Building your own computer can not only save you money over buying a pre-built system, but you can also customize it to exactly what you want.
Now you might think that building a computer is something you can’t tackle, but with a little knowledge and a few dollars you can get just what you want.
When building a computer, you need to decide what you want to do with the computer. In this article we will be building a basic desktop computer. It will be good for basic internet usage, word processing and some gaming.
You can either start with picking out your computer case and finding a motherboard that fits in it, or as we are going to do, we will pick a motherboard, and then look for a case that will fit it.
For a computer like this one, you can choose from either a AMD or Intel compatible motherboard. We will be using AMD for this build as that’s what my preference is.
If you check out Newegg.com you can find multiple AMD Compatable boards.
We are going to pick the ASUS UF B450M-PLUS GAMING AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s Micro ATX AMD Motherboard as it will work well for your standard Internet/ Word Processing/Video Watching/Light Gaming. It accepts AMD Ryzen processors and has built in Audio/Video Processing. The price for this motherboard as of this article is $89.99 This mean’s you can plug in your computer speakers, and your monitor or HDTV directly into your motherboard without having to purchase any other equipment.
We are choosing this Motherboard as it is under $100, has a VGA output that connects to your standard computer monitor, HDMI Output for connecting to a gaming monitor or an HDTV, USB 3.1 and USB C connections for fast data transfer from portable hard drives or thumb drives.
One thing you will notice, is that there is no built in Wi-Fi. There is a LAN port that you can connect your Ethernet cable to. If you prefer Wi-Fi, we will add a Wi-Fi adapter in at the end.
One nice thing about using Newegg, is that you can see what other people who bought this motherboard also bought. It can give you an idea of what you might want to get with your system.
Now that we have the Motherboard picked out. We need to look at a CPU to run it. The board we chose requires an AM4 Processor. Once you search AM4 you get a complete list of all the AMD AM4 Processors that Newegg sells.
We are choosing to go with the AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 4 Core. We chose to go with this one as it is the cheapest option available. As of this writing, it is selling for $94.99. It comes with the Wraith Stealth Cooler so we don’t need to worry about purchasing that. We will need to get thermal paste thought. You use the paste between this CPU and the Motherboard to help with cooling. If you don’t use the paste, you run a risk of damaging either the Processor and/or the Motherboard
HERE is the paste we chose. It only runs around $8.00 so don’t skimp and not purchase some.
The next important thing we need to look at is memory. You will see all kinds of different memory. There DDR2, DDR3, DDR4. If you look at the information for the motherboard you choose, it will let you know what kind and speed of memory you need. As you can see below, we need DDR4 2666/2400/2133 MHz Un-buffered Memory.
The numbers you see are the speed of the memory. In the most basic terms, it’s how fast you can read and write to the memory. The faster the MHz, the faster the read/write capabilities. The faster the read/write capabilities, the smoother your computer experience will be.
We elected to go with the HyperX FURY 8GB (2 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2666. We will be getting Two 4GB sticks for a total of 8GB or DDR4 RAM. This will be more than enough for basic computer use, as well as some light gaming. We also chose this one do to the fact that it will match nicely with the flat black on the motherboard.
Now before we go onto powering this computer, lets take a look at cases. The motherboard we are using has a Micro ATX form factor. There are 4 basic form factors, so make sure you look to see what size motherboard you want when picking a computer case. Some larger cases will accomidate multiple form factor motherboards, while if you pick to small of a case, you motherboard may not fit. ( Trust me, I have run into this before)
We chose to go with the DEEPCOOL MATREXX 30 Micro ATX Case Tempered Glass Panel. I like the look of the front, it has a glass panel, so you can enjoy the work you did building this computer every time you use it.
The case comes with a build in rear fan for cooling, as well as a slot that will accomidate a DVD/ROM drive.
The case has plenty of room for all the componenets that we are going to put into this build, plus room for future expansion.
Now lets take a look at one of the things you have to have in your build, a power supply. The power supply provides power for everything from the motherboard, to the cooling fan, to the DVD drive and the Hard drives. If you pick one that is too small, it won’t power everything, but if you just pick the largest one you can find, you will be wasting money. To figure out what size you power supply you need, you first have to look at the power usage of your devices.
To figure out what size PSU you need, Newegg has a handy Power Supply Calculator you can use. After using their calculator, it is suggesting around 188 Watts of usage. To be on the safe side, you want to pick something slightly larger than that.
We chose to go with the Thermaltake Smart Series 430W Continuous Power ATX. I chose this as not only does it have more than enough power for what we need now, there is room for expanding the system if needed. I have also used Thermaltake products for multiple years and currently have an old desktop system that has been running one of their PSU’s for over 5 years trouble free.
We are almost done with buying items for our desktop build. Only other things we need to purchase are hard drives/ operating system.
When purchasing your hard drive you need to look at what you want to do. You can choose between a standard hard drive with platters in it, or you can choose a SSD that has no moving parts. A standard hard drive is cheaper per Gigabyte (GB) but have a slower read/write speed. A SSD costs more per GB, but has a faster data transfer rate. There is also a third option that you can pick, you can find a hard drive that has a combination of SSD and platter hard drive components. These are refered to as hybrid hard drives.
The Hybrid Drive gives you quick loading speeds, allowing you to start Window’s in under 10 seconds.
We chose to go with the Seagate FireCuda Gaming SSHD 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive. This will give us quick start up’s with plenty of room for storing all our movies and whatever STEAM games we decide to play. Our motherboard has room for up to 4 hard drives, so we can add more in the future if needed.
The last couple of things to go over would be adding a BluRay or DVD drive as well as a Wi-Fi adapter.
For a Blu-Ray player, we just went with the cheapest one we could find which is the Internal Blu-ray Drive Desktop Computer SATA BD Combo Player. Price is $53.00
For WiFi you can choose to go with a internal card like the ASUS Wireless AC750 PCIe Adapter Card for Dual-Band 2×2 802.11AC WiFi
If you don’t already have a Windows install to put onto the computer once it is built, you will need to buy one. Which version of Window’s you purchase is up to you.
You can pick up a copy of Window’s 10 Home Edition 64 bit version for $110.
Now you have everything you need to build your first computer.
Once put in the cart, our total came to…
This total does not include the Blu-Ray Drive, Wi-Fi adapter, or Window’s OS as we don’t need those for our build. The total also doesn’t include taxes and shipping.
Yes, you can go to a big box store and pick up a basic desktop for less than this, but when you buy from there, you don’t get exactly what you want. Also, when you finish building your desktop computer and start it for the first time, that’s a feeling you can’t beat.
Think we should have changed something, did we miss something you think we should add? Let us know. Maybe our next build sheet will include your suggestions.