Computer Building 101 - THE PARTS, part 2

Today we continue our plunge into the world of computer parts. In part 1 we introduced the CPU (processor) and the MB (motherboard). In part 2, we will look at three components: RAM (random access memory), the PSU (power supply), and HD's (hard drives).

THIS IS COMPUTER BUILDING 101 - THE PARTS, PART 2. TALLYHO!


RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY. MEMORY. THIS IS MEMORY. RAM.

Many people confuse this with hard drives. The two components store information but that's about it. RAM is used by the processor to temporarily store information. Once it no longer needs the information or you turn off the computer, the information stored in RAM it is gone. The key difference between RAM and Hard drives is that th CPU can write info to RAM much faster than to a hard drive. So enough history... which is probably lacking and wrong, let get on with what to look for in RAM. First there are different types. Right now, in any system you plan on purchasing, there really are only two DDR2 and DDR3. One is older and one is newer. Thankfully pricing is relatively the same for both. What kind you need depends on your motherboard. If it supports DDR2, get DDR2. Pretty simple on the surface. Some motherboards support both, but usually limit the number of slots available (2 slots for each). So once you decide what type you need, there is also the speed to consider. DDR2 standard is 800 (or PC 6400) an DDR3 is 1600 (or PC 12800). There are other speeds available but those are the most popular and will be most compatible. Next up, how much? Do I get 4 Sticks that are 1 GB each, or 2 that are 2 GB each... how about 4 that are 2 GB each; YOU CAN NEVER HAVE ENOUGH. Well, you actually can. Operating System come in two flavors at the moment: 32 bit (or x86) and 64 bit (or x64). 32 Bit operating systems can only address up to 4GB of ram, no more. 64 bit, in theory, can support 16 exabytes of ram. Thats 17.2 billion gigabytes. So if you think you need more that 4 GB (and let's face it, you are building you own machine, and RAM is cheap, your are going to STACK IT) make sure to install a 64-bit version of you favorite operating system (OS [windows, linux, etc]). You also are limited to how many RAM slots are available on you motherboard. This number usually ranges from 2, 4, and now 6.

So now you've decided what type of RAM, what speed, and quantities. What brand? There are lot of name brands and not so name brands. Known quality brands are: Corsair, Kingston, Crucuial, among others. I myself go by pricing and the reviews found on NewEgg.com, due to the many no-name manufacturers out there and their actually dependable products. I've purchased from the three manufacturers before and also the following: A-Data, Mushkin, AllComponents, Super Talent, Wintech, PQI, and others. Basically follow the reviews and if they are mostly positive, you can usually purchase with confidence.

THE POWER SUPPLY, PSU.

As the name entails, the power supply gets power from your wall/power strip to the motherboard and the various components in your system. Now, there are ATX and MicroATX power supplies, so how do you know which one to use. "Well professor, if you have a MicroATX motherboard you need a MicroATX PSU, right?" Nope. "Uh, well... I know, If you get a MicroATX case!" Not necessarily, but that's as close as you are going to get. The only reason you would need a MicroATX , or any other power supply what physically differs from the normal ATX spec, is the physical restraints of the case. In most cases, you use the ATX PSU. But you need to pay attention when buying a case that it does not need a "special" size PSU.

Were going to assume that you went the sensible route and picked up a decent, basic case that supports the ATX spec.

First you need to find a PSU that will supply enough power to run and not faint. A nice 500 watt PSU will handle most systems just fine with power to spare. The only time you need to look into something beefier is when you are dealing with high end video card(s) that require MOAR POWER! Otherwise, a nice 400~500 watt PSU will do you just fine. The next step is to look into the connectors you will need. SATA power connectors are different than the older 4 pin variety. You need to inventory your components. For example: you have a motherboard that uses the standard 24 Main Power Plug, a additional 8 pin plug close to the CPU socket, you decided to buy a nicer video card and "surprise" it needs it's own 6 pin PCI-E plug and you bought a nice SATA DVD Burner, and big 1 Terabyte SATA Hard Drive, and you also want to add in an old IDE Hard drive that you took from your old system. Well, if you have all this stuff, you need a PSU that has a 24 pin main connector, a 8 pin 12V connector, a 6 pin PCI-E(X?) connector, 2 STATA power connector, a 1 4-pin peripheral connector. You will see the decription 20+4 when looking for the main connector info or 4/8 when looking for the 12v/Auxillary connector. They just mean that they can be used for either configuration (there are some 12V connections that just need the older 4 pin and the same with the main connector (20 instead of 24)).

