When it comes to building your PC - like buying a house, a car, or any item of clothing - you need it to fit you. If you are using your machine for heavy media-editing work, you’re not going to want an advanced gaming PC that has all the trimmings for that particular field.
Building a balanced PC is important to reach the best level of performance for the money you spend in the role you want for it. Building your own computer can be a cheaper solution that is also a satisfying avocation. However, building with low-tier components can be the bane of the home-builder, leading to frustrating system inabilities that certain computers can’t undergo. Learn how to choose the best parts and save money without pulling out your hair because you can’t play the latest Battlefield One update on your gaming pc.
When building a PC, obviously you need to comprehend what components do, what fits your budget, and how they each benefit one another. Like assembling a puzzle, the pieces all slip together and form a beautiful end picture of the perfect personal machine.
For example, you want to know what motherboard chipset fits you, depending on whether you require overclocking or not. Do you want a CPU or GPU-powered machine? Heavy RAM?
The answers to these questions are essential in building your perfect PC. Do your research and understand the hardware basics. Although you may splash out and get the best advertised hardware, once you’ve assembled the PC you will find that these pieces can contradict one another while trying to perform to the maximum of their ability, setting you back by a substantial amount of money to remedy the issues and replace the parts. This is known as bottlenecking. In some cases, the benefits of purchasing a pre built gaming pc might outweight building one from scratch.
If a CPU can’t perform well with the power of your GPU, one piece of hardware is slowing down the other. This collision between the hardware is known as bottlenecking. The whole PC’s system performance is decreased by the components limiting each other. Imagine two large men in a small room, shoving one another for extra space but gaining no ground and just taking up more room.
If you’re a gamer, the main factors in performance are the CPU and the GPU. Balance between these two components is important because they split the workload for running a game. Some games may be heavy on the running power, while others may require a vast amount of speed to run its graphics.
If you’re building your PC for gaming, consider what games you are looking to play heavily and let this affect your decisions with your build. Otherwise, you will be left in an awkward technology-purgatory where you won’t be getting the most out of what games you can play. Find the perfect fit.
A piece of advice: keep the budget for both components at a similar level so that the tier of quality doesn’t clash with one another. Use this philosophy for every part of the PC. Think about it now so you won’t regret it later. You will save yourself a lot of stress down the road.
It takes considerations such as these to make decisions with your build. They are crucial to get the best bang for ya’ buck. Optimize your budget and research how to select the components that boost what you want.
The beauty of building your own computer is the option of choice. It is all up to you and is generally an enlightening process of trial and error. While you might make the perfect specimen for you, you may also create expensive issues for yourself.
Are you going to want a DVD drive fitted into the machine? What operating system are you thinking about using? Will memory card readers be something you utilise or could the money be better spent elsewhere? These are all choices that are ultimately down to you. Remember, balance is the key.
14 Jul 2021
We caught up with PNY's David Flood to discuss how the 4th industrial revolution GPU refreshes and other major tech developments are powering incredible and exciting transformation in the media and entertainment industry.
