Building your own will save you dollars - but you need to know what you are doing. If you've never built a PC before, you either need to do one of those free online tutorials, or get a friend whose done at least 2 full system builds to help. And don't forget, you MUST use anti-static wrist straps, and double-check that everything is "seated" and firmly connected properly before you switch the power on first time. Plenty of people "come a cropper" thinking they can save money by building their own. But it's not just a matter of slapping a few bits together. You'll also need to make sure, once Windows is installed, that you've got the latest and / or best drivers for all the hardware, and that you've configured Windows properly (indexing off, virt mem to same size for max / min, hibernation off). In fact, now that I think about it, the list to "properly" build & setup a new PC is quite long: taken me 10 years to perfect a system build, and I still find ways to do it better, more efficiently or get surprised by something I hadn't anticipated.
In terms of the parts, there are quite a few threads that talk about system builds here on NZFF, but the take-aways are:
- Use quality parts. That includes RAM & PSU. Don't scrimp for the sake of $20 or $30.
- The PSU must have at least 2 x 12v rails, and be able to put out 550W TRUE (not max), preferably 600W. The brand is important. A sign of a good brand is warranty. Cheapos have 12 months, good ones 2-3 years (or more).
- Hard drives and SSDs are very much a personal preference. I prefer Western Digital over Seagate (warranty & support is much better, historical build quality has been better), and have a slight preference for Kingston for SSDs. Again, warranty is important, but also seriously consider the specs. HDDs need to be at least SATA3, 64MB cache, 7200rpm. SSDs need to have the highest throughput, sustained transfer rate and burst rate that you can afford. Do your homework on these: an SSD will be a big difference, but a cheap / poor-spec one will end up being almost as much of a hindrance as a help
- Overall, think about warranty. Are the people you are buying from long-termers, or have they only been around for a year or so? Will they give you only a 1 year warranty on the system as a whole, or will they let you have access to the actual warranty periods of the individual components? For example: CPUs & RAM usually have 5 years, motherboard & video cards usually 3 years, hard drives either 2 or 3, PSU anywhere from 1 to 5 years. When I do a system build for my customers, I offer a 1 year RTB warranty on the system as a whole, but then give my clients access to the "extended" part warranties as well.
- If you can get access to the component warranties in addition to the main system build warranty, check what is involved in claiming on warranty, including things like asking "How long is a lifetime warranty" for any parts that carry this (usually only RAM). A few companies (Corsair being the most notable), mean YOUR lifetime when they use that term. MOST companies mean the expected life of the product, which will vary from 5 years (common) through to 20 years, with a number settling around the 10 year mark.
The better you do your homework and learn what needs to be learned, the happier you will be after the PC is complete.
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 8:31 am
Sounds good!
My thoughts exactly. I was pleased with the startup / shutdown speed of the relatively old laptop I was playing with that had 8 on it, but I wonder how it will all play out once one has an AV and all the other countless "bits" of software that one accrues for various things?