If it has a power connector, connect it to a 4-pin molex connector. When your card is properly installed, the line formed by the top of the card will be exactly parallel to the motherboard. If one side seems to be higher than the other, chances are that it is not fully inserted, press a little harder on the high side or pull it out and try again. Installing the CPU, and the CPU’s heat-sink and fan, are by far the most difficult steps you’ll have to complete during your build.
- Installing the CPU, and the CPU’s heat-sink and fan, are by far the most difficult steps you’ll have to complete during your build.
- For instance, you could easily switch around steps , or even do what’s called an ‘out of the case’ build.
- Similarly, check if the drives are registered and whether or not your memory is operating at the right frequencies.
- Installing 2.5-inch drives into these caddies is a cinch, as you can simply slide it into place with the option of fully securing it with four screws.
- We’ve also included a couple of sample builds below that you could follow in order to build a high-end or budget gaming PC.
For gaming, clock speed is more important than number of cores, since most games are not designed to use more than one or two cores . Assuming you never do any CPU-intensive tasks, a dual-core is probably the highest you need—no hyper-threading needed. If you’re converting video or gaming, the program you use might support multiple cores, in which case a higher number of cores is more important.
Slot your drive into the appropriate place and screw, or lock it into place using your case’s mounting system. When in place, attach the SATA data cable to the drive and the motherboard, and attach the SATA power connector to the drive. The motherboard’s main power connection is a wide, two-row cable that fits snugly into a similar-looking spot on the board itself. This pin connector powers both the motherboard and the CPU. However, some boards have a second 4-pin or 8-pin connector for the processor, which resides near your CPU, typically in the top corner. Before we move on to the last step of physically building your PC, you may want to do some cable management to clean up.
Memory Ram
If you’re installing an AMD CPU, fortunately installation is much less daunting. There’s no bracket here, simply lift the retention arm in its raised position. The biggest obstacle you’ll likely face right now is sourcing the actual PC components that you need as supply is still an issue as we enter the post-pandemic recovery phase. If the GPU requires additional PSU power, connect the necessary cables. Place the M.2 drive atop of the slot and secure it with a screw.
You’ll find it difficult to find a better value PSU than this EVGA example. It’s rated for 80 Plus Platinum and has enough power for gaming PCs. Slide the PSU into the mounting area with the fan facing up or down. After many years of falling behind Intel, AMD has come leaps and bounds with Ryzen, and this latest generation is even better. There has never been a better time to hop over to team red, and the Ryzen X is the perfect entry point for most PCs.
Connect With Your Kids, Assemble A Pc
In particular, some of the high-end GPUs have large, dedicated coolers that can make it hard to squeeze into cases, even the standard ATX Full-tower cases. Otherwise, on older cases you’ll have to slip in the power supply in through the inside of the chassis and push it firmly against the inside wall as you attach it with four screws. If your PC case comes with a PSU bracket, remove it ahead of time and attach it to the back of the unit. Next up thread the cables through the PSU slot in the back of the case first, and then slide the PSU into place, securing the bracket back onto the chassis. This is also a good opportunity to plug in the rest of your system fans into any available slots on the board. Or alternatively, if your PC case has an integrated fan controller at the back of the chassis to route all your fans into, then directly onto the motherboard.
We promise to make it as painless as possible and take you from beginning to end… Our PC build so far is best suited for 1440p and 4K gaming, and so we need a GPU that can match this level of performance. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is an amazing GPU that uses NVIDIA’s latest graphics technology. Use the rear bracket screws to secure the GPU to the PC case for added stability. Carefully insert the card and push down once it has made contact with the slot, listening out for a click of the latch securing.
PC builds can have many styles and uses, but some components are fundamental and must be a part of every PC. If you get to this part of the building process, you’re good to go. But if you didn’t get any of this, check everything from the start and make sure you didn’t miss a thing. Along your motherboard, you will have a lot of different pins and ports and what have you. You will need to use these to hook up your power, reset, and other I/O buttons and ports.