8 Essential PC Building Tips for Beginners

Building your own PC can be incredibly fun and rewarding. But if you lack technical expertise, you may not know how to get started.

Luckily, building a PC doesn’t need to feel like rocket science.

Keep reading to discover 8 essential PC building tips that’ll help you build a PC, even if you’re a beginner. Make it to the end of this post and you’ll know what it takes to turn your dream PC into a reality.

Let’s begin!

1. Think About Your Budget and Needs

Like a lot of projects of this nature, you first need to decide what your budget is and what your needs are. Your needs are going to have a big impact on how much you’ll need to budget.

For instance, if you just need a simple PC for work, you will not need a lot of power in your PC. But if you need to do a lot of video editing, then you will.

You’ll also need a lot of power if you intend to do a lot of ‘high-end’ gaming on your PC. Generally, the more power you need, the more expensive things are going to be.

2. Source the Right ‘Building’ Equipment

Once you know what you want from your PC, you then need to go about sourcing items that are going to help you build your PC.

The first thing you’ll want is a magnetic screwdriver.

The magnetic aspect is important here as it’ll help you keep track of your screws. This is especially helpful if you’re dealing with the small screws associated with building a computer.

You’ll also want to invest in some thermal paste. This is essential when applying certain parts of the PC, such as the ‘heatsink.’

You’ll also need some isopropyl alcohol to remove the excess thermal paste. There will also likely be a need for some cable ties.

You may even want to invest in an anti-static wrap for your wrist. This will help prevent static from damaging some of the components you’re working with. Of course, you can just touch metal to remove static and ground yourself, but you may forget to do this.

3. Find a CPU You Like

You’ll then want to invest in a good CPU. Again, the CPU you buy is going to depend on the kind of needs you have. If you’re looking to do some high-end work, then you’ll need one that’s relatively powerful.

When buying a CPU, there’s generally the option of buying a model from Intel or one from AMD. The CPU’s you can buy are constantly being updated. You’ll want to check out some of the reviews to get a sense of which one is right for you.

4. Invest in Key Components

Aside from the CPU, there are also some other key components you’ll need to invest in.

One example is the graphics card.

You’ll find that there are many options to choose from and this can sometimes be overwhelming. To make things easier, consider reading some reviews of the graphics cards on offer. When reading reviews, try to find reviewers that have the same needs as you.

You’ll also need to invest in a hard drive. Ideally, you’ll want an SSD.

This is going to improve the performance of your computer. The size of your SSD should be enough so that you don’t find yourself worrying about space anytime soon.

For most people, something around the 500GB mark is enough to make this the case. Remember, reviews are your friend here. Read reviews, like this wd black 2tb review, to figure out which hard drive meets your needs.

You’ll want to have some RAM. RAM can have a big impact on how fast your computer operates. But a lot of people tend to buy more RAM than they need.

You should be able to get good results with around 16GB of RAM.

The good thing about RAM is that it’s not that hard to upgrade. So should you find at a later date that 16GB of RAM isn’t enough, you can just buy another ‘stick’ and plug it in.

There will also be a need for a Power Supply Unit (PSU). This is a very important component and you don’t want to be cheap here.

Find a highly reviewed model and be willing to spend enough. If you have questions, determine your power needs and buy a PSU that can support such needs.

5. Find a Motherboard

The motherboard is like the central hub for your PC. When buying a motherboard, you want to pick one that can handle all the components you want to use.

So make sure it can handle your CPU, RAM and graphics cards, for instance. But you’ll also want to double check that it can provide you with the right number of ports. It may be the case that you need a certain number of USB ports or even ethernet ports.

6. Buy a Case

You’ll also need a case that can house all the items you’ve purchased.

There are a lot of cool designs to choose from. But again, you need to make sure you pick a case that’s going to be compatible with your motherboard and every other component.

7. Buy an Operating System

Odds are the equipment you’re buying doesn’t come preinstalled with an operating system (OS). Because of this, you’ll need to invest in something like Windows.

Make sure you buy this software from a reputable retailer so that you know you’re investing in legitimate software.

8. Have Fun

Building a computer can become stressful. But you need to remind yourself to have fun throughout the process.

If you find yourself feeling a little bit overwhelmed, that’s fine. Just check out some YouTube videos to get some advice on how you can solve the PC building problem in question.

Ready to Use These PC Building Tips?

Building your own PC can be a lot of fun. But to someone who has little experience with this kind of thing, it can also be quite intimidating.

In this post, we’ve explored some pc building tips you can use to make things easier. You need to consider what you want the PC to do. You should then focus on buying components that will help deliver those needs.

There’s plenty of help out there. If you’re stuck on one aspect of the process, you can always hop onto YouTube or perform a quick Google search and figure out what the next step looks like.

Do you have a virus on your computer? Check out this guide to learn how you can remove viruses from your computer.