Buying an Optical Drive

Likely, if you're building a new PC you'll want to be able to insert discs at some point. Most computers at least have a DVD drive but there are also newer drives like blu-ray for playing things in high definition. All you really need is a drive that is reliable and does what you want. If you search for a regular DVD or blu-ray drive, it won't necessarily have the ability to burn discs. If you filter your search to DVD or blu-ray burners, you'll have everything you need in one disc drive.

Disc drives are rated to work at different speeds when either reading or writing. Most of them will perform about same. Just try to find a drive that is at the higher end of the spectrum. Another bonus is finding a drive with a larger cache. This will help with performance.

Some drives have lightscribe built into them. Lightscribe lets you draw in black and white on top of the disc. The disc has to advertise this feature too. This helps you personalize your disc so you won't forget what it is.

I would expect to pay around $17~$25 for a DVD burner or around $70~$100 for a decent blu-ray burner. At some point, you should organize your results by best rating. Normally the best rated drives are what you want. Lower rated drives might not work as well or be loud whenever they're running.

How to Find a Good Video Card

It's insane how fast computers have become at doing 3D graphics! With things constantly changing, how to you know what the best graphics card is? In this post, we'll explain what a graphics card is and how to choose one that best suits your needs.

First of all, a video card doesn't just for video games. It's there to help with just about anything you see on your screen. It's also referred to as a graphics card because it's responsible for all the graphical interface. This makes it very important for a computer to function smoothly. Video cards can be either embedded into your motherboard or CPU or you may need to buy one separately. Buying a video card separately usually gives the best performance. It can easily be inserted into a PCI Express x16 slot. This slot is standard in modern motherboards.

The two main competitors for making video cards are Nvidia and AMD (Previously know as ATI until AMD bought it out). Both of these companies make quality cards that I would recommend. Nvidia is known for it's Gforce series while AMD is know for its Radeon series.

There's no set way to measure how well a card performs except by doing benchmarks. Benchmarks can be biased toward one brand over another so it's important to do a lot of them. Thankfully, web sites like Tom's Hardware have done most of the work for us. They'll test a large amounts of cards doing popular games at various settings. This will help you get a well rounded idea as to where a card's strengths or weaknesses are. Tom's Hardware does a great job at keeping up with the latest technology.

So what's the right price point when buying a video card? With any series the cards will cost about $20 to $30 on the low end and about $500+ on the high end. I like spending around $200 for my cards. This range can normally do any game on max or almost max settings. There's no point to buying a card from last year's series. The newer cards will be built with smaller process that cost less money. This means that you will get something that performs better and has the most current technology for the same amount of money.

With each new series, the cards usually improve their Direct X technology. This greatly effects how nice games look. A lot of games for PC that were released around the XBox 360/Wii/PS3 generation will use DX9. This introduced major improvements with visuals and lighting. DX10 only offered minor performance increases for the most part. DX11 is the most current version. It's biggest feature is tessellation. Tessellation uses advanced algorithms to duplicate polygons. This opens up possibilities for super detailed environments. For example, it can make every shingle become fully three dimensional instead of just a texture. Keep in mind that your video card will stay at whatever Direct X level it is currently at. The only way to upgrade it is to buy a new video card.

On top of improving their Direct X levels, video cards have also been improving their data transfer rates. Over the years, new versions of pci express x16 have become available. The most recent version is PCI express 3.0 which allows up to 8 gigatransfers per second whereas its predecessor, PCI express 2.0, was only capable of 5 gigatransfers. Each version of PCI express is compatible with previous video cards. Try to keep the versions of PCI express at the same level between your video card and motherboard to get the best performance.

You also want to be sure that your power supply is capable of handling your video card. If you have smaller card, your motherboard will be able to supply enough power to it. Higher end cards need a little more juice. These cards will have one or two power cords running directly from the power supply to the video card. The video card will say how big of a power supply it will need.

What is RAM?

