To those who've built their own computer

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Minus the case what parts did you use? How much did it cost? What do you recomend I buy? How has your computer worked for you thus far? I'm looki f to build my own and am in need of advice.

I forget the exact specs, and its a few years old now, but I have a Gigabyte motherboard, an Intel processor, Kingston memory, a Seagate hard drive and an OCZ PSU.

Things like the CD/Floppy drives and SCSI card were recycled from older machines.

Only problem I had was with the memory. Originally I had Crucial memory, which failed after 2 years. As it was covered by a lifetime warranty, I returned it to the supplier, and they replaced it with some better spec'ed Kingston memory.

Have you built a computer before? If not, its dead easy and there isn't really anything to go wrong. Cost will probably be roughly the same as buying a ready made machine, unless you get old stock parts or have any recycled parts.

I can't really suggest anything without knowing what you intend to use it for and how much you want to spend. Unfortunately, my knowledge of this industry is a bit limited these days, but its not usually too hard to track down suitable parts.

For motherboards:

if you stay with an Intel CPU, go with Intel Motherboards, followed by Asus and ABit, as long as they contain Intel north and Southbridges

For AMD: Go with Asus or Abit, preferably with the VIA chipset.

STAY AWAY FROM ANY MOTHERBOARD THAT CONTAIN EITHER THE ACER OR SIS CHIPSETS. YOU'LL HAVE COMPATABILITY PROBLEMS OUT THE WAZOO.

Video: nVIDIA and ATI pretty much rule the roost, so pick whatever floats your boat.


Hard Drives: You only have Seagate, WD, and Toshiba, so again, pick whatever floats your boat.

Optical Drives: Ya want the best? Go with Plextor. Ya want garbage, go Pioneer.

Ethernet: Unless it's already on the motherboard, Go Intel, preferably units that use the old DEC Tulip sets.

Memory: No contest. Kingston.

That's odd. I've always had good results with Pioneer. If you ask me. I think there the best.

Every Pioneer drive I've ever bought ended up on the trash heap after 6 months. I know Apple was using Pioneer cores for a while for their optical drives. Biggest issue with stock Pioneer and their OEM counterparts was firmware. The stock Pioneer parts firmware, IIRC could not be updated very easily.

Plextor, on the other hand, was, at least while I was still building my own PCs, very highly regarded in the press. They were easily upgradable when it came to firmware updates, and Plextor's customer support was always very responsive to the customer.

I did it the lazy way. I went onto ebay and bought an upgrade kit, which contains a motherboard, a CPU and RAM. I used an old case. I bought an 825 watt PSU just to be on the safe side. I bought a Geforce 680 last year though now days I'd recommend a Geforce 780. They're excellent cards for triple monitor gaming or stereo 3D gaming. I later added more RAM and a bluray burner. Eventually it got up to three hard drives plus a solid state boot drive. Storage is about six terabytes. How much did it cost? I can't remember but the graphics card was quite expensive. The hardest part was cable management.

I knew someone who built his own computer and it cost him about $600.

I built my own box back in 2000 - got the specs from a friend who was very interested in hardware, he was into overclocking.

Pentium III on ASUS motherboard.
512 MB Memory
(don't laugh) 40GB HD (Seagate or WD) ( added an 80 GB drive in 2004)
Nvida graphics card (Voodoo 3).
Windows 2000 pro.
3.5 " floppy.
Added CD ROM drive, lather DVD/CD Rom drive.

It ran 24/7/365 (unless I was on Vacation) until late 2010 when I finally got sufficiently concerned about it's age to replace it with a "modern" box.
It still works I'm probably going to decommission it at the end of this year, now that I can create Win2k VMs on other boxes.

I used to build all my computers.

I just bought a big lot of old parts, on an auction site, and I just assembled the best parts together.
However, for some reason, I appear to have stopped, and I prefer to use branded computers now.

Gigabyte mobo on one, Intel on the other.
Intel processor on both.
nVidia on both.
WD HDs on both. Get two HDs - one to run from, a second to back up to. I use Macrium.
Memory I can't remember.

I look over the user comments, and buy from, newegg mostly, and sometimes Amazon or TigerDirect.

No overclocking. These computers are also used for kids to do homework, and I CANNOT have them crashing.

Can't remember CD/DVD. Lightscribe was a waste of money.

If you are gaming with it, you might want to spen more on the video card and less on the other parts. I found out the hard way the game I play doesn't really take advantage of the newer nVidia cards I bought.

If you are NOT gaming, man, I would really recommend you at least check out the off-lease work computers from TigerDirect. Especially the small form factor (SFF) ones. Since they are SFF, they are hard to upgrade, so nobody wants them, so they are cheaper. Consider them a disposable item. This is what I do for the third computer. I have had three used ones from TigerDirect so far, in about 13 years. Note that they usually do not come with a monitor.

If you are putting the computer together in the winter when the humidity is low, make sure to get a grounding wrist strap. Or at least touch a piece of metal on the case before opening the anti-static bag containing whatever, then touch it again.

