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Building the Perfect PC Paperback – January 1, 2007

by Robert Bruce Thompson (Author), Barbara Fritchman Thompson (Author)

4.2 42 ratings

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There is a newer edition of this item:

Building the Perfect PC: The Perfect PC is the One You Build Yourself
$20.48
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This popular Build-It-Yourself (BIY) PC book covers everything you want to know about building your own system: Planning and picking out the right components, step-by-step instructions for assembling your perfect PC, and an insightful discussion of why you'd want to do it in the first place. Most big brand computers from HP, Dell and others use lower-quality components so they can meet their aggressive pricing targets. But component manufacturers also make high-quality parts that you can either purchase directly, or obtain through distributors and resellers. Consumers and corporations alike are opting to build rather than buy PCs to ensure high quality and compatibility.

The new edition of Building the Perfect PC shows you how to construct a variety of top-flight systems with the latest technology, including AMD Socket AM-2 and Intel Core 2 processors, that are Vista- and Linux-ready. The book includes several new options, including:

A Budget PC you can build for approximately $350 that offers performance and reliability similar to that of mainstream systems
A full-blown media-center system that runs Linux and MythTV or Windows MCE with multiple tuners and HDTV support
A fire-breathing high-performance gaming system
A fast, low-power, low-heat, low-noise, Small Form Factor system (the size of a shoe box)
A low-cost SOHO (small office, home office) server system with a 2 terabyte (2,000 GB) disk subsystem that's suitable for a residential environment rather than a server closet

Regardless of your technical experience, Building the Perfect PC will guide you through the entire process of building or upgrading your own computer. You'll use the latest top-quality components, including Intel's Core 2 Duo and AMD's Athlon X2 CPUs. And you'll know exactly what's under the hood and how to fix or upgrade your PC, should that become necessary. Not only is the process fun, but the result is often less expensive and always better quality and far more satisfying than anything you could buy off the shelf.

Print length

432 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Maker Media, Inc
Publication date

January 1, 2007
Dimensions

8 x 0.99 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

0596526865
ISBN-13

978-0596526863
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert Bruce Thompson is a coauthor of Building the Perfect PC, PC Hardware Buyer's Guide, Astronomy Hacks, and PC Hardware in a Nutshell. Robert built his first computer in 1976 from discrete chips. It had 256 bytes of memory, used toggle switches and LEDs for I/O, ran at less than 1MHz, and had no operating system. Since then, he has bought, built, upgraded, and repaired hundreds of PCs for himself, employers, customers, friends, and clients. Robert reads mysteries and nonfiction for relaxation, but only on cloudy nights. He spends most clear, moonless nights outdoors with his 10-inch Dobsonian reflector telescope, hunting down faint fuzzies, and is currently designing a larger truss-tube Dobsonian (computerized, of course) that he plans to build.

Barbara Fritchman Thompson is a coauthor of Building the Perfect PC, PC Hardware Buyer's Guide, Astronomy Hacks, and PC Hardware in a Nutshell. Barbara worked for 20 years as a librarian before starting her own home-based consulting practice, Research Solutions, and is also a researcher for the law firm Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge, & Rice, PLLC. During her leisure hours, Barbara reads, works out, plays golf, and, like Robert, is an avid amateur astronomer.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Maker Media, Inc; Second edition (January 1, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0596526865
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0596526863
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.16 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 0.99 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #7,014,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #758 in Microprocessor Design
- #827 in PC Hardware

Customer Reviews:
4.2 42 ratings

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Customers find the book content excellent, nice, and worth the price. They also say the book is well-put together and easy to understand with good pictures. However, some customers feel the book has a dated feel.

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15 customers mention "Book content"15 positive0 negative

Customers find the book content excellent, useful, and informative. They also say it has a great amount of data that can be used by novices.

"...book for building computers back when I was in high school it’s very in depth and also provides pictures on where each component needs to go upon..." Read more

"...I think this book is extremely useful in theory...." Read more

"...This book thoroughly explains the essential functions of all of these important components, and how they are installed...." Read more

"...to build a home or small office PC that Just Works, this book is an invaluable and remarkably comprehensive guide." Read more

12 customers mention "Readability"12 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to understand, well written, and step-by-step. They also appreciate the useful and professional photos.

"...I was in high school it’s very in depth and also provides pictures on where each component needs to go upon installation!" Read more

"...I do like the inclusion of MANY pictures. And contrary to a reviewer, I find it funny and useful that they show their hands...." Read more

"...New technology can easily be applied to what you learn from reading or referring to this book." Read more

"...I was glad to have it on hand. The step by step colored pictures are very handy...." Read more

4 customers mention "Age"0 positive4 negative

Customers find the book dated and the information is already out of date.

