Build­ing your PC 101 for Newbies

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maw2214 on 6:03 AM

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Build­ing Your Own PC 101 – A Guide For Newbies

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|| — Intro­duc­tion — ||

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Build My Rig” thread but most of the posts there are build sug­ges­tions and parts pric­ing. Even with a rec­om­mended build, I noticed that new­bies still have lots of ques­tions for every par­tic­u­lar com­po­nent of the PC. My goal is to teach new­bies the basics in build­ing their own first PC. Of course, for in-depth infor­ma­tion for each com­po­nent the PC will be not dis­cussed here as there are already threads here for that. This guide is for new­bies so don’t crit­i­cize it for being too sim­ple and straightforward.

I have built my first gam­ing PC back in Novem­ber 2008. It was com­posed of an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2GBx1 DDR2 800 CL6, and a GeForce 9400GT. As you can see, this build is unbal­anced for a gam­ing PC – a pow­er­ful CPU paired with a weak GPU. I still see many TPC mem­bers here mak­ing this mis­take. I want to share my knowl­edge I gained since I started explor­ing CPU over­clock­ing back in Feb­ru­ary 2010. My sec­ond gam­ing PC was com­posed of an Intel Core i5 750, 2GBx2 DDR3 1600 CL9, and a GeForce GTX 275. It was already a decent gam­ing PC but I sold it and switched to another plat­form. I am now using an AMD Phe­nom II X6 1055T paired with a Sap­phire Radeon HD 5850 1GB

I will update this guide as new infor­ma­tion becomes avail­able. Sug­ges­tions and cor­rec­tions are also wel­come. Just send me a pri­vate message.

Thanks.

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|| — Def­i­n­i­tion of Terms — ||

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AGP – Accel­er­ated Graph­ics Port. An old slot type for graph­ics cards. AGP graph­ics cards are too slow for mod­ern games. You won’t see this any­more on mod­ern moth­er­boards. AGP graph­ics cards will only fit in AGP slots. Replaced by PCI-E

Bench­mark – a test or set of tests that mea­sure per­for­mance of a PC. Syn­thetic appli­ca­tions or real-world appli­ca­tions can be used for bench­marks. Bench­marks are mostly used by over­clock­ers to mea­sure the per­for­mance gained by over­clock­ing. It can also be used to mea­sure the per­for­mance gain of a hard­ware upgrade

BIOS – Basic Input and Out­put Sys­tem. When updat­ing your BIOS, make sure your PC is plugged on a UPS. If the BIOS update process is inter­rupted by a power fail­ure, the BIOS will be cor­rupted. Your PC will not func­tion if this is dam­aged or corrupted.

CPU – Cen­tral Pro­cess­ing Unit. This is the brain of the PC. This is com­monly called as the processor

CPU Fre­quency – This shows how fast a CPU is and it has a unit of Giga­hertz (GHz). Higher is bet­ter for the same fam­ily of processors

CPU Socket – This is where the CPU chip fits in. AMD proces­sors use AM2, AM2+, and AM3 while Intel proces­sors use LGA 775, LGA 1156, and LGA 1366

Cool n Quiet – Power sav­ing fea­ture of AMD proces­sors. The CPU down­clocks when it is idle or the load is light

Cross­Fire – A tech­nol­ogy from ATi that allows 2 or more ATi GPU’s to work together in games

EIST – Enhanced Intel Speed Step. Power sav­ing fea­ture of Intel proces­sors. The CPU down­clocks when it is idle or the load is light

FSB – Front Side Bus. Old Intel CPU’s and all LGA 775 CPU’s use the FSB to com­mu­ni­cate with the memory.

HDD – Hard Disk Drive. Used as pri­mary data storage

HSF – Heat Sink and Fan. This cools the CPU. Too much heat and your CPU will die sooner than expected.

IGP – Inte­grated Graph­ics Proces­sor. AMD IGP’s are located on the moth­er­board and mod­ern Intel IGP’s are located on the CPU chip. IGP’s are not advis­able for gaming

IMC – Inte­grated Mem­ory Controller

LCD – Liq­uid Crys­tal Dis­play. A type of dis­play that is replac­ing CRT mon­i­tors. Have a low power con­sump­tion com­pared to CRT monitors

LGA – Land Grid Array. A socket type used by mod­ern Intel proces­sors. The con­tact pins are on the motherboard.

GPU – Graph­ics Pro­cess­ing Unit. This comes in two types, IGP and Add-on. Add-on type of GPU’s are those cards that you insert in the AGP slot or PCI-E slot

Over­clock­ing – The process of run­ning a com­po­nent beyond its rated speed. Should be done with cau­tion. Over­clock­ing can dam­age your com­po­nents if not done properly

PGA – Pin Grid Array. A CPU socket type used by AMD processors

PCI-E – Periph­eral Com­po­nent Inter­con­nect Express. Used by mod­ern graph­ics cards

PSU – Power Sup­ply Unit. This is the part that sup­plies power to every com­po­nent of your PC. Make sure you use a reli­able PSU to ensure safe and sta­ble oper­a­tion of your PC.

RAM – Ran­dom Access Mem­ory. Com­monly called as memory.

SLI – Scal­able Link Inter­face. A tech­nol­ogy from nVIDIA that allows 2 or more nVIDIA GPU’s to work together in games

SSD – Solid State Drive. Sim­i­lar to HDD’s except there are no more mechan­i­cal parts. It is a lot faster than HDD’s but still very expen­sive to replace HDD’s

UPS – Unin­ter­rupt­ible Power Sup­ply. In case of a power fail­ure, this pro­vides backup power for your PC to give you enough time to save your files and prop­erly shut down your PC. For more info on UPS,

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