Building a PC - Part 1 - Picking Parts

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This week I built my first PC from scratch. Sure, I’ve installed RAM sticks, hard drives and have even swapped out a processor - but I’ve never built an entire machine.

The original plan was to buy my youngest daughter her first PC (bless them they grow so fast). She needs to be able to do her schoolwork and she wants to play games. Nothing too strenuous - we’re not talking Cyberpunk 2077 - more Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite.

Originally, we thought we’d get her a laptop - but she’s not the most careful of kids and we could see it getting dropped and spilt upon. So, a desktop PC seemed better. We can easily replace the keyboard and mouse and besides, she really wants all the crazy rainbow RGB!

With that in mind I looked for an affordable, but capable gaming PC. I needed to balance price against longevity. Ideally it needs to last 6+ years.

There are many places that will build you a custom PC. The most competitive (in the UK) seem to be Box and AWD. But the more I researched the more I was tempted to build a PC myself.

I found an excellent video on YouTube from TechSource that walks you through the process step-by-step. It gave me the confidence to try it myself.

So, first things first - what components to buy?

The absolute minimum you need is:
  1. Processor (CPU) - the brain of the PC
  2. Motherboard - the main circuit board that all the components connect to
  3. RAM - short term memory used by the processor
  4. Hard drive - long term storage for Windows and all your files
  5. Power supply (PSU) - to er, power all this stuff
  6. Case - to put it all in
But you also need a graphics card, right? Turns out they’re REALLY expensive right now. So, a practical alternative is to buy an AMD chip with onboard Radeon Vega graphics. They outclass equivalent Intel chips, and they even give low-end graphics cards a run for their money.

Having researched modest but quality pre-builds I assembled a shopping list on the PC Part Picker website. This site allows you to virtually assemble a PC, warns you of any potential incompatibilities and shows you where to get your kit at the best price.

Here’s what I bought:
  1. AMD Ryzen 5 5600G CPU - has onboard graphics and decent performance. Should last a reasonable number of years. Comes with a Wraith Stealth CPU cooler.
    Bought from Box for £229.99
  2. Gigabyte A520M S2H AM4 socket motherboard - a budget board, but that's fine, I don’t plan to overclock it.
    Bought from CCL Computers for £42.52
  3. Kingston Fury Beast 2 x 8GB 3200 DDR4 RAM - AMD CPUs need a decent amount of fast RAM.
    Bought from CCL for £58.82
  4. Western Digital Blue SN550 500GB M.2-2280 SSD - super fast hard drive that plugs directly into the motherboard. Windows 10 needs about 100GB, the rest is for files. I can always add another SSD later.
    Bought from CCL for £30.19 - a reduction when bought with a motherboard
  5. Cooler Master MWE Bronze v2 450W PSU - this build doesn’t require any more oomph.
    Bought from CCL for £35.19
  6. MSI Mag Forge 100R Mid Tower Gaming Computer Case - a case with good air flow, 2 ARGB fans plus an ARGB hub.
    Bought from Amazon for £49.98
So far that’s: £446.68 - but I also bought:
  1. Ancable PWM 4 Pin 1 to 2 Fan Splitter - because my motherboard only has headers for 2 fans (plus CPU) and the case has 3.
    Bought from Amazon for £4.99
  2. GameMax Viper ARGB 30cm LED Strip - because my daughter wants a technicolour experience, and I may as well make use of the ARGB hub in the case.
    Bought from Amazon for £8.10
That makes a grand total of £459.77 (equivalent to $620 US).

Not bad for quality parts and a significantly lower price than you would pay to have someone else build it.

Besides, it’s not just about the end machine. Putting it together is fun too, right?

Building a PC - Part 2 - Assembly

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