What are absolutely necessary parts to a successful computer?
Introduction
I made this website for the sole purpose of redirecting people here as a guide. It is a one page site because I want it to be super accessible and have only the important information show up when people link to it. This guide/reference point will serve to inform people what they truly need to purchase to have a successfully running computer system. None of that fancy extra stuff that cost you money. If you need real examples of all these components in one machine, check out these top gaming computer systems under $1k.
So without further ado, let me get started.
A storage device
You need something to store everything on, including your files, your games, your pictures and videos and most importantly, your operating system. This is the place where everything gets stored, pulled from when you are executing a program, and then saved back. You have two options here:
- A hard drive
- A solid state drive
There are distinct differences in each with a decent pros and cons list for both. I will not go over those in detail, but here are the basics you need to know:
- Hard drives are typically found in most computers, both pre-built and custom-built systems
- Hard drives are usually cheaper per GB than solid state drives
- Hard drives have much more space to store for the price (there are 1 TB hard drives that are cheaper than 240 GB solid state drives)
- Solid state drives are much faster in opening, transferring, and deleting files. This means PC games open and load quicker from your drive
Random access memory
Along with the storage drive for your files to live in permanently, you will need a storage area to temporarily store your files. You need to temporarily store files because the processor is pulling things from the hard drive (executing them) and while it is running, the files need somewhere to stay. This happens in gaming; when you are playing an open-world game, for example, and you enter a new room that requires loading, the previous room (the open world) stays in the RAM so that you can load it quicker and get back into the world sooner, rather than having to store it back to the hard or solid state drive and then loading it all over again.
I have been a huge fan of Corsair's Vengeance series, although G.SKILL and Kingston sticks are some of my favorites also. Definitely check those out and go for at least 8GB of RAM total. It can be 2 sticks of 4 GB each, but as long as it reaches 8 GB or more, you should be good to go.
The CPU component
You didn't think I forgot about the CPU did you? This is clearly one of the most important, if not the most important, component to a computer. Obviously, a desktop cannot run without some of the other pieces, but the processing unit is in the middle of it all. It processes everything, so the faster your clock speed, the better things will run for you.
I will suggest going either Intel or AMD on this one. It does not really matter which company you go for; both are extremely reputable and each of their models can be sufficient to run a nice desktop computer. However, I would Google some of the model numbers just to see some benchmark and performance statistics to compare to other processors.
Video/Graphics card
Whether you call it a video card or a graphics card, it is all the same thing. This is an especially important PC component if you are building or upgrading your computer in order to play PC games. The card is the thing that drives how well your graphical possibilities are. We still need to keep the processor in mind, but the video card handles all the graphical activity that needs to process while you play video games. The budget of this part typically goes anywhere from $70 to $300 (according to PCPartPicker.com, depending on the recency of the graphics cards' release.
Some of the best cards are made from NVIDIA technology, specifically the GTX series. However, AMD's own Radeon product line is up there in terms of competition and pricing.
Motherboard
The motherboard is where the processor typically sits when being built. It also consists of most of the ports of a regular desktop: USB ports, HDMI ports to plug in your monitors, and sometimes DVD drives. Also, keep in mind the model of your motherboard in order to check if it is compatible to run with the other pieces of your computer, particularly the CPU. You can Google this information just to double check that everything is in order. There are a lot of good resources on the web.
Desktop tower
This is the case that you will be putting all the parts together in. You didn't think you were actually going to chain the pieces together and then just run them from your desk, did ya? Well, this guy in this forum post did.
The tower is important because if you do not have sufficient space, building the computer will become that much harder. Also, spacing is an incredible factor to how well things run because your PC parts need room to breathe too. If it gets too hot in there, things can break rather quickly.
