Considerations & Product Choice con't.

Ok, lets get on with it. I suggest the following steps/decisions:

1. Will this be an AMD powered system or Intel?



2. Research to determine how much power, which CPU, you will need. Various options were pointed out above. Will you need 32 bit or 64 bit capabilities. Do some research to determine your needs. Also try to consider your needs 6 months or more down the road. OEM processors come without a fan and also a much shorter warranty. If you order OEM make sure to also order an appropriate CPU cooling solution. Don't forget rubbing alcohol to clean the surfaces of the CPU and cooler. And remember to order a good thermal paste. If you will be considering overclocking, research to make sure the processor you have in mind is a decent candidate. Also OC will cause a significant boost in CPU temperatures, so make sure you research and find a cooling solution to handle this increase in heat. More details on OC can be found in the forums.



3. Do you want to build a bare bones system or start from scratch? The bare bones systems usually include MB (motherboard), case and power supply. Sometimes they also include floppy drives along with CD drives and often these motherboards will have built in audio, video and NIC. In some instances all you have to do is add a CPU, HDD and RAM. In others you need to add additional items including optical drives, video cards, modems, NICs, etc. While this article addresses the build from scratch approach, those of you opting for a bare bones build can also benefit.



4. Now that you have decided on a specific CPU, it is time to choose a motherboard in which it will fit. Make sure that the motherboard fulfills your needs and wants. Do a little research and read up on the various chipsets that you find interesting. The chipsets have a great deal to do with the capability potentials of various boards. There are numerous socket types, so determine that the CPUs and MBs match. The MB decision should also include whether or not you desire on-board audio, on-board video, on-board LAN, on-board RAID and if on-board raid, consider what levels you need or want. Do you want a board that supports SATA HDD (hard disk drive) or IDE HDD? If you will be adding expansion cards, are there the correct number and types of slots? What slot type of video card(s) are you planning on utilizing, AGP, PCIx16, and on the high end, SLI or CrossFire? Also, if you will be considering OC, overclocking, research the MB to make sure it has the capabilities to do what you desire. More information on OC can be found throughout the forums. If you're just beginning OCing I would suggest taking a look at PCB's Introduction to Basic Overclocking .



5. A short comment on choosing components: I try to stay away from the dirt-cheap parts. Quite often they are constructed with second tier materials. Since a computer is the sum of its parts, a little bit that doesn't operate at spec can adversely impact an entire build.



6. With the MB decision out of the way it is time to research and decide on RAM, the system memory. Like processors, RAM comes in different speeds and socket types. It is important to match the RAM to the motherboard and processor. Current common types are DDR and DDR2 along with SDRAM for notebooks. Some motherboards are quite fussy on what brands of RAM they will operate under, so make sure you do some research to make informed choices. Some MB have two slots for RAM, others have more. If you fill all of the RAM slots on some motherboards, performance will be degraded from filling only 2 slots, go figure. In other words - if you only want to buy 1 Gb of RAM now, two 512 sticks, and then plan on upgrading a little later by purchasing two more 512 sticks, you could actually decrease your level of performance instead of increasing it. It is important to do your research. Latency is also something that has to be decided upon, but only if you want to squeeze every bit out of your system. Are the small increases in benchmarking worth the premium prices, only you can decide. It is important to do your research. My personal benchmarking of premium memory on an Intel board run at low latency compared to generic Cas 3 memory showed insignificant gains and most assuredly not worth the premium. These tests were conducted at stock speeds. There may be a more meaningful difference when running low latency RAM OC compared to Cas 3 OC. There may be a cumulative effect. Again, if you will be OC, check the forums for more detailed guidelines on memory choices.



7. Another RAM consideration is EEC memory, an error correcting memory, for the rock solid system. It is more expensive and has a little more overhead, but if stability is your goal and the MB will accept it, this is worthy of consideration. Do your research.



8. The next major item on the list is the Video Card(s). As indicated above, make sure that the video card and MB are compatible. Also make sure that if you have a digital monitor that you get a digital video card. It is important to remember that gaming can place heavy demands on video cards and if you are a gamer, this is not an area to stint. Most of today's games run well on a 3ish level processor, it is the video card that can effect game performance and subsequent enjoyment. When you do your research, look at the resolutions in the tests. If you can get along with a little less resolution, many of the cards show meaningful performance increases.



9. By now you are now well familiar with the capabilities of your MB, it is time to decide on the add-in cards. One of the most problematic areas is a sound card. If you don't have on-board sound or you feel the need for a different solution, either for taking the sound burden away from the CPU, or to provide more and better options for output, please do your homework. Numerous sigficant problems of varied types can be traced to sound cards. Other cards you may need or want can include NIC, modems, controllers, etc. Confirm that your motherboard has enough of the right type of slots for the cards to be installed.



10. Now on the agenda are drives. While the FDD, floppy disk drive, is being phased out, it is still useful in various situations. If you don't choose to install one, it might be prudent to order a USB FDD.



11. Optical drives. How many and what capabilities. The options include CD readers, CD readers and writers, plus writers with DVD reading capabilities. There are also DVD drives and DVD read and write drives that also write CDs. To add to the choices in DVD, there are also dual layer DVD writers. Optical drives come in three main interface types, IDE, SATA and SCSI. Make sure you purchase the correct drive interface for your system.



12. HDD, hard disk drives. In addition to capacity, you need to decide how many and if they will have IDE or SATA interfaces. Rotation should be at least 7200 RPM. Will you be running RAID? If so, the type of RAID can have some bearing on how many HDD you will need. For the Rock Solid 24/7 computer build, and/or performance build, there are 10,000 RPM commercial type drives called Raptors that you may elect to utilize. These have a very high MTBF, mean time between failure, rating. Another Rock Solid/performance option for a drive interface is SCSI. Some of these operate at 15,000 RPM and usually require special interface cards. Do research to help you make good decisions.



13. To help you pick out a power supply or case with included power supply, add up all of the power you will need for all of the components. I like to err well on the side of getting more power than I currently need. That way if I add components in the future, I may not be required to purchase a larger capacity power supply at that time. Assure that the PS has at least two fans; this will help ventilate the PS and the case. Also make sure that the PS will match the MB and have an appropriate number and types of taps.



14. The monitor choices are quite varied. You can go from 15 inches on up. As mentioned previously, do make sure that both the monitor and video card are compatible. Is a CRT for you or is the smaller and lighter LCD the one to get. Do your research, read reviews. This may even merit field trips to local computer emporiums for a little compare and contrast. If you are going to be gaming, some LCD monitors are apparently not suited for this undertaking. Do your research. Also most LCD monitors have a 'sweet spot' for resolution. There are numerous reports of significant degradation of visual quality when resolution is not at the exact designated level. It can be important to learn their luminance and refresh rates too. If this required size is not the size you care for or your specific applications can handle, it could be prudent to take a pass on that LCD and possibly look at another or at CRTs. Also find out how many dead pixels are considered normal and how many are required before the manufacturer will replace the monitor.



15. Putting together a Linux system may prove to be a little more of a challenge. If you will be running a Linux distro, make sure your research confirms that all of the components in your system have Linux drivers available. Really, make sure that there are drivers available. Don't kid yourself; wishful thinking isn't going to make an expensive card run without proper drivers.



16. Purchase an anti static mat for building your computer. ESD, electro static discharge, can kill or cripple electronic components. We want you to succeed in your build, and lessening the chance of inadvertent damage to components is essential.



17. Choose the rest of your equipment as desired…printers, joysticks, mice, keyboards, desks, mouse pads, etc.