So now you have decided on the size, capacity, and the amount of connectors. Now, what brand to go with? I say this, you don't necesarily want to go cheap with you PSU. It has the power to run you dream machine or turn it into a bunch of useless parts. I have had luck with the HEC/Compucase brand. They sell cheap PSU's but they perform well and it is reflected in the reviews. The cheaper yet dependable brands include, FSB, Corsair, Thermaltake, Rosewill, HiPro, among others. These manufacturers also sell high end. Again, read the reviews and choose accordingly. I would have to recommend spending around $50 to get a reliable PSU. But I leave that up to you.

HARD DRIVES ARE NOT MEMORY. HARD DRIVE, STORE ALL YOUR STUFF.

RAM = Memory, HARD DRIVE = Storage. There. Now that's outta the way let's move on. The first decision to make is how big? Hard drives start at around $35 for an 80G. And within a few bucks of that price they double in size. Pretty cool huh? So it make sense to get at least a 500G hard drive. Many people buy a smaller driver, say a 120GB or 160GB drive for the Operating System and the programs and then another drive to store all the pictures, videos, music, documents, etc. But most just purchase one big one and deal. I've sauntered between the two camps and out of laziness, sit in the middle but closer to the ONE DRIVE TO RULE THEM ALL, camp. If i need another drive I just get an external.

So, now you've decided on a size, you just need to decide on a manufacturer. "But what about the difference between IDE and SATA" Seriously? Get a SATA drive. "But, but" No. SATA. There is no reason to buy an IDE drive. They are slow and a fast approaching extinction. There's not even a price difference... oh yeah there is... they are now getting more expensive.

"What about speeds?" 7200 RPM... anything else? "Buffer size?" Um,... bigger the better?

I defer to my non-existent expertise in the field of Hard Drive anatomy. Most hard drives spin at 7200 RPM. You want faster, say 10K RPM? They are out there, but cost a lot more money. As far as the buffers and such, you could do some research or be like me a just focus on price, capacity, and dependability (based on reviews).

Now, onto companies who make hard drives. There are a number of makers but I will only name 3 here: Western Digital, Seagate, and Hitachi. Between those three you should be able to find a suitable hard drive.

Yes, I guess I could include Samsung as well.

Coming up next in part 3: Optical Drives, Video Cards, and Cases. W00T!

Click Here to Read More..

Computer Building 101 - THE PARTS, part 1

So, you have always wanted to build a computer and for some reason you found yourself perusing IAMTHESECRETNINJA.COM. Well here it is, your one stop shop on what you need to buy to build your own custom computer and how to put it together.

THIS IS COMPUTER BUILDING 101 - THE PARTS, PART 1.

So why should you build your own machine? Well, that's an easy question, because you think it might be a learning experience, it might be fun, you control what goes into the box and what is installed on the hard drive, etc, etc. It might even be cheaper, but, honestly, OEM's are building machines on the cheap nowadays. What it comes down to is that you feel you will get better value for your buck by building you own machine and it just feels right.

Because that's how we roll here.

OK, first off you need to find and purchase the parts necessary to build your awesomebox. I mostly purchase my parts from NewEgg.com, but there are other online retailers out there.

