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5 PC building myths that somehow still exist
- Overclocking won't significantly reduce your hardware's lifespan if done sensibly. Guides are available to safely overclock your CPU or GPU.
- Liquid cooling is not necessary for high-end CPUs. Air coolers from manufacturers like Noctua and be quiet! perform just as well.
- A weaker CPU won't cause significant performance bottlenecking. Other factors like monitor refresh rate and storage type can have a bigger impact.
Myths about PC building are as old as PC building itself. Even after the internet became stuffed with tons of content about PC hardware, some have just refused to die. And I'm not talking about the most common misunderstandings, such as "more RAM means more performance" or "more CPU cores means more FPS." Some less obvious ones stem from certain biases that the community still holds dear.
Whether due to incessant repetition or a penchant for wanting PCs built a certain way, the community has inadvertently contributed to harmful and baffling PC-building myths that still exist, even in 2024.
Overclocking reduces your hardware's lifespan
You can reduce the odds if you're sensible
There have always been some weird opinions and beliefs surrounding overclocking. These days, and for most people, CPUs and GPUs are powerful enough out of the box, making overclocking needless for practical purposes. But this hasn't changed the fact that many people still believe that overclocking your CPU or GPU can kill it or reduce its lifespan significantly.
You're more likely to encounter a shutdown than a dead CPU.
While overclocking involves supplying higher voltage to your CPU or GPU than its manufacturer-rated values, it doesn't pose any risk to the hardware if you're careful. Yes, huge amounts of voltage could theoretically kill your CPU, but you're more likely to encounter a shutdown than a dead CPU. Today, there are so many guides on how to safely overclock your CPU or how to overclock your GPU that it would be next to impossible to end up with damaged hardware.
And as for reducing the lifespan of your hardware, CPUs and GPUs are designed to run for the better part of a decade without any issues. Overclocking only slightly reduces this lifespan, maybe a year or two. At that point, the chip will still have become outdated to cause you any real heartburn.
Liquid cooling is necessary for high-end CPUs
Air coolers are shockingly impressive today
Outside of aesthetic preferences and some size limitations, the best liquid coolers are far from a necessity, even when rocking a Core i9 or Ryzen 9 CPU. This myth can be traced back to many PC builders permanently gravitating toward liquid AIOs and custom watercooling loops to keep up with both power-hungry processors and the general high-end configurations of their builds.
: Weird Computer Terms You've Never Heard Before (ThioJoe)
But this doesn't mean that air coolers have suddenly become pointless. In fact, some of the best air coolers can cool your Ryzen 9 7950X or Core i9-13900K better than many AIOs do. Thanks to premium materials, top-notch construction, and decades of expertise, many manufacturers still offer incredible air coolers that excel equally in performance and acoustics.
Whether it's Noctua, DeepCool, or be quiet!, you have no lack of excellent air-cooling options to cool your high-end chip. So, despite the many advantages of liquid cooling vs air cooling, it's not as necessary as it's made out to be.
A weaker CPU will cause bottlenecking
That's just not how things work
The term "bottlenecking" is often thrown around in conversations about pairing the perfect CPU with a complementary GPU. Some people seem to think that if they mess up their PC configuration and end up with a slightly slower CPU with their high-end graphics card, they'll be plagued with horrible, bottlenecked performance. While their thinking is on the right track, their understanding of bottlenecking is often flawed.
Your CPU is not the only source of potential bottlenecks in your PC setup.
It's true that if you pair, say, an RTX 4080 with an old 4-core CPU such as the Ryzen 3 3100, you'll sacrifice a lot of the performance that your RTX 4080 could have delivered with a stronger CPU. But outside of extreme scenarios like these, people shouldn't be as concerned about bottlenecking as they are. Even if you run a cheap CPU like the Ryzen 5 5600 with an overkill GPU like the RTX 4090, you won't sacrifice much performance.
Besides, your CPU is not the only source of potential bottlenecks in your PC setup. For instance, a 60Hz monitor with the above configuration is a far worse bottleneck to have than a weaker CPU. Running your games on an HDD rather than an SSD is also a bottleneck since you're sacrificing faster load times.
High-end PCs require overkill power supplies
You don't need a 1200W PSU
One of the worst components to overspend on is the power supply. Skimping on your PSU is never advisable since you'll depend on it for reliable hardware power, but that doesn't mean you simply go for the biggest wattage number you can find. Many factors determine the quality of the best power supplies, such as efficiency, components used, and necessary protections for the latest hardware.
As long as you're buying a PSU from a reputed manufacturer that has enough wattage for your system with maybe a little headroom for upgrades, you're good to go. People often end up shelling out more for 1200W power supplies for their RTX 4080 or RTX 4070 Ti builds, where a decent 850W PSU would have been more than enough, even for some RTX 4090 graphics cards.
PC building is like LEGO
It's not rocket science, but it isn't that simple either
In an attempt to make PC building more accessible to beginners and less tech-savvy users, the assembly process has been simplified. Sure, it doesn't need years of expertise to put together your first-ever build, but calling it "LEGO for adults" is taking it too far. If you haven't yet built a PC, you might be convinced that all it takes is installing around eight components inside a case. But doing this for the first time can be nerve-wracking for a layperson.
Even if you do your homework and are fairly confident about installing your components, it's certainly not a fast process by any standard. Your maiden build could take you anywhere from 2-4 hours, depending on the complexity of the components used. And that's if everything goes right the first time, and you don't need to go in and fix stuff. The possibility of breaking a component is slim if you're careful, but it's certainly there.
Plus, perfecting things like cable management will take you a few builds at least. There are many other aspects of PC building that you'll only learn once you get your hands dirty, but that's the fun part. It's a fulfilling endeavor as long as you're patient and willing to learn the basics.
Never-ending PC-building myths
As long as we keep getting newer technologies, upgraded components, and new additions to the community, PC-building myths might never die completely. There might even be new myths cropping up now and then. But, thanks to limitless sources of authentic, trusted, and free information, you can always be confident of steering clear of the most harmful myths about PC building. If you're building a new PC, take care to avoid these four overkill components to save money.
