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PCFeature1

When we write about the PC market at ExtremeTech, it's almost always from the DIY or enthusiast perspective. Merely we don't actually talk much near that most basic of tasks — how to build a PC. The bodily associates procedure isn't usually all that difficult, but choosing the right components can exist tricky. Let's talk well-nigh information technology.

Annotation: Because this is meant to serve as a general buy guide, rather than a specific "Hither'southward a slap-up Intel or AMD system," I've kept the recommendations full general and intended to suit an audience unsure where to commencement pulling together information on the topic. Questions on peripherals like mice and keyboards are also beyond the scope of this article.

Case

While components like the CPU and GPU will determine what your machine can do in an absolute sense, which chassis you lot pick is yet important. The PC case (Run into on Amazon) determines what kinds of CPUs and GPUs y'all can install, what your peripheral and storage options are, and what cooling equipment tin can be installed. You may non program to open it often or to change the installed equipment, but every interaction yous have with your system will literally happen through and around the example it uses.

A Dell mini-tower. Note the small number of rear slots.

Cases tend to be marketed as 1 of several types of tower — full tower, mid tower, and mini belfry are the three bones categories, forth with a few for literal "desktop" machines (HTPC). There'due south overlap between example and motherboard sizes, so I'll accost that question more than fully subsequently. Pocket-sized cases are typically harder to piece of work in, both because they give you less room to maneuver when installing or removing components and because you may have to install hardware in a specific order. There are towers, for example, that allow you to access the rear of the motherboard to remove a bolted-on heatsink without having to pull the entire motherboard to practice it. An HTPC case isn't going to offer that kind of benefit.

The other advantage of larger cases, if I'm beingness honest, is that they let you lot be lazier. Need to install a new SSD or HDD, and don't feel like taking the old one out? No trouble. Get out information technology right where it is. At that place'due south ordinarily not much difference in connectivity — small PCs can rival large ones when it comes to USB ports and other peripheral options, if they're designed to do information technology.

Cooling

PC cooling options range from the heatsinks AMD and Intel send with their own boxed processors to various esoteric multi-stage freon units and fanless oil immersion rigs. Most enthusiasts opt for more prosaic air cooling methods.

The typical CPU coolers (Meet on Amazon) from AMD and Nvidia will absolutely keep your CPU inside normal operating temperatures and running fine, fifty-fifty under load. You don't demand to spend money on an aftermarket cooler at all, if you don't desire to. If you do buy an aftermarket cooler, make certain to bank check its intended motherboard orientation, maximum libation height (if installing it into a smaller chassis) and whether it makes installing RAM hard. This last is a common issue; many aftermarket CPU coolers partially overhang RAM sockets when installed. Since most RAM these days has heatsinks of its own, this can make installing or swapping RAM challenging.

Noctua DH15

The Noctua DH15. This is a high-end libation (nearly are not this large and don't employ dual fans).

If I had to choice i CPU cooler brand to recommend, it'd be Noctua. Noctua coolers aren't particularly cheap, only they come with extensive, full-color instructions, include installation hardware like screwdrivers, the build quality of their fans and heatsinks is excellent, and they offer an excellent upgrade policy.

Seb's rig: Noctua NH-U14S cooler

A Noctua NH-U14S, installed. Notation the way the cooler overhangs the RAM slots. Prototype past Sebastian Anthony.

If y'all take an older cooler, in many cases, Noctua offers upgrade kits that will allow you lot to keep using it on a newer motherboard. Given that CPUs have topped out at roughly 140W (with a handful of exceptions) for a decade, this is a bully manner to keep using a valuable component that tin absurd a newer chip just as well as an former i.

Note: CPU coolers are typically rated in terms of their TDP, or Thermal Design Ability. This is the corporeality of oestrus the cooler is designed to dissipate over a given flow of time and should exist matched to the listed TDP of the CPU at minimum. Information technology's fine to use a cooler that can handle a 150W TDP on a 50W chip, but don't try using a 50W cooler on a 150W CPU. It won't fry — we're a bit past that point now — merely the system may destabilize and will run slowly.

Motherboard

The motherboard you choice shapes what your arrangement is capable of and how much expandability you lot can expect in the futurity. There are iii basic motherboard types in the consumer market, in order of size: Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX (mATX), and ATX.

mthbrd_form_factors

ATX motherboards (Run across on Amazon) are full-sized standard consumer products, with a typical seven expansion slots. mATX boards are shorter and offer fewer slots, while ITX boards have the fewest expansion and memory slots of all. If yous're not certain which you want, consider this: About users won't notice the deviation between an ATX versus an mATX board as far equally useful onboard features or capabilities, while an ITX lath does require various meaningful tradeoffs fifty-fifty on low-level features.

A decent rule of thumb: If you know you lot demand a Mini-ITX board for a specific project, that's 1 thing, simply yous'll probably want something larger for whatever general use organisation.

As you lot store for a instance, you'll see them labeled "ATX Full Tower," "ATX Mid-Belfry," etc. Any chassis labeled ATXshould exist capable of treatment a full-size ATX motherboard. Each instance should specifically state which motherboard class factors it supports, including workstation motherboard standards like EATX that we're not discussing here.

The difference between an ATX Full Belfry and an ATX mini tower, if both support a total-sized ATX motherboard, will be the height and clearance within the example itself. Your GPU and cooler options may be constrained if you opt for a small tower, fifty-fifty if the motherboard itself always fits into the available infinite.

CPU

The CPU you pick determines your motherboard. The motherboard you pick determines your CPU (and your RAM blazon). Confused? We tin can help.

CPUs fit into sockets on motherboards, which ways the motherboard has to take the appropriate number of pins (or holes, in AMD'south case). This is commonly referred to every bit a socket standard. Intel's current socket standard is LGA1151, while AMD's is Socket AM4.

