Building Your First PC
My First PC Build – The Case
Well I have managed to gather a few parts for my new PC build. My bargain of the day has to be the case. Now when it comes to computers I am not too bothered what the outside looks like, at the end of the day it is probably going to sit under my desk so very few people will see it. For me it is about performance so as long as it could house everything I wished to place into it looks were not important although I build quality was. I was hoping to pick up a Corsair Obsidian Series 650D Mid tower case but second hand prices were far too expectant. Then through the AV Forums classified section, I found someone selling a Bitfenix Colossus Case in black. This person had purchased both the Black and White versions unsure of which one he was going to like the best, as it happened he decided to keep the white without even opening the black version, the box even had the package strapping tightly secured around it.
I made an offer of £60 delivered which he accepted, it arrived exactly as he had described, brand new in original packaging not even opened to inspect, a £110 case for £60 so I was off to a good start. I did do a little research before making my offer, the lights glowing are a gimmick agreed but this case does have a lot of appealing features, the main one for me being the fan controller. Watch the youtube video above for the full list of features, personally I am glad he liked the white one as I think the black is much better.
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Building My First Computer
So I have decided to have a go at building my first computer, well they call it a computer self build, really it is a case of buying several items and bolting them together. I say with some confidence that it sounds harder than it looks but as I haven’t actually gone ahead and finished one yet I had probably better place that judgement on hold. I have been researching this for a while now and I have participated over at a couple of forums, mainly the AV Forums and Overclockers. I have been a member of the The AV Forums for some time and one thing I have found from using their classifieds when purchasing 2nd hand Hi Fi equipment is that the sellers are a completely different class of person to those you might find on eBay. The only way I can describe it is almost geekish but I mean that in the best possible way.
Real Hi Fi enthusiasts like to upgrade their equipment on a regular basis, they look after their equipment and when it comes to selling it you would have a pretty hard job telling it apart from brand new. The original storage boxes and packaging are included most of the time and even extended warranties. Because of this the original plan was to build my own PC using all second hand parts. The downside is expectations when it comes to second hand PC parts, some of these sellers might look after their equipment like a new born baby but the price they are wishing to achieve is sometimes less than 20% below retail value.
I have read a lot of forum posts where people rush out and buy new PC’s and parts without deciding what they want out of their new PC. I have seen people paying extra for an Intel i7 CPU over the i5 and spending £100 on a graphics card when they say they want the machine for gaming. For those unsure why this is a bad decision; the i7 offers no improvement over an i5 when it comes to gaming. It would be a much wiser decision to purchase the cheaper i5 and get an improved graphics card with the money you save. So what are my requirements – VERY occasional game playing, running my home accounts, surfing the Internet and creating the odd web site. I don’t need mass storage as I have a NAS and I don’t watch movies on my PC as they also get stored on the NAS and streamed to a WDTV unit.
My time scale to complete this build is Christmas 2011 and I have set out my shopping list of what I shall be purchasing second hand and what I shall purchase new off the shelf. I have decided that the Case, PSU, DVD Rom, RAM, Graphics Card, Fans and Cooler can be second hand. The Motherboard, CPU and Hard Drive are all going to be new. Allow me to explain my reasoning in a little more detail:
Case – I want a medium to full size case, I really do not care what it looks like as in design, what can go wrong on a case, it is just cosmetic right? As long as I get one without too many scratches and dinks it is just going to be the home for the bits and bobs inside.
PSU – Before my research I would have gone for a cheap one, I now realise how important a good quality power supply must be. My reason for considering a 2nd hand one is the amount of people I have seen upgrading to full spec gaming machines who realise that their PSU requires an upgrade. Ideally I will be looking for a 750w PSU under a year old, I would consider a slightly less powerful one as I will only be running one DVD drive, 2 HDD and one graphics card.
DVD Rom – New or 2nd hand, it isn’t going to be used to play movies, just load software when I purchase it.
RAM – I feel comfortable that RAM given with long warranty periods and even lifetime guarantees will be fine if purchased used, again I will watch out for reasonable priced 2nd hand units if not I will purchase new. Because of my CPU and Mobo combination I will be looking at DDR3 probably Ripjaws.
Graphics Card – I don’t want to spend more than £100 on this, there are so many people selling GPU’s as they are hardcore gamers who must have the latest and they are forever upgrading.
Fans and Cooler – I am going for an after market CPU cooler, I have found a guy who reviews them for a magazine, they get sent to him for a review and he then sells them. I don’t think I am going to ever overclock, I would like the option that I can but we are talking very minor IF I do.
Hard Drive – Well I have toyed with the idea of an SSD boot drive, I have been a little alarmed that reliability seems to be a bit of an issue. Not sure what route to go still yet, I have a spare 1TB Western Digital Black so I might use that.
CPU – Intel i5 2500k too many reasons to list why I want this chip, reviews are excellent, it offers the most bang per buck and it is the heart of your computer so I am going for the best I can afford. I might have got a second hand one but closed classifieds and used asking prices are ridiculous. People wanting just 20% less than I can get one new for and you don’t know for sure if it has been over clocked and pushed beyond it’s limits.
Mobo – Wow so much research has gone into this and I am not 100% sure which one to go for. I have a sneaky feeling it will be an ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3. Probably overkill for my immediate needs but it has excellent reviews and only £30 more than my second choice board which has a lot less features.
I will file this under the category of Building Your First PC so stay tuned if you would like to follow my progress