Our customers have expressed interest in building their own PCs, but many understandably find the idea daunting. We decided to put together a step-by-step guide for beginning and intermediate PC builders (hey, pros might learn something too). We’re happy to share our expert advice through this weekly series on PC-building for your own use at home. You can also use it to guide your collaboration with the gear-up.me team to enable us to build your dream PC for you.

This week’s post will be an overview of the PC building process from understanding your purpose to installing cables, cards, and drives.

Gear-Up Man

1. The process begins with a simple question: Why are you building a PC? Some want to take their gaming to a level not possible with off-the-shelf PCs. Others want their PC to double as a full-fledged entertainment system or perform special work tasks more efficiently. Answer this question, and then translate it to what size case you’ll need.


2. Choosing the proper CPU your PC will need is the next step. You’ll need to consider what level of performance you’ll require and how much you’re willing to pay for it. You also need to look at power consumption.


3. Choosing a graphics processing unit is often a major concern for those in the market to build a PC. For basic tasks like surfing the web, streaming video, and perhaps some light gaming, the graphics processor built into your CPU might suffice. For high-end gaming, virtual reality, and video editing, you will likely need a separate GPU.


4. The motherboard is critical to the functionality of the entire PC. All parts connect and communicate through the motherboard, so it is important to choose your PC’s motherboard carefully.


5. As for memory, Most recommend no less than 4GB for any PC and a minimum of 8GB for gaming, 16GB if you want to sleep better at night, 32GB or more if you are always running multiple apps and multiple tabs all at the same time. 


6. Solid State Drives (SSDs) are highly recommended over the old HDDs. It is not a difference in actual storage space. SSD’s deliver vastly better performance  in terms of time it takes to transfer files as well as load applications, Especially the SSD’s with PCIe interface (eg. M2. PCIe SSD).

7. Power supply units are often chosen with little thought, but pity the PC builder who chooses a cheap, scrappy PSU. Crashing, boot problems and actual combustion could await those who don’t give some consideration to the PSU.


8. The finishing touches will be unique to individual PC builders and depend on what is important the them. Most, however, choose to switch out the heat sink and fan that come with retail CPUs, since they are often loud and ineffective.


9. The best advice on vendors is to choose one comprehensive, knowledgeable vendor and stick with them. You will not only have their IT experts to consult on your purchases, but you will likely save on shipping.


10. If you are somewhat familiar with common hand tools, assembling your PC should not take more than a few hours. However, considering the investment, you will need to take precautions to protect against accidentally damaging the components.

Assembled PC sample


11. The CPU, DRAM, and motherboard are commonly referred to as the PC’s platform. Building this platform correctly is crucial to continuing onto the next steps.


12. Installing the motherboard correctly depends largely on aligning it perfectly with the mounting points in a certain location of the case. Sometimes it is necessary to install the power supply before the motherboard.


13. Installing cables, cards, and drives can be confusing if you haven’t done your homework. You will likely need to use PCIe slot bracket to allow shorter cards to fit in longer slots.

Or if you do not feel adventurous enough to build your own gaming PC - simply have a look below and select one of our great Gaming PCs we have pre-built and customizable PCs for you!  

Configure your Gaming PC here!

 

More options here: Gaming PC's, Gear-up PC's, Ryzen Powered PC's, Powered By ASUS PC's, Workstations.

Feel free to contact us on support@gear-up.me should you need compatibility check of your build or any questions to be answered.