I have built my last two computers myself. The most recent was about 1.5 years ago. I just went to Fry’s and bought stuff that fit together and it all sort of just worked. I had no idea how much I should be spending or what the best ways to optimize performance were or what resources to use for researching components or anything. I just had a budget, found parts that fit the budget, and stuck everything together.
Now I’m in the market for a new computer, and I want to know more about that stuff. What are some good resources for great deals on computer components? What is a good resource for comparing different components, maybe with ratings and discussions about them? Is it even beneficial to build your own computer, or should I just buy a pre-built one, and if so, from where? I’m interested in playing Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 when they come out, and I’m currently playing World of Warcraft. I want a machine that will run those games at high settings. How much should I expect to pay for that?
NewEgg and TigerDirect are where you can find individual computer pieces.
Here is a walkthrough from TD how to build your own computer.
Here is a recent thread on if it’s practical to build your own computer. The answer was yes it is, but only marginally and that if you’d prefer to buy a prebuilt one, you’ll still be getting some decent bang for your buck.
EDIT: The biggest advantage of building your own computer was a significant increase in warranty length. As far as I can tell, three years is the default length of a warrant for an individual computer piece, compared to only one year when you buy prebuilt.
And I couldn’t find anything that would specifically guide a newbie in the TechReport page after a quick browsing. They seemed very aimed at people who already know what they’re doing.
Most everything on which I rely when building a new computer has been cited already, so there’s that.
I’ve found that a good guide for current information can be found in one of the sites’ “Bang for the Buck” articles (e.g., “Best Gaming System for $1000”). They’ll usually discuss individual components and comparisons, in addition to the trade-offs made in their selection (both individually and system-wide).
ArsTechnica publishes frequently updated System Guides, with three levels of price and performance: Budget Box, Hot Rod and God Box. You can usually find something to meet your requirements in there.
Your new link works. The original Tom’s Hardware link of yours gives me the same screen I linked to and the TH link I first gave still gives me a 404 error. :dubious:
I personally don’t care about games, so I won’t give you any hints about that directly. BUT there’s one hot thing available today that would be good for performance, and that’s solid-state disk drives. They’re pretty small (in capacity and size) compared to magnetic drives, so you probably want a standard drive for any large things (like most game installs), but if you can “cram” your OS and other essentials within 60 Gb or so - and there’s no reason why you couldn’t - you will enjoy a really noticable speedup for booting and general use.
But beware: not all SSDs are created equal, and some are outright stupidly slow for general use. Intel is a reliable brand with some good affordable drives - the X-25M G2 seems to be on a sweet spot regarding cost/performance - but see the anandtech site for comparisons of drives.
[slight hijack] I have a new used computer, and I really really really would like to swap my C and D drives to it. Can someone recommend the best way to do this?
Oslo, you really need to give more information. Are these physically separate drives, or are they partitions on a single physical drive? What is the model for the computer? Laptop or desktop? What kind of hard drive(s), SATA IDE, what?
ETA: This isn’t really a “slight hijack”. Pardon my “Jr. modding”, but just make a new thread and you’ll get better visibility.
