With the rising price of retail games in South Africa, some gamers are turning to PC gaming to take advantage of great deals on digital platforms such as Steam or GOG.
However, gamers new to the world of PC hardware may be overwhelmed by the actual assembly of their monster gaming rig, despite ensuring they bought all the correct and compatible parts.
If you’ve taken on the task of building your own gaming PC, but are uncertain about how to go about it, here are a few tips you should keep in mind during assembly:
Easy order
While it may seem logical to begin by mounting your motherboard to your gaming chassis and continuing from there, it is usually easier if you begin by attaching your CPU, cooler, and RAM modules to the motherboard before mounting.
This allows you to ensure your cooler is mounted evenly without fiddling in the constricted confines of your chassis.
From there, you can easily fix your graphics card, PSU, hard drives and other modules to your build without worrying too much about a fixed order.
Thermal paste application
Most first-time PC builders are especially nervous about the processor and its cooling.
Mounting a cooler onto your CPU is actually pretty straightforward, despite all the horror stories you’ve read about online.
Simply squeeze a pea-sized blob of thermal paste onto the middle of the CPU once it is installed and mount the cooler on top (fixing the cooler to the board will spread the paste relatively evenly).
Be sure to remove the plastic covering your cooler’s contact plate and check if it has pre-applied thermal paste.
Plan cables beforehand
Cable management is one of the fine arts of PC building, and can turn a messy gaming rig into a sleek and sexy machine.
Plan out where you want your PSU, SATA, and other cables to run before you build, aiming to keep them short and tidy in order to have a clean and efficient look.
Stay grounded
While the chance of electrostatic dishcarge is relatively rare, be sure to ground yourself when working with PC parts.
Either keep touching the metal of your chassis regularly, or use an anti-static wristrap.
This will negate any chance of a static shock affecting your components.
Use proper tools
While you technically only need a few basic tools to assemble a gaming PC, high-quality tools can make the experience so much easier.
A magnetic screwdriver is a must-have for system builders, allowing you to easily retrieve small screws from your chassis without dropping them amidst all your components.
Follow the instructions
Building a gaming PC is mostly a straightforward exercise in installing components into their matching slots, but some parts can be a bit tricky for first-timers.
Connecting the front panel LED lighting cables to their matching motherboard pins can be a bit confusing at first, and may require you to consult your motherboard’s documentation to figure out what goes where.
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I remember putting on my first paste on cpu. I squeezed the whole packet. What a mess