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There are many benefits that come with building your own PC. By building your own computer, you can ensure that it has all the features you need, without paying extra for superfluous hardware and software that gets added to pre-built machines. Although it's not necessary, you can also learn a lot about how the computer works, which will help you make upgrade decisions in the future and assist you in troubleshooting saving you time and money on professional tech support. Building your own computer will also make sure you have industry standard hardware which means no more expensive proprietary components. You can upgrade what you want, when you want, and usually save money doing it. If you would like to learn more about building a PC, even if you have no prior hardware knowledge, this guide is for you. Building a PC is much easier than most people imagine and the payoff can be great.

The first step to building a PC is to determine exactly what you will be using it for. Do you do a lot of video editing such as making DVDs of family videos, or backing up your current video collection in digital format? Will the PC be used mainly for office work like word processing and accounting? Are you or someone in your family an avid gamer that needs the power to run high end graphics? Perhaps you're a digital artist that uses professional level applications like Photoshop, Maya, or 3DS Max. These are all things to consider when planning your new system to ensure you can the exact hardware you need. Another thing to consider is the hardware you already own. If the old system you're replacing already has a dvd-rom which suits your needs, why buy new ones? Does your monitor still function properly and large enough to get the job done? Why not keep and use it for the new system? Make sure to save your old hard drives too, although they may be too slow to use as the main system drive in your new computer, you can never have too much storage space for todays digital media. Just dump all those digital pictures, music, and movies on the your old drive, and save room on your newer faster drive for the operating system and essential programs.

Once you've decided what tasks you'll mainly be performing on the new system it's time to start shopping for the base components. I'll now give a brief overview of each of the essentials which you can use to determine exactly what you need.

CPU – Pretty much any system needs a decent CPU. Selecting your CPU first will help plan the rest of your system. Make sure to look check which socket type it is so you'll know which motherboard to buy. You will then use the motherboard specs to determine which types of components are compatible with it. Having a good processor will make sure your programs run quickly and don't have to fight for resources while multitasking. Although a lot of people judge CPUs solely by their clock speed (megahertz, gigahertz) this number can be quite misleading. For instance a program that's designed to take advantage of a quad-core CPU will perform better on a 2.4ghz quad core processor than a 3ghz dual core. Most new programs today support multiple core processors, although mostly dual core. However quad-core support is quickly increasing and will be a better choice in the long run.

Recommended CPU – Intel Core 2 Quad 6600 Kentsfield, 2.4GHz Clock and 2×4MB L2 Cache. Excellent performance for the price. Currently selling for $274.99 on www.newegg.com

Memory – Memory, or RAM is a high speed temporary storage medium. Most systems will need DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM. If you're building a high end gaming rig and can afford it you may want to go with DDR3. DDR3 is expensive and won't give a great performance increase (unless you don't mind the price tag and can buy enough to make it worthwhile of course). If you have to choose between 2GB of DDR2 or 1GB of DDR3, go with the DDR2. 2GB(gigabytes) is a good starting point, depending on how much you want to spend you may want to increase this to 4GB. Also, make sure to buy RAM with a “Dual Channel” architecture. This basically means that it can transfer data at twice the speed. Prices and brands will vary, the main thing to look at besides storage capacity is CAS Latency. The lower the number, the higher the price/performance. Don't go higher than a 5 in this area.

Recommended RAM – A-Data 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800. Currently selling for $42.99 at www.newegg.com

Hard Drive – There are a few different types of hard drives on the market right now. I'll give a brief description of each.

PATA – PATA (Parallel ATA, sometimes referred to as IDE/EIDE) is an older model drive. It's slow by todays standards and you'll want to avoid it. If you're upgrading from an older computer it probably has a PATA drive in it.

SATA – SATA (Serial ATA) is a newer and faster model hard drive. They're pretty much the standard for desktops and shouldn't cost anymore than PATA. This is most likely what you will want to buy.

SCSI – (Small Computer System Interface) drives are made for high speed and reliability. They're mainly used for servers and similar high demand tasks. These drives are very expensive, and require a special interface. Most people don't need SCSI drives and wouldn't see a huge performance increase in normal usage anyway. If you do need SCSI, you probably wouldn't be reading this guide to begin with.

Recommended Hard Disk Drive – Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3160815AS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive – OEM. You may want to go bigger or smaller depending on your personal needs, but this is a good middle ground. Good seek time and a good price of $52.95 at www.newegg.com
If you store a lot of digital media or have many games installed at once, you may want to go for something larger.

