UNSORTED IDEAS WHEN BUILDING YOUR OWN PC

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UNSORTED IDEAS AND SUGGESTIONS ABOUT THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN BUILDING YOUR OWN PC



Building PCs is a hobby that many tech enthusiasts enjoy. Even if building PCs is not your hobby, it is sometimes the only way to get a machine that exactly meets your needs, or meets them at a reasonable price. 


1.    SSD VS. MECHANICAL DRIVES
At this point in time, I think the drive selections have more to do with performance than the CPU choice does. Modern CPUs have more than enough power for typical loads, but as the applications we use get bigger, and the data they handle gets larger (video games, multimedia editing, giant-size Outlook PSTs, etc.), the drives can become the bottleneck.

Solid state drives (SSDs) are lightning quick, especially for accessing lots of small files at a time (like when the system boots). The price to pay is in the cost-per-gigabyte: They are many times more expensive on a per-GB basis than traditional drives. While there is debate about whether traditional drives are as fast reading long, sequential files, or if the read/write limits on SSDs make them less reliable than the mechanical failures of traditional drives, the performance on typical usage is not a question.

One possibility, especially with an OS like Windows 7 or Linux that make it easy to separate data from applications, is to use an SSD for the main OS and application space and put user data on a traditional drive. That way, you can get both speed and disk size at a reasonable price.


2.    VIDEO CARD
People often tend to buy either too much video card or too little. Unless you are playing video games, the on-board video card should be sufficient. You should not need to devote too much system memory to it, either.

If you are playing video games, keep in mind that games are now putting the lion's share of the hard work onto the video card. There is a definite price curve on the video cards. You can often get last year's top-end models for a good price, and they will handle all but the most modern and intense games at reasonable settings (often the highest settings). If you are doing a lot of multimedia, numerical analysis, and other computationally intense tasks, check to see whether your applications can leverage the video card and if so, what cards it is compatible with.


3.    X86 VS X64
When installing the OS, there is no reason to not use the x64 version at this point, unless you have an extremely outdated application that refuses to run on it. And you should almost always install the x64 version of applications. That said, there are some things where you need to make a choice. Internet Explorer, for example. While it installs both versions, always use the x86 one — the one labelled "Internet Explorer" instead of "Internet Explorer (64-bit)" — because the modernized JavaScript engine in IE 9 is available only in the x86 version. Many IE users I've met have been baffled by the lack of speed in IE 9, and that was the reason.

Also, be very wary about installing Microsoft Office's x64 versions. Many, if not most plugins still do not run under x64 Office, and it looks like they probably never will. The only reason to go for x64 Office is if you routinely work with monstrously huge files that the x86 version can't handle.


4.    RAM DENSITY
Let's say your motherboard holds up to four DIMMs, each one with a maximum size of 8 GB, and supports Dual Channel RAM, and your goal is to have 8 GB of RAM. If you buy one 8 GB DIMM, you are leaving lots of room open to eventually fill the machine to 32 GB, but you are giving up the speed advantages of Dual Channel. If you buy 2x4 GB DIMMs, you get the speed of Dual Channel. But if you want to get the full 32 GB in the future, you'll have to replace the two 4 GB DIMMs with an 8 GB DIMM.


5.    RAID
A RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) allows you to combine various physical disks into one volume. The main RAID levels to think about on a desktop are:

RAID 0: Allows multiple disks to be combined into one large disk; a single drive failure takes down the whole RAID and often loses data. The volume size is the total of the size of all of the disks.
o    PROS: adds the complete size of each hard drive like one, example: 80 + 80 = 160
o    CONS: if one drive fails, fails all

RAID 1: Mirrors a pair of disks into one volume; if one disk fails there is no data loss, and the drive can be replaced (and the data automatically copies to the replacement), usually with no downtime. The volume size is the size of the smaller of the two disks.
o    PROS: the PC will never stop working and continue if drive fails, everything in Drive A (Master) is the same on Drive B (Spare)
o    CONS: 2 drives of the same model, RPM and capacity DOUBLE your budget and this is ideal for servers and non-stop workstations

RAID 5: This is more complex. It takes three drives and combines them in a way that they all provide some redundancy for the others, with an optional fourth drive as a "hot spare" to be immediately incorporated into the RAID if the drive fails (highly recommended). A little bit of drive space is lost due to the way the redundancy is performed.
o    PROS: never will stop working and can be replace even working, this mode call “hot swap” and is very reliable
o    COS: more expensive and used for storage. Like: 1 HD + 1 HD + 1HD + 1 HD = TOTAL size of 3 HDs and 1 for SPARE (80 + 80 + 80 = 240 and 1 is for SPARE)

Each of these RAID types can bring some speed benefits. In nowadays, all the new motherboards and enthusiastic PC brands, some models offer the option to use the RAID option. This feature was only available in servers and was very expensive. Now can be used according your work. Example: hard video editing, a hard-core gamer, an enthusiastic PC consultant as ME! And even more choices such as web design, CAD and other hard working.

6.    CPU CHOICE
This is not an Intel vs. AMD debate. Just compare capabilities and price and get the cheapest CPUs that meet your needs. Here are some questions to ask yourself when picking a CPU:

o    Does it support virtualization and do I need that support?
o    Does it support Hyper-Threading (HT)? HT allows one CPU core to act as two, and while it does not always improve performance, it can often increase it.
o    How many cores do I need? Remember, many applications still are not written to leverage multicore architecture, but the OS will. And more cores means a better experience on the whole if you like to do many things at once or play games.
o    What speed do I need? Few things will actually max out a modern CPU long term. I would rather have four cores at 2.0 gHz than two cores at 4.0 gHz, all else being equal.
o    What does my work’s needs? Do I edit videos? CAD? Design? Web? Programmer? Gamer? Or just need to surf and email for my work?


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