RAM is an abbreviation for "random access memory". It is also referred to as "memory". RAM is where everything goes to when it is loaded. You probably noticed how long it takes for everything to start up at first. That is because the hard drive has all of this information. The hard drive is a huge pool of information that can be saved even when the computer is turned off. The problem with the hard drive is that it's slow. To deal with this slowness, the information needs to be loaded into the RAM. RAM holds a much smaller amount of space than hard drives but is many, many times faster. Once the information is loaded to RAM, everything will run smooth. RAM, however, cannot save information after the computer is turned off. This is why the computer will need to go through the start up process again after you turn it on.

When most people hear about RAM, they think about how much space it has. This is usually measured in gigabytes. Common amounts of space are anywhere from 2 GB's to 16 GB's. A good amount now days is around 2 to 8 GB's. If you have any less, you'll bottleneck your computer so it won't run well. There is little point to having more than 8 GB's because you probably won't use it anytime soon. You can buy multiple sticks of RAM depending on how many slots you have in your motherboard. Your motherboard will have limitations on what it can hold. It is important to find this out first.

Another important thing to look out for too is the speed of RAM. Most people don't think to check for this but the whole point of having RAM is that it's fast! A common type of memory is DDR or double data rate. This is currently generation of this is DDR3. The newer generations run at faster speeds. RAM speeds are measured in megahertz or MHz. Some standard speeds may be anywhere for 1066 MHz to 2000 MHz. Both the RAM and the motherboard have to support the same maximum speed. Otherwise, the speed of the RAM will run at the lowest common supported speed. An example of this is provided below.

Another thing to check is the RAM's cas latency. Latency is how many clock pulses there are between the RAM sending the information and the computer being able to use it. It is important to have as few clock pulses go by as possible. Unfortunately, the higher the frequency, the higher the latency will probably be. This is simply something you accept as you purchase faster RAM. Just remember to search for RAM with the highest frequency first and after you've identified the frequency you want find the lowest cas latency as possible.

This example came from Newegg.com. Generally when searching for RAM, I like to sort the results by rating. This puts the most popular RAM toward the top. In this particular example, there are to sticks totaling 8 GB's of space. 2 x 4GB tells us that there are two sticks and each stick has 4 GB's. The next part tells us what kind of RAM it is. 240 pins is the standard for desktop computers. DDR3 is the newest kind of RAM. 1333 is the amount of megahertz the RAM runs at. This is a very important number to know. You want as many MHz as you can get. Cas Latency and Timing tells you how much delay the RAM has. Keep this number as low as possible. It also states that it is a dual channel kit. Try to also find a motherboard that is dual channel. These are the factors to look at when choosing RAM.

What's a Motherboard?

The motherboard may seem like the most intimidating part of the whole computer. This is the largest chip that is fastened into the computer case. Everything that is part of a computer goes through this chip. Despite its complex look, there are only a few things you need to know about it.

Most of what you need to know is where the CPU, RAM and expansion slots are located. Everything else is either explained in the motherboard's owners manual or you can find it online.

The main purpose of a motherboard is to provide a way for all the computer parts to communicate. Not all the ports will have something plugged into them in the end. They are there so you can expand your computer's capabilities as you need to. When you are trying to figure out where to plug something in, don't ever force it. Most devices should be able to settle into the ports with just a little pressure and a lot wiggling back and forth.

CPU's are simple to match your motherboard. Your motherboard should state someway in the details what CPU socket type it has. Some examples of socket names are LGA 775, LGA 1155, LGA 1366, AM2, AM3, AM3+ or FM1. Memorizing these names is not important. All you need to make sure of is that the socket type listed on the motherboard matches the socket type listed on the CPU.

RAM is probably the easiest to upgrade. RAM slots can be easily identified because they are the only slots that have clips at the ends of them. Simply pull the clips open and wiggle the stick of RAM into the slot. Then close the clips into the ridges of the RAM so it solidly fits in. It is usually best to choose the slots closest to the CPU to reduce latency (delay between transfers). The motherboard's owners manual should have specific instructions on the best way to place the different components.

