There are plenty of differences between desktops and laptops. A laptop is much more portable and easy to carry on travel to the office, school, garden, or picnic. Even gaming rigs are affordable with amazing lights at back and on keyboards. Anyway, laptops with a bunch of features at cheap cost can’t replace desktops demands from their fans.
Prebuild desktops are already available in the market but they seem to come with limited options. Especially with the launch of the new Windows 11 operating system by Microsoft, prebuild desktops will be failed to run it on their systems. Microsoft has upgraded the system requirements for Windows 11 and has made it limited to the newer processors with UEFI, Secure Boot, and TPM 2.0 chip support.
Windows 11 desktop build will even require a very specific motherboard with the supported processor, graphics card, memory, SSD storage, and power supply. We have covered information about each component in detail.
If you are a PC guy and prefer desktops over laptops then we have got you a detailed guide on how to build your own Windows 11 Desktop PC.
Read Also: Download Windows 11 for Laptop
Contents
Required Processors for Windows 11 Desktops
Windows 11 requires newer processors with at least two cores and 1 GHz of clock speed. Processor specifications are very simple but it has to be a newer model, that’s at last three years to get a place in their support list of Intel and AMD processors. Microsoft is very strict with the Intel Core CPUs of 8th Generation or higher. Well, choose a CPU from our wisely curated list with the lifespan of updates for more than 10 years.
- AMD Ryzen 7 3700x 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor
- Intel Core i7-10700K 3.8 GHz 8-Core
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core
- Intel Core i5-11600K 3.9 GHz 6-Core
- Intel Core i9-11900K 3.5 GHz 8-Core
Motherboard
The motherboard is also as important as the CPU because it will connect with all desktop components including display, processor, graphics card, fans, RAM, storage, USB, PSU, and other extras. The motherboard must also be paired with your Windows 11 supported processor. They have got separate ports for Intel and AMD CPUs. Motherboard which is suitable for Intel processors won’t work with the AMD processors. We have kept the best motherboard in respect to the above top five processors. The first motherboard will be suitable with the first listed CPU and it will be the same for the rest of them.
- Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO WIFI Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard
- Gigabyte Z490 VISION G ATX LGA1200
- MSI MPG B550 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4
- Asus ROG STRIX Z590-A GAMING WIFI ATX LGA1200
- ASRock Z590 PG Velocita ATX LGA1200
Graphics Card
Microsoft has only asked for DirectX 12 support with WDDM 2.0 drivers to run Windows 11 Gaming and Media services on PC. Both requirements are quite commonly full filled by even integrated graphics of all the listed intel processors. Anyway, we will recommend many superior Graphics cards to get full advantage of desktop systems. Desktops are built for exemplary performance and graphics cards are truly intended to accompany processors to run videos and games graphics. The GPU list will be in the same order as the listed CPU and Motherboards.
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB Founders Edition
- Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB Vision OC
- AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Graphics
- Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB Vision OC
- Asus GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB ROG STRIX WHITE OC
RAM
RAM stands for Random Access Memory, which will manage Windows 11 System and running applications. Microsoft increased the RAM requirements from 2 GB for Windows 10 to 4 GB for Windows 11. Windows 11 will be a bit heavy to run their own programs on slower memory. Further, RAM has got better types in ascending order of DDR2, DDR3, and DDR4. We will suggest picking two 4 GB of RAM sticks in place of one 8 GB stick or two 8 GB of RAM sticks in place of one 16 GB stick. All the listed RAM sticks will match with all the motherboards, CPU, and GPU.
- Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16
- G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18
- Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16
- Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18
- Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16
Storage
Microsoft has to push the storage requirements by Windows 11 system files along with its new features. Most of the users have already upgraded to the SSD on their desktops and we will recommend the same for a new build. You can opt for even a 128 GB SSD just to store system files with apps and move the rest of the files to the secondary HDD. All the listed motherboards even support faster M.2 NVME SSDs. These NVME SSD sticks are much more compact in size and won’t create an extra burden in Desktop Cases.
- ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME SSD
- Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME SSD
- Western Digital Blue 1 TB M.2-2280 SSD
- Corsair Force MP500 120 GB M.2-2280 NVME SSD
- ADATA XPG GAMMIX S11 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME SSD
Windows 11 Operating System
Your Windows 11 Desktop Build will be quite complete with all the listed components. The remaining components such as PSU, Case, CPU Fan, and Cooler can be chosen as per your outlook customizations. The Windows 11 OS is the only missing to complete the build. We have already covered an article to buy Windows 11 Pro for PC. Its Home edition will cost around $140 and Pro editions will cost around $200 from their official website.
Hopefully, this article helps you to assemble and build a proper Windows 11 Desktop PC.