Box Project #1

When did computers turn into a machine with so few individual components? Feels like I’m buying chunks of the machine already partway put together.

Here’s my parts list. Only seven items.

Plenty of room for upgrades in this, I know. That’s why the case isn’t one of those ridiculously tiny things the size of a sweater box. Those things… kind of weird me out, tbh. To me a computer is a big fifty-pound thing encased in sheet metal. But I digress.

Reasoning behind the parts list:

• Integrated graphics is fine to start with. I’m not a rabid gamer. I could go out and buy someone’s 18-month-old external graphics card if I decided it wasn’t good enough, though. The case has room.
• There’s no Windows license included. This should be obvious. It’s going to run Debian, of course. (I’ve had Elementary OS on a partition on my laptop for months… I’m kinda neutral on it. Shrug.) Windows might get a VM or a corner of the hard drive if my school has it for free, but otherwise…
• Processor is quad-core, decent speed but not the fastest available. I like my VMs. The fans it comes with should be fine since I don’t feel the need to overclock it.
• Antec case because I’m not a masochist–I want something nice to work in. It’s a sleek, sort of minimalist black, no weird lights or anything–and it’s $48 from Amazon.
• A solid Antec power supply with the 80+ eco-whatever certification that means it’s efficient. I’ve had enough issues with laptop power supplies that I’m just super done with cheapness in this component.
• 8GB RAM is solid enough for a Linux box, although there’s obviously room for upgrades. If I were building this to run mainly Windows I’d want 16GB.
• Terabyte hard drive. I considered buying an SSD instead, or even a tiny one for just the operating system, but for now I’m putting that under the header of potential upgrades. They’re getting cheaper all the time, so it may be smart to wait, and this is good enough for me for now.
• Nothing special about the CD/DVD drive. It reads, it writes, it’s $20.
• Motherboards are kind of confusing to me. I don’t know what I’m looking for and they’re all labelled “gaming.” This one looks good though. ASUS is a good brand, it has enough RAM bays and outputs, and I’m pretty sure I looked up what the integrated graphics card was like when I picked it out months ago. My older brother (who built loads and loads of computers in the late nineties/early naughties and still takes stuff apart sometimes) thinks it looks good too so I’m running with it.

That’s my build–I’m ordering it now. It comes to about $600, which is a reasonable price for a computer where ALL the components are good quality, rather than just the ones that get showcased on the label (you ever hear a big-box computer store boast that their case and power supply are good quality? or that their computers are this upgradeable?). In other words, a “business” computer. That’s code for “it isn’t totally crap.”

Also, I don’t have to pay the Windows tax. ò_ó

I’ll let you all know when I get this done and can report on the experience and the performance of the result, so you can use or tweak my build example for your own purposes. I’ve never built a computer before but I’ve watched them being built and fixed, and lots of people are saying it’s gotten easier over the years. Anyway, I’m pretty jazzed about my new tech and this should be really neat!

Happy hacking!

Rebekah

 

Edit: Lucky I wasn’t being too literal when I said I was off to order it now. Martin in the comments is pointing out that I’m paying for way too much motherboard power and way too much power supply wattage. (I probably thought I was being careful when I picked these out and overestimated it.) I was not aware that there were calculators available for power supply needs–I didn’t see it in the PC building manual I bought or the online articles I read, and this seems a little on the bizarre side. If this were more my thing, I’d probably write my own, but I doubt I’ll have call to build more computers any time soon so I probably won’t be developing this skill much. Unless I go work for a repair shop or something, cleaning viruses and bad virus software out of PCs, and end up in that department. (Something I considered doing earlier this year.)

Anyway. I punched in the specs into the Cooler Master calculator and…

That is decidedly not a 650W kind of need. I’m going to try a couple of these calculators just to be sure but… uh. I think a cheaper power supply might be in order.

Edit #2: Newegg’s calculator says 400W for this build. I think a 500W with good efficiency will do it then…? Again, lots of potential upgrades. I don’t want to repurchase this component.

Edit #3: New build here. I added some trimmings and necessities so I don’t forget them. Also added a Mac keyboard, which I like because they’re aluminum, you can get keyboard condoms for them, they feel good to type on, and I don’t have to fight different muscle memory impulses for my laptop and desktop re: command vs. control. Worth $50 as long as it works correctly. My keyboard cover on my MacBook has saved my keys from all kinds of junk gumming them up.

Edit #4, from the far future (2022): I’m using a mechanical keyboard these days. It’s satisfying to be able to pry off all the keys individually and really clean the thing out, but you should buy a more expensive one than mine ($40?) because sometimes it just Decides that a key is going to not work half the time even though it’s clean underneath. There’s probably a fix for this, I haven’t researched it yet.