• Revising a PC Building Tutorial/Buyers Guide for my School Newspaper
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I'm writing a Tutorial/Buyer's Guide/Article for my school newspaper on PC building. I've only built one computer so I'm not sure I'm totally right on this. [quote]Some of Dell’s Alienware computers cost upwards of $1100, when they can be built for about $800. That’s $300 you could save by just building the computer yourself! The first thing you have to do when building a computer is buy the parts, obviously. The best way to do this is through sites like Tiger Direct and Newegg. The basic computer has ten parts: Case/Chassis, Motherboard, Processor/CPU, Heatsink, Power Supply, Optical Drive, Hard Drive, Video Card/GPU, Memory, and Operating System, ten if you need a Monitor. When buying the computer, keep in mind what you’re doing for it. A computer that’s around $400 will be fine for facebook and flash games, while computers that are up in the $800-$700 range will be able to run much higher quality games, such as Dice’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 or Square’s Just Cause 2. Also keep in mind where you’re putting your money. Don’t buy a cool-looking $150 case and then buy a bad Power Supply. The first thing you’ll be using when starting to build is the motherboard. The brands to get here are Asus, MSI, EVGA, and Gigabyte. There are several different sizes of motherboards, and you’ll want to get one that’s usable with your case. Most mid-tower cases support mATX and ATX form factors, and you will generally want an ATX motherboard so you have the most I/O (In/Out) ports avaliable. When buying a motherboard you will also want to get one with the right socket for your CPU. Intel’s i5 CPUs use an LGA1156 socket while most AMD processors use an AM3 socket. If you don’t get the right socket, the CPU won’t fit into the motherboard. If you intend to do Crossfire X or SLI two or more video cards, be sure to get one that has multiple PCI-E slots. The second part is the CPU, and you have only two brands- AMD and Intel. Neither is the better brand, so it’s just a matter of opinion. Then you’ll be dealing with cores. Quad-cores, having four cores, are the standard here, and you’ll rarely need more. If you don’t need four cores, just get a dual-core or a tri-core. The third part is the heatsink, and what it does is take heat off the CPU. Most of the time, you’ll be fine with the one included with the CPU. The next part is the memory. Most brands will be fine for this. All you will need is 4GB, less if you’re not intending to play any advanced games. Then you have the case. You’ll be looking for several things in a case, including airflow, tool-less design, dust filters, and over-all build quality and size, and this is the place where I would turn to online reviews to help decide. Just remember that looks aren’t everything. As for brands, there aren’t too many places to go wrong, but some of the best cases are made by Cooler Master, Corsair, Antec, Lian-Li and Silverstone. You have several sizes, including mATX cases, mid-towers, and full-towers. Don’t get a HTPC (Home-theater PC, used primarily for playing movies and hooked into a television) case unless, of course, you’re building a HTPC. The best size to go with is mid-tower, and more often than not, you’ll want a tool-less design. What does it mean? When putting the drives in, you won’t have to screw them in. This is a huge time-saver. Now we have our drives, the optical drive and the hard drive. When looking for brands of optical drives, whatever’s cheapest is best. You can get a blu-ray player/burner at this point, which you’ll mostly want for a HTPC. The best hard drive brands are Western Digital, Seagate, and Samsung, and one of the only determining factors when buying a hard drive is size. When buying a hard drive, you have to get one with at least 7200 RPM, unless you want very long loading times. Over-all, you should be getting SATA drives, not IDE. SATA is much faster, and more SATA cables come with your motherboard than IDE. You can install as many of these drives as your case permits, but be sure you have enough SATA cables to connect them all. At this point you can also buy a Solid State Drive (SSD), but these are expensive and have low capacity, since they’re new technology. If you do get a SSD, you should get it just to use as a boot drive. We’re almost done with adding all the physical parts, and the video card is probably going to be one of the priciest elements of your rig. There are two video card manufacturers, AMD and nVidia, but other companies produce the cards themselves. Find a video card that fits your budget and buy the least expensive card for it. You will definitely want a video card with a PCI-E interface. Generally the more powerful video cards are longer, so get a chassis with appropriate dimensions. The final piece is the heaviest, and takes the longest to fully install. Every part of your PC will be using power (but anything on the motherboard will take power from it), so this piece is vital. The most important thing while getting a power supply is the brand. You will want a power supply from Corsair, XFX, Antec, Silverstone, Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, or OCZ. If you don’t get a power supply from these brands, it could fail, taking other parts with it. The wattage of the power supply will depend on the kind of video card and the number of video cards in your system. You may want to get more wattage than necessary if you want to upgrade your system. You can also get a modular power supply, which means you can connect the cables that you need and store the rest, which is good for the airflow in the case. When you install, slide the power supply into the space where it goes in the case, most likely below the video card, and secure it with screws. The monitor. Most people will have a spare one lying around, but is it enough? You definitely want an LCD or a CRT. The deciding factor on monitors is the resolution, and what you’ll want is one with either a 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 resolution. These provide the most space for browsers and games. If you want the most space possible, you can get one with a 2560x1600 resolution, but it’s very expensive. The preferred cable to hook it up in this case is a DVI cable, and these come with the monitor. If you have a good video card, it will have multiple outputs, which lets you hook up multiple monitors. This lets you double or triple the space on your