Assembling a PC is a process that is divided into two very important parts.The first one is the choice of components that we are going to use, and the second one involves the assembly and configuration of the equipment. We could think that the second part is the most important and the most complicated, but the truth is that we should not underestimate at all the phase of choosing the components, since the performance of the equipment, its possibilities and its cost will depend on it.
If we make a mistake in the choice of the components. we may end up with a PC with serious imbalances.We may end up with a PC that is not powerful enough to run the games we like, and not powerful enough to perform certain tasks. It is also possible that we end up buying overpriced components that we do not really need, and if this happens we will have made an investment that we will not be able to amortize even in the long term.
I have been in this world for many years, and I have seen many cases of assemblies that had a very good aesthetic and that had been assembled with care and with an exquisite wiring management, but that had a terrible selection of components. One of the clearest examples was a gaming enthusiast who decided to ignore me, and thought it was better to pair a Core i7-10700K and a GeForce GTX 1660 Super instead of opting for a Core i5-10400F and investing the CPU-level savings in a GeForce RTX 2070 Super.
In this article I’m going to share with you a series of basic but very important tips that together, will help you make the right decision when choosing the components you need to build a PC. I will not limit myself to a gaming PC, as I will focus these tips in a general, clear and straightforward way.
How to choose the right components to build a PC
1.-Think about what you are going to do with that PC and choose accordingly.
The first thing you have to think about is what kind of use you are going to give to the PC, and depending on this you will have to have clear how you should distribute the budget you have at your disposal. For example, if you are going to build a PC for office, web browsing and multimedia you will not need a powerful graphics card, in fact you will not even need a dedicated graphics solution to enjoy a good experience, but if you are going to use it for gaming you will need to mount such a component.
- If you are going to build a PC for office use you will have enough with inexpensive components and low-end, as long as you don’t go below a minimum configuration that would look like this: Dual-core, quad-core CPU, 8 GB RAM and SSD.
- In case you are going to assemble a PC for gaming. you will have to opt for more powerful componentsand avoid low-cost solutions, as they offer very poor gaming performance. You should not go below a quad-core, eight-threaded CPU, 16 GB of RAM, the graphics card should be at the level of the Radeon RX 6500 XT-GeForce GTX 1650 Super for a good 1080p experience and an SSD is also a must.
- For professional rigs you will need to do a deeper analysis and assess what kind of programs you are going to use.what kind of components will influence its performance the most and what amount of RAM and storage you will need.
2.-Prioritize components, but without imbalances.
It is all very well to prioritize those components that will most influence the performance of the equipment, and those applications or programs that we will use, as this will allow you to better distribute the budget you have, but we must avoid over-adjusting and falling into absurd configurations.. You should always stay within the minimum values that will help you to avoid component imbalances, something that as many of our readers will know can end up producing a bottleneck.
- In an office PC it would be nice to give some priority to the processor and RAM.but without falling into absurdities such as mounting a CPU with 6 cores and 12 threads and accompanying it with only 4 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD. It would be better to choose a CPU with 4 cores and 8 threads and allocate the money saved to mount 8 GB of RAM and a higher capacity SSD.
- When choosing components to assemble a gaming PC. you should give priority to the graphics card, but without giving up a number of basic points: have a 6-core, 12-thread processor that has a good IPC, include at least 16 GB of RAM and accompany them with an SSD.
- In the case of professional equipment you should prioritize the component that most influences application performance. you are going to use the most. If you are going to edit video or render, the graphics card should be your priority, but without incurring imbalances.
3.-Avoid unnecessary excesses, you will be throwing money away.
The components that we use to assemble a PC are divided, at the moment, in three main categories:
- Low range: groups components that have a low level of performance. In general terms, they are an option that can be interesting to assemble equipment for office and basic tasks.
- Mid-range: a level where we find a huge offer of components. Many of them are the best option to assemble gaming and work equipment with a good price-performance value.
- High-end: at this level are the most powerful components, but also the most expensive. Their price-performance value is usually not as good as that of the mid-range, although in specific situations they can be a good choice.
Within each of these ranges there are a large number of components with very different prices and performance, which means that we must be very careful when choosing. That is why it is so important to have clear minimums that we should not go below, as we have already seen above. However, we must also be clear that there are maximum values that it does not make sense to exceed.
- On a PC for office and basic tasks. it is absurd to spend more than 100 euros on the processor.and there is no point in buying mid-range motherboards or high-performance graphics cards. Nor will you need high-powered power supplies or large amounts of RAM.
- With a gaming PC it makes no sense to spend more money on the processor than on the graphics card. Buying a €400+ CPU just for gaming is an unnecessary excess, and we won’t need more than 16GB of RAM or a high-end motherboard to get a quality setup either. The choice of graphics card will depend on the resolution at which we are going to play, and our aspirations, but in general terms we will have a good experience with the GeForce GTX 1660 Super-Radeon RX Vega 56 at 1080p, and with the GeForce RTX 3060 and Radeon RX 6600 at 1440p. For 4K we will have to choose at least a GeForce RTX 3070 or a Radeon RX 6700 XT.
- A PC for work and professional applications should follow the premises we have already given you. For example, if we are going to use mainly rendering and video editing applications that rely mainly on the graphics card we will have to invest more in this componentbut taking into account the necessary resources for the workload we are going to face. Continuing with this example, a GeForce RTX 4090 would not make sense for 1080p video editing.
If you overdo it and buy components that are too powerful for the use you are going to give to the PC you will have wasted your money because, in the end, you will have very powerful components that you will not be really taking advantage of. These will end up being surpassed by other components within a relatively short period of time, and They will lose value while you are still not getting the most out of them.
4.-Don’t limit yourself to the newest on the market.
Many people tend to limit themselves to the most recent components when choosing parts to assemble their new PC, and this is a mistake, as in most cases the previous generation components still offer excellent performanceand they are much more economically priced. This is a matter that depends on each generation and the market situation at any given time, but it is worth bearing in mind.
For example, currently AMD’s Ryzen 7000 processors offer very good performance, but. they require a larger investment than the one we would have to make if we choose a Ryzen 5000 processor, and this makes the latter a more interesting value in price-performance ratio. The same could be said for Core Gen11 processors, where we find models like the Core i5-11400F, which has a very low price and still performs wonderfully.
This same can be applied to other components, such as RAM, SSDs and power supplies.. You don’t need a PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD capable of 7 GB/s to build a good PC, a PCIe Gen3 x2 model would suffice, and you don’t need to build the latest generation of RAM with ultra-low latency and super high speed.
You can easily go for previous generations with more discrete latencies and frequenciesIn general terms, from DDR4 at 3.6 GHz with CL16 latencies or DDR5 at 5.2 GHz with CL36 latencies we will achieve a good level of performance.
With the issue of power supplies be clear that, in the end, the quality of it is important, but you do not need to go to a new generation model, nor a very expensive one that doubles the power you really need. For example, a mid-range gaming PC equipped with a Ryzen 5 5600, 16 GB of RAM and a Radeon RX 6700 would need no more than a 650 watt power supply, and a model with 80 Plus Bronze certification. would comply without problems.
