How to build your own PC | Planning the build
- Jul 13, 2017
- 3 min read
Need a new computer or an upgrade of a desktop computer at home?
Save money and make the computer of your dreams....or to what you need. Building a computer is easier than you think and with the help of this series "How to build your own PC" we'll go through all the steps to building your very own PC. We'll go through all the details from planning, buying, putting it together, and starting up your new PC.
Todays first episode is about planning your build. Planning is essential before you go diving into any project especially one which could be very costly. So here are some steps and guidelines for making a plan for your PC build.
Set a Budget
For a good well rounded PC we would recommend a budget of 1000$USD and above but however it is possible to build a decent PC for 500$USD. But whatever budget you do set, make sure it is never broken at any point of the project. Also make sure to add to the budget software costs such as the operating system, office suites etc, if you do not own them already. For the build in this series we'll be sticking to a budget of 1000$USD for a all round PC.
Put yourself in a Category
There are three categories which a PC user can be placed in:
- Gaming
- Home and Office
- Professional
Gaming
If you use the PC for predominantly gaming and also specifically very PC strenuous games, you fit into this category. For a gaming PC more emphasis is put on a good graphics card and CPU, therefore more of your budget should be focussed on this over other parts.
Home and Office
This PC user doesn't do many PC strenuous tasks, and uses the PC more for web browsing, document creation etc. The focus for this user is speed and reliability, so the budget in this case would focus more on RAM and SSDs.
Professional
A professional user who does a lot of rendering, video editing and outputting of 3D models fits into this category. The budget in this focuses on a good CPU, good graphics card, and also SSDs and RAM for an all round PC.
Reflect on your previous PC experience
If you have owned a previous PC or had interaction with one, note down the positives and negatives of your experiences. Maybe you had a PC which was slow, therefore to fix that maybe an upgrade in RAM and also a possible SSD storage solution would have resolved this. If the PC couldn't run certain things at all, maybe an upgrade of all components or a operating system is required. While for frame drops in games and videos, a upgrade in graphics cards would have resolved it.
After doing this plan you may realise a whole new PC build isn't required and only a upgrade of an existing PC is required. If however you are proceeding on with the build, by the end of the planning process you should know what key focus areas of the PC which your budget will go to.
Hope this first episode of the "How to build your own PC" series was helpful in making your first steps to building your dream PC. Keep an eye out for the next episode of the series where we'll show you how to pick parts and get a good price on parts.
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