"...By the time I bought this book, the information was already out-of-date...." Read more

"...It is a tad dated, but the process, procedure with pictures are a tremendous help for a newbe!..." Read more

"...Unfortunately the vast majority of the information is dated." Read more

"Unavoidably Outdated, but relevant......" Read more

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Danny Baldwin Jr

Awesome starter book for building computers!

Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2020

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This book was my first book for building computers back when I was in high school it’s very in depth and also provides pictures on where each component needs to go upon installation!

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Ignacio Litardo

Useful if biased "anti microsoft" guide on building PCs.

Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2008

Verified Purchase

The Thompsons give detailed steps on how to build 6 very different computers, from a SOHO server to a budget PC.

Of course hardware changes very fast, so anything more than a few months old is painfully outdated. But as the preface states: "The more things change the more they remain the same". You can replace a Pentium D for a Quad Core, the latest iteration for the video board, double the amount of memory and GBs of the HD, and what you read on the page matches what you should get from the shelves.

I would have liked advice on RAID, specially RAID 1 (mirroring, x data security) instead of just JBOD. I've bought my HDs from WD and Seagate, both with a 50% failure rate. Since data recovery shops here don't do the job properly, and are darn expensive of course, I guess RAID 1 is a more sensible advice than what they give: "The Media center PC will be connected to our internal network (...) we've got terabytes of disk spinning elsewhere, so it'd be easy enough to set up a cron job (...)" (p. 273). I just don't think this authors are serious! Not everybody's got a network at home, and the fact of loosing years of information is the closest thing to having your past gone.

The First chapters give enough reasons for the case in favour of building your own PC (versus buying it made). Having done so myself, I do believe it's not at all "for everybody". Yes, "a grandmother could do it", as they quaintly quote, but when things don't go according to plan and not even the tech gurus know what to do, I wonder how a "non professional" would fare. Let alone my mum ...

What I found displeasing is that on the cover it ads: "perfect for Windows Vista" and inside, the few brief mentions of this OS are Microsoft bashings, pleas for Open Source Software, and outright fanaticism, like when they brag about their home as a: "Microsoft free area". Or when they explain why they had to make a PC with Windows for a specific program "that still doesn't run on Linux", but, prim and promptly add "as soon as Robert finishes, it, we'll donate it to the nearest charity". As if that were an asset! Don't get me wrong, most of my "Computer Engineering" friends do use Linux & co, but if you're writing a guide for the "average user" as this one purports, the least one expects is abundant coverage of yes, the most widely used Operating System in the world. Not insider's jokes on why they want such Linux distro (= distribution)...

I also thought the style was highly anecdotic, probably too much. Like when on a GAMING rig, they explain: "We had an old GF 6800 video board, so we used it. For our purposes, it works fine. When it breaks, we'll get another one" (p. 206). Or, to keep about the same PC, they chose an integrated sound adapter for "We don't care about EAX support". It's not about THEM, it's for a gamer! It's obvious the authors are now knowledgeable about anything that a 12 year old would ever play (let alone serious gamers). And not knowing about video board for games is not a matter of principles (like their anti MS bias).

I do like the inclusion of MANY pictures. And contrary to a reviewer, I find it funny and useful that they show their hands. I guess it makes it more humane, you feel identified when you get stuck...
I also like that they include all the extra steps they made when they did something wrong (it makes you feel less of a fool when you botch something, like "if these people, who have been making PCs for 20 years, make mistakes, why can't I? :)". Of course, they magnify them a bit so as one feels less miserable, but the overall result is one feels OK.

What they said about Dell power sources and their unusual cabling, that makes them suitable to blow themselves and the motherboard when you connect them, turned out to be RIGHT when I was about to use a spare PS when I thought our Dell 8400's didn't work. Morale? They do know what they're talking about!
Their checklist for the "smoke test" (the first time you power up the machine) is useful. It may sound silly, but I at least have forgotten to plug a power of one of several HD a few times :)!

I like when they write encouraging phrases like: "Congratulations! You're almost finished building the system". As a learner of English as a 2nd language, it's additionally useful.

Their 80/20 rule for NOT buying over expensive hardware, (specially video boards) is very useful. Coupled by the "law of diminishing returns" (Economics!) "Super-premium adapters are more often bought for bragging rights than for any perceptible performance benefit" (p.207).

