How to Build a Fast Computer at a Great Price

The Three Steps in Getting a New Personally Built PC

1. Decide What To Buy

Research, research, and more research.


2. Decide Where to Buy It

More research.


3. Build It

The fun part!



1. Deciding What to Buy

This can be a be a daunting task all in its own. In fact its probably harder to decide what to buy than how to put it together. There are lots of choice to be made, and it is easy for one to get caught up in the research and continually changing prices and put off buying because of it. One of the first rules to learn when buying computer hardware is that the price will always be lower tomorrow, and the chips will always be faster, but if you don't have them it doesn't matter.

You have to decide if you are going to build the whole thing from parts, or if you are going to let a custom PC manufacturer build part of it and you are going to finish it off. Sometimes it costs no more to let place you buy it from put it together for you. Odds are this means that the settings for the hardware, and compatibility tests we be more assured. Of course don't get fooled into thinking they don't make mistakes.

I am going to assume you are going to buy the whole thing in parts and put it together one by one. If you decide to let another party build part of it for you, you will just have to skip ahead to the instructions for the components you wish to install.

A list of components that must be purchased:

Case (usually comes w/ power supply)

Processor (CPU)

Motherboard

Hard Drive

Memory (RAM)

Video Card

Monitor

Mouse

Keyboard

Optional components that you will want to have:

3.5" Floppy Disk Drive

CD ROM

Sound Card

Modem

Speakers, Powered

Other completely optional components:

DVD ROM (replaces CD ROM usually)

CDR or CDRW Drives (CD writers or rewriters)

DVD-RAM Drive (New to the market, allows you to write to DVD disks)

ZIP Drive, SuperDisk Drives, and other removable media.

Network Card

Tape Backup Drives

Scanner

Printer

Microphone

Video Camera (i.e. Web camera)

Digital Camera

2. Deciding Where to Buy It

Using the price guides is one of the most beneficial tools on the web. Try all that you can find, the main ones are:

These places will give you the best prices on the web, but they make no attempt to show you which of these companies you should buy from. Bizrate.com takes care of this by "interviewing" customers that have purchased from internet retailers and then compiles the results. See for yourself at:

The next thing to consider is what to buy from what source. You will probably find that many internet retailers have the lowest price on a particular item but not on everything you want. Usually you will be able to buy a few items from one retailer and a few from another. Make sure you don't purchase from too many different retailers. Not only will this cause a lot of confusion but you will get charged for shipping each time you order and from each retailer you order from. Many times this shipping charge will eat all of the savings be sure to consider this when shopping for the lowest price. Some retailers don't tell you how much shipping is when you order, this is ridiculous, they should all tell you right when you order, usually you can email them and get the shipping price that way, then place the order.

 

3. Build It  

How to Install:

How To Cool Your System

 
Copyright © 1999 How To PC. All rights reserved.
Revised: October 13, 1999 .