Building a New PC
Building a new PC – What I learned
This article is intended to help people understand what to look for when building a new PC and ease some of the frustrations that can go along with building a PC. When you have finished reading this you’ll hopefully feel a lot more confident when purchasing and talking about your new PC build.
This is not a build guide but some information that may help when first researching and buying a new PC. I found a lot of this information in many different places on the internet and thought bringing it all together in one place would be a good idea.
Contents
- Identify the purpose
- RAM Selection
- Match Motherboard speeds with RAM speeds
- Intel or AMD/Ryzen?
- Mmmmmmmmm Graphics Cards
- SSD’s and hard drives
- Motherboard PSU and Case compatibility
I came to a realisation one day after 5 years or so of working on my old PC that I would need to buy a new computer of some description. The old PC was trucking along fine and doing all the things I wanted it to (Mostly) but I had developed an interest in video production and live streaming of video games as a hobby and the current hardware just wasn’t going to cut it. I had breathed new life into the PC a few months earlier by installing an SSD (If you have an old PC that’s running slow and can’t afford or don’t want a new PC I highly recommend doing this reduced boot up times from around 5 mins to 48 seconds.
So, no problem Ill just save some money and by a new PC right? Soooo wrong.
I discussed my intention to buy a new PC with friends and work colleagues and googled “Whats the best PC to buy?” and I got more questions in return than I did get anwers. “What do you want to use it for? Work, gaming? , will you be streaming? how many ports do you need?, Want to buy AMD or Intel, what kind of graphics card will you be getting “. I had no idea this would be so involved and frankly overwhelming.
New PC – Purpose
Ok so I had to start at the beginning – What will I be using the PC for? As this PC was going to be an all rounder I have to take into account my work needs and hobby needs.
I am a web developer by day which involves loads of image processing, code compiling and processing and also having lots of windows and programs running at the same time.
RAM
So I needed good image processing power (I use the Adobe suite including photoshop and illustrator so consulted the Adobe guides here). Having lots of windows open and lots of programs running simultaneously will use lots of RAM and as a web developer I always have loads of things running at the same time (Multiple browsers, code editor, email client, background compilers, photoshop etc). So I thought 8GB of RAM should be plenty until I checked the specs required for Adobe Premiere pro (Video creating and processing software) where 16GB is recommended.
Right so I need 16GB of RAM. Again talking to colleagues they asked what type of RAM are you getting? What speed? Is it compatible with your Motherboard?
This is the face I made:
What type of RAM do you need?
There are two major “types” of RAM floating around at the moment, these are DDR3 and DDR4. You can look up the differences between the two if you wish but buy the DDR4 if you are building a new PC would be my advice unless you are really trying to clamp down the budget. Note: If you do decide to get DDR3 RAM make sure you have a DDR3 RAM configured motherboard. To ensure compatibility with your motherboard, check the “Qualified Vendors List” or QVL of your motherboard to see if the RAM you want to buy will suit the motherboard. These should be available from the manufacturers website.
Match your motherboard speed with you RAM speed
Both the motherboard RAM slots and the RAM itself will be rated to a certain speed. There is no point in buying RAM with speeds that exceed the speed at which the motherboard can facilitate the RAM. Eg. If you buy super dooper 2666mhz RAM and the Motherboard slots are only rated to 2133mhz or lower then that is wasted potential of the RAM and completely wasted money. If the motherboard speed exceeds the speed of the RAM then this is ok as the RAM can still reach its full potential.
RAM for Intel vs AMD / Ryzen chipsets / motherboards
Although RAM compatibility should be fine for either Intel or AMD / Ryzen chipset motherboards again please consult the QVL of your motherboard to see if the RAM you want to buy will suit the motherboard.
This brings me to the next set of questions?
Will you be getting an Intel or AMD processor
The answer to this question will dictate the answer to another question around which motherboard to buy. There is so much information around which brand to go with and to be honest I thought both sounded really good but in the end I went with the Intel. I recommend doing your own research and you tube channels like Linus Tech Tips can really help in these decisions. Again check your motherboard specs for compatibility with your selected CPU.
i3 / i5 /i7 ?
