Shopping
Now that you have done some basic planning, you make a basic shopping list. Don’t underestimate how important this is. By budgeting you can really get sense of how much your machine will cost and if u you do it correctly you won’t waste any money.
This is a list of the essential things you will need for the pc:
1. Firstly you will need a motherboard, this is the most important part, as this is where all your parts will connect together so choose carefully. You will have to choose between Intel and AMD, either is fine. AMD tends to be cheaper but Intel tends to be used more often. There are a lot of good motherboard brands, I recommend ASUS as they have never let me down. A final thing to think about, make sure you know what parts you can use with the motherboard, there is no point getting a PCI graphics if there is no PCI ports on the board and also make sure you know what your board supports.
2. The next part to get is a processor (CPU). This will carry out all the calculations and operations of your computer. They now come in many different types and speeds. Processor now tend to be multi-core, the only thing you have to know about cores is that if you have a dual core then you multiply the speed by 2 and if you have quad core then obviously you then multiply the speed by four. Remember you chose between Intel and AMD well you need to keep this in mind. I think that this just common sense but if you have an Intel motherboard you must get and Intel processor, you can’t choose AMD and vice versa. Also make sure that you get a powerful processor as you don’t want to be buying a new one 6 months done the line because it is too slow, but don’t go over the top sometimes the fastest model is too expensive.
3. Now you have to buy your RAM or (Random Access Memory). The size is what really matters here. Computer tends to have 3 or 4GB but this will change quickly. It is also a good idea to get a good speed. I chose 1066 MHZ which is a good speed. If you can’t afford DDR3 then get DDR2 there is nothing wrong with it! DDR2 is great I have it and it is very fast. There are many good brands OCZ, Crucial and Kingston are all great.
4. Here comes my favourite part the Graphics Card. This is important even if you are not a gamer is everything that you see on the computer screen will come from this card. The only difference is if you not really a gamer this part doesn’t have to be as powerful. There are many different makes and models. ATI and Nvidia being the most common, ATI is made by AMD so if you have an AMD CPU and Motherboard then it is a good idea to get an ATI card, as it usually gives a better performance or extra performance. I have an ATI Radeon and it’s never let me down. A final thing to think about is that if you’re planning on using Windows Vista or Windows 7 then it pays to get a good card as Windows Aero takes graphics power.
5. Now you need a place to store all you work, games and applications. You need a hard drive. If you’re building a desktop and I’m thinking you are, get a 3.5 inch drive with at least 300GB, any less and you’ll have to buy another one! I recommend a 500GB drive it’s good size and not too expensive. If you want a faster drive you can go for a 10000 RPM drive such as WD Raptor or a Solid State Drive (SSD) but don’t expect it to be cheap. You might even have to pay up to £500, in my opinion Solid State is not yet worth it. Western Digital (WD), Seagate and Hitachi are all good makes and again any will do. I did have Samsung drive but it broke so keep that in mind! (Sorry Samsung). Also you want to get a SATA drive most modern motherboards support this and IDE is getting old now.
6. Now you need to get the power supply (PSU), because if you don’t have power then you obviously don’t have a computer. The only important thing here is to make sure that you’re PSU has enough power for all your parts, for example don’t buy a PSU which supports only 2 cores for 4 core system (again probably common sense). It’s also a good idea to get one with fewer wires as it’s just annoying if you have lots of bundles of wires, like with any other device. Also if you want to buy more than one graphics get one to supports Crossfire/SLI for ATI/Nvidia cards.
7. So you have a motherboard, CPU, RAM, Graphics, Hard drive and Power. You need somewhere to put it. You will have to buy a computer case. It really doesn’t matter what kind of case as long as it’s big enough for the motherboard. Most people well get ATX motherboard and most cases will support this. I got one from NZXT, they have really good cases so give them a try.
8. There are also lots of other parts that you will need but they are not really essential. So will also need a DVD/CD drive you can easily pick one up for little cost and you might want to get a sound card but you don’t always need one as most boards have them built in, I never needed one.
