I Built a PC!

After months of planning, ordering parts, watching tons of "how-to" videos on YouTube, I finally completed my first PC build!  It was extremely nerve wracking and I was definitely worried about hooking something up wrong or dropping something and damaging it.  Fortunately, that didn't happen and I'm now enjoying my new and improved PC (if you're wondering what exactly I built here is the link).  I didn't go for anything that shiny or extremely high-end but did try to spend a little bit of extra money on a good GPU.  Here is a very unimpressive picture I took with my crappy, old phone:

My Fractal Designs case has great airflow.
I only opted for two RGB components (fan and MoBo).

I had only bought pre-built PC's up until this point (mostly Dell branded products,--my last PC was an Alienware) and didn't think that I would ever have the technical expertise to actually piece together a computer that would actually work.  It turns out that building a PC isn't too terribly technically demanding--it's mostly a matter of following directions and having small enough hands to connect some terrifically tiny connectors.  The piece that intimidated me the most wasn't necessarily the building aspect, but was more on the software side--I had no idea how to do a fresh install of Windows on a brand new PC (spoilers--it's actually very easy).

My interest in building my own PC stemmed from playing PC Building Simulator.  Even though it is a game and there's no handy auto-connect tool in real-life to hook up all those tiny wires, the game made me realize that building a PC was definitely doable.  If you're someone who feels like they have some technical expertise, but are by no means an expert, I can tell you that it's totally possible.  I did it...and so can you!

Now that I've actually completed my first build, I can hand out tips like a pro.  My first tip is to use PCPartPicker to start your research into components and build a list of parts.  PCPartPicker is absolutely awesome and includes user reviews, staff builds of PC's at different price points, user generated builds, and great market analysis tools for tracking prices and sales.  Once you've selected your parts, PCPartPicker will check them for any compatibility issues, which is particularly handy.  Then, it's just a matter of waiting for good prices, ordering your parts, and assembling them into working fashion.

Another great tip is that there are tons of very educational PC building videos on YouTube which are perfect for beginners.  I personally enjoyed this series of videos by Paul's Hardware which covered all the bases of building a PC--from picking the right parts, to installing them, and then to finally setting up the software on your new PC.  There are tons and tons of videos to choose from and you should have no problems finding one that fits your own preferences.

Of course, since now I have a new PC, I also have a few new games that were bundled together with the components that I bought.  As part of various promotions, I've received Tom Clancy's:  The Division 2, World War Z, and Wolfenstein:  Youngblood.  (Youngblood hasn't been released yet and I still haven't received my codes for World War Z).  I decided to give The Division 2 a chance and so far have been enjoying it.  My new graphics card is helping to paint a beautiful picture of a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. as my SHD agent runs around gunning down baddies.

Prior to building my new PC I had started a new Assassin's Creed:  Odyssey playthrough with my new and improved warrior Kassandra.  I decided that this time around I needed to notch up the difficulty (to hard...not to the highest one yet) and I've noticed the change--there are more guards roaming around and they tend to be "elites" much more often.  Warrior Kassandra can't stealthily one-shot many of the newer, tougher enemies, but she can definitely fight off the massive numbers that swarm as a result of these failed attempts to be stealthy.  This also means that warrior Kassandra attracts quite a bit of mercenary attention.  I've been sitting on the season pass for several months now and I need to finish the new content...it will happen eventually.

One of the major PC building disappointments of my 2018-19 was my earlier decision to buy an upgraded GPU for my older pre-built.  I had an AMD R290 that worked great--no problems at all, but it was just getting a bit dated and was only meeting minimum specs in some games.  I decided to upgrade to an RX580 and went with a brand that I was not familiar with--XFX.  For the first few months it worked great--I had no problems--then, I started to have problems with the card overheating and forcing me to have to manually shutdown my PC.  The really weird part of the overheating is that it would take place while I was playing games that weren't particularly graphically demanding (Slime Rancher).  It was really frustrating to have a brand new card that was not working great and the fact that I was having to turn settings way down to prevent overheating!  I did some research and discovered that there were some well-documented heat issues with RX580's and XFX cards in particular.  I was left with a couple of options--I could RMA the card and get a new one (which would mean sending the card in and waiting an unspecified amount of time for a replacement) or I could try to look up a faster solution.  One of the possible causes of the overheating problem was possibly linked to low-quality thermal paste that wears out after a short amount of time.  I decided that replacing the thermal paste on the GPU would be the best bet (even though by doing that there was a chance that I would be voiding the warranty).  After a thermal paste replacement (that was very simple...there are also good videos on YouTube about that process) my card did start running somewhat cooler.

2019 is the year of PC failures and triumphs (fingers crossed!) for me.  I would recommend building your own PC--it's a lot of fun to see your boxes of parts come together into a working product and you get a great feeling of pride and ownership in your work.  You can also make it very sparkly if you desire...there are RGB components for almost anything!