Work in Progress

A beginner’s journey through computer building.

I’ve always been into computers. But I never took the time to build one. Of course you can learn the very basics on the Web and YouTube about what parts make a computer but building your own rig is an art on its own.

2015 was the year my old ass computer started getting in very bad shape. It was around 8 years old, I had purchased parts for it, namely new RAM and a new power supply, but in February 2015, the symptoms of it’s ultimate demise started to get too noticeable to ignore: incredibly slow boot times, sluggish program loading and execution (let’s not talk about loading the RAM-hungry Google Chrome), and so on.

At this point I had to make a purposeful effort to get new hardware and with the help of a few days of extra work in September I was able to save some money for my first purchase. Slowly but surely every part has reached my house and each has been put into my brand new system, which I can’t stop talking about, like a father with his new baby. I now have my new computer all nice and dandy, running at its best.

But getting there was quite tortuous. the first thing you ask yourself is “where do you start?”

Talking about gigabytes and gigahertz is very easy, making informed decisions about hardware is not, if you’re just getting started with building custom computers.

So here I offer you a checklist for picking up computer parts, and offer you some pointers along the way so you can choose what fits your needs best. Iv’e ordered this list in a particular order, which what I think are the most important parts at the top and diminishing in importance as you scroll down.

Enjoy!

Pick your CPU first, everything else can wait.

Do you need a steady system or a full blown gaming power horse? Your CPU will be the one part that dictates the performance of your system. Do you have a limited budget? Go AMD and fear not the “runs too hot” myth, that’s all that is, a myth (more on this when we talk about CPU cooler).

When picking the CPU look for the features you need: are you going to be running virtual machines? You’ll need virtualization support. Do you need maximum performance for games? You’ll want to get a quad-core, at least. Are you doing spreadsheets or web development? Then almost any CPU will be good for you as these tasks don’t consume too many resources. Do you wanna build a render machine for Blender? An octo-core may be your best choice.

I myself got an AMD FX 6300, 6 core CPU @ 3.5 GHz. Comes with support for virtualization and very good power saving features. I know I won’t beat an “equivalent” Intel CPU on benchmarks, but it will be more than enough for a couple years. It also supports dynamic CPU under and overclocking depending on the work load, so it saves a lot of power when idle or browsing the web, but will quickly overclock up to 4.2 GHz in short bursts when needed, say, for video or Blender rendering.

Your motherboard is your central hub.

Your motherboard has to be able to support your CPU, this boils down to the motherboard having the appropriate socket type your CPU can sit on.

You just have to check your CPU socket type and identify motherboards with the same socket on them. My FX 6300 will sit on an AM3+socket, so my motherboard has to have an AM3+ socket on it. Same for Intel, if you pick a CPU that sits on a LGA 1150, then your motherboard has to have the LGA 1150 socket on it. You have to be very careful with this, you don’t wanna end up having to change a CPU because you missed this little detail.

At this point you will have a number of motherboard with the proper CPU socket that are candidates for your system. Now it’s time to decide based on other things you might wanna have in your system. the same method used with the CPU applies here: ask questions and answer them to narrow down your choices.

What type and capacity of RAM do you plan to put in your system? 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB? Your motherboard has to support it.

Do you plan to setup an SLI or Crossfire with your desired graphics cards? You motherboard will have to have at least 2 PCIe slots and support for the technology of your choice (SLI, Crossfire). PCIe bus lanes on the motherboard and CPU support for them will dictate if your cards speed will be throttled down because many times different slots run at different speeds.

The version of PCIe your motherboard supports will also be important for speed, PCIe 3.0 runs at double the speed of PCIe 2.0, which runs at twice the speed of PCIe 1.0. For most users PCIe 2.0 will be enough, even for gamers, you will have to use version 3.0 if you really need [1] to get the most out of your PCIe expansion devices.

RAM is easy to pick.

RAM is your computer’s working memory; software and data is loaded to RAM for processing by the CPU, so the capacity and its speed/frequency are the most important factors about it. You will still need your motherboard to match your RAM type (DDR3, or DDR4) and frequency support (1600 MHz, 2400 MHz, etc.). Normally motherboards support a number of different frequencies and this will allow you to pick from different RAM frequencies, but when it comes to the DDR version, you’re locked to what the motherboard supports.

Capacity is easy to decide: the more RAM you can install the more software you can run at the same time without worrying about the speed of your system going down on a daily basis. These days, a minimum of 8 GB or RAM will be enough for most users; but if you’re planning to edit video or big raw photos, then adding more RAM will be a necessity.

