Wednesday 15 June 2011

How to build your own computer: Part 4

So you should (hopefully) understand everything you need to know about the components you need. So, today I'm going to give a few example builds to get some inspiration flowing.

First, this is one I have actually built. It's one hell of a powerhouse, but has no graphics card. I use it as a server.
Processor:
AMD Phenom II 1055t, 6 cores at 2.8GHz. Around £100 ($160).
Motherboard:
Asus M4A78LT-M, great mid-range motherboard that supports AM3 for my processor and a whole lot of DDR3 RAM. Around £40 ($70).
RAM:
DDR3, two 4GB cards at 1600MHz. Around £70 ($110).
Power supply unit:
500w Corsair 500CX. Not too cheap. Do not buy cheap PSUs, no matter how tempting it is! As you might have seen in comments, cheap ones break easily. Capacitors explode, etc. This can take your computer with it! Mine was around £40 ($70).
HDD:
For my Hard drive I grabbed a 320GB Seagate SATA for about £30 ($50). SATA drives are dirt cheap these days, but for the elitist you might want to pick up a Solid State Drive (SSD). An SSD has no moving parts and is extremely quick with read/write cycles. Very expensive, though.
I picked up a cheap £20 case, I don't normally bother with fancy ones. And, a bonus benchmark. As soon as I built this PC I tested it's true speed. The bitch calculated 1 million digits of Pi in just over 20 seconds. Won't get that for this price at retail!
Total cost: £300 ($485)

And now a gaming PC! The first PC I built was a gaming PC, but I don't have it any more. I sold it on (to quite a silly person) for a sweet £100 profit! Anyway, here's a nice gaming PC build.

Processor:
AMD Athlon II X3, A three core 3.2GHz processor that is great for general computing, if not overpowered. Around £50 ($80). By the way, I have a thing for AMD.
Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2P, quite a cheap motherboard, but it gets the job done. I'm focusing mainly on pure graphics power, so we don't need anything fancy. Around £40 ($70).
RAM:
4GB of DDR3 will be plenty for this build. Expect around £35 ($55) for this.
Power supply unit:
Splashed a bit here and went for a 600w Corsair GS600. Good make, and plenty of watts. Around £65 ($100).
HDD:
Same as before here, a 320GB Seagate SATA is enough for my purposes. About £30 ($50).
Graphics card:
ATI 1GB 5770. A great mid-range card, you can get this for a sweet £80 ($130). If you want, you could grab two and use a crossfire kit to link them together!
Total: A neat £320 ($510), including cheap case!

Hopefully all that is readable, and I hope you have ideas forming for your own system now! Next I'll be moving in to actual construction. Might have to wait until Saturday, though, when I'll have access to my build so I can provide pictures. Till next time!

13 comments:

  1. I'm glad there's someone else out there that prefers AMD processors. Everyone I know always gets Intel, but I have always had great success with AMD, quality company there.

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  2. Thats going to an awesome build.

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  3. woah nice, is that graphics card the best for its price? trying to make a budget one lol

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  4. Intel sometimes has higher quality but AMD is better quality for the price.

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  5. I love to build computers! i have my own custom gaming rig at home. :) Great information man, it'll be helpful to the newbies. +followed.

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  6. Nice, thanks for including the prices in usd and gbp :)

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  7. AMD for Value!

    Anyways, very useful info for the kids out there.

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  8. Well, that's a much better deal than the last PC I bought!

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  9. Wow this sounds like it could save me a lot of money!

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  10. i built my first PC together with my dad. shame i don't have the free time anymore.

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  11. dang sexy specs if i do say so my self. i want my next build to be a six core as well.

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