computer. The last thing you’ll be putting on your computer is the OS. If you are getting Windows here, which you should be, get 64-Bit and Home Premium, as Professional/Ultimate have little advantages and are much costlier. Also try to get an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacture) version. It costs less but you can’t get any tech support from Microsoft. You won’t need it though. There are no alternatives except for Linux, which is free but is not too supported, and Macintosh. Macintosh is expensive and if you use it on your newly built PC, it’s illegal and voids warranty, plus there will be some compatibility issues with the hardware. The best option is definitely Windows. When you start building, get your motherboard. The motherboard or case should contain a small speaker, attach that where it needs to be attached according to the motherboard’s instruction manual. Then get out your CPU, and release the latch on the socket in the motherboard. To install it, simply open the socket on the motherboard and drop it in. Seems simple, yet this is the most dangerous part of the building process, as the opening for failure is huge. If you don’t drop it in right, you could bend a pin, potentially ruining the CPU. If you aren’t grounded, you might accidentally zap the CPU and fry it. As long as you’re very careful and follow directions, provided with the motherboard and/or processor, it’s a cakewalk. When it’s in, close it. Then take out the heatsink, and put it on top of the CPU. It will have thermal gel pre-applied, so there’s no need to buy any extra and put it on manually. Again, this depends on your CPU and motherboard, so just follow the directions and you’ll be fine. Make sure you plug the power cable into the motherboard, there should be a slot to put the power wires in near where you install it. Then get your memory sticks. Simply release the latches on the memory slots and put them in. Move aside the motherboard for now and get your case. First, remove the left side-panel of the case. Then install the stand-offs that came with your case (these are copper and prevent electrical shock from the motherboard touching the back of the case). Next, install the rear I/O panel that came with your motherboard into the place on the chassis. Do NOT use the punch-out that comes with the case. Finally, screw the motherboard on the stand-offs. An easy way to tell if you’re installing it in the right way is to look at the rear I/O ports. But wait, you aren’t done yet! The case should have some wires, some are for power to power the fans, but the one’s you’ll be looking for are the front-panel connectors. If you don’t follow this step, the USB ports on the front of your case won’t work. They’ll be labeled, and using your motherboards instruction book, you’ll have to put them on the right pins. For the hard drive, the case will most likely have railmounts which attach to your drive, which then let you slide the drive into the cage in the lower-right side of the case. When installing the optical drive, take off the front panel of the case (if it has one) and punch out any covers on the case and/or front panel. Then simply slide it in from the front going back, and secure it with screws or whatever method the tool-less case uses. Then just put one end of a SATA cable in your motherboard and the other into a drive. When installing the video card, remove the expansion slot covers on the back of the case (which may or may not be punch-outs) and install the card into the PCI-E slot on your motherboard. Remember to only punch out the ones that are necessary, or you will have unnecessary dust buildup in the case, and keep in mind that the card will probably be two expansion slots. Earlier I mentioned Crossfire X and SLI, and what this is is using the power from two cards to get even more. Install the other one in the same way, then use the included “bridge” to connect the two cards. Then you’ll have to connect the power supply to every part that you’ve installed (the heatsink, memory, and CPU take power from the motherboard), and this can take a while. Make sure you do it neatly, and if the case provides cable organization holes (holes that let you put cables behind the motherboard), take off the other side-panel and use them. Don’t forget to plug-in the fans! After every part is hooked up, you’re done with physically building it. Wipe the sweat off your brow, it won’t be much longer before your computer is fully functional. Hooking up the monitors is an easy task, simply put one end of a DVI cable into your video card and the other into a monitor. Do this for all your monitors, but until you install Windows and the drivers for your card, the same picture will appear on all your monitors. Plug it in, flip the switch on the power supply, and turn it on via the power button on the front. If you hear beeping, it’s probably the memory in the wrong slots, so turn it off, switch them around, and try again. If done correctly, you will see the BIOS, or settings of the hardware, come up on the screen. Most of the settings are fine, but you’ll want to make sure that the time and date are correct. When you’re done, get your OS. The installation is pretty straightforward but it will take a while to actually install. When it’s done, you’ll be able to use Windows. But you’re not done yet! You will have to go on the site of your video card’s manufacturer (AMD or nVidia) and download the latest drivers. Without the drivers, you will not be able to set your resolution at 1920x1080 and above, and performance in games will be poor regardless of the power of your video card. After that’s done, you need an anti-virus software. A good, free anti-virus software is Avast. Do not use Norton. When all that’s done, use your computer normally, because it’s fully functioning and stable! You may be thinking that this is complex, but it isn’t rocket science. You just need the knowledge. You can go on to pcityourself.com, which provides a nice visual guide to building your next computer. Remember when building not to do it on carpet as it’s very easy to generate friction and zap one of your parts, get a nice hard floor and a good surface to work on. If you must use carpet, be sure to touch your chassis before handling any parts. The whole process shouldn’t take over three hours. If you try this, good luck![/quote]
Looks very good, nice job
Information is good, formatting/flow is bad. [editline]7th January 2011[/editline] And $300 PC is fine for Facebook... You can get away with 400-500 for gaming.