Luckily RAM has become really cheap and switching from an 8 GB set to a 16 GB set will cost you just a few dollars more, specially if you’re gonna use DDR3, since DD4 is already displacing it as the new standard.

The frequency/bandwidth is a more complicated variable, but usually you can be confident that the higher the frequency the better the performance [2].

Finally, if you can get a hold of the motherboard user manual in PDF format before purchasing, it’s better to follow their recommendations on what RAM is validated for that particular motherboard, you don’t wanna buy a couple RAM sticks that will not work with the motherboard because they are not validated. Of course many RAM sticks that haven’t been validated will run well with your motherboard (I run my system with unvalidated ram sticks because I didn’t know about this), but it’s better to play it save when it comes to your brand new gorgeous system.

The graphics card is (not) easy to pick.

Not counting the power supply, we now have a computer: CPU, motherboard and RAM are picked and ready to go. Now we have to pick a decent graphics card for what we intend to do.

The main questions to ask yourself are the following, and they modify each other’s responses constantly before you decide, so you’ll have to iterate the questions back and forth a few times before making the final decision.

• How much graphics power do I need?
• Do I have the budget to pay for that card?

Picking a graphics card is primarily a matter of budget. A brand new, recent card will probably be the most expensive part of your system.

For example, my Nvidia GTX 960 (which is not a high end gfx card) cost me around $300 USD [3], three times as expensive as the next most expensive part, the AMD CPU, which was $100 USD.

Most of us want to have a 4 GTX 980’s in a 4-way SLI array for the ultimate 4K surround display setup... But imagine how much that would cost, very few people can afford such a system. This is the moment when you have to focus on what you need instead of what you want. I want the insane 980 in SLI setup but do I need it?

I’m not a hardcore gamer, nor a 3D artist, what would all those CUDA cores do all day in my web development machine but being idle 99.9% of the time, it would be a waste of money and computer resources.

If I ask myself what I actually need I might get the appropriate answer: I need a decent graphics card that can run my two 1080 displays with no problems, that plays video well at up to 60 fps and that has some decent support for casual gaming, I will also need it to do some occasional CUDA renders with Blender Cycles.

The final answer to my balance between what I want and what I need is the GTX 960, it has more than enough performance for my uses, it has 1024 CUDA cores that render twice as fast as my CPU, and runs my two 1080 display with absolutely no problems, if I take good care of it, it will probably last for two or more years, which will also reduce my hardware spending very nicely.

Yes I’m aware that the GTX 950 would’ve been enough for me, but I actually had the budget to go up one tier and get a better gfx card :)

The power supply is the heart of your system.

Everybody keeps talking about CPU cycles and megahertz and gigahertz and gigabytes and so on, so much so that we forget about the thing that feeds all those spec, the power supply.

It is important that you get a good power supply because that’s the one part that feeds energy to everything else.

Power supplies are compared by wattage, that is, the amount of power they can deliver to the other components.

You should also get a certified 80 Plus PSU, this way you make sure you power supply is of good build quality, and efficient across the board, from low usage to full load.

This online tool will help you pick a power supply for your system. Buy something a little overpowered, you can’t simply run a 400 W system on a 400 W PSU, leave some headroom for extra performance and even future expansion.

Nobody talks about how to choose a UPS.

I live in a place where power surges, brownouts and blackouts are fairly frequent, which means that my computer is at constant danger if I don’t run it behind a UPS with surge protection, so a UPS is a must for me. But that’s not all there is to picking a UPS! Let me tell you a short story:

When I bought my GTX 960, I simply came home, opened the computer case, swapped my old ass graphics card with the brand new one, and started running benchmarks like crazy to see the performance. Everything looked awesome; but suddenly, after 10 minutes of running the benchmarks, my UPS gave one great beeping sound and the computer turned off. I had exhausted my UPS’s battery in 10 minutes.

Luckily nothing happened to my computer but I learned, in quite a hard way, that UPSs don’t simply bridge your devices and the wall outlet, they actually have limits as to how much current they can pass to connected devices.

So for the rest of the month I can’t run benchmarks, or game, or render for too long in Cycles, until I get a new PSU that supports my power hungry system.

According to the calculations from the tool I linked in the section about PSUs, my computer consumes around 400 Watts at full load, so I’m gonna get a 1000 VA PSU, capable of outputting 500 Watts, because headroom is always good.

IMHO, storage is the least important thing to worry about.

