by Janis Jonins

Created on: December 21, 2006   Last Updated: November 14, 2011

There are some benefits in putting PC together by yourself, but also some not so good things.

The biggest benefit is that you can make exactly what you want and not spend any cent more. If you are short on money for buying your dream PC in one day and do not want to take load, you can start from basic complectation and then add things you want.

For basic completion, I would suggest to plan it so, that it is completele modified in some 3 months. Here is my suggestion how to plan and complete your dream PC without spending all your month's salary in one day, taking any loans, but just spliting it in 3 months!

My sugestion:

1st month: basic configuration:

• PC case

• Mainboard that supports all features of your dream PC, that means - supports processor that You are able to buy after 3 months, supports memory for that procesoor, and supports graphic adapter of Your dreams. Chose mainboard that has 4 dimm slots or more, so You can use half of them in beginging and then upgrade

• Choose cheepest processor for that moment which is supportet buy You mainboard

• Start amount of memory, now that is 512Mb if You use Win XP, 1024Mb if You plan to use Win Vista.

• Small hard drive. In begining You can use 80Gb hard drive, I sugest to get already SATA 300 compatible. That will be enought for system and data storage in begining.

• DVD-RW drive, that You should buy good already in the begining, because You will not be able to sell it for good price later.

• Some basic, cheap graphic adapter, or use mainboards integrated

• Cheepest keyboard and mouse

This will be basic configuration, and you will not spend more than half of money that will cost your dream configuration.

2nd month; start upgrades!

You are tired of slow VGA card; now you can buy your dream card. But remember, never buy the newest and expensivest model. After some 2 - 3 monthes it will be for 20 - 25% cheeper. You can sell your old adapter or drop it out.

• Add memory if you started with 512 or 1024 Mb, now You can add 1024 more!

Now Your PC is powerfull in graphics, has enought ram, it is missing powerfull CPU and storage space only!

3rd month: buy CPU!

The one you where planing to buy when you were starting, now costs for 20 - 30% cheaper.  Add one more HDD. And now you can use primary HDD only for system, and secondary only for storage.

Now your PC has powerfull CPU, graphic card, large amount of memory, big HDD, and you did not live on pastas only for all that time!

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