Let’s get the tricky one out of way first.
5. Video Card- In a PC the video card produces all of the images you see on screen. In the early days of the PC the video card determined if you had colour graphics or Monochrome. In the modern era of PCs the video card has become the true workhorse of the machine. This is another area where you need to be truly honest about what you are building the machine for. If you are building a gaming machine then this is where you’ll want to spend most of your money. Modern PC games will push the video card much harder than the CPU. I’ll go into the reasons for this in a standalone post. Nvidia and AMD are two main producers of video cards today. Nvidia dominates the market with AMD taking up a much smaller chunk, once again offering to fill that “bargain” niche. As with their CPUs they are looking to change that perception. There are MANY product choices to make when deciding between these two vendors. Plan to spend a great deal of time researching this choice.
6. Storage- There are two main types of storage in use today. SSD based storage and HDD based storage. HDD based storage has been around for decades and is the most common type of general purpose storage available. It also offers the most storage per dollar. You can get a 4 TB drive for about $129 currently. SSD based storage is the new kid on the block. SSD based storage is much faster than the spinning disks used in HDD storage. It also has no moving parts. It takes up less physical space than HDD drives do. The drawback? Cost and capacity. A 1 TB SSD drive will cost you around $200 today.
7. Power Supply- Not much consideration is given to the power supply when building a PC. I recommend you spend a little time here though. This is the last thing that you want to underbuy. Scrimping on a power supply could damage all of those shiny new parts you just bought. It can also cause issues that can be very difficult to troubleshoot. The minimum power supply you should consider is 650W Gold. I’d recommend 800W Gold from a reputable vendor like EVGA for most machines though.
8. Case- The case is where you get to have a little fun and creativity. The case is the part of the PC you are going to be staring at for most of its life so have a look at the choices available. Gone are the days of the beige box. One piece of advice. If you are new to building check out the reviews for the cases you are interested in and not the difficulty level of building in a particular case. If you are new then the more open the case the easier time you will have building in it.
9. Display- If this is your fist PC you’ll likely need to look at displays as well. 1080p displays are common and cheap these days. 4K displays are available and are on the expensive side. My advice? Split the difference and look for a 1440p display. You’ll get more usable space than you would on a 1080p display but you won’t have to deal with the higher cost of the 4K display and the video card needed to drive it.
10. Keyboard and Mouse- These come down to personal preference. Go to a computer shop and try them out to your hearts content.
That’s all for the parts list. If you’ve ticked off every component on this list then you are ready to start your build. One of the best places to get started is a site like Canada Computers. They carry everything you’ll need and have retail locations so you can go in and see the components and ask questions. They may not always be the cheapest though. Don’t forget sites like newegg and Amazon. They often have the components on sale.
When I come back I’ll start a deeper dive into some of the components that we only touched on earlier.
As always if you have any questions feel free to comment below and I’ll address them.
See you next time!
NoShade's 