Building your own PC can seem like a great idea if you want the perfect machine for your needs and to save money in the process. It can also be a great experiment and a way to gain a very valuable skill.
With that being said, building a PC is hard work. It’s very easy to make mistakes, and you also have to see if building a PC is worth your time and effort before you start. There are also very important questions that will first need to be answered to make sure that you’re satisfied with the machine you end up with. Let’s take a look at some questions that you should ask yourself before building your first gaming PC.
How Do I Rate My Level of Manual Skill from 1 to 10?
You first have to know that building a PC requires just as much if not more manual skills than technical skills. So, if you know yourself to be clumsy, this might not be the best project for you. Just one bad move could end up ruining your whole machine and put you thousands in the hole. This is why you have to be 100% sure that you have the manual skills needed to go ahead. You should also look at footage of people building PCs and see if this is something you could see yourself doing and actually enjoy.
What Kind of Gaming Am I Going to Do?
The next thing you have to do is check the type of gaming you like to do the most. This is what will dictate the type of components you’ll need to have. Someone who likes to play MMORPGs and first-person shooters will need a very different machine to someone who likes to play online casino games, for instance.
If you’re into online gambling, we would strongly suggest that you look up several online casinos and check their minimum and recommended requirements. Some casinos are much more demanding because of how elaborate the games are and gathering a list will give you an idea of what online casinos require on average. If you want a great list of casinos to choose from, check out OnlineCasinos.
If you’re into classic AAA games, then the most important thing will be the GPU. But don’t make the mistake of going overboard here, even though the savings you make by building your PC could cover the costs.
There is no point in investing in a card that can handle ray tracing when most of the games don’t even use it. A middle-of-the-road card like a GTX 20 series or an RX 6000 will be more than enough for most games. So, save your money and spend it somewhere else, like on good SSD storage.
We say this because many people overlook the type of SSD they use for their machines and assume that any SSD will do. But for gaming, especially for open-world games that draw heavily on a computer’s storage, the type of SSD is just as important as the size.
There is a whopping 3000 mb/s maximum data reading speed difference between NVMe PCIe SSDs and SATA 3 SSDs, and you can only imagine how much it will affect gameplay. So, go beyond the name and look at the different types of SSD storage available.
Another thing you shouldn’t overlook is the possibility of going for an integrated graphics card. This is not the best option for all gamers, but it could be for you if you like to play light games. Also, know that you can always swap it out later.
How Much Money Can I Spend?
Your budget will also make a huge difference when building a PC. You need to have a clear budget from the beginning so that you can tell where your priorities will lie.
If you’re operating on a strict budget and you’re struggling to choose where you should spend most of your money, then you have to go in order of importance. In most cases, you don’t need a processor with a clock speed higher than 2ghz and four cores. So, unless you’re going to play CPU-intensive games, which are not very common, or want to do other tasks outside of gaming like 4K editing or 3D rendering, then you don’t have to go very high with the processor.
Most people will be torn between going for high RAM or more expensive SSD at the beginning. It would be a good idea to see if you could spend on a higher quality SSD first. It’s usually better to have high-quality SSD and average RAM than the other way around. High-quality SSD will allow you to enjoy great quality at the beginning and you can switch your RAM later on.
What About Overclocking?
Overclocking is when you run components at a higher rate than what is recommended by the manufacturer. This is relatively safe if you use an overclockable motherboard and components, but you will need to take extra precautions, specifically when it comes to cooling. This means that you may have to spend a little bit more on your cooling system.
Here, you can choose between an air- or water-cooling system. Air cooling systems are efficient and inexpensive, but not quite as powerful as water cooling systems. Water cooling systems are also much quieter.
Water cooling systems are viewed as better for overclocking but think twice before overclocking in the first place. You first have to look at the games you intend to play as overclocking may only give you a marginally better experience and may not be worth the risk of the higher cost of replacement since overclocked motherboards and components wear out much faster.
All of these questions will have to be answered before you even start shopping around for components. This will prevent you from making crucial mistakes, keep your costs under control, and ensure that you get the perfect machine for your gaming type.
