Most people just buy their computers from stores like Apple, but building a computer is a special and rewarding experience. You choose the parts to decide the performance, how you will stylize your personal computer (PC), and how you will light up your computer with rainbow lighting (RGB).
James Amato, computer enthusiast, reveals the positive aspects of building a PC.
“There’s two aspects why building a computer is great practice. One, you know exactly what components are getting [into] the machine and [two] you get to choose the brands and the model and the specs that you specifically want,” said Amato.
Before weighing the pros and cons of building a computer, you need to be educated on the parts. Components that mainly determine performance for a computer are the graphics card (discrete or integrated), processor, and random access memory (RAM). The graphics card is responsible for putting a video output to your monitor and dictating the number of frames you get. The processor does the calculations, “thinking,” and knows what data it is dealing with. Memory is short-term storage where the processor needs to access data quickly to process and support whatever programs you are running at the moment.
Other parts that don’t affect performance but are necessary is the motherboard to connect all the computer parts and cables in one place, the power supply unit (PSU) to provide power for your components, a case for the motherboard to get screwed onto, and storage to keep data like photos, installed apps, and documents. Storage devices such as hard drives are slow but solid state drives (SSD) are fast with gigabytes of read and write speeds but typically at the cost of more money needed for one.
Big and well-known companies that sell parts are Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Asus, and Lian Li.
Two final things that are extremely important are drivers and cooling: drivers are a necessity as it allows your operating system (like Windows) to recognize and communicate with the parts you have inside your computer properly and run it to the maximum potential it can. Components draw power and the more electricity they take, the hotter they will run. When components run hot you run the risk of thermal throttling, which is lower performance by lowering power consumption and degrades the lifespan of a component. A processor is a great example where it will need a CPU cooler. An air cooler is great if a processor runs around 65 watts, but if it takes more like 200 watts then all-in-one coolers (AIO) might be a better choice as they contain liquids which are found to be better at cooling your processor while running quietly.
“The negatives of the [prebuilt are] the limited choices,” said Amato.
Companies, like Apple, sell Macbooks that have an integrated system, there are strengths and weaknesses to this. One strength is its efficiency which takes less power to deliver amazing performance to workload applications optimized for Macbooks like Adobe and apps owned by Apple. Macbooks are great for someone who is looking for something that runs fantastic on applications dedicated for working; however, they perform poorly in a lot of apps that aren’t optimized and are difficult to repair integrated systems. It’s not just Apple, some laptops have parts where they aren’t efficient and don’t run well. Laptops or pre-built computers shouldn’t be something to avoid, but looking into what is inside of your machine and doing some research can help you make a good decision when deciding one and also planning on what you will use your pre-built machine.
Michael Illian, Network System Administrator Tech Department for Region 16, knows about how prebuilt computers benefit some people.
“You can get fairly inexpensive, pre-built machines,” said Illian.
Laptops and prebuilt integrated computers aren’t meant to be expensive or as power-hungry as a PC with its own dedicated graphics card and processor that run really well independently. An integrated system would have all the graphics and processing into one chip like the M1 or M2 from Macbooks or Intel’s integrated graphics.
“It’s ready to go out of the box,” said Illian. “As opposed to getting a box full of parts and then having to assemble it, [making] sure everything is running, running all the [benchmarks].”
Some people who don’t have the knowledge inside of a machine decide to buy one based on how expensive it is, the more money it costs, the faster it is and they don’t look into how it makes the prebuilt they want fast. There are better deals to come across and watching videos like Linus Tech Tips where they provide insightful information about computers and technology.
“Part of the issue [with] buying a pre[built] is that most of the thought processes [are] taken care of,” said Amato.
A fun part about making your own PC is that you get to decorate it how you want.
“Picking the case takes a while because really that is kind of an artistic approach to what your system is going to look like because you have to see that part of it every day,” said Amato.
The Lian Li O11 is a popular case that has a front and side glass panel and it allows you to put fans in the side, bottom, top, and rear end to provide lots of air for your components.
Of course not everyone will not care about lights as it doesn’t contribute to performance but when it comes to getting a discrete graphics card from Nvidia or AMD they provide phenomenal performance. A popular one from Nvidia is the Geforce RTX 3060 Ti and it runs at hundreds of frames per second in 1080p resolution for games, workload applications rely more on the processor and decent ones from AMD can be the Ryzen 5 5600X, unless rendering is involved then having a strong GPU can help.
Resolution is the total amount of pixels on your monitor. 1080P is 1920 by 1080 pixels, 1440p is 2560 by 1440 and 4k is 3840 by 2560 pixels. Higher resolutions demand more power from the graphics card responsible for video output.
Troubleshooting or repairing your built computer is another positive thing because you don’t rely on experts to fix your PC. Investigating what the error is coming from where components are dead, malfunctioned, or ineffective. It’s cheaper to replace a component like memory or processor instead of buying a set of new parts compared to some prebuilts where they allow limited repairs like Macbooks. It could also take a lot of time where the problem isn’t obvious to discover what component isn’t working properly, people with custom liquid cooling systems will have to disassemble pipes and drain the water to get access to the parts with water blocks installed to figure out what part isn’t working that may cause an output error.
Mistakes are something to be cautious about either from how you install components to the quality of them.
“It gets a little scarier when you’re spending a lot more money to build a bigger gaming computer or a computer that’s got a lot more expensive components,” said Amato.
A cheap power supply with low quality parts can not only fry your components but also render them useless, making you have to get a whole set of new parts and lose money from the parts you spent. In addition, damaging a high-end component such as not installing them correctly can cost thousands of dollars. The Nvidia RTX 4090 (the fastest graphics card currently) prices around $1700 and an error could occur when not paying attention.
Finally, building your own computer can be cheaper than buying one that is assembled because you would have to pay a fee for that extra labor. The money you save could be contributed to a faster processor or graphics card. Also, the variety of parts you can choose is astounding as long as you know what you are looking for. People who mostly want to play video games should prioritize better graphics cards as they yield higher frame rates that can make playing games enjoyable. Doing work like Adobe or other work applications requires memory (32 gigabytes or more), a fast processor and more storage for video, photo, or audio files, rendering programs like Blender need a decent graphics card, a good processor, and a lot of RAM (32 gigabytes or more).
“It’s exciting,” said Amato. “To take something that wasn’t working and kind of assemble all the pieces together and now you have something that is working.”
