Frequently asked questions

No. Every part fits in one place and one orientation only, so damaging something by mistake is genuinely hard. A first build usually takes two to four hours. The fiddliest part tends to be the front panel cables, because the pins are small and poorly labelled.

Usually yes, but the gap is smaller than commonly assumed — typically 10 to 20 per cent. The real benefit lies elsewhere: you choose every part, so no manufacturer economises on the power supply or cooler, which prebuilt specifications frequently leave unlisted.

Both vendors make good processors today, and raw performance rarely settles it. The practical criterion is the platform: AMD has committed to supporting AM5 through 2027, which gives a real path to swapping only the CPU later. Intel leads in multi-threaded work and idle power draw. For gaming specifically, AMD parts with 3D V-Cache hold a clear advantage.

For most builds a good air cooler is enough, and it is the more sensible choice: no pump to wear out and no liquid to leak. Liquid cooling is worth considering for CPUs above 200 W, for sustained all-core workloads, or in a case where a large tower does not fit.

16 GB is the practical minimum for gaming today, and 32 GB is a sensible standard, particularly with a browser and chat application running alongside a game. 64 GB only starts to make sense for video editing, 3D rendering or virtual machines. Always fit two modules rather than one — dual channel gives a real performance gain.

It is the worst place in the whole build to save money. The power supply is the only component whose failure can damage the others. Use the warranty period as your guide — manufacturers offer ten years only on designs they trust — and choose a wattage with roughly 30 per cent headroom over your calculated need.

The case, drives and often the power supply — yes, provided it has enough capacity and is not much more than seven years old. Memory usually not: DDR4 and DDR5 are mutually incompatible, and the choice is fixed by the motherboard. Coolers are sometimes compatible across a vendor sockets, AM4 and AM5 being one example.

In a gaming build the graphics card determines frame rate more than anything else and should usually take 35 to 45 per cent of the budget. The CPU stops mattering above a certain threshold, particularly at higher resolutions. Do not cut the power supply or cooler, though — those are the parts that carry over into several later builds.