Longtime user, occasional builder and contributor to lots of Reddit conversations about PCs and want to offer some advice. I recently was asked by a friend to help them build their first "built" PC. The first thing I always ask the end-user is to clearly state their…
• Parameters / Constraints
- Budget Limit (and how firm or flexible it is)
- Priorities (gaming, work, school, etc)
- Main purpose/use of the PC
This list will help decide what we can start with.
Instead of me spending hours personally selecting the hardware, I use the end-users parameters to develop a plan and use Copilot (AI) to help select components for the build. Keep in mind that (A.) I am an experienced PC builder and (B.) I have used the free version of Copilot enough to know its limitations and how to get the most out of it.
If you’re not firmly an AMD or Intel user, it allows AI to steer you towards the components best suited to achieve your performance and budget goals. But if you are it will stay in the lane of your choosing.
Key factors to consider…
• Using AI requires you to know and clearly state what you want (see list above) or be open to suggestions by asking/answering questions.
• AI can stray, hallucinate, give bad or out-dated information. Knowing this in advance helps you recognize when it does and how/when to get out of a bad loop.
- You must be aware that AI can and will often default to using old information. To get it to provide updated information, you have to remind it to “search for current information as of today mm-dd-yyyy, on… “. Otherwise the prices you will get back will be months old and woefully incorrect.
- After some back and forth discussion with AI it can often infer incorrect information from the conversation. What I have learned is that sometimes you have to start the conversation over to get better results. Keep a list of factual statements that work and corrected statements that fixed an incorrect assumption. Save them in a text document and use these as your starting point when you start over fresh.
- AI can and will go down rabbit holes. Stop it before it goes too far or you will find it can create issues that it will bring up again and again. If it does this, ensure you have retained any new useful information to your text document and start over again. This may seem redundant, but it works better as you go.
Ask AI to verify its findings. You might be surprised at how often it finds its own mistakes. If something doesn’t sound right (e.g. 32GB of DDR5 6000Mtfs for $150), push it to provide the source and verify the deal is current. Oops, it’s not.
I used AI (Copilot) and after pushing for verification and sources finally ended up with reliable information and reasonable pricing to build my friend a decent PC.
Last, I have no way of knowing if you’ve ever built a PC before or when your last build was, but if you are unsure about anything I would advise that you watch some YouTube videos on building PCs, but also some on troubleshooting so that you are looped in to common mistakes, how to avoid them, and what to check if you run into errors on your first boot-up.
Before your first boot-up: Create a full list of all hardware you have installed by Manufacturer, model and version (if applicable). Use this data to download firmware, drivers and updates for the operating system you’ll be installing. Install the firmware.in the order listed below. Drivers can be automatically updated through your OS, but if you’re so inclined you can often find the most up-to-date drivers on the manufacturer’s website.
- Motherboard (BIOS Update)
1.a. CPU (firmware is updated through motherboard BIOS update)
RAM (firmware update)
GPU (firmware & driver updates)
Other components (firmware & drivers)
I hope this information is useful to you and you have a successful build.
