Comments on: Remember that one time I BUILT A COMPUTER? – Part 2

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:29:13 +0000

Us French Canadians believe in education and knowledge ^_^

Yeah, I picked all my parts in function of each other. Didn’t want to waste money on a graphics card that I’m not getting full benefit on.

By: Redbeard

Redbeard — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:19:17 +0000

I wish I had your friends’ parents, since I got a lot of what I know from watching The Movie Channel and Cinemax back in the 80s.

You guessed right about the GPU. Of course, a good graphics card will only get you so far, because if you upgrade your graphics card to a really high level you’ll find out that your choke point is now in the motherboard/CPU/RAM/disk drive.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:59:48 +0000

My ego is very happy right now ^_^

By: Grimmtooth

Grimmtooth — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:38:27 +0000

Wow, for sixty bucks I didn’t think Zalman sold cocktail napkins. That’s an impressive buy! That’s a top shelf case for budget pricing. You did well

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:31:13 +0000

I’m really happy with my case! I didn’t want to splurge on the case too much since I’m mostly interested in making my games run and putting my money to practical use, but I still wanted something that I could look at and think “fuck yeah that’s my computer!”. The Zalman ended up being a good choice. At 60$, it was affordable, but it still looks very nice, and has a lot of fans.

And now I’m discovering that the fact that it came with a (good) manual makes it ever more awesome.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:26:41 +0000

Yep, I think anyone who’s computer shy should give it a try. For us Westerners, technology and computers are an integral part of our lives. I never thought that knowing HOW it all worked was important, but now that I’ve played with my parts, I do feel different. The world just makes more SENSE.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:19:03 +0000

GPU… Does that have something to do with the graphics card?

XD I’m unfamiliar with a lot of the lingo!

Money and I usually get along pretty well. I’m pretty good with numbers and predictions. When I was a teenager, my friends’ parents used to sneak sex ed books into their rooms. My parents snuck money management books into mine. And well. Result is that I’ve been single most of my adult life, but I’m great at making financially conscious decisions.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:14:24 +0000

It’s ok, I don’t plan on selling my pc (or my car, for that matter). I did my best to select parts that wouldn’t be totally outdated in a couple of months and that weren’t crazy expensive either. Having been a pc gamer most of my life, I’m pretty familiar with the speed of technology changes. I do plan on taking off overseas once my work contract is up (in a bit under 2 years), and I don’t expect my computer to still handle state-of-the-art games once I get back.

Actually, I am considering donating it to charity when I go. I worked with children with autism for years, and I always found it a shame that those kids benefit from computers so much, yet most of the time, their families just can’t afford that luxury.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:09:11 +0000

Yay! Thanks!

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:08:48 +0000

I was really shocked that it all worked on the first try. I thought for sure that I had done at least SOMETHING wrong. But I guess the instructions that came with the parts were pretty good.

I wouldn’t have known what to with the extra wires from my graphic card either. The graphic card didn’t come with any useful instructions at all! It was my motherboard manual that gave it away with “the extension card may require additional connections to the power supply”. Even with that, I had to take a guess as to where to plug them in. I got lucky!

As for choosing the bits, I got a lot of help from my friend. I would have been completely overwhelmed on my own since parts names are just random mumbo-jumbo. I know that asking for help isn’t QUITE as honorable as going out of your way to do it all on your own, but I found I really benefited from having someone answer my questions and offer insight into my dilemmas.