Simply put, the higher the cache, the faster your processor will be able to operate. These days processors typically have 2 to 4 cores, with budget quad-cores even starting to surface.Ĭache () - This is an important and often overlooked aspect. At the moment both Intel and AMD have Six-Core CPU's. Number of cores - Newer operating systems are getting increasingly more efficient at utilizing multiple cores. Things to look for in a CPU regardless of whether you want to go with AMD or Intel:įrequency - Of course this is still important. As with most things in life, the story is much more complicated than that. The basics: One of the most common attributes of a CPU that people go for immediately is frequency. If on the other hand, you want to be able to run the newest, most demanding games at the highest possible settings, than this is right up your ally. If all you do is browse the web and open up an office document occasionally, you might not even benefit from building your own machine. You need to set a reasonable budget, but you also need to have some plan in mind for what you want the machine to be capable of. When getting started there are of course, 2 crucial determinations to make. You can usually build an equivalent machine cheaper than you can from a website, and the options are limitless since you can choose ANYTHING you want to go into it. The final point, is that big packagers make a KILLING on high end machines. When you build a machine yourself it only has what YOU intentionally put on it – Nothing else! Believe me, this is a wonderful thing. Some of these programs, and there may be as many as10 running simultaneously, can seriously slow down what is supposed to be a new, fast PC. The other problem is the software side of things… Not only do you not get an actual copy of the operating system installed on your machine, you get a menagerie of unwanted crap programs (called “bloatware” by many). You don’t get any of this buying a machine from Dell or HP. Most decent motherboards come with a 3 year warranty, good power supplies come with a 3 year warranty, some higher end video cards come with a LIFETIME warranty. You want more coverage than that? Well, you're going to have to pay for it! Unbeknown to most casual buyers, many internal components carry a far longer warranty than this. Usually these machines have a very weak power supply, a bargain basement motherboard (something they got a deal on 10,000 of), and of course, the warranty is what really bothers me. In doing that there are obviously some sacrifices that are made. PC's from big packagers (Dell, HP etc.) are built for one purpose: To make the largest amount of money possible. Thank you and I hope this helps somebody! If you have anything that you think needs to be added, amended, or corrected, please PM Esconder () or myself and we will do what we can to get it resolved. This thread will be a long work in progress, so please be patient as new sections (Motherboards, RAM, Video cards, Hard Drives etc.) are added. The thought occurred to me that if we had a general PC builders thread, it might be a good resource for those considering building a system. My current machine is the culmination of countless hours of review reading, electronics site browsing etc. It was a glitchy mess most of the time, but most computers were back then anyway (and I endured windows ME for much longer than I should have, but let's not talk about that). My 1st machine, built in 2000 with the help of a friend, ran for 7 years. We occasionally get questions on here about PC component selection for Graphics Cards, CPU's Etc.
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