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John Salerno

A good book in theory, but not in practice

Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2007

Verified Purchase

This book has gotten some pretty good reviews, which is one reason I chose it over other, similar titles. So I hate to be the voice of dissent, but here's how I feel about this book.

I think this book is extremely useful in theory. What I mean by that is you can sit back and read the book without actually doing the projects and learn quite a bit about PC components. For example, I now know that Antec is a really good brand to choose for the case. I saw the layout of a motherboard and have a better understanding of what the different sections of it are for. And maybe most importantly, I learned about the little things to look for when choosing the individual components, especially to make sure that they are all compatible with each other and, of course, with the motherboard.

However, when I finally started reading one of the chapters on actually *building* a system, that's when it fell apart for me. I read the gaming PC chapter, because what I'd like is a gaming PC. Well, it didn't take long before I was thoroughly confused. I felt like a lot of the steps were given in broad strokes and weren't detailed enough for a novice like myself.

Now, I know what you might be saying: you can't just read these sections "theoretically" like you can the first few chapters. You need to sit down and actually put the pieces together yourself. Well, that's fine and all, if someone gave me a bunch of free components to use. But I have no desire to spend $1000+ when I don't even understand the instructions I'm reading in the book in the first place. Example:

"Position the free-floating retention bracket over the plastic nub on one side of the black plastic retention module base."

Uh...what? And no, I'm not even taking that out of context. The instructions were just difficult to follow. And yes, like I said, it might be easier if you had the components in your hands, but this isn't like picking up some cheap items at the grocery store to perform a high school science experiment just for fun. This is serious and expensive stuff.

Something else that didn't give me too much hope was the fact that after inserting the motherboard into the case and putting it all together, the authors discovered that the back-panel I/O template had some metal tabs that actually blocked the ethernet ports on the motherboard. First off, if *they* make this mistake, I can certainly imagine myself doing much worse. Second, they don't even tell us how to fix it. They simply say that they would have "started over" -- which is absolutely no help at all, since it isn't at all clear how you would prevent this from happening a second time (none of the other ports were misaligned, so it can't simply be a matter of trying it again and hoping the tabs don't block the ethernet ports the second time around).

I also browsed the other sections and found another interesting dilemma they got themselves into. In the budget PC chapter, they chose to use a CPU cooler that ended up not fitting properly against the motherboard, and only after a lot of work and "minor surgery" did it finally fit. In other words, a hardware compatibility issue -- exactly what the authors had been warning us to avoid.

A final example of what I would call the "impracticality" of this book is this: in the chapter on building a mainstream PC, we are given this advice before installing the motherboard:

"Check the motherboard documentation to determine if any configuration jumpers need to be set."

Again...what? The authors don't explain what this means or how to do it, and they don't even mention this step in the chapter on building a gaming PC. I suppose it's possible that the particular motherboard they used in that chapter doesn't need any jumpers set, but I doubt it. I think they just left it out of that chapter. I shudder to think what else could have been left out, and having to face that problem all alone when I'm in the middle of putting all my components together.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not listing these things just to show how incompetent the authors are. They seem to really know a lot about what they're doing. My point is, if they can make these types of mistakes, then certainly anyone new to building a PC can (and probably will). Furthermore, as I said in the case of the metal tabs, they don't even say how to fix the problem.

If anything, this book has shown me that building a PC is just as difficult as I imagined it might be, and that it isn't always a clean and easy process. It's a really exciting thought to put all these pieces together yourself, but I don't know if I'd start by doing it with new, top-of-the-line components. One thing for sure I will do is take apart my parents' current computer as soon as they get a replacement, and I might even have this book on hand just to see if I understand it better then.

Finally, the binding of this book is terrible. One section has already fully bent back, looking like at any moment the pages will start coming out. Even worse, the entire spine of the book has torn away from the back cover. If this happens in the front, then the entire cover will come off the book! And I am very careful with my books, so this isn't from rough treatment. This book has moved from my desk to my bed, a matter of two feet, and after three days it's already falling apart.

So all in all, I would recommend this book if you are interested in reading about building a PC, but I'm not so sure everyone will find it all that easy to follow when it actually comes time to build it. Furthermore, since the authors use (necessarily, I understand) very specific components in their projects, it seems possible that when you go to build your own PC using different components, some entirely different issue might pop up that the authors don't discuss since they aren't using the same equipment as you. This, of course, cannot be avoided, but to me it just shows that building a PC still might be a somewhat intimidating process.

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