[QUOTE=Shadaez;27261832]Information is good, formatting/flow is bad. [editline]7th January 2011[/editline] And $300 PC is fine for Facebook... You can get away with 400-500 for gaming.[/QUOTE] Including monitor/operating system/other junk? [editline]7th January 2011[/editline] Plus I live in a pretty rich town
You're golden, I myself can build a pc in about an hour and a half.
[QUOTE=ineedateam1;27262245]your golden[/QUOTE] You're :colbert:
For people who just need Facebook, IM, mail and office, they'd be better off getting a prebuilt. At the low end of computers, OEMs get deals if they pre-install trials of applications and buy their components by the thousands. OEMs know exactly what works and what doesn't for their price range. A 200 watt PSU would seemingly be garbage, but it works just fine because someone crunched the numbers and did the tests. You won't be able to upgrade the CPU or GPU, but considering that a gigantic percentage of their customers don't even pull the side off for dusting, it seems like an optimal place to save a few bucks.
[QUOTE=benjgvps;27263917]For people who just need Facebook, IM, mail and office, they'd be better off getting a prebuilt. At the low end of computers, OEMs get deals if they pre-install trials of applications and buy their components by the thousands. OEMs know exactly what works and what doesn't for their price range. A 200 watt PSU would seemingly be garbage, but it works just fine because someone crunched the numbers and did the tests. You won't be able to upgrade the CPU or GPU, but considering that a gigantic percentage of their customers don't even pull the side off for dusting, it seems like an optimal place to save a few bucks.[/QUOTE] True, they could just get prebuilt OEM, but PC building is an educational and fun experience. [editline]7th January 2011[/editline] Plus as I mentioned, the people in my town have the money to do this shit
[quote]Dice’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 or EA’s Just Cause 2[/quote] Square Enix developed JC2, fucking publishers. Fix it now.
[QUOTE=-Headcrab-;27267162]Square Enix developed JC2, fucking publishers. Fix it now.[/QUOTE] Pretty sure they both worked on it but whatever [editline]7th January 2011[/editline] Nevermind
i don't see the point of "YO BRO GET THESE BRANDS OR YOUR SHIT WILL FAIL" there are more than 2 reputable motherboard distributors/3 psu distributors
1: Work on flow. It doesn't go that well 2: Emphasize how easy it is to build a PC, all you say is that it's cheaper and a good experience. 3: Titles and Headlines. My school newspaper would have clearly labeled subtitles for each component, if we did an article like this.
