I can only vaguely remember how the idea started to form in my mind. However I can recall some of my experiences that I'm pretty sure led me to it. They can be summarized in two:
I had a laptop back in 2006, which was pretty much entry consumer level. It served me well for a while (a year or so), until I decided to do something beyond standard web browsing and watching 480 resolution videos. It also overheated heavily. I tried installing Linux back then, and while it was a whole new experience on its own that granted me a bit more control on graphic settings, it came down to the same. I had a better experience playing videos on Windows (and believe me I tried everything, different software, different configurations, different codecs, and I even tried demuxing and remuxing the video to lower quality). With this I had concluded that even though it hadn't been the norm until now, that software was innocent and the real culprit was the hardware.
My second experience was later on, when I discovered that a friend of mine had a very similar laptop model and was dissatisfied as well. He had similar problems; reduced performance and overheating. He was more experienced than me, and decided to build a PC on his own.
By then I had accepted that any laptop would not suffice my performance demands and only a desktop would give me what I want. I learned up from my friend, and also online, and slowly began to form the PC build in my mind. As a university student my budget for the PC was very tight, so I knew the progress would be slow. Therefore I had to plan the pacing and steps in which I would acquire the hardware.
The plan:
It would take a while to get every single piece of hardware, and you don't want to end up with an outdated build. Therefore you should buy first the pieces less likely to change over time, and buy last the pieces that are the most changing with time. To start, you need to know which parts you are going to need. What makes up a PC?
- CPU
- Motherboard
- RAM
- Storage (could be hard drive)
- Power Supply Unit
- Case, a usually metallic box that holds everything
So, what was my plan? I already had a laptop, and while fulfilling the build was a long way to go for now, I could emulate the desktop experience. And even if I didn't care for it, it's probably something most laptop users get for themselves anyway: keyboard, mouse, speakers and a monitor. All of these were parts that I could use right away and hopefully could use on my build when finished, so there was added value on getting these first. I doubt the mouse and keyboard survived, but the speakers and the monitor did and I still use them to this day.
The next one was maybe a little less obvious: a hard drive. I bought a hard drive with the purpose of using it for my build, however in the meantime I could make use of it for storage with a SATA to USB adapter.
The next parts would be unusable until everything was ready, so this is when buying the least changeable parts rule comes into play. These parts in my build where the PSU (power supply unit) and the case. It was important to take into account when choosing the PSU the wattage you will need, and when choosing the case take into account how many bays will be needed, as well as PCI slots and motherboard form-factor.
Finally, you should buy the remaining parts in a single group. The CPU, the motherboard and the RAM share the most delicate compatibility. Why is this? For starters, CPU's are manufactured into a single socket type, and can only be mounted on motherboards (through the CPU socket) that support that specific CPU socket. This means that if you have to get a different CPU that uses a another socket, you will have to change the motherboard to match the new socket. CPU's also determine which type of RAM is compatible. A few years ago, DDR3 RAM was phased out into the newer DDR4, which was a nightmare if you wanted to upgrade a CPU and motherboard that use DDR3 memory because you would have to upgrade the RAM too.
How it played
Those where the steps in which I followed the plan.
I got the mouse, the keyboard, the speakers and a 20 inch VGA monitor.
Then I got on Amazon the hard drive: a 650 GB Caviar Black from Western Digital, 7200RPM and I think it was 64 MB of cache.
Circa 2011 I searched locally for a semi modular Corsair PSU but found nothing near 750 watts, therefore I bought it on Amazon once again. The computer case local market was also scarce for my tastes, so I tried to buy it on Amazon again, however shipping was very expensive and it came pretty wrecked. So I returned it and had to compromise with a Raidmax mid tower that I found locally.
I didn't manage a time frame for completion, and when the time came to buy the final parts it was 2013. Though I wanted a boost in performance I didn't want to go all in on my budget with this experiment. The compromise was the CPU, which was back then the most expensive part. I got an Intel Pentium Dual Core CPU (G630 LGA 1155) clocked at 2.7 GHz. For motherboard I went for a Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H. I had calculated to use the onboard graphics so I wouldn't have to invest on a GPU just yet.
Parts arrived and when I started to build I realized that I forgot the RAM. I ran the next day and bought a 2 GB dim with a local vendor.
Outcome
In the end, albeit not everything went as planned, and I got stuck using the laptop far longer than I wanted, everything came together very nicely and turned out OK. Ever since, I've made several changes to that build. While a laptop is very restricted in terms of what I can update, with a desktop build I've managed to make many changes. I have:
- Easily added more storage.
- Changed my RAM to dual channel 16 GB.
- Added a 3 GB Graphics Card.
- Added a FireWire PCI Card.
- Added an ODD.
- Added SSD for OS storage, shortening boot up times amazingly.
Later on I created a new build, salvaging everyday use parts from this one and adding brand new parts. I replaced some parts so that I could continue using the first build:
- I moved the parts to a very discrete mATX case.
- Moved the ODD, FireWire, GPU, Corsair PSU to my daily driver build.
- Replaced the PSU for a full modular Seasonic one.
It currently uses a 240 GB SSD for the OS, the old 640 GB and a newer 2 TB drives for storage. I use it mostly as a PLEX server at home, and sometimes for work by hosting development environments and database services. I also expect sometime soon to hand down to it my 3 GB GPU, and add a SATA switch. By now I can't think any further changes to make to it, but so far so good.
