• CPU
• Motherboard
• Heatsink
• Memory
• Video Card
• Sound Card
• Modem/ Network Card
• Hard drive
• DVD/CDRW drive
• Floppy Drive
• Case
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Monitor
• Speakers
• Fan(s)
• Operating System

1. CPU

The biggest decision you will make is the CPU. This single part will determines the motherboard and that in turn determines the remaining components.

You will hear in forums many, many discussions as to what the best CPU is. My choice has been AMD for one reason only: Price and Performance. I believe you get more bang for the buck. On the other hand, my brother-in-law wants Intel for its stability and reputation.

In benchmarks for multimedia and games with identical systems, stock speeds, and the best of the best products, there is only a slight lead in these benchmarks for Intel. In productivity benchmarks, it will be AMD.

If price is your deciding factor, the Athlon XP or Celeