Building a bargain PC
WHEN IT COMES TO BUILDING YOUR OWN COMPUTER, THE CHEAPEST ISN’T ALWAYS THE BEST OPTION.
SPECCING A NEW computer can be a lot of fun, but also a big hit to the wallet. Saving money gets complex when there are loads of different options to juggle, so we’ve put together a guide to building a bargain PC. We’ve tended to focus on the more affordable side of things, but a cheap PC isn’t necessarily a bargain. Rather, it’s about getting the most performance for your dollar, whether it’s a $500 build or a $5,000 one.
KNOW YOUR PURPOSE
As much as it can be tempting to drool over, or buy, specific hardware just because it’s awesome, it’s important to spec correctly for your needs. A big mistake we often see is people building or buying a computer that is simply too powerful for the job at hand. Even the best deal on a $1,000 PC is not a bargain if a $500 machine would have done the same job. While the impact is relatively small, a lower-end PC will use less power, saving a bit of money. Gamers have it relatively easy, as they can look at the minimum specs of their favourite titles, or look at loads of realworld feedback from other gamers. A great resource for new builds is PC Part Picker ( au.pcpartpicker.com), which lets you play around with different builds, compare prices, check hardware compatibility and has a range of handy guides.
For those who want something at least semi-portable, laptops can actually be great value, as everything needed is included. It’s also possible to plug them into a keyboard, mouse and monitor to replicate the desktop experience. Gamers will have a tougher time getting the desired performance from a laptop, but some models, such those from metabox. com.au, can be custom specced much like a desktop.
CHOOSE YOUR HARDWARE WISELY
It’s important to consider what a PC will be used for its entire life, not just what you want right now. The right build can give you a measure of future-proofing, by making it easier to upgrade down the track. For example, you might need a PC right now for productivity tasks, but want to splurge on a GPU in the future for gaming. In such a case, it’s important to choose a CPU with inbuilt graphics for the short term, but a motherboard with a PCIe slot for later upgrades. Or spend a little extra now to buy 2 x 8GB RAM chips rather than less on 4 x 4GB, so you can drop in another 2 x 8GB as an upgrade in the future.
STORAGE WARS
Those ultra-fast NVMe SSDs are rapidly dropping in price but, in all but some specific cases, give little real-world performance advantages over a cheaper, slower SATA III SSD. It’s well worth combining a main SSD and a mechanical HDD is you expect large storage needs. Cheaper M.2 SSDs can make for easy installs, better airflow and tiny footprint PCs.