In my previous In-Depth blog post, I described many of the essential components within a computer such as the Central Processing Unit (CPU), Motherboard, Power Supply Unit (PSU), Primary Memory/RAM, and lastly, Hard Disk Drives (HDD) as well as Solid State Drives (SSD). Since my last post, I have met a couple more times with my mentor, Lucas, and he taught the final few components such as Input and Output (I/O) Devices, Expansion Cards, as well as Cases. In addition, Lucas and I planned out a budget for my computer and bought all the necessary components to put it all together.
With the knowledge built from my previous meetings with Lucas, he jumped straight into describing what Input and Output (I/O) Devices are, and some examples of them. One thing that Lucas informed me of immediately was how I/O Devices are also often called Peripherals rather than just Input or Output. He did not tell me as to why they have a different name, however, I am assuming this is just through different uses and maybe through different slang within the computers industry. Some examples of I/O Devices are mice, keyboards, monitors, cameras, speakers, CD’s, and projectors. They are pretty much any device that allows a user to interact with their computer. I included a diagram below that Lucas shared with me to show many of the different devices that can be used. I would like to point out that there are some devices that are used for both Input and Output. For example, a CD can be used to store data, however, it can also be used to access that data as well.
Next, I will be explaining how Expansion Cards are used within a computer. An Expansion Card is a component which allows a higher level of functionality to your computer. The most popular two Expansion Cards consumers buy are graphics cards and network cards. Neither are essential to your computer build; however, they can allow you to do more tasks on your computer. For example, if you are gaming, or video editing in my case, you will likely want a graphics card as it allows for your CPU to have less strain towards getting an image on the screen. The graphics card takes on the image processing that the CPU would normally have to do. Network cards are necessary if the CPU you buy does not include WIFI of Bluetooth. Most CPU’s nowadays come with these luxuries, however, some do not. There is a wide range of options which can provide a better, faster, more streamlined experience. All Expansion Cards plug into the PCI-e slots on the Motherboard which are most often found in the lower half.
The final component I will discuss is the case, which is the part that can allow for builders to put some of their own unique style in them. Although they are not entirely crucial, it is strongly recommended to buy a case to hold all your parts together while adding some fun or cool looking features. There are a multitude of different sizes of cases, layouts, colours, shape, number of fans, and functionality all designed to hold your parts together. Personally, I quite like cases with colourful lighting to add some cool effects within the fans. Furthermore, I do not have many other strong feelings towards the rest of the case design. The only rule I must keep in mind is that I will be buying a larger Motherboard, as they are far cheaper than smaller ones, therefore, I must buy a larger case. For whatever reason, smaller cases are also far more expensive than larger ones as “compact” designs are quite popular at the moment.
After some discussion with my parents, we set a maximum budget of $2000 which would allow me to create a fantastic computer for all my needs. Another thing to keep in mind is what I will be using my computer for because that can have a major impact on which components I will be buying. My main use for the computer would be schoolwork on Microsoft applications, however, I will also be doing a fair bit of photo and video editing as well as small amounts of non-strenuous gaming. With that in mind, Lucas helped me pick out some of the parts I will be using. A recommendation from him was that I buy both an HDD and an SSD as I can have more storage on my HDD for a cheaper price, but I could store important information, such as my operating system, on my SSD because of their faster read and write speeds. My parents did have the final say over any of my selections as it is them who are letting me spend my money and they want me to do so responsibly. This means that much of my choices also had their prices in mind.
After much back and forth between Lucas, my parents, and I, we selected:
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6-Core 12-Thread Desktop Processor for my CPU.
- ASUS TUF Gaming B450-PLUS II for my Motherboard.
- Thermaltake Smart White 600W 80 Plus for my PSU.
- Corsair Vengance LPX 16GB DDR4 3200MHz Desktop Memory for my RAM.
- Seagate BarraCuda 2TB Internal Hard Drive for my HDD.
- WD Blue SN570 500GB M.2 NVMe PCI-e for my SSD.
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 Ti OC 6G GDDR6 for my Graphics Card.
- TP-Link AC1200 PCIe WiFi Card for my Network Card.
- Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow Tempered Glass Mid-Tower Smart Case for my Case.
As a result of the computer market being incredibly short on supplies, I had to order most of my parts from Amazon as they are an extremely credible source for online orders, and I trust that they would deliver the products, even if there are some major delays. The other store that Lucas highly recommended was Canada Computers which has several locations near and even in Coquitlam with a wide variety of computer parts.
Now, I must add up the totals to see if we came over or under budget. Lucas also informed me that if I am hoping to purchase a full Microsoft Windows operating system licence, it would cost an additional $200.
| Component: | Price: |
| AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6-Core 12-Thread Desktop Processor | $318.00 |
| ASUS TUF Gaming B450-PLUS II
|
$129.99 |
| Thermaltake Smart White 600W 80 Plus | $54.99 |
| Corsair Vengance LPX 16GB DDR4 3200MHz Desktop Memory | $84.99 |
| Seagate BarraCuda 2TB Internal Hard Drive | $69.99 |
| WD Blue SN570 500GB M.2 NVMe PCI-e | $64.99 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 Ti OC 6G GDDR6 | $569.99 |
| TP-Link AC1200 PCIe WiFi Card | $39.99 |
| Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow Tempered Glass Mid-Tower Smart Case | $124.99 |
|
Subtotal: |
$1457.92 |
|
Total (Including GST & PST): |
$1632.88 |
Throughout the decision-making process of my compute parts, there were some disagreements, mostly between my mentor and I. Fortunately they never got heated, however, that was thanks to increased communication. What we both struggled to grasp was the uses of my computer and how sophisticated I needed it. Through describing more specifically and candidly what is needed to build the computer itself for the tasks, such as video editing, that I would be doing on it, we were able to resolve these conflicts seamlessly. Additionally, one learning challenge that emerged was that Lucas was at times going too fast for me to comprehend him. I overcame this by informing him of my lack of understanding. Thankfully, he was more than willing to slow down and fill in any gaps in my knowledge. I still sometimes forget exactly what a CPU does, however, I know the broad outline and Lucas has been gracious enough to always remind me. More importantly, much of us working together has been going very well. Throughout any of our disagreements, I have found that Lucas and I work extremely well together and are quite efficient at completing each meeting’s tasks. Although I sometimes must slow him down, he always encourages me to push myself and I really appreciate that.
For our next few meetings, my focus will be to learn everything about the main three operating systems available to consumers. More specifically, their history, reasons to use certain operating systems, reasons to not use certain operating systems, and their prices. During this time, I will be shopping at Canada Computers for some of my computer’s components while I wait for the rest of them to be shipped to my house from Amazon. I have already learned so much about computers and am now learning the deep ins and outs of their parts and I cannot wait to learn more!