hh on Nostr: My first paid job as a teenager was building Frankenstein PCs for a friend just a bit ...

My first paid job as a teenager was building Frankenstein PCs for a friend just a bit older than I was who opened a computer shop in his neighborhood. He was DESTROYED by taxes and permits soon thereafter, but boy did we have fun.

Once I forgot to put the little plastic dampers between the motherboard and the case. 🤷🏻‍♂️

quoting note13ce…u0kz

Probably only do it if you find it fun. Starting out you’re likely to order wrong parts and if you haven’t assembled any you might get frustrated if something doesn’t work and you can’t figure out why. I’d only recommend if you enjoy troubleshooting things, have lots of patience and don’t mind if you waste some money and time in case you ordered the wrong thing.

Aside from that, I’d recommend looking at benchmarks before you buy anything. A lot of hardware is “quite good enough” for much lower prices than the very high end stuff. I almost never buy the top end hardware because performance for price is not worth it.

Read and watch a lot of video about how to buy the right parts. Some websites let you check compatibility of your chosen parts. Be sure you buy compatible parts.

Think about expansion potential. For example, some stuff will be cheaper but you can’t really upgrade it too much in the future. Might be worth spending a little more for something that will last a few years longer just by upgrading another part.