Real-World PC Builds For 2009

PC building these days is on the decline due to the fact more people are buying laptops. This doesn’t mean you should stop building computers (because after all it is very cost effective), but you do have to change the way you shop for your PC parts.

The industry at this point has almost completely given up on the hobbyist builder and have put all their efforts towards only two markets, that being gamers and corporate customers.

Concerning corporate business-grade parts, they are not all they’re cracked up to be.

You could buy a 1U rack-mounted computer but this is meant for server applications and does poorly as a desktop PC. This is mainly due to the fact you’re only given a very limited amount of space to work with, and unless you actually have a place to mount it, it won’t do much for you.

A corporate desktop computer is labeled as a workstation. What’s the difference between a workstation and a regular desktop? Interior accessibility, mostly. If you’ve ever worked on a true workstation PC, you will notice that the parts inside are much better labeled, easy to get in and get out. The tradeoff is that you’re limited with upgrades. Most workstations bought by corporations are never upgraded, so these computer boxes are by nature designed as “easy to replace parts with limited upgrade options.”

Concerning gamer parts, the vast majority of them are poorly constructed and break easily. In other words, they’re toys and bad ones at that. It is very common for something to break on a “gamer” labeled product that you thought never would, such as capacitors blowing on a video card that’s under 6 months old, or a hard drive failing in less than a year, or a fan that has its bearings wear out in 3 months, etc. You get the idea.

The hobbyist PC builder is unfortunately forced to deal with gamer product crap. The corporate stuff is too expensive and doesn’t do the job you want it to do, so the gamer stuff is all you’re left with.

Fortunately there are ways to weed out the crap from the good stuff. Before telling you how to do that, here’s a few terms explained:

“You get what you pay for.”

This used to be true, but no longer. This is because parts listed for the “extreme gamer” are in fact nothing more than high-priced garbage.

“X brand is the best.”

This also used to be true but hasn’t been for some time. Even the best of companies such as Asus and Intel and release stinkers from time to time – and high-priced stinkers at that.

“It has X speed/numbers/etc. so it must be good.”

Not true either. A 15,000 RPM hard drive will fail faster than a 7200. The fastest available processor isn’t the best one. Benchmarks for products are almost a joke these days.

How to spot the good products from the bad

Using NewEgg for my example, here are a few things to watch out for.

“Pro” is better than “Extreme”

Anything labeled as “extreme” is a red flag, because the product is using its speed/power/whatever as a selling point. This usually means that yes, it will be blisteringly fast/powerful, but will break early. “Pro” on the other hand usually signifies quality over speed.

If it comes in multiple colors as a selling point, avoid

This does not apply to all products, however when any PC-specific part starts to wane in sales, the first reaction is to offer it in multiple “fun” colors to cash in as much as the manufacturer can. When that happens, the end product is built cheaper, resulting in something that may be a complete waste of money for you.

If the fact it lights up is a selling point, avoid

This only applies to products that didn’t light up before, but now do. A mouse is a good example of this. The only light you care about is the one underneath so it tracks properly. Any other decorative light does nothing to improve performance or reliability. So what you’re paying for are cheap 5-cent lights, except you paid an extra $20 for that mouse.

What’s good right now for PC parts you can buy?

1. Do not buy bleeding-edge new tech.

All that buying the best and fastest motherboard and processor will do is make you go broke. Instead what you do is purchase parts that have been on the market at least six months. Tenure in the market does count.

2. Have enough power to go around.

All this means is to have a good solid high-wattage power supply. In plain English: 500w or more.

3. Remember that four cores is really, really fast.

I have a 2-core PC with 2GB of RAM. It’s fast. Windows 7 runs like a dream on it with the 512MB video card I have. By today’s standards I am running a dirt cheap box. Do I care? No, because it does what I want without complaint.

If you go 4-core or higher with 4GB or RAM or higher, your computer will be a blazer.

Even with the current 8-core CPUs you can purchase, 4 and 2 will not go obsolete for at least another five to seven years.

4. 7200 RPM hard drives are still your best bet.

SSD (solid state drives) are still too expensive and too small. The tried-and-true 7200 RPM offerings are stable, proven and solid performers.

5. RAM is cheap. Max it out.

If you have a 32-bit motherboard, fill it up with 4GB of RAM. If going 64-bit, put in the most RAM the board will support. You’ll probably have 8 or 16GB worth of banks to fill up. Go ahead and do it. One can never have too much RAM.

6. Remember that your OS can be a bottleneck.

You’ll most likely run Windows. If your Windows is full of crap, your computer no matter how fast will also run like crap. Run CCleaner periodically and keep the drive defragmented.

7. Do not shop for video cards based on on-board memory alone.

Video cards are not so much dependent on their on-board memory as they are their memory interface and GPU.

Memory interface: Rated in bits. 64-bit, 128-bit, 256-bit, etc. Higher bits are better.

GPU: Graphics Processing Unit. Similar to CPU. Based in generations. GeForce 7, 8, 9 or Radeon HD 2000, 3000, 4000, etc. Higher is better.

A video card with a better memory interface and newer-generation GPU with less memory will be faster than a card with higher on-board memory but a lower memory interface and GPU.