I have recently decided to build a new computer. I have reasons for why I’m doing it before my exams are over, as well as reasons for why I’m building it myself, but I’d rather talk about the latter. I am aiming to write these posts about my new computer not only for tech-savvy readers, but for anyone who is interested. So I apologize if you know some of this already. This blog was partly inspired by Coding Horror’s popular series of posts. Take a look at them if you want more pictures of pretty PC parts.
Building has many benefits over pre-built, if you’re up to the task. If you learn about parts, you can choose exactly what you want–and then modify them when you change your mind, or when the technology for a particular part gets better. This way you don’t have to buy a whole new computer when you want a new part, and you know exactly where it goes and whether it plays nice with your other parts. It can also be cheaper, but only if you’re careful.
I did my best to be careful. I wanted a gaming PC that could play today’s games at the highest graphics settings, as well as being a bit future-proof so that I won’t have to rebuild for at least a few years. Problem was, I had to buy everything from the keyboard to the motherboard. All that I had already was a gaming laptop, which I couldn’t take parts from.
To find parts, I had to do research. This is essential, and probably the most difficult part of building a computer. I was lucky, since I have lots of friends in computing science to bounce ideas off of, but most of my decisions were based on reading reviews, benchmarks (performance tests), and searching sites for the best prices. I wanted to make good choices, so I spent some time doing this. I ended up buying my parts online from Dabs and eBuyer, two major electronics retailers in the UK.
Here are my final specs, which I know many of you will skip the rest of this post to see:
| Processor | £170 | Intel Core i5-2500K |
| Motherboard | £95 | Asus P8Z68-V LX |
| Graphics Card | £160 | XFX Radeon HD6870 2GB |
| Memory | £45 | Patriot 8GB Viper Xtreme DDR3 1866MHz |
| Case | £65 | Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus Case |
| Power Supply | £37 | Coolermaster GX 650W |
| Hard Drive | £83 | Seagate 1TB Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 7200RPM |
| DVD-RW Drive | £15 | LiteOn iHAS124 24x |
| Speakers | £18 | Logitech S220 2.1 Speakers |
| Keyboard | £11 | Logitech K200 Media Keyboard |
| Monitor | £142 | Samsung S24A300H 24″ HDMI Monitor (and cable) |
| Power Strip | £8 | Belkin 6-Socket SurgeStrip 3m Cable |
The total was just under £850. Note that the motherboard, processor, and memory came in a £300 bundle; I estimated what each separate part cost within the bundle. The same goes for the case and power supply, they came in a roughly £100 bundle.
I had a lot of fun building my PC (currently in storage at my parents' place in NZ). Pays to be fussy about the power supply: my first motherboard went up in smoke the second I plugged it in!
Yikes! Yeah, apparently the one I chose is “80 plus bronze” which sounds like it's decent enough for the price… anything more (particularly gold) is much more expensive.