All Data By: www.freecomputeradvice.org
Here I have listed all the components you need to build you computer with some help in choosing your computer hardware and things to look out for. This is just a guide line the ultimate decision on what you purchase depends on you of course.
Cases come in all shapes and sizes, from the super I look like an alien to the plain old I am just a computer case ones.
The only thing really to say on this subject is make sure your power supply is big enough to drive all the computer hardware you are putting in it. Go for at least 500watts. Even better 600watts.
There are many motherboard manufacturers on the market nowadays. This is a list of the best ones in my opinion (which is really the only one that counts) .
ASROCK, BIOSTAR, MSI, ASUS.
I have used god knows how many different motherboard manufacturers over the years and always find myself coming back to these few.
But as preference I will always go with Asrock
The best advice I can give you about motherboards is
DONT go for a cheaper one just to save a few pennies this is the most important component in your computer.
Everything is attached to your motherboard.
The motherboard you chose will depend on a few factors.
Do you want onboard graphics? .
Do you want onboard sound? .
How many USB slots does it have? .
Which one will your budget allow? .(remember dont scrimp on this component)
The main factor is what CPU are you going to chose AMD or INTEL.
Your motherboard MUST be compatible with your CPU.
AMD motherboard for AMD CPU.
Correct CPU socket onboard the motherboard for the correct CPU. (Dont worry too much about this yet.)
You only have two choices of processor manufacturer, AMD or INTEL. Thats it.
But you have tons of choice on what TYPE of processor,
Single core low end
Single core mid range
Single core high end
Dual core low end
Dual core mid range
Dual core high end
We even have now (prepare to empty your wallet) quad core processors.
The basic difference is dual core processors are quite literally two processors in one. Capable of doing more in less time.
My advice here like the motherboard is purchase the best you can afford. Better to pay a few extra pennies now than have to change your whole setup later.
Terminology: RAM comes in sticks or DIMMs dual inline memory modules.
Here again the type you purchase must be compatible with your motherboard.
At time of writing DDR2 is current.
The price of RAM probably varies the most out of all your computer components. You can pay from £15 to £100 for 1024mb (1 gig)
My advice here is if you are not a high end user i.e. someone who likes to play flashy high graphical games then go for cheap to medium priced RAM
I dont believe an average user will benefit from paying lots of cash for something they can get for one quarter of the price.
Do not buy anything less than 1024mb (1 gig). If youre building a vista machine 2 gig is minimum in my humble opinion (and thats the only one that counts) more on vista later
BIG Misconception here.
A lot of people still say to me how come my computer is slow when I have a 250 GB hard drive. I explain that your hard drive is purely a storage device and does not dictate the speed of your pc, the motherboard, CPU and RAM do that.
The choice you have here is. IDE or SATA.
IDE is the older technology but very stable. A lot of the bigger firms like DELL no longer use these in standard pcs.
SATA hard drives (serial ATA) are the newer technology; they run at a slightly higher speed. Some people claim they can see the performance enhancement from these hard discs but quite frankly I dont.
SATA was a real pain in the neck to install a few years ago as the drivers had to be installed off a floppy disc.
Most motherboards now have the SATA drivers build it.
Optical drive simply means a CD or DVD drive. Reader or writer. For the price they are now you will probably just get a DVD-RW this will do both DVDs and CDs reading and writing.
These should be supplied with the motherboard.
Make sure to check there is enough for the amount of drives you will install on your computer (thats hard drives and optical drives even floppy drives if you are going to put one in) bear in mind you can get two IDE drives on a IDE 80-pin data ribbon.
Maximum amount of IDE drives you can have in any computer is 4. This can be any combination of IDE hard drives and IDE optical drives.
Each SATA device will need its own data cable.
Check with the supplier before you leave the shop or finalize your order if you are buying from an online hardware supplier.
You may need to purchase one or two more these. Dont sweat it these are only pennies. Better to make sure you have enough now before you start building your computer and find you have to go back to the shop.
You will only be purchasing a TFT flat screen monitor nowadays.
The size and type (wide screen for example) will be entirely up to you.
Check out the screen response time, this is calculated in milliseconds, mls,
The smaller the number the better.
This plays a big factor with graphically intense programs and especially computer games.
Keyboards and mice come in a ridiculous amount of shapes and sizes,
just get the one you want they all do the same job. I never pay a great deal for this as they often break (or is it that I am just a tight git)
PS/2 (normal 6 pin round connection)
USB (universal serial bus)
Cordless or Wireless.
As with the keyboards and mice, you will find a thousand different type of speakers,
right from the i just do the job no frills right through to the wooo look at me arnt I loud ones
Just buy what your heart desires.
This is most likely to going to be some version of Microsoft windows,
Microsoft vista is the latest operating system to be launched from stable of Mr. Gates.
It still has lots of problems and in my opinion will take until the end of 2008 to be stable enough to be able to load it on and not worry about any compatibility issues with your computer hardware or software.
The biggest problems I have encountered with Microsoft vista are mainly with printers, wireless networks, and graphics cards. I have also had a few problems with antivirus software.
If you do decide to go down the vista route you have at least been forewarned.,br>
Just one other thing to comment about vista is that it is very resource hungry by this I mean you need to build a computer with a really good spec.
I recently built a computer with a 5.6mhz AMD dual core processor. Two gigabytes of DDR11 RAM with a 64 bit motherboard and Vista
and it still performed worse than my older pc with a 1.8 single core processor. 256mb of DDR1 RAM on a 32 bit motherboard with XP
Microsoft Windows XP is the best operating system Microsoft ever put out.
It has been on the open market now for 5 or so years and has had all its bugs ironed out, it is stable stable stable. And that is the biggest priority in my humble opinion. You will be hard pressed to build a computer with windows XP and have a compatibility problem.
For those about to say yeah but Microsoft will stop supporting it soon I say this Microsoft still supported windows 98 up until 2007 so going by this we will still have 4 more years. By then you will need to build a new computer.