speeds, we also want reliability. Choose a RAM speed which has a wide availability of memory.
- Expansion Slots: 1 processor, 4 memory, 2 PCI Express 2.0 CrossFireX, 1 PCI Express 2.0, 3 PCI. This gives us an idea of how much hardware we can have on the motherboard. If we can get an image of the physical motherboard then we can determine how much of the slots will be used. Remember the more hardware you use, then the more cooling you are going to need. PCI will be used for hardware such as graphics cards and TV tuners.
- Hardware Features: ATI CrossfireX. The hardware features of the motherboard show all the cool things it can do. CrossfireX allows two graphics cards to work together. This is quite popular as it dramatically increases your gaming experience but requires multiple compatible graphics cards.
The most common motherboards are Gigabyte and Asus. Both of these motherboards are very reliable. I would however choose Gigabyte over Asus as I have had small problems with Asus ones before.
The Case
This needs to hold all of the hardware components of the computer. It is also what is seen by most other people so this is the thing that you would want to look epic. You might even consider having see-through walls so passers-by can see your cool motherboard and graphics card. I would not recommend ordering these on the internet as they can be easily damaged during transport. You are better off going down to your local Maplin and buying it there instead. At least then you can get a real concept of size etc.
The Processor
The two main types are AMD and Intel. Although AMD seem weaker, this is because their processors need less cycles to the same thing. This means an AMD 2Ghz processor is equivalent to an Intel 3.6Ghz. Make sure the socket matches the supported socket on the motherboard and also the motherboard can support that amount of cores on the processor.
Sample processor that works with the motherboard:
AMD Athlon II X4 630
- 2.8Ghz
- L2 2Mb
- Quad-core
- Socket AM3
The Memory
I would always choose either Corsair or Crucial for memory. Depending on the motherboard, you will have a certain amount of speed of ram you can get. Some higher speed rams require cooling so be careful. I would recommend buying in sets so you can be assured that they can be properly matched together and are compatible.
The Graphics Card
The two main competitors are ATI Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce. I would recommend ATI for people who need a reliable easy to use graphics card and I would recommend NVIDIA for those who want powerful graphics. If you want to use fancy technology like Crossfire then make sure your motherboard supports this.
Sample graphics card that works with the motherboard:
XFX Radeon HD 5870
- DirectX 11
- 1GB GDDR5 memory
- ATI Crossfire
- HDMI
- Dual DVI
DVD Player
I do not have any preference of DVD player but LG and Sony are a pretty good bet. Blu-Ray is pretty popular so you might want to spend a little more so you don't have to upgrade to it in the future. Just make sure the drive supports DVD +- RW. This means it can read and write all formatted DVDs. This saves you time and money trying to figure out which DVDs are supported by your DVD player.
Hard Drive
I definitely recommend Western Digital hard drives as I have had tonnes of problems with the others. If you are very concerned about the speed of accessing the hard drives I would recommend getting a SSD although this is at a major cost of space and money. For a normal desktop I would always get an internal 3.5” hard drive. This is because all cases allow multiple 3.5” hard drives and only a few allow 2.5” hard drives.
Power Supply
I would recommend getting Corsair power supplies. I have had many problems with others but so far no problem with theirs. When choosing a power supply, remember how much hardware you have in the computer. Make sure that the power supply has enough of the correct connectors to match the components in your computer.
Operating System
Windows 7 is brilliant. Windows 7 will usually find all of the correct drivers associated with your hardware so there is very little setup time involved. Ubuntu is also a good choice but this is only good as a backup Operating System as I have had many problems finding the most up-to-date drivers for my components.
How Do I Assemble It?
Usually the motherboard comes with instructions but I will go over a brief overview:
- Screw the motherboard into the case
- Install the processor
- Install the memory
- Attach the graphics card
- Screw in the DVD player and link it to the motherboard
- Screw in the hard drive and link it to the motherboard
- Screw in the power supply and give power to all of the components that need it
- Install the operating system and then install the drivers
Comments
Post a Comment