PC building website

[ricko_uk]

Hi,
it has been few years since I put together a PC and now you have so many more memory types, CPUs sockets, motherboards etc. Is there a website that makes sure the components you select are compatible with each other and perhaps show benchmark performance of certain assembly/combos?
Thank you

[Raj]

You select a CPU,
It'll be compatible with select few motherboards and only 1 type of ram eg DDR3.

For the above combo, GPU xyz will give max performance
Anything more expensive than that GPU will not give you better performance due to "cpu bottleneck"

The storage type will depend on motherboard, if it can take sata3 ,nvme etc and how many.

For the above combo, you'd have to buy a power supply the can power above power it with a bit of safety margin and have room for upgrade

So select cpu, then select motherboard
Motherboard will make or break your experience.
Choosing motherboard will require you to see if it has the socket to take your cpu then specifically looking for cpu compatibility at motherboard manufacturer's website.

[kingsolmn]

The basics haven't really changed much over the years, as Raj listed the basics as they apply today.

But, if you would like some more guidance then you can check out a site like "https://pcpartpicker.com/list/" or "https://pcbuilder.net/list/". These sites are geared more towards selling you the parts you end up with but are generally pretty good about letting you know what will work together.

Another thing to consider with the RAM is to make sure it's "the best" in terms of the number of chips. I haven't had too much time to really dig into it, but LTT did a pretty good explainer video with testing to show what the deal is. The LTT video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7CO9v9rpOk.

Good luck and ask questions! And best of all, enjoy the process!

[ricko_uk]

Thank you Kingsolmn and Raj

[Whales]

Be wary of the different subtypes of RAM.  DDR3 registered, DDR3 unregistered, DDR3 ECC, etc.  AMD boards tend to be a bit more lenient but Intel boards tend to only accept one type.  They have the same connector and everything, but your system won't boot.

You are less likely to encounter this in the DDR4 world at the moment because many/most people buy DDR4 from computer parts suppliers.  Meanwhile because DDR3 systems are older: lots of people are stripping (special) DDR3 sticks out of servers and flooding eBay with them.  Good sellers tell you (eg "AMD only") but not all of them know or understand.   Eventually this will become a problem with DDR4 too (as DDR5 gets phased in).

[SpacedCowboy]

So I just went through this. My FPGA P&R was running on an Intel NUC Core-i5. Well, I say "running"... I mean, gasping its last would be a better description. I did want something I could just put on the shelf (my desk area is already "busy", and one of the advantages of the NUC is that it's tiny) and I didn't want anything too ugly, since it's on-view on the shelf.

So, priorities:

• Fast. If I'm going to splash cash, I want to see some significant benefit. That meant a Ryzen Zen-3 CPU. I actually went for the 5950X, because I have other uses for large numbers of cores
• Quiet. There's an airport about 5 miles away, I don't need one next to my desk
• Small. See the above shelf situation...
• Pleasing on the eye. It's going to sit just behind and above my main monitor, so...

I ended up getting an ASRock X570 motherboard. Benefits include:

• It's mini-ITX, so it's small
• It has a full-length PCIe slot for graphics
• There's plenty of USB3 around the back, but crucially it also has Thunderbolt-3 so if I want a 10GBit ethernet to fit into the rest of the network here, I can, and I can hang off huge storage in a DAS box if I want to, too

Next up was the case. I went for the SSUPD Meshlicious which is freaking awesome. Its 6.6" by 9.6" on its base, and 14.2" tall. It really does fit on the shelf, and it looks nice. It has fairly solid Aluminum mesh panels on all sides which have a heft to them. It's large enough to put in a full-size GPU and up to a 280mm radiator. If you don't put in a full-length GPU, it can take up to 4 2.5" SSDs as well, or 2x 3.5" HDDs. It also has all the outputs coming out the back of the case, rather than on the top or bottom as is common for mini-itx "cube" cases.

This isn't for games, so I went for a half-length GeForce 750Ti I had lying around, which I can mount so all the connections come out the back (rather than towards the base as is more normal on this type of case). I did have to get a longer (20cm) PCIe extender cable though - the provided one wasn't enough, being intended for the vertical GPU mount, not the horizontal one I chose to do).

For cooling, I had an EVGA 240mm cooler from a past life, so I repurposed that. It went in easily.

Small form-factor units like this can take an SFX (or larger SFX-L) PSU rather than the more standard ATX. I opted for the SFX, and got a 750W Corsair Platinum PSU which is fully modular (important when your case is on the small side)

The motherboard has 4xSATA but also a PCIe M.2 SSD connector on the bottom so I went for a  2TB one. I didn't bother going for the PCIe4 version, that was a bit expensive for the extra speed.

For RAM, I got 64GB DDR4, which ought to be plenty - and given that you only get 2 slots, it's going to have to be

So now I have a fast-as-<deleted> machine that looks nice, is small, is quiet (no huge GPU helps) and does indeed sit on the shelf. It looks dinky, and it's actually a beast. Couldn't be happier.