How Do You Build a PC from Scratch?

You can buy parts at tiger direct. They also sell barebones kits. There are a lot of videos and tutorials on youtube. If you have any specific questions I can try to help answer them. Let me know how the process is going.

 

If I were to build my PC from scratch, I would first gauge as to what I will use it for. There are set ups for gaming and video rendering which require a lot of computing power. You will indeed save a ton if you build this set up from scratch. If its just for browsing and simple data processing, you're better off buying a laptop instead.

 

You're going to need to figure out all of the parts and how they go together. The way I taught myself is I asked people I knew for broken computers they had and then I took out what worked in each one and built something that did work. This is because I had no money at the time and they were going to throw it away anyways. Look for online tutorials on the subject or even video tutorials and I'm sure it will be much easier for you.

 

I didn't go into to much details before as I didn't have a lot of time, I wrote a big reply and because of an error with the forum it got deleted.

I haven't built a computer myself but my partner has and I help him. I think the main challenge is that not all parts will be compatible with each other so you will need to do research before buying. When choosing parts read reviews to see what people have to say about quality, compatibility and performance. Other than tiger direct you can find reviews at newegg and amazon.

The first step as others said is to figure out what you need this computer for and what features you want it to have. That will dictate which parts you need. Once you have decided start by choosing the mother board and processor. Those need to go together and not all processors work with all boards and vice versa. The board will determine how many ram (memory) slots and what ports you have, among other things. The processor will determine how strong the computer is. Choose the best processor you can for your needs so the computer won't be obsolete too fast and choose a good board with good reviews.

After you decided on a board you need buy the ram based on which one is compatible with the board you have. I would put at the very least 8 gb of ram for a basic computer, 16 or more if you are doing heavy work like video editing, photoshop, etc or gaming.

You need to look for a case, choose one that has good ventilation or one that has a liquid cooling system. That's important to keep things cool, overheating will cause the computer to last less as parts can get damaged. Not all boards fit all cases so be careful and do your research.

Now you need to choose a graphics card, depending on what you are doing. If you are doing photo editing, video editing or gaming you will need a very good one. After that you need to find a good power supply for your system.

Hard drives I always select last, because it's something that's very easy to update and don't give much compatibility problems. If you have the money buy a solid state as the main hard drive so that the operating system and programs run very fast. Solid states are small but you can buy a 2 tb hard drive cheap and use that as storage. If you can't buy a solid state choose a fast hard drive for the main. I like Western Digital Black.

Good luck with this, building a pc is fun but can also be a headache if something does wrong. Again do your research and read reviews, it will save you money and troubles. Also like already mentioned sometimes it's cheaper buying a ready made pc or if you want a really advanced machine, paying a technician to put it together.

 

So what are the tips to know if a motherboard will work on the processor you're eyeing on? I guess if the motherboard is an old model then it's compatible with the old models of processors too, like those released around the same time?

 

Basically google and reviews is the best answer. Lets say your browsing one of the computer parts websites and you really like a particular board, first read the description to see if it says what kind of processors work with that board, or else just google the model and see what comes up. There are a lot of resources out there. Usually when I google it I find the info on forums,

If you already have a computer with an old board then first find out the exact model so you can use google to find a compatible processor. If the processor is too old and already discontinued you might need to look for it on eBay.

For example I have this 2006 Mac Pro and when the graphics card died I had to search for one on eBay because they don't make it anymore.

 

I see, I will keep that in mind. I have no experience in building pc's yet, so I have no idea about that compatibility thing. I think the older the motherboard and processor, the harder it is to find, like in your case, so I guess I will have to search first the latest models.