April 20, 2025
Maybe you want to do some video gaming without paying for pesky online passes, or maybe you want to do video editing, computer graphics, or programming. Regardless of any of these needs, you'll need a PC. In this article, I'll go over what you need to build your very own PC.
There a few parts you'll need to build a PC. They are as follows:
You have a few different options when it comes to platforms, the two most popular of which (and the only two I'll discuss here) being AMD and Intel. For a gaming PC, I would recommend AMD. AMD is among the best performance per dollar compared to Intel. In recent years, Intel has had stability issues with their new Core and Core Ultra Processors (13th Gen Core Series to present day Core Ultra). Under AMD, you have two socket options, AM4 and AM5. As the name would suggest, AM5 is the newer socket. AM5 would be my choice, since AMD has pretty much abandoned the AM4 socket now, and there more performance and potential upgrade path with AM5. AM4 can still be a good choice, especially if you're on a limited budget, just be aware of the downsides.
With both platforms, there are 4 basic 'classes' of CPU. They have different names but they basically use the same number. There's 3, 5, 7, and 9 for the different classes, the performance increasing with each higher number. The 3 class is mostly for office PCs where performance isn't really the priority. On the AMD side, the 3 class hasn't been in use since the Ryzen 3 4100. The lowest end now really is the 5 class, the most modern 5 class for AMD as of writing is the Ryzen 5 9600 or 9600X. These are bread and butter gaming CPUs, and usually perform the best for gaming. The next class is the 7 class, the modern equivalent for AMD is the Ryzen 9700 or 9700X. The 7 class is a good compromise between the productivity focused 9 class and the single core performance focused 5 class. This is a step up in the number of cores, generally 8 cores and 16 threads. This means more processes can go on at once, but usually at a bit of a performance cut per core. The 9 class has even more cores, usually 16 cores and 32 threads. The modern AMD Ryzen 9 is the 9900X. This processor is only really useful if you have a lot going on at one time, usually used for programming scenarios where you need the fastest of the fastest. My choice for gaming and productivity is either the 9700 or the 9700X. They are pretty close in performance the 9700X is slightly faster, but the 9700 includes a cooler. I already had a cooler so I chose the 9700X.
As I said earlier, you may not need to buy a heatsink if your processor includes one. If you do need to buy a heatsink, I would recommend the Coolermaster Hyper 212. I haven't owned one myself, but I hear they're pretty good and they've been around a while. You can also choose to do water cooling, but I wouldn't recommend that if you want the most performance per dollar.
Your motherboard connects all the components together, and as such can be a pretty important choice. There are a
few different sizes: mini-ITX, micro-ATX, and ATX. There are few more sizes, but I think they are outside the
scope of this article. The size you choose depends on how many peripherals you want to attach and how big of a
computer you want. I choose ATX since I like to have all the expandability, but micro-ATX can also be a good
choice. Mini-ITX can also be a good choice, depending on the case choice (some mini-ITX cases don't support a
Graphics Card).
Generally I don't put too much thought into my choice of motherboard, I just go with the motherboard (and RAM)
bundled with the CPU I want at Micro Center. I'm not too specific
because I know I can always just add functionality later with PCIe cards if needed. The motherboard I went with
was the Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX V2. The B-series is pretty good for the money. The X-series motherboards are
really good with a lot of features, but with the caveat of much higher price.
The memory is essentially short-term memory for the computer. This should be fairly quick otherwise it can slow the PC down, this is especially important for AMD platforms. With DDR5, this is isn't much of a worry because they don't make DDR5 too slow. Again, I recommend choosing the option that comes with the Micro Center bundles. In this case, I chose the G.Skill Flare X5 32GB (2x16GB kit). Your motherboard will likely be dual-channel like mine, so you'll want to get a kit of 2 sticks. If you want more memory later, you can add 2 more sticks, depending on your motherboard.
The storage is the long term memory of the computer. You need to have at least one storage drive in your computer. You might want more depending on how much space you plan on taking. There are a few different types of storage to choose from (ranked in order of popularity):
If you were to pick one, you would want to pick an NVMe drive. They're the fastest of all the drives. The other choices are pretty much last resorts if you can avoid them. You don't have to go with a high-end NVMe, but pretty much any NVMe is going to be faster than the other options. I use a 2TB NVMe SSD for my boot drive. I also have a 4TB 7200RPM HDD for storing the games I don't use very often and my Youtube video clips. Hard drives are a bit better for long term storage, but not much better since they have mechanical components that can fail.
There are three big brands in graphics cards: Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. I wouldn't recommend Intel cards since they are newcomers to the market and come with a few bugs still. Today's options in Nvidia are the 5060, 5070, 5080, and 5090. The 5060 is more aimed at 1080p, the 5070 at 1440p, the 5080 at 1440p/4K, and the 5090 at 4K/8K. The AMD options are currently pretty limited at the 9070 and 9070 XT, both cards are aimed at 1440p. The card I will probably end up going with is the AMD RX 9070 XT.
As the name implies, this is the part of the computer that supplies power to the rest of the computer. This is very dependent on the parts you picked for the computer. High performance PCs are generally going to require pretty beefy PSUs, and vice versa for low performance (this only applies to new parts, if you are using used components, double check power usage). A good way to check the power supply wattage needed is to use PCPartPicker. A general piece of advice I have is to get get a 650 or 750 watt power supply for a lower end PC, get an 850 watt for mid-range, and get a 1000 watt or more for high-end. I used to get EVGA B-Stock power supplies to save a bit of money, but as far as I'm aware they don't do that anymore. For reference, for my new build I bought a Corsair RM850e 80+ Gold fully modular ATX supply. The 80+ rating is an efficiency rating. Fully modular supplies are useful since you only connect the wires you need to it, the others don't have to sit in the case. ATX is just the form factor. If you are building in normal sized cases, you just have to make sure you pick up an ATX supply (which is most of them), not an SFX or smaller.
You need something to put all these parts into, preferably not a cardboard box (though that could work in a pinch). By far one of the most popular sizes of cases are ATX, as mentioned before. Any ATX case should work, by design. The only differences between them are aesthetics and front panel ports. The most popular case designs recently are the dual-chambered designs, since they look cool and are fairly easy to build in. Some popular brands are Lian Li, Fractal Design, NZXT, Coolermaster, and more. I picked the Fractal Design Pop Air, since I needed a 5.25" drive bay for a Blu-Ray drive. It is among the only new cases with this type of drive bay, since most people have moved past needing optical drives.
I wish you good luck with your PC build! This was more of an overview of how to pick parts than how to actually build the computer. The building part shouldn't be too difficult if you review some YouTube videos on the subject, or read the guides that come with your parts. The most important guides to look at are for your case and motherboard.