So when I was building this rig I was pretty tired of the 2 minutes I had to wait for the computer to go from off to login screen in Ubuntu. I wanted it to be fast at all times, including boot time.

And so I got a 120 SSD for the OS for maximum boot performance. And perform it does. But now I realize that actually that’s the least of my worries, a 20 second boot time is nice to have but it’s probably the least important feature to put on a computer if you’re not, say, editing HD or 4K video.

SSDs are becoming more and more popular each day and their price is gown down dramatically each month, which is awesome, but if you wanna have a decent running system, a good old 7200 rpm HDD is good enough.

Of course, at some point, sooner rather than later, SSDs will phase HDDs out, so you can do whatever you want to do about this particular topic ;)

The case is a sacred temple.

Your computer case is the temple, the sancta sanctorum, that houses your system. We all love nice pretty cases, but there are things more important that looks from the outside. You’re gonna want to look for internal features as a priority.

A case can be as pretty and all, if it complicates your build and later upgrades, you’re gonna hate it util you get rid of it.

Features to look for:

• Can fit your motherboard: motherboards come in many sizes, are your motherboard and case compatible?
• Good cable management: nowadays almost all cases come with cable management space at the back of the motherboard tray and slots to put your cables throug, this will be vital whan you start upgrading your system and need to get the components out quickly with not tangled cables to obstruct your work.
• A lot of space for storage drives: 3 HDD/SSD slots on sleds is ideal, you can have a separate HDD for your document and data storage and another for your OS. Drive sleds normally can accommodate SSDs with the use of little screws.
• Good width to fit your CPU cooler, fans and even radiators: some air CPU coolers are very tall/wide and you’ll need all the clearance possible to fit them in your case and being able to chose it properly afterwards.
• Re-attachable back panel slot covers: You’ll feel horrible when you end up having a gaping hole in the back of your case because the slot covers can’t be nicely re-attached with screws.
• If you’re a frequent user of USB thumb drives, get a case with front panel USB ports and the cable to attach them to the motherboard (most cases have them, and of course make sure the motherboard has a header for extra USB ports).
• If you’re gonna be pushing your CPU or GPU with a lot of work load you’re gonna need a case with good ventilation and air filter at the intakes. Does your case come with incorporated fans? Perfect! Two fans are a minimum (one intake, one exhaust, and make sure your motherboard has enough fan headers to plug them all).
• If you want to go into water cooling your system, then you’ll need a case that can fit radiators and even a reservoir inside. Some cases come with a couple round grommets in the back and a little latch to hook an external water reservoir so that may help you make custom water loops.

Stock CPU coolers are bad for your computer.

When I bought my new CPU and motherboard and put those to work, I immediately noticed that my CPU was running quite hot at around 65 C at full load. That of course is not an alarming number, but I was very interested in making my system durable by not stressing it with high temperatures (remember this is budget-y build).

So I decided that I’d get a better CPU cooler than the stock one. After a little research I realized that water systems were a bit too expensive for me at the moment so I decided to get an air cooler.

I decided I would get the one everybody gets, the Hyper 212 EVO from Cooler Master, I got it a week later and installed it on my system and was completely blown away. My system stays at around 34 C when idle, and it never goes over 48 C at full load!

I’ve decided I’m not using stock cooling ever again, this is game changer for me.

I haven’t delved in water cooling yet but I’d be interested to give it a try in the future, I’m sure I can get even better temps that way.

MOAR FANS!

I’m super finicky about running my system cool, and to accomplish this you need fans to drive air into the case so the heat sinks can properly do their job, dumping all that CPU and GPU heat into the fresh air.

Right now I have 3 intake fans setup, two in the front, one at the bottom; this maximizes air intake and keep the pressure inside the case ever so slightly higher than outside, which, allegedly, helps prevent dust build up inside the case.

I also have a single exhaust fan, running kinda fast so it balances out the extreme intake flow.

All my fan intakes have filters on them so that has helped (and still does, of course) reduce dust entry; they are not perfect filters though, the finest dust grain still go through it, but bigger lint and abrasive dust stay in the foam and mesh.

That bling tho.

If I’m honest I never thought I’d be getting LED strips for my computer case but when I saw the acrylic windows getting wasted in the darkness next to my desk I decided to give the bling treatment to my rig, and so I got a Satechi LED set and got it installed. I love it. Being able to glance at the inside of the case without diving under the desk is nice to have, and all the shiny parts inside look just great.

This should also make dust more evident and make me clean the inside of the computer more often, as it deserves.