The author has long had an interest in building computers from a young age, and began to delve into hardware assembly after university. They recommended websites for comparing hardware performance and offered purchasing suggestions, including CPU, solid-state drives, hard disk drives, and memory frequencies. They also shared their experience and advice regarding hardware selection and important considerations.
Wonder – Unspeakable
Ever since I was young, I’ve dreamed of building my own computer, but unfortunately, economic conditions didn’t allow it. Finally, after a lot of hard work, I reached university and built a laptop for portability. If I had to pinpoint a specific time when the idea started, it would be when I first began thinking about assembling computers at my hometown’s library. After all, it was a sizable city-level library, with not only an electronic reading room (though I never actually used it – it was billed by the hour) but also a magazine reading room, where I discovered magazines like Popular Science and Computer News. For someone who had limited exposure to computers, these were practically divine科普资料 (scientific popularization materials). When I read about players “doing dungeons” and “killing monsters,” I thought about building my own computer to do the same, acting as the main output. And when I saw “black technology,” I fantasized about replicating what was described in the books, hoping to achieve similar effects (regarding the use of hacking tools).
Even though I had a heavy workload in high school, with my limited understanding at the time, reading and playing were both important. It could be said that we lived a “naive and carefree” life, using the excuse of going to the library to read as an alibi, and I would often carry a small bag and walk there. The city wasn’t that big, so it was generally a walk. Arriving at the library, I enjoyed the air conditioning, reading novels, comics, and game magazines, occasionally even delving into more serious books.
It’s easy for older people to forget things, and this is where the library sparked the initial seed. When I was in junior high school, relatives had assembled a computer, but I don’t know what it was used for back then. The operating system was Windows 2003, and there were built-in games like Paper Cards + Empire. We all thought about “outsmarting” each other to steal keys, playing games together with my cousin.
When I entered junior high school, the school offered basic computer training, and later I transitioned to a computer competition concept. I even qualified for NOIP (National Olympiad in Informatics) once. Speaking of this, it’s worth mentioning the power of our alumni. The high school’s computer building was donated by alumni, including a computer teaching room + library. At that time, it was also the initial wave of China’s internet boom. School leaders supported participation in computer competitions, as several senior classmates had been admitted to key universities through computer science.
I have never reflected on my relationship with computers like this way. It’s no wonder that after graduating, I stubbornly switched from automation to computer science – the seed had already been planted, and those within the circle didn’t realize it. Having encountered more things from a young age, I thought I was very skilled, but in reality, I only understood the surface level. My biggest advantage was the initial passion.
Hardware Assembly
Browse through stores like Carda, Chiphell, and Zhihu’s computer assembly forums – newcomers can relatively easily put together a list of the components they need. After 2019, when purchasing CPUs with limited financial resources, prioritize AMD for higher performance.
I recommend a commonly used hardware performance comparison website: https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/. You can compare prices with US-imported parts on Xianyu (a Chinese online marketplace). True experts can find great deals by buying secondhand on Xianyu – it’s significantly cheaper. If you’re not very familiar, I don’t recommend buying from Xianyu; I purchased fake memory myself, and while it hasn’t caused any problems so far, I’m not entirely sure about its reliability – the model and specifications don’t match at all.
SN550 VS SN750
The difference between the SN550 1TB and the SN750 1TB is that they consistently read and write slower by a factor of two – one reads at 850MB, while the other reads at 1.6GB. However, for everyday use, there’s no noticeable difference because both support 4K equally. Of course, this refers to the 1TB SN550; speeds are significantly slower in sequential read/write operations with the 500G and 250G versions. In my opinion, if you’re not a spendthrift, buying the SN550 is sufficient – my main reason for not purchasing it wasn’t its sequential read/write speed, but rather that it only comes in a 1TB capacity, while the SN750 offers 2TB. For me, given the circumstances and without needing to expand further, my motherboard’s M.2 NVMe interface is more valuable than these SSD differences.
Based on a consensus of online user feedback, purchasing an adapter board – a B150 motherboard can also support M.2 interfaces for SSDs.
Hard Disk Drive Selection
Currently, the prices of hard disk drives are relatively stable. For users with large storage needs, it is necessary to select a suitable mechanical hard drive. Users who frequently download resources are recommended to choose enterprise-grade hard drives. Common ones include:
- Western Blue Disc
- Seagate Exos
Large capacity mechanical hard drives are recommended to be partitioned, and frequent download operations should be fixed on a specific partition. If bad sectors appear later, they can be concentrated in one partition, and the current partition can be discarded, which can effectively extend the lifespan of the mechanical hard drive.
Seagate series official introduction
Memory Frequency
From a daily usage perspective, frequency will not have a significant impact on performance.
Memory timings (also known as RAM timings) are four parameters that describe the performance of Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM): CL, TRCD, TRP, andTRAS, measured in clock cycles. They are typically written as four digits separated by hyphens, for example 7-8-8-24. The fourth parameter (RAS) is often omitted, and sometimes a fifth parameter: Command rate (command rate), usually 2T or 1T, also written as 2N, 1N is added. These parameters specify the latency (delay time) that affects the speed of random access memory. Lower numbers generally indicate faster performance. The final element determining system performance is the actual latency, typically measured in nanoseconds.
When converting memory timings to actual latency, it’s important to note that they are measured in clock cycles. Without knowing the clock cycle time, it’s impossible to determine whether a set of numbers is faster or slower than another set.
For example, DDR3-2000 memory with a clock frequency of 1000 MHz has a clock cycle of 1 ns. Based on this 1 ns clock, CL=7 gives an absolute latency of 7 ns. A faster DDR3-2666 (clock 1333 MHz, each cycle 0.75 ns) might use a larger CL=9, but the generated absolute latency of 6.75 ns is shorter.
Modern DIMMs include a Serial Presence Detect (SPD) ROM chip that contains recommended memory timings for automatic configuration. The BIOS on the PC may allow users to adjust timings to improve performance (with the risk of instability), or in some cases increase stability (such as using suggested timings).
Note: Memory bandwidth is a measure of throughput for memory and is typically limited by transfer rates rather than latency. By interleaving access to multiple internal banks of SDRAM, it’s possible to transmit at peak rates continuously. Increasing latency may be used to increase bandwidth. Specifically, each new generation of DDR memory has higher transmission rates, but absolute latency has not changed significantly, especially in the first-generation products on the market, which often have longer delays than the previous generation.
Even with increased memory latency, increasing memory bandwidth can improve the performance of computer systems with multiple processors or multiple execution threads. Higher bandwidth will also boost the performance of integrated graphics cards that do not have dedicated video memory.
