Build a Modern PC 2008 - Part 1
No longer the domain of techy wizards, absolutely anyone can build a modern PC - as Ian Waugh proves…
If you've ever thought about building a PC, two questions probably popped into your mind - is it easy and can I save money?
Is it easy? Well, it ain't difficult! If you've fitted RAM, an expansion card, an optical drive or a hard disk, you should have no trouble. Essentially you simply connect the parts together like a construction set. No soldering, cutting or sawing is required.
Is it cheaper to build your own PC? The short answer is- possibly, especially if you're looking at a high-end machine. But probably not if you take your time into consideration.
Also, if the PC goes wrong, you have to work out what part's faulty and send it back to the supplier yourself. If anything goes wrong with a pre-built PC, it's up to the supplier to sort it out.
Of course, you do have to know what plugs into what. It's absolutely essential that you read the manuals to see what all the connectors are for. Although the principles of PC construction are similar, no manual will give you a blow-by-blow description of what goes where - but this guide will show you what to do.
Having said all that, building your own a PC has many advantages. First of all, you can customise it to your exact needs. For example, many high-end motherboards are designed for overclocking but if you don't want to overclock you can buy a less expensive board. If you don't need WiFi, you don't need to get it. You can decide exactly what hard drives you want, and even whether to install a RAID system as many motherboards now support this.
In addition, you'll know exactly how your PC is made, making it easier to add and upgrade components and to track down problems.
And last but not least - it's fun! And you will get a great sense of accomplishment and achievement - that's guaranteed!
Getting started
Modern PC parts are more user-friendly than they used to be so building and setting up a system is not the techy challenge it used to be ten years ago. However, if it's a few years since you last looked at the inside of a PC, you will notice a few changes.
In addition, components in a modern PC tend to run hotter than in older machines so you need to provide adequate ventilation and cooling. If you're thinking of putting new gear inside an old case, be aware that the case may not have been designed to take extra fans.
Also, you may need a slightly more powerful power supply, especially if you want to run a high-powered gaming graphics card.
Selecting the parts
The first thing to do is to select your system - the motherboard, the CPU, graphics card, how much RAM you want, what hard disks you need and so on. New computer components are being developed all the time and there is lots of choice so you will be able to find exactly what you need.
We decided to build a fairly high spec machine but whatever you decide to build, the construction principles are the same.
Here's the equipment we used along with a brief description of them:
CPU: AMD Phenom 9600. This is a true quad core processor and one of the top chips at the time of construction although AMD has superseded it by other models as we write this. Things never stand still in the world of CPU development!
The chip performs extremely well, especially at multi-tasking. When the PC is not engaged in other jobs, we like to run distributed software projects such as seti@home and folding@home and these get all four cores working at 100%.
The chip, however, doesn't overclock well and we didn't think it worth doing for the few extra processing cycles you might get but we're happy with the final speed of the machine.
Motherboard: Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe
This is one of the top boards for the AMD chipset and has more than enough features for even high-end users. Note, there is also a WiFi version of this board but we aren't going to use WiFi with this system so it wasn't necessary.
The board features the AMD 790FX chipset and is one of the few AM2+ boards on the market at the moment. Features including excellent overclocking (if you have an overclockable AMD chip) facilities, six SATA connections, RAID support, and an eSATA port on the rear panel. There are ten USB 2.0 ports in total - six on the rear panel- and two Firewire connections.
The board supports the PCI Express 2.0 bus which can double a compatible video card's bandwidth. It also supports CrossFireX which can run four video cards although as this is not primarily a gaming machine we didn't test this.
The box includes a boat load of cables and accessories although you're unlikely to use them all in any one build. You should be able to find out what the plugs and connectors are from a careful read of the manual.
Graphics card: ATI Radeon Saphire Toxic HD 3870
This is a powerful PCI Express 2.0 card, one of the (relative) few as of writing, which can take advantage of the M3A32-MVP's PCI Express 2.0 bus. It's very well suited to games as well as other computing tasks. It has 512Mb of on-board memory and supports DirectX 10.
It also supports ATI's CrossFireX and we could, in theory plug four cards into the Asus M3A32 motherboard for serious gaming performance. However, the cost would be considerable and at the moment, it's debatable whether, taking cost into account, adding even one extra card will give you much more bang for your buck than just one card. An option for very serious gamers only. But even the one 3870 will provide superior gaming performance.
The 3870 has two DVI outputs on the back which you can use to connect to two monitors for a wonderfully large desktop.
Case: Antec Sonata Plus 550
This is a mid tower case, selected largely because it's quiet. Having been on the receiving end of lots of noisy PCs, quiet is one of our criteria. It is also well organised inside with many great features to make building a PC easier.
We will have more to say about the case as we progress with our build.
PSU: Antec NeoPower 550
Again, this is quiet and it's a high efficiency PSU running at 85% efficiency. 550W is easily enough for our needs.
It has 3 x 12v outputs and uses a modular system making it easier to connect equipment. It comes with heaps of cables so you can power virtually anything you might want to add to your PC.
The Sonata Plus 550 case actually includes the NeoPower 550 so that's a small fitting task we didn't have to do.
RAM: 4 x 1GB Kingston Value RAM KVR1066D2N7K2
As RAM is currently very inexpensive, we're giving the system a full 4Gb. We'll be running 32-bit Windows which can only recognise just over 3Gb but the price of the RAM easily makes this worthwhile.
Hard disk: 2 x Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16Mb Cache
We like two drives as it makes data organisation easier and you can use the second drive to backup to - and for more storage, of course. The SpinPoint is fast and quiet and comes in a SATA version which makes connection easy.
Extra fans: 2 x Antec 3 speed TriCool 92mm fan
These fit in the front case cover opposite the HDs and blow air over them and into the case. They have a three-speed switch so you can trade off the air flow against the noise. We usually start with a Medium setting and see how that performs.
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S203P 20X SATA LightScribe Black DVD-RW
Black to match the case! The drive is inexpensive, fast and LightScribe allows you to write on the CD. We reckon it's better than scribbling on it with a marker pen and you don't have to faff about printing and sticking on labels although we know many people who are quite happy with a marker pen!
HSF: Arctic Cooler Freezer 64 Pro
Effective and quiet. See our review of the Arctic Cooler Freezer 64 here..
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
We figured a high spec machine should have a high-spec OS but, of course, you can install any OS on your machine that you like.
In the second part of building your own PC, we'll start assembling the parts.