Expansion slots are a little more complicated than RAM but are still relatively easy to figure out. Expansion slots are always on the side of the motherboard that faces the back of the case. This makes it easy to add various plugins behind the case. These slots are either called PCI, AGP or PCI Express slots. PCI is an old standard and is still built into most motherboards. However, it is quickly being replaced by PCI express. The older PCI slot is pictured third from the right on the motherboard above. Older PCI slots are positioned a little closer to the edge of the motherboard. AGP was a faster port than the older PCI but has been replaced by PCI express.

The most advanced port right now is PCI express. All PCI express slots are aligned so they are flush on the side closest to the edge of the motherboard. You will see them at a variety of lengths. (PCI express x1, x4, x8 or x16) The number represents how many lanes are physically there to transfer data. PCI express x1 is the smallest slot in the picture above. This can be used for a large variety of purposes such as adding additional network functionality or more USB ports. PCI express x16 is another popular slot. It is mostly used for video cards because of its huge bandwidth. PCI express x16 is the largest slot in the picture above.

We are now in an age where regular PCI express x16 doesn't provide enough bandwidth to meet demands. Since then, the slot has been upgraded to PCI express 2.0 and currently is up to 3.0. PCI express 1.0 could handle speeds up to 4 GB's per second. 2.0 doubled that to 8 GB's per second and 3.0 now allows 16 GB's per second. This speed is necessary for handling the latest complex games. Each version is backwards compatible with the previous.

Overall, the motherboard is there to provide a way for everything to communicate. When searching for a motherboard, make sure you filter your results so you only see motherboards that have the ports you want.

Choosing a Good CPU

A CPU is the central processing unit. It does most of the calculations for a computer.

For a lot of people, the CPU is the most important and expensive part of their computer. The two main companies that make desktop CPU's are Intel and AMD. The picture below shows a real world example of what you would see if you were searching for a CPU online. This example came from a website called Newegg. But what does this all mean? We'll break it down so you'll be able to buy a CPU yourself.

This particular example is an Intel i5 processor. The entire part that says "Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge" is just a name. This tells us that this processor is made by Intel and is part of the i3/i5/i7 family. The name "Sandy Bridge" is just an architecture of this family.

Next, you will find that this processor is rated to run at 3.3GHz or gigahertz as shown in the picture above. This is the way to measure the speed of a processor. The higher this number, the faster the computer will calculate. Generally, most modern computers will be clocked anywhere from 2.5 to 5 GHz. We will discuss turbo boosting in another article.

Next, it says LGA 1155. This part is very important. It tells you this CPU's socket type. CPU sockets are found on the motherboard of a computer. Make sure the CPU and the motherboard have the same socket name.

95W tells you how much power the CPU is rated to use. The CPU will rarely reach this amount. However, knowing how much power your computer uses is important when deciding how large of a power supply to get.

The fact that this CPU is a quad-core processor is very significant. More cores allow the user to do multitasking quicker. Older computers use to only have one core. This made it difficult to multitask quickly. Later, the duel core processor was invented. This means that if a computer runs at 2.5 GHz, it will have two physical "cores" or sections of the CPU that would each run at 2.5 GHz. This doesn't mean that the CPU is 5 GHz. Think of it more like 2.5 GHz doing one thing plus 2.5 GHz doing another. The i5 we are examining is a quad-core. This means that it has four separate cores that each run at 3.3 GHz. If we were using this i5 and opened a program, one of the cores would work at running that program while the other cores would stay idle waiting for something to do. Nowadays, more and more programs and applications are designed so they utilize all of the cores at once so none of the cores will be idle. In the end, the only way to really know how well a CPU will perform is by checking out benchmarks at places like Tom's Hardware or Passmark.