There are many decisions that you, the consumer, need to make when picking out the parts for a computer, or even picking up a machine from Best Buy or Wall Mart: what do I need this computer to do? Gaming? Video editing? Web surfing/email? Writing papers? Watching movies? Frankly, even the cheapest, lowest end systems rolling out of Dell, HP, Gateway, etc, will get the job done when it comes to anything other than Gaming and Video editing... and maybe watching those HD movies that just happened to be in you Downloads folder. You don't need to spend a fortune to get the result you want. Even if you don't game or edit HD video but "might" in the future, we can make sure it will be able to or allow for an upgrade in the future.

You typically need the following: Motherboard, Processor, RAM, Hard Drive, Power Supply, Video Card, Optical Drive, and a Case.

THE ALMIGHTY CPU, PROCESSOR, CHIP, ETC ETC.

When deciding to build a machine, pick your processor first. There are two manufacturers that matter at the moment:

&

AMD and Intel. AT THE MOMENT, AMD is less expensive and Intel is more powerful, however, for most users (surfing the web, listening to music, email, writing letters, etc) the only thing that matters is the price and AMD fits the bill, and is powerful enough to rock you like a hurricane. Yes, I do prefer AMD, but Intel is good as well, just too expensive for my tastes. You do get better performance, on a whole, going with Intel; but for me it doesn't justify the cost. Many swear by them and that's cool, I stand by AMD.

So you've chosen which brand and you are looking at pricing and performance. When you find a chip that works, you need to look at some of the specs. Nowadays, multiple core processors are the standard. You should buy, at the very least, a dual core processor. There are dual, triple, and quad core processors available so take that in account when purchasing. Basically, a core represents a processor. Having a dual-core is like having two processors in your machine. Literally, it is not, but it acts like it and it improves performance. The more cores, the more things you can do at any given time. A lot of new software take these cores into account an leverage the power to improve performance. In the case of video games, it has allowed developers to push the envelope with visuals and game play mechanics (of course the GPU [video card] plays a bigger role, but you need a good CPU [processor] as well).

You also need to pay attention to what socket you can plug the processor into and what RAM is supports. AMD, for example has 3 popular sockets at the moment, AM2, AM2+, and AM3. Thankfully, AMD has made it possible to drop an AM3 chip (the newest socket) into an AM2 or AM2+ socket. But AM3 motherboard will not support AM2 or AM2+ chips, unless it specifically says it will (mostly due to the type of RAM the motherboard supports). Intel is more straight about it, you buy a LGA775 chip, it goes into a LGA775 Board, and so on. It's really not a bad deal either way. But it's something you need to be aware of so that you don't pick a chip and a motherboard and when the time comes to assemble, you aren't running into issues with functionality or physical fit.

THE MOTHER OF ALL BOARDS.... THE MOTHERBOARD

The Motherboard is pretty much what the name entails. You need a lot of parts to build a computer, but all of it plugs into the motherboard. There at two main sizes:

&

ATX and MicroATX.

The ATX form allows for more PCI slots (the vertical bars on the left side of the board) and this in turn allows for more expandability. The physical size matters if you end up getting a case that only supports MicroATX as an ATX board will be too wide to fit. The mounting hole configuration allows basic compatibility when installing the board in a case, so as long as the board will physically fit, the mounting hardware will align so you can mount your board.

Your motherboard selection heavily depends on what processor you will use. Also what your needs are. Most, if not all, consumer class motherboards have network and sound chips built in. Many (mainly MicroATX boards) have onboard (built in) video as well. All these features built into the motherboard make it a much easier affair to build your own system. The only downside to this is that typically these components are not as powerful as dedicated add-on card, but for most users, it is more than adequate. Another consideration is the number of optical drives and hard drives you want to have. Most users can get by with one of each. But those that need dual DVD burners and 3 or 4 hard drives need to take that into consideration when buying a motherboard. The number of SATA and IDE connections limit the number of these devices unless you buy an add on card to expand. But for the most part you, the user will have enough connectors to build your machine.

Stay tuned for part 2 of "BUYING FROM OEM's IS FOR SISSYS, WE ROLL CUSTOM"

hopefully tomorrow.

Click Here to Read More..