Hi, my name is Jayson, and I am a hardware junky.

I tend to keep up with the latest trends in PC hardware somewhat – you know, the kind of stuff like: what’s the fastest CPU’s, Graphics Cards, who has the fastest Hard Drives with the most storage, and so on. I also tend to read sites like ExtremeTech, Anandtech and Tom’s Hardware fairly regularly.

However, whenever I go through the process of researching products to build a new PC, I tend to get stuck in hardware mode for a little while at least. Researching for this latest build also got me to thinking about what actually makes a balanced system. All three of the sites I mentioned in the above paragraph have recurring article themes, along the lines of: “Build a Best Bang for the Buck PC” or, “How to “Build a $750 Gaming PC” or perhaps Tom’s famous “System Builder’s Marathon” at different prices points. Some of the articles such as these I agree with, some I don’t. What I want to do here is lay out my philosophy of system design, and perhaps it might make you think of your next build a little differently.

So, if you are building a new system (or heck, even purchasing an off-the-shelf system), what’s the first component that you select?

If you answered the CPU, in my opinion, you just made a bad decision. Here is why.

Unless you are using your system for a very specific purposes such as 3D Modeling, or heavy audio or video editing and encoding, the CPU can actually make far less of a difference in overall system performance than many other components. In fact, when I was selecting the components for my new PC, the CPU and Motherboard were the last two items I added too my “wish-list” on NewEgg. I feel that you should put together a balanced set of components that will give you the overall features and performance you want out of your system, and then simply purchase as much CPU power as your budget will allow. All too often, I’ve seen folks start by saying that they want a specific model, and speed of CPU and then end up cutting corners in other areas of their build in order to meet their budget constraints. As a result you may end up with a system that is not balanced and perhaps might not even perform as well as a system with other carefully selected components paired with a slightly “slower” CPU.

Only covering the major system components (no peripherals, or monitor), here is an example of how the decision making process could go:

What Case do I want? How much room do I need it to have? What are my cooling requirements going to be? Do I care how quiet (or noisy) it is? What do I want it too look like?

How much RAM do I need? Will I be doing a lot of multi-tasking? Will I utilize virtualization, or perhaps even run multiple Virtual Machines simultaneously?

What Video Card will I need? Will I play any Games? How important is gaming going to be? Would I want to play at high resolutions and high quality settings?

How much Storage do I need? What is more important too me: Disk Speed, Disk Capacity, or a balance of both?

What capacity Power Supply will I need? Will I be running multiple graphics cards or loads of drives? Will I be overclocking this system?

Do I need a dedicated Sound Card? Perhaps on-board audio will work for me? How important is audio quality?

What Optical Drives do I need? Do I want Blu-Ray drive? Do I need one or two optical drives?

Finally…

How much CPU can I afford?

Also, your choice of CPU will too some extent dictate your choice of motherboard, so evaluate them together - find several motherboards which support your chosen CPU, select features, chipsets, onboard I/O ports, and then read some reviews!

Sure, I left a few things out – there are always other “niceties” that needed to be added to fill out a well-rounded system. Items such as: a nice 3rd Party CPU cooler, extra case fans, perhaps a media reader, etc. These are (possibly, depending on just how tight your budget is) decisions that you could make after CPU selection. Also, I’m not even going to try and get into the whole “Dual-Core” vs “Quad-Core” battle. Make that decision on your own!

If you follow those guidelines, I promise, you will wind up with a system that you will be happier with over the long run. That “whiz-bang, fastest on the market CPU” won’t be “whiz-bang” and certainly won’t be “fastest on the market” for long. Choose your components wisely, and you will be happier!