Build your own computer — it is fashionable again

If you like to play with Lego you’d probably like to build your own desktop computer too, or to be more precise, to assemble its different components.

Admitted, it requires a little more knowledge than a Lego castle, some care and a dash of flair, but it is in no way a daunting task. And it takes much fewer pieces than the average Lego masterpiece you built last time you joined your children in their recreational activity.

Building a laptop computer is a different story. It does not really belong in the DIY category, mainly because of the high level of miniaturisation of the components, and of the hard to manipulate and extremely frail cables, not to mention the fact that everything is rather crammed inside the unit and makes it a specialist’s work to do anything inside its entrails.

On the other hand a desktop machine, understand a full size computer, a “tower” case as it is sometime referred to, is large and roomy enough to let you play with its components comfortably, adding and assembling the building blocks to make a customised power house. 

Building your own desktop computer is a fashion that has went up and down a few times since the 1980s. At the beginning of the personal computer story it was an absolutely inconceivable undertaking. A few manufacturers ruled the market and provided all-ready machines: IBM, Olivetti, Wang, Commodoure, DEC, Apple, to name the main ones.

Then Asian factories started flooding the market with all the discrete elements that make a computer: the motherboard, the memory modules, the CPU, the hard disk, the power supply unit, the “tower” case and so forth. The appeal was immediate. Not only you were suddenly able to assemble the machine of your dreams (and brag about it), but it also became cheaper and more fun to do so instead of buying a genuine IBM, an Apple or an Olivetti.

The wave after was caused by most manufacturers of ready-made desktops reacting and even counter attacking by slashing prices and making buying their products actually less expensive than getting the components from all the various sources. It has been the case for quite a while now and overall Dell, Lenovo, HP, Fujitsu and Acer reign over the market by offering excellent ready-made desktops at hard to beat prices. Why then should you bother building your own desktop?

A new wave may be here today for now several points come and combine to make building your own desktop computer an interesting enterprise again, from both the technical and the financial points of view.

The need to have extremely performing machines, more particularly when it comes to the multimedia aspect, makes it almost a must to build your own desktop. Choosing the exact motherboard, the fastest multi-core CPU, the perfect video card, the ultimate high-definition sound card, the efficient (and silent…) cooling fans, this can hardly be achieved by buying an off-the-shelf unit. 

Whereas the CPU would most likely be made by Intel, there’s a wide choice in the market when it comes to all the other components. Biostar, for one, makes a motherboard that can satisfy the most demanding hobbyist. 

The newest element, however, the one that changes everything compared to the previous years, is the fact the knowledge required to achieve the machine’s assembly is easily and widely available on the web, often in the shape of YouTube video tutorials, and sometimes in a simpler manner just by asking Google and getting the answer.

Not sure how to mount and set this video card? Hesitating about the compatibility of this CPU with that motherboard? Afraid of mixing memory modules? Take heart and don’t bother to ask a friend or to call the technical support of an expensive IT service company. This so twentieth century! Just search the web. Everything is there today, be it as video, image, sound or simple text. As long as you know how to search and can understand the information you find, you can easily build a super personal computer.

You still have to be a little tech-minded to succeed. It’s just like playing with Lego building blocks, you have to like it.