EA didn't develop Just Cause 2. There are more than two good motherboard manufacturers, like MSI and EVGA. It's not called a CPU slot it's called a socket. You don't need to mention XL ATX when you're just starting with the basics. Do not tell them to get a CF or SLI certified power supply as there are cheaper ones that aren't advertised as certified yet can do the same job or better. "The more cores a CPU has the better it performs." Wrong. You didn't go into enough detail about installing the CPU. "take heat off the CPU", reword that. And it's called thermal paste not gel. Go into more detail about the power cable. Be wary of OCZ's memory? What? Why are you talking about installing the OS when they just got done putting the RAM and CPU in? Also, the speaker has different beep codes for different errors. The motherboard manual has a legend for these beeps. Case brands, you're forgetting Corsair and Lian Li. Tool-less doesn't mean just the drive bays. Spinpoint isn't a brand it's a model of a Samsung hard drive, also, Seagate is good. Again, going too advanced talking about RAID, and RAID isn't just used for increasing speed. Explain why SSDs are expensive. Don't call a graphics card a chipset. "Don't buy Powercolor because their heatsinks aren't the best." Uh no, reference designs are reference designs. They're the exact same as every other brand's. "a video card with a PCI-E 2.0 interface." This is irrelevant. Every PCI Express graphics card will work in any PCI Express slot type. "the more powerful the longer." Not really true at all, neither is the point about more price = more power. "buy an SLI or CFX certified card" What? Every card supports one or the other except for the really low end shit. "Almost every part of your PC will be using power" Almost? The PSU brands, you're forgetting Antec, Silverstone, Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic and Cooler Master. You're referring to the CPU as a chipset now when you just called the graphics card a chipset. Stop using that word. "You definitely want an LCD/LED as opposed to a bulky CRT" NO NO NO NO NO NO! CRTs are the absolute best kind of monitor you can buy and LED is not a type of display technology, it's a backlighting technology. Mention 2560x1600 when talking about "the most space" but how it's very expensive. Stop using the word chipset. All you have to do to keep yourself from killing your components through static electricity is touching your case every once in a while. Fix your ordering. Power supply should be among one of the first things you talk about. Be sure to include pictures.
Yeah, keep it less opinionated too, don't say certain brands are bad because of your experiences with them.
Give them this link:[url]http://www.pcityourself.com/[/url] Explain the process briefly, but not in extreme detail since that's what the website is for. Since the website's purchasing information is a little old, suggest the CPU, RAM, GPU, PSU and motherboard for 4 different price points and let the builder pick their own HDD, ODD and case.
Updated. May also breifly explain what each part does
[QUOTE=Odellus;27272712]EA didn't develop Just Cause 2. There are more than two good motherboard manufacturers, like MSI and EVGA. It's not called a CPU slot it's called a socket. You don't need to mention XL ATX when you're just starting with the basics. Do not tell them to get a CF or SLI certified power supply as there are cheaper ones that aren't advertised as certified yet can do the same job or better. "The more cores a CPU has the better it performs." Wrong. You didn't go into enough detail about installing the CPU. "take heat off the CPU", reword that. And it's called thermal paste not gel. Go into more detail about the power cable. Be wary of OCZ's memory? What? Why are you talking about installing the OS when they just got done putting the RAM and CPU in? Also, the speaker has different beep codes for different errors. The motherboard manual has a legend for these beeps. Case brands, you're forgetting Corsair and Lian Li. Tool-less doesn't mean just the drive bays. Spinpoint isn't a brand it's a model of a Samsung hard drive, also, Seagate is good. Again, going too advanced talking about RAID, and RAID isn't just used for increasing speed. Explain why SSDs are expensive. Don't call a graphics card a chipset. "Don't buy Powercolor because their heatsinks aren't the best." Uh no, reference designs are reference designs. They're the exact same as every other brand's. "a video card with a PCI-E 2.0 interface." This is irrelevant. Every PCI Express graphics card will work in any PCI Express slot type. "the more powerful the longer." Not really true at all, neither is the point about more price = more power. "buy an SLI or CFX certified card" What? Every card supports one or the other except for the really low end shit. "Almost every part of your PC will be using power" Almost? The PSU brands, you're forgetting Antec, Silverstone, Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic and Cooler Master. You're referring to the CPU as a chipset now when you just called the graphics card a chipset. Stop using that word. "You definitely want an LCD/LED as opposed to a bulky CRT" NO NO NO NO NO NO! CRTs are the absolute best kind of monitor you can buy and LED is not a type of display technology, it's a backlighting technology. Mention 2560x1600 when talking about "the most space" but how it's very expensive. Stop using the word chipset. All you have to do to keep yourself from killing your components through static electricity is touching your case every once in a while. Fix your ordering. Power supply should be among one of the first things you talk about. Be sure to include pictures.[/QUOTE] You (and I'm serious) forgot to mention that he should stop using the word chipset.
[QUOTE=Libertas;27334961]You (and I'm serious) forgot to mention that he should stop using the word chipset.[/QUOTE] :froggonk: [editline]10th January 2011[/editline] Read it more carefully
I don't really think you're qualified to write this article TBH.
I feel like writing a how-to, but it'd take so long :frown:
[QUOTE=Falubii;27335192]I don't really think you're qualified to write this article TBH.[/QUOTE] What makes you say that?
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