I've always been a tech enthusiast, but I confess that I’ve always alienated the hardware side of things. For a long time my focus has been on software design, but recently I was forced to look more into the hardware scene. This is due to the fact that in the last 5 years I have had a series of malfunctions in my laptops, which is not good for those who work in the IT field. So, by April this year, I've decided to know as much as possible about how computers work, how they are set up, and how to maintain them. It was around this time that I started to follow Youtube channels like Linus Tech Tips, Techquickie, Jayztwocentz, Bitwit and Paul's Hardware.

Curiously enough, in June of this year, my most recent computer crashed, so I ended up being without a computer to work until a few weeks ago. So, after months of research, I decided it was time to put into practice everything I learned and set up my first desktop.

Choosing components

Since my goal was to build a workstation for work in multimedia production, including video production and 3D animation, I decided to base my desktop on one of the AMD Ryzen processors, as well as a GTX 1070 as a graphics card. But why a Ryzen? These new processors, which came out this year, have very good productivity performances as well as very attractive prices compared to Intel processors. In this sense, I chose Ryzen 5 1600X as it is the most powerful of the Ryzen 5 lineup and I was able to get it on sale. If it’s the best in quality/price ratio? No, the Ryzen 5 1600 in this sense is better because in addition to bringing a free cooler, something the 1600X does not include, it is not far behind in terms of performance. But even so, I opted for the 1600X because I'm a tech enthusiast and because I wanted to explore the overclocking potential of it.

The choice of parts was a very time-consuming process, because I had to study the dependencies between all the components (e.g. the relationship between motherboard and cpu), the relationship between the components, as well as the best choices for the desired computer up to 1300 €. After all this research and learning, I came up with the following result:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600X;
• Cooler: Hyper 212 LED Turbo;
• Motherboard: Asrock X370 Killer SLI/AC;
• RAM Sticks: G.Skill Flare DDR4 3200MHz (2x8GB);
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GTX 1070;
• SSDSamsung SSD 850 Pro 256GB;
• HDD: Western Digital Blue 1TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA III;
• Power Supply: CX550M;
• Case: Cooler Master Masterbox 5;

Assembly

After receiving all the components, I ended up following this video which explains quite well the entire assembly process.

The CPU and RAMs installation was quite simple, but as soon as it was time to mount the Cooler, things got much more complicated. This one had a series of pieces that did not fit at all, which caused me a tremendous confusion, which costed me an hour of my life. It was then that I realized that I only needed a metal part to attach the Cooler to the Motherboard. And yes, the process was very simple, but of course there was no indication about this anywhere, neither in the manual nor on the internet, as far as I knew.

The confusing part came after putting the Motherboad and the power supply into the case: plugging everything! I had to be very cautious here, even because I'm very clumsy with handiwork, so I confess I was afraid to screw up the motherboard pins by plugging the cables into the correct places. This was especially true in the connection of the front panel of the case to the Motherboard since the connecting cables were very small.

During assembly, I realized that doing cable management while plugging all the components is very important as it allows you to organize the wires so that they are intuitively accessed in the future, as well as it helps making the interior of the desktop cleaner.

After six and half hours building this desktop with fear (yes, 6h30 to set up a computer ...), the time has come for the truth: does it turn on? Is everything working? After plugging the desktop on the wall and plugging in a monitor, I felt a tremendous sense of relief when I saw that the computer really turned on. After that, I accessed the BIOS to see if all the components were being detected, and in that sense there were no problems. So, the hardware part was resolved, moving on to the software configuration.

All photos were took by me for this post exclusively

Thank you for reading so far!

Choosing computer parts and their assembly are undoubtedly processes that are not difficult, but require quite some research, and it’s a learning process.

I think anyone nowadays has the ability to set up their own computer if they bother to inform themselves, because the whole scheme is created as if it were a LEGO for adults. So, if you've never set up your own computer and want to build one, go for it! But inform yourself first.

I decided to split this story into two parts to make reading more digestible. So, the next part will focus on the processes needed to make the computer work as intended software-wise, as well as all the problems and peculiar situations that arose.

If you have any question or feedback, you know what to do!
Would you like to know more about me and my work? Then check my blog page!

See you soon,
Shaden