Build it July 2012:

Mobo: ASUS P8Z77-V
CPU: Intel Core-i5 3570K
Cooler: Corsair H50 Water Cooler
RAM: 4x4 GB 2133 G.Skill X
GPU: EVGA Nvidia GTX 670 FTW
PSU: CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gold, Certified 80+ Gold
SSD: Corsair Force Series 340 GB
HDD: 3 TB WD Black - Enterprise Class
OS: Windows 7/Linux Mint 13

I don't remember, I bought a lot of them off of New Egg sales or preferred customer coupons. Somewhere in the ball park of 1,600 dollars. I spend a considerable amount of time on my PC, so I have no problem dropping a lot of cash into it every three years.


All in all, everything works quite well.

What are you planning on doing with this computer? What parts you should use will be dramatically different depending on this. I built this one mostly for BT5 (you know, for all the "penetration testing" I do). Here are the parts I bought.

Hard drive: PNY 120 GB solid state

RAM: Corsair 8 GB card

Optical drive: generic CD burner that in hindsight I should have bought at the local thrift shop which always has a ton of them

Processor: AMD A4 5300 Dual-Core. The box says 3.4 GHz, but I overclocked it to do... I'm too lazy to check, but it's doing more than that now.

Motherboard: MSI FM2-A75MA-E35

Fan: Thermaltake TR2 600W

Power supply: I don't remember

wifi adapter: alfa awus036h

I'm probably leaving something important out, but that's all I can remember in my current, sleep deprived state. It all came out to about $500 total.

In addition to this, I salvaged some goodies from a desktop that fell victim to user incompetence. I've also been digging through piles of crushed computers that I find in one of my favorite places to go dumpster diving. They really hate dupster divers there (probably why they crush the computers) but there are always at least some good parts left. The fans are especialy important to me because while overclocking improves your speed, it increases the ammount of heat you're giving off and um... you can see how that could become a problem.

The computer I'm using right now isn't pretty to look at. I have an ancient emachine keyboard that's from the early nineties, equally old speakers that are slightly damaged and a damaged monitor that has this square in the upper right corner that refuses to work sometimes, and a ball mouse (that I routinely have to take apart and mess with to keep it working) but all of the previously mentioned parts were free and I think that's pretty awesome.

If you're a gamer or something like that, my build wouldn't work for you at all. You see, someone who just wants to crack passwords will have a very different system from someone who wants to edit videos & someone who wants to do PC gaming will have very different needs from both of them. Could you please tell us what you plan to do on this computer to make it easier for us to help you? Sorry if I bored you by overexplaining something

Well, you are asking a very loaded question. What you want depends on what you want to be able to do with it and how much you are looking to spend.

If you just want to do the usual PC stuff, but nothing "high end" (e.g., video production or serious gaming), you can get some really cheap stuff that will surpass your needs. Indeed, a "store bought" PC might be more than enough for you.

I'll tell you what I did in my latest build.

1. I wanted to do video production. That meant digital horsepower. I looked at Tom's Hardware Guide to see what the processors were like at the time. I went with an Intel i7 Quad-Core. This dictated what kind of motherboard I would need, and I went with Asus because of it's established quality. I didn't buy the fastest CPU at that time because it would be insanely expensive for only a marginal increase in performance. However, I did buy a motherboard that could support a much faster i7 so I had the option to upgrade the CPU in the future.

2. For a high-end computer, I always buy gamer-quality hardware, but I keep it real. Corsair memory, Western Digital Black Caviar HDDs (2 as I have a dual-boot system...XP and Windows 7). I went with Nvidia for the video card since I've had unhappy dealings with ATi in the past and wasn't inclined to give them my money anymore. I needed a good video card because I wanted multiple monitor support (even if I didn't use it now).

3. I went with an Antec PSU because quality matters. A good PSU will give you the rated wattage with stable power. Cheaper PSUs tend to only give you 50% of what they are rated before they might become unstable on the 12v rail and cause glitchy performance or random reboots.

4. The case was more one of choice based on looks and air circulation. It's rarely a costly choice. I bought quiet fans, and I think the hardest thing to track down was the heatsink for the CPU itself. It's massive, but it's very quiet once the power management kicks in. When I'm playing Lord of the Rings Online, it's like having a space heater by my feet, but it never overheats and stays quiet.


Every time I've built a PC, I've had to "relearn" the market because so much has changed, and I don't want to overspend. I think the build above was about $2,000-$2,500 US.

Yeah, I can tell you about what I did, but it's central that you tell us what you want the computer for and what price range is reasonable for your budget. After that, we can probably help a lot better.

HP DC7800P

3.5 TB HDD space all up.
3.5gb DDR2-800 RAM.
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33ghz
Nvidia GeForce 210 pci-e graphics.
Pirated Windows 8.0.


System might be a little dated, but sytem runs so smooth, and well I'm not looking at replacing it anytime soon.

All the extra parts, the system probably cost me no more than NZ$250