Video Card (Display Adapter) – The video card is for, as the name implies, processing video data. Graphics in games, DVD movies, opengl viewports and basically anything that needs video rendered. How much you spend on a video card mainly depends on if you're a gamer, or if you will be using programs such as Maya or other 3D modeling apps that need to draw high detail models in real time. If you're building a system to mainly use as an office computer, or to browse the internet, send email etc. you can probably skimp on this. If you're really not planning on playing many high end games, a lot of motherboards come with basic video cards built into them. This will be enough to run your every day applications such as web browsers and media players, the newer ones even perform relatively well for gaming, but don't expect it to play Crysis with ultra high settings. If you're looking to play games, use your PC as a media center, or your motherboard doesn't have onboard video, you will want to buy a dedicated video card. The main things to look for in a video card are Clock Speed, Memory Size, and Memory Interface. Modern video cards require a PCI-E interface and a power supply with the appropriate connectors. Most come with adapters just in case.

Recommended Video Card – EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT – This is a couple steps down from top of the line, but it will run any game out with the highest settings, and it's only $289.99 at www.newegg.com.

Motherboard – This is the main circuit board which all of your components will be plugged into. There's lots of motherboards out there, mostly with cryptic names and model numbers. The important things to check for are compatibility with your other components, form factor, and chipset. You may also want onboard video/audio if you aren't buying dedicated cards. Most boards come with at least basic integrated audio, which is what I normally use. Make sure to check the motherboard against all the components you plan to put on it. If your hard drive is SATA, then make sure the motherboard has a SATA drive interface. If your CPU is socket LGA 775, then make sure that's the same socket on the motherboard. Very simple, but important. Make sure to check every component. Form factor is the size and shape of the motherboard, you'll need to know this when you select your case to make sure it fits. If you're buying an Intel CPU, make sure you get an Intel based motherboard to go with it. For the chipset you'll want to look at the FSB rating, it will probably be around 1333MHz. You will also want to check what type of expansion slots it has. A modern motherboard should have at least 1 PCI-E x16 slot. If you're planning on puting a high-end video card in then you may want to look for PCI-E 2.0.

Recommended Motherboard – EVGA 122-CK-NF67-T1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i LT SLI ATX Intel Motherboard – Retail. All the bang of a 680i board without the pricey extras I don't need anyway. Current Price is $159.99 at www.newegg.com

Optical Drive – There's not much to say about optical drives really. Get one that can read and write the most common media such as DVDR+/- DVDRW, and CDR/W. Try and get a decent brand such as Sony or Lite-On. A good DVD/CD combo drive shouldn't cost more than 40-50 dollars. Optical drives can be IDE, SATA, or even external USB. Get whichever suits you best. Remember, if you already have optical drives that work fine for you, you can probably just move them over to the new system.

Recommended Optical Drive – LITE-ON Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner with LightScribe – OEM. Good brand, good price, wide range of support, and it even has lightscribe for burning labels directly onto the discs. $31.99 at www.newegg.com

Power Supply – It's important to choose a Power Supply Unit (PSU) which can provide your system with adequate power. Start by using a wattage calculator to get an estimate of how much power you will need. You can find free online here: educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html.
Next determine which connectors each component needs. For example a newer video card needs a PCI-E power connector. A SATA drive requires a SATA connector. It's fairly self explanatory from there. Once you've got a power estimate and know which connectors to look for you need check the number of 12v rails. 2 should be sufficient. Amperage depends on how many power hungry components you have, and mainly comes down to the video card. If you have a high end card such as the GeForce 8800 Ultra, go for the highest amperage possible( I believe the manufacturer recommends 26). 18 amps is probably good for the average computer.

Case – Buying a case shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Check it's form factor to make sure your motherboard will fit. Make sure to check how many usb ports are built into the case as well, they usually have at least a couple on the front. That goes for any other extra ports and such you might want as well. Most cases come with at least one fan, or maybe 2 if they're smaller. The stock fans should be enough for the average user. Don't bother getting a case that comes with it's own PSU, they're low quality and will just be removed in favor of one you picked yourself anyway.

Monitor – There are a lot of different specs to keep in mind when buying a monitor, but unless you're a graphics artist you main things to pay attention to are physical size, and resolution. CRT are the larger TV style monitors. They have better color and faster refresh rates. LCD are newer style flat panel monitors. Both are good choices anymore and you probably won't see a huge performance difference between the two. Sometimes games which require high refresh rates suffer from less than top end LCD monitors. 1024×768 is low end for resolution. High end will be closer to 1680 x 1050. Basically get the highest your budget will allow. You may also want to look for extras such as built in webcams, speakers, or usb ports.

That about wraps up the basic crash course in hardware selection. Make sure to check out the next installment of this guide, which will cover assembly and installation of an operating system. Future articles will feature in depth analysis of components and comparisons.

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