68 JANUARY2021|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE395
RAM RECOMMENDATIONS
PRODUCTNAMEPARTCODESPEED CAPACITYPRICESUPPLIER
CorsairVengeanceLPX 8GB CMK8GX4M2A2666C162,666MHz8GB (2x4GB)£30 http://www.amazon.co.uk
HyperXFury16GB HX432C16FB3K2/16 3,200MHz16GB(2x 8GB) £61 http://www.ebuyer.com
CorsairVengeanceLPX 16GB CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 3,200MHz16GB(2x 8GB) £60www.amazon.co.uk
HyperXFury64GB HX424C15FB4K4/64 2,400MHz 64GB (4x16GB)£231 buykingston.co.uk
CorsairVengeanceLPX 32GB CMK32GX4M2B3000C15 3,000MHz32GB(2x 16GB)£120www.amazon.co.uk
CHOOSEYOUROWNPC
T
he benefit of building your own
computer is that youget to pickthe
exact specificationsthat youwant. To make
things easier,ComputerShopperhastested
all the topcomponentstohelpyou makethe
rightchoices. Just check outour Best Buys
section on pages40to57tosee our
top-rated storage devices, graphics cards,
andour recommendedspecsfor budget,
mid-range and premium PCs.
The budget model specification is ideal
forbasicweb andemail use, andsome
low-intensity office work. Look forthe
mid-range PC if youuse your computeralot
forwork and youwanttodosome video or
photo editing, while if youeditalot of photos
or video, thepremiumPCcorespecisa
great choice,and it’sideal foragaming rig.
Each speccan be tweaked fordifferent
uses,and you’ll alsoneed to add afew
components. In addition to those core
specs, you’ll need apower supply unit (PSU).
We recommend theCorsairTX550Mfor
budgetPCs,Corsair RM750ifor mid-range
PCs, and the Be Quiet! Dark PowerPro 11
850W forpremiumPCs.
While these specswill getyou started,
there aresometweaksand adjustments
that youshould makebasedonthe type of
PC youwant.
RAM
Memoryisusedtostore anyinformationthe
CPU might need, from applicationstodata.
When your computer runs short on memory,
virtual memoryisused, storingsomedata
on your harddiskorSSD.This is farslower
than using RAM, which canmakeyour
computer start to feel sluggish.
Installing moreRAM canmakeyour
computer feel faster and make it easier to
run multiple applications at once. So how
much RAMshould youhave?
We recommend aminimum of 8GB for
budgetcomputers, whereemail, web
browsing andsomeproductivity software is
used. Go for16GB of RAM if youedit alot of
photosortendtorun alot of demanding
applications or games.Even32GBwouldn’t
be excessivefor aworkstationPCor
dedicated multimedia rig,although thisis
where memory starts to getreally
eof the best things about
’s easytoupgrade in the
especiallyifyou havea
otherboardwith spareslots.
If youbuy anew PC,
you’ll needtouse DDR4
memory.Buy your RAM in
dual-channel kits,with two
identical sticksofhalf the
totalcapacity (soatotalof
16GB of RAMwouldcome as
two8GB sticks).Bysplitting
the available memory
tween twochannels,the data
beaccessed moreefficiently
gle stick in asingle channel,
similartohow having moreCPU threads
canimprove your PC’s performance.
Lastly,there’sthe issue of clock speed.
Also just likeaCPU, RAM is ratedata
certain operationspeed,whichcan be
overclockedifdesired. This particular spec
isn’t as importantasthe totalRAM pool
size,however; 3,000MHz kitswon’t be
significantly faster than 2,400MHzkits for
mostuses,sobuy the cheapest,fastest
memory that youcan.
GRAPHICSCARDS
Do youreallyneedagraphics card and, if
so, howmuch should youspendonit?
The answer to those questions dependson
what youwanttodo. If you’rebuilding a
budget PC and areusing an IntelCPU,you
getintegratedgraphics,sothere’s no need
to buy an additional graphicscard. If you’re
building aRyzen system, then youdon’t get
integrated graphics, so you’ll havetoadd a
separategraphics card.The budgetAsus
GeForceGT710 (£33,www.ebuyer.com)
serves the job of feeding amonitor, although
it lacksaDisplayPort output, andhas only
DVIDual-Linkand HDMI1.4 outputs,soyou
canrun adisplay with amaximumresolution
of 2,560x1,600.
Buying abettergraphics card,such as
those featuredinour Best Buys section,can
haveseveral advantages. First,ifyou want
to run ahigher-resolution monitor,suchas
forviewing twodocuments side by sideor
forhigh-resolution videoand photo editing,
it’sworth spending abit more. Second, if
youwanttodoalotofproductivity work, a
graphics card canacceleratethe work in
videoeditingand photo editing with
applications such as Adobe Photoshop.
Finally,ifyou want to play games, then
you’ll need to install agraphics card.
STORAGE
If there’sone thing that we recommend for
anyPCofany budget, it’sasolid-statedrive
ABOVE:Corsair’sRM750i is agreat powersupply
unit formid-range PCs
expensive. One
RAM is that it
future,e
mo
t
bet
on them canb
than with asin
i il t h h
