Learning to build a computer

[Hydrathe]

Hi, I have been around here for the last months since I jumped into ubuntu, and this forum has been very useful and solved all of my problems, but i need some advice this time.

My desktop is very old, so I would like to get a new one, but my knowledge about computer's hardware is in general non existant. I found many builds searching here but I would like to build them by myself, I want to learn why some i5 outperform some i7, what differences a good motherboard from a bad one, why some chipsets are better than other etc etc.

So does anyone know some tutorials, books, websites, magazines... to learn about this kind of things?

Thx a lot.

[mips]

Your best resource is online.

What is your budget and what components do you need?

[aaaantoine]

Tom's Hardware
FiringSquad
Hard[OCP]
AnandTech

To name a few.

[wolfen69]

Youtube also has videos on building computers.

[aaaantoine]

Physically building computers is not difficult. It's picking the right parts that's the real challenge.

[mikaelcrocker]

It's all budget, and if you want to game. One person had mentioned Tomshardware.com, an amazing site. The reason why some core i5s out perform an i7 is due to the overclockers edition so to speak.

A core i5 2500k with proper cooling can be overlcocked quite a bit and will out perform a stock clocked i7 in most cases. The kicker is the greatly reduced price for the i5, which is why so many people use it.

If you're going this route, it's going to be spendy, since you need to buy higher end parts. Again I would refer to tomshardware.com they have builds that range in price and will give you a great baseline.

[LowSky]

Physically building computers is not difficult. It's picking the right parts that's the real challenge.

Building a computer can be very simple. Drowning yourself in knowledge can make it seem hard though. The first thing to do is set a budget. Knowing how much you want to spend makes the process more down to earth. The next step is to realize exactly what you need a computer for. Be honest about your uses, for example don't say I would love to game. If you are not doing it now then you probably wont later. Realize there is competition, Intel has AMD in the processor market for example.

A pitfall many first time builders run into is buying the cheapest case and power supply they can. This happens because they blow the budget on the rest of the gear. Remember that case has to hold everything and the power supply has to run it, so make sure its of good build quality. And from my own experience don't buy a case that uses mesh on the front grill, it collects too much dust.

[tmette]

Building a computer can be very simple. Drowning yourself in knowledge can make it seem hard though. The first thing to do is set a budget. Knowing how much you want to spend makes the process more down to earth. The next step is to realize exactly what you need a computer for. Be honest about your uses, for example don't say I would love to game. If you are not doing it now then you probably wont later. Realize there is competition, Intel has AMD in the processor market for example.

A pitfall many first time builders run into is buying the cheapest case and power supply they can. This happens because they blow the budget on the rest of the gear. Remember that case has to hold everything and the power supply has to run it, so make sure its of good build quality. And from my own experience don't buy a case that uses mesh on the front grill, it collects too much dust.


I completely agree with this. I even did this on my first computer build. I went overboard with the pricing of the parts and got a really cheap case and power supply. The power supply went out after about 2 months. Get a good energy efficient power supply that will support the hardware.

Tom's Hardware website is a great resource for beginners. My friend followed some of the "build your own" guides for his budget PC and it turned out great.

I personally have never really needed an aftermarket CPU cooler. Usually the stock one that comes with the processor is perfectly capable of cooling the machine. That is, unless your over-clocking, then I would get a different one.

[Hydrathe]

First of all, thx a lot everybody, I will take a look at those sites, i always liked messing around with computers, but only with the soft side, I have been always afraid of short circutiing everything and burning the house hehe. My old AMD Athlon FX does surprisingly good even today, so I have enough time to learn.
If the new one lasts as much as this one (I have it since 2004 or something like that) i will be happy.


Thx a lot and excuse my poor english

[IWantFroyo]

I just wanted to expand a little:
http://lifehacker.com/5826509/how-to-build-a-computer-from-scratch-lesson-1-hardware-basics

It's a series of articles. That's just the first one.

By the way, your English is quite good. :)

[VCoolio]

1. decide how much money you want to spend; stick to that or you'll end up broke.
2. read a little on every aspect; case, power supply, cooler, not that important, just get good enough and silent enough; decide if you have money for a ssd hard disk, that makes a real difference; decide what cpu you want/need (dual core 3.2 MHz could be a better choice than quad core 2.6) and get a mother board that supports it; get a decent video card (nvidia);
3. google your components, or check youtube, and you'll find unpackings and tutorials on how to build your pc and reviews.

[Blasphemist]

Newegg has some do it yourself kits you can choose from if you don't want to make every choice this time. And here are a couple posts to look at. I liked the second link.
http://paulstamatiou.com/diy-200-dollar-pc
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392163,00.asp

[Linuxratty]

Hi,

So does anyone know some tutorials, books, websites, magazines... to learn about this kind of things?

Thx a lot.


Linuxinternationals (link in sig) should be able to help. Go poke around there and ask for advice.