The combination of the CPU and motherboard you choose determines your RAM type. We accept to say "in combination," because in some cases, CPUs (Meet on Amazon) have supported multiple types of DRAM, which meant which standard you used was a question of which your motherboard supported. Generally speaking, the motherboard box volition tell you which is which, and given that DDR3 is on its way out, DDR4 should exist the simply solution you really have to worry virtually equally far as DRAM is concerned. Whether you'll be able to beget DRAM is another question.

Past the question of socket compatibility, which CPU you choose has knock-on effects on the balance of the organization build. Higher-cease CPUs typically depict more power and you may want to use a better cooler with top-end models. Ever brand sure to friction match your CPUs listed TDP with the TDP of the cooler y'all are using (CPUs shipped from AMD and Intel will come with an appropriately rated CPU cooler if you lot buy retail packaged parts).

GPU

GPU prices are currently so over-inflated, my honest communication is not to buy a GPU at all and make practice with whatever yous've already got, buy used, or otherwise limp along until the cryptocurrency market calms the hell down.

Apart from that minor problem, the two big GPU issues to be aware of are the physical size of the carte and its overall power consumption. GPUs (Run across on Amazon) are typically divers in terms of the number of slots they take up inside the chassis and the physical length of the carte. Dual-slot cards are now the norm across most of the market, since this design allows for larger, quieter coolers, but this as well ways you demand a certain minimum footprint within your instance.

When picking out a motherboard you'll want to account for this. If you scroll up and look at our motion-picture show of the various motherboard form factors, you'll come across a huge gap between the first and second full-length PCI Limited slots. Not all boards use this layout fashion, but it's a useful fashion to illustrate this issue. In this case, the motherboard manufacturer has chosen to space the first slots out, to allow for a double-sized cooler for each of two GPUs.

R9-295X2

The Radeon R9 295X2. Currently the longest GPU I'm aware of, at over 12 inches.

The other physical constraint to be aware of when ownership a GPU is length — and this plays into what kind of chassis you buy. Any ATX chassis should hold an ATX motherboard, but ATX motherboards are only ix.6 inches broad. Because some smaller chassis allow the drive bays to partially overlap the motherboard tray, you can current of air up with a instance that has less than ix.half dozen-inches of room for a GPU, even though the case itself claims compliance with the ATX standard.

The longest GPU I'm aware of is the Radeon R9 295X2 (pictured to a higher place), at 307mm (12.08 inches). Nearly consumer cards are shorter than this, but e'er check the length of your GPU model confronting the internal width of the motherboard tray.

Power Supply

When choosing a power supply, you'll need to pay attention to several aspects of the situation. First, the PSU (See on Amazon) needs to provide sufficient power for all the components in the system, with some additional room on top for a rubber margin. Sites like Newegg have their own power supply calculators, with varying degrees of complexity depending on how far downwardly this particular rabbit hole yous desire to spring. Generally speaking, 300W will run a desktop without a GPU, 550W will handle a midrange GPU or below, and a high-terminate GPU needs at least 6 hundred watts.

Second, consider the number of six or eight-pin plugs for powering GPUs. 2 eight-pin plugs (or one six-pivot/eight-pin combo) volition drive a single GPU, while four or more may be needed for multi-GPU configurations. Once more, don't assume that more plugs ways the power supply can feed whatever GPU you're because — the wattage and pinouts both need to lucifer the card. The PSU also needs to provide enough ability over the 12V runway for a high-end GPU, though this shouldn't exist an issue for any single GPU system provided you follow the communication above.

Third, consider whether you want an eighty Plus unit or something that offers a higher level of overall ability efficiency. This commodity should offer some additional context for that decision and some general power consumption advice.

Concluding point: Do non buy a generic power supply from a no-name vendor. I cannot, cannot, cannot stress this enough. Gallons of ink have been spilled on this point and they all point in the same direction. Generic PSUs from no-name vendors will die at less than one-half the load they claim to rate, generally. Do not do this. Do non. Skimp everywhere and anywhere else, just do not skimp here.

RAM

RAM prices (Run into on Amazon) are also currently high and may remain that way through the terminate of 2022. DDR4 is the mainstream memory currently on the market (unless you lot know you demand older DDR3, DDR4 is what y'all'll likely exist ownership), but given the current pricing, it's difficult to recommend splurging.

You lot'll desire to deploy RAM in matched sticks in well-nigh all cases, just right at present our advice is to price for affordable chapters outset. See our piece on RAM pricing and affordability in 2022 for more details hither.

Storage

For storage y'all take ii choices — larger, just much slower hard drives, or faster and smaller SSDs. Generally speaking, an SSD (See on Amazon) will always be the amend option, though some users hybridize and employ both, with a moderate-sized SSD as a kicking drive and preferred application installation platform (256GB or 512GB) and a larger (2TB to 4TB+) data storage partition. Media files and other resources can typically be kept on an old-fashioned spinning disk.

SSDs based on the M.ii standard that interface via PCI Express are besides available. These are faster than traditional SSDs, which apply SATA (so do HDDs) but require motherboard support. If you are interested in an Thousand.2 PCI Express SSD, make sure your motherboard has the appropriate slot and level of support. (More information on SSDs and how they function can be plant here.)

If you want to include a Blu-ray bulldoze in your build you certainly can, provided you pick a case that supports i. Optical media playback isn't equally central to PCs equally it was 10 years ago, only the option exists and you tin avail yourself of it. Be advised you lot'll need a 3rd-party Blu-ray playback solution (CyberLink PowerDVD is pretty much the go-to here).

Those are the major components of a typical PC build, apart from specialty cases like sound cards (y'all probably don't demand one). Questions? Comments? Sound off below.