Again this decision comes back to what you use your PC or what you will use your new PC for. For me I wanted to make sure that aside from my work requirements the computer could also live stream gameplay to twitch while also being able to play the game on the PC at the same time and run the broadcasting software (OBS). I also needed the machine to be able run video editing software and render the resulting video in a reasonable amount of time.
A good article on the difference between the chips here:
I needed as many cores and threads at my disposal as possible because I needed some resources dedicated to running my broadcasting software and some to run the game which are both fairly CPU intensive. I could have gone with a 2 PC setup for my live streaming requirements which I wont get into here but I thought if I could do it all with one then that would be the better option.
So I went with the i7 8700k.
Graphics Cards
With a multitude of Graphics cards out there in the marketplace, Its another decision to be made based on your use of the machine you are buying/building. For gaming and streaming/video processing the visual aspect is quite important and therefore would justify as good a graphics card as you can afford. I went with an NVIDIA GTX 1070 as I decided to focus more of my budget on the CPU which left me a little short for the GTX1080 at the time. Still a massive upgrade from my GTX750Ti which I was running on my old PC.
If you are just going to be browsing the internet and doing word processing, emails etc then I wouldn’t focus too much effort on a dedicated GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and perhaps consider a build which includes an integrated GPU. This will save big $$$ too.
I don’t believe there are any compatibility issues whether you have a ryzen/amd setup or an intel setup as the same generic slots are used on both motherboards for dedicated GPU’s.
Hard Drives
Hard drives are one of the necessities of a PC and every PC has one so what do you need in a hard drive? Well I download lots of games and programs and images so I need lots of storage. I also like my PC to start up nice and quick so an SSD (Solid State Drive) for my “Boot drive” is a nice addition and relatively inexpensive and if you are going to spend up on a new PC don’t skimp on the SSD. A common setup at the time of this writing is to have an SSD to run windows and all the essential stuff for running your PC and also having a regular HDD (Hard Disk Drive) for storage.
These have regular SATA connections so should plug straight in to any Motherboard without any issues. The only problem can be fitting the 2.5inch SSD into the 3.5 inch allocated slot in the PC case. This is easily worked around by a 3.5 to 2.5 inch conversion bracket available from most computer stores.
Motherboards, power supply’s and cases
So we have most of our pieces but we need somewhere to plug all the pieces into. This is where the motherboard comes in. After reading everything above you may have a pretty good idea now of what you need. A few questions remain.
The motherboard and the case need to have the same mount configuration. The motherboard has some holes in a very specific pattern around the outside that line up to the same pattern on a PC case. These patterns are given names such as ATX, ITX, mini-atx etc etc. So if you already have a case you need to make sure the motherboard fits one of the supported patterns of the case (These days a mid – large size case will support multiple mounting patterns).
Make sure the power supply you buy fits in the case and the power supply pin pattern matches the motherboard power connector pin pattern. Also check the network ports (to make sure you can make the most of your ISP speed) on the motherboard and ensure it has the appropriate number of connectors and slots to support all the components you wish to run. The final thing to check is that the power supply wattage is capable of powering your system.
You can use a PSU calculator such as this one: Power Supply Calculator
Or again see this video by Linus Tech Tips
Summary
It took months of research to finally come up with a build for what I actually needed but the work was worth it. I hope by reading this article it helps you understand more about what to look for when building a PC. I bought all my parts and got a local dealer to actually put the PC together because then I had a warranty. I could have done it myself but with spending a reasonable amount of money on parts it seemed like a smart thing to do just in case I messed something up.
Finished Specs:
- Intel Core i7 8700
- 16GB dual channel G.Skill Ripjaws RAM 2133Mhz
- GTX 1070 Graphics Card
- 2TB Hard Drive
- 120GB SSD
- 500w PSU
- VSK 4500 Mid tower case
- ASUS H370M – plus ATX motherboard
Handy Links:
