Guide to Building Your Own Computer Part 2

In the previous guide we have covered on your budget and the three important components:

  • Processor
  • Motherboard
  • RAM

Now we move onto the other important topics.

Building Desktop Computer

1.  Choosing a good graphics card:

Before we start about how to choose a good graphic card then let me point it out that If you’re a person who just does some word processing and read email and news on the web then the integrated graphic card that’s in your motherboard (motherboards these days usually come with an integrated graphic card) is more than enough to meet your needs.

It also has enough processing power to render any and all HD contents as well. SO you can save much money by going with the integrated solution so no need to read further. But if you’re a gamer and a person who works on 3D creation then you should read on.

A top of the range GFX card is very easy to notice because it has LOTS of memory and enough processing power to make mincemeat out of any games that are available in the market. They are designed more attractively and will catch your attention easily.

A high end GFX card is not only useful for gamer but also for people who do a lot of 3D creation work. Before you select a GFX card make sure that it’s compatible with your processor and is able to connect to your motherboard. Most motherboard comes with PCI x16 lane which the graphic cards use.

Majority of motherboard also offer more than one PCI x16 link that will allow you to set up more than one GFX card and connect them via SLI if you’re having NVIDIA based cards or CROSSFIRE mode if you purchased ATI Radeon cards.

2.  Choosing DVD and HARD DRIVES:

Many types of hard drives are available on the market and before you go and buy make sure that you buy SATA only drives because they offer a bandwidth of 3.0Gb/sec and the old IDE bus will go the way of dinosaurs soon.

Hard drives are prone to some sort of mechanical failure so make sure to get a good review and warranty service before you go and purchase one. The most affordable ones are the normal hard drives which are easily available. But if you’re looking more faster performance and do not have budget constraints then you should go for Solid state hard drives which improve performance considerably and reduces windows boot time to just 2 or 3sec.

You can also opt for Hybrid hard disks which combines Solid state drives with the normal platter disk configuration. They are more affordable and also provide a performance boost. Minimum Hard disk capacity you should opt for these days in 500Gb. Its always advised to also purchase an external drive of increased capacity to maintain your backups.

As for the DVD/CD drive go for SATA drive and if you have more cash you can opt for a BLU-RAY drive which will not allow you to watch your favorite blu-ray movies but also burn DVD’s and CD’s.

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Comments

  1. My current desktop has two 5850 Radeons in Crossfire.  While it does seem like a great idea, I learned that some games have a hard time working with multiple cards. In the future, I’ll probably just use the money to buy one powerful graphics card instead of two mid-tier cards.

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