The Order of Importance of Hardware

[Zak33]

Hi people.

What order of importance would you put in a new build, in terms of your budget for hardware?

I'm very very pleased to see more and more people put a good quality Power SUpply Unit in now, and that's gonna rank very high for me, but what else?

I see a few questions on Cases: Now, dont get me wrong, you can get a good case for sub £30 but I have to add, this purcahse may last you 5 or 6 or more PC builds....so why not spend the dough on the case, and get a cheaper CPU...you KNOW you'll upgrade the CPU soon. The case may last you for literally years.

Ram? Who buys bargain ram?

GRAPHICS CARDS /sharp intake of breath.

Is there anyone here brave enough to drop their £200 card to £100 to get a really nice PSU and a really nice case?

What order OF IMPORTANCE to you put in the hardware for a new build?

I'm not gonna ask about actual dough, cos you've all got different budgets, but put them in order, and then you'll see what people will scarifice for other components.

Case
PSU
CPU
Heatsink
Mobo
Ram
Vid Card
HDD
Optical Drive
Fans
Other
What order people?

[staffsMike]

PSU
Mobo
CPU
HSF
RAM
Case + Fans
GFX
HDD
Optical
Sound (if i'm buying one)

I always buy the graphics card last though unless theres a sound card lol

[excalibur2]

Well I go for:-
Monitor
PSU
Case

The rest for a balance and don't mind cheap ram from a well known make, and as the case is kicked about by my feet (under my desk) don't care what it looks like.

[Flewis]

In order of most important:

Graphics Card
CPU
Mobo
Heatsink
RAM
PSU
HDD
Fans
Case
Optical Drive

To me the graphics are the most important thing as gaming is the primary use for my pc. Very difficult tho, cos you need the right balance of everything and the best order for one budget might be different for another.

[dannyboy83]

The case is possibly worth extra investment because it can be used for years. You'll probably change your mobo, CPU, RAM, graphics cards, etc, but can keep the same case.

That said, if you're building an ew machine from scratch, it wouldn't be top on the priority list.

Mobo
CPU
Vid Card
Power Supply
RAM
HSF
Case
HDD
Optical
Sound

[staffsMike]

Thing with the PSU is it's usually the last thing I think about but the first thing I buy..

..It's not one of those things you don't get excited about but it is crucial to get a good one.

[[GSV]Trig]

Motherboard's usually the most important thing IMHO as its the core of your machine, spend as much as you can and get the best you can, then when it comes to new CPU's, GFX etc your boards already in there and the rest is a simple hardware/software installation, maybe with a BIOS update if needed.
As Mike said above tho, PSU is the last thing you think about as you never know what kinda power your going to need until your done, work out what you need and then go up a step or 2 to support whatever else your board can take in the future.

[tigerboyce]

Vid Card
CPU
Mobo
PSU
Ram
HDD
Case
Optical Drive
Heatsink
Fans

Graphics is probably most important for me and i definetly do rate the case as a high priorit on my list as its basically the only part that you will actually see and use. PSU is also very important as its pointless skimping on a PSU to lose all the components that you raised your buget on

[Max Tractor]

It really depends on what I can carry over

Motherboard/cpu
PSU

[Fabula]

PSU
Motherboard
Ram
CPU
GPU
HD
Case
Opticals

[excalibur2]

Motherboard's usually the most important thing IMHO as its the core of your machine, spend as much as you can and get the best you can, then when it comes to new CPU's, GFX etc your boards already in there and the rest is a simple hardware/software installation, maybe with a BIOS update if needed.

b..bu..but......... most modern motherboards are ok now from £76 upwards, if one was perfect and future proof there would be no competition and the others would go out of business.

I pay £76 for a MB and you pay say £150...well in a year's time I can buy another £76 MB for the latest cpu's or whatever.............
Your view is valid if e.g. you were specializing in OC, but at the end of the day, computer component manufacturers are in busuness to make money and it is a cycle of upgrading to get the latest........the more you upgrade the more money they make and keeps people in jobs.

[sp3n]

mainly gaming and watching movies so gfx, processor and 5.1dts/dd sound is important for my rig

graphics card
processor
sound card
motherboard
ram
case
psu
heatsink
hdd
fans
optical drive

[Mossy]

Most Important 1st

Motherboard
PSU
Memory
Graphics Card
CPU
Case

Main Hardware

[shaithis]

All of equal importance to me, except case. That's only about aesthetics.

[saltynay]

Case
psu
OS
then all the rest depending on what the pc is for gaming and the gfx card will be a priority, htpc and it will be hdd space

[acrobat]

Surely it depends what you want it for? If you are never going to play any games, then you don't need a £200 graphics card anyway.

Also, cheap RAM is fine if you are using an intel chip and don't plan to overclock. Faster RAM helps the AM2's etc, but on the C2D's and quads, fast RAM doesn't help it much. So you can get cheap RAM happily. As long as you don't want to overclock it hugely, the RAM would be fine.

As for PSU, it doesn't have to be the highest priority and fanciest thing ever. As long as it has enough volts and supplys it at a steady rate, its fine. So that automatically excludes all the twenty quid 600W ones anyway. So you end up spending a lot more than £50 and in that case you can't really go wrong.

Also, I'd put heatsink right at the bottom unless they want to overclock. At stock speeds, the stock heatsink and fan is fine.

So basically its too hard to make an order of importance without knowing who its for. My mate just made a multimedia PC, so getting the best wireless keyboard and mouse was a very high priority. Monitor was zero priority because its going through his £1600 HD TV. Storage space was a high priority because he has lots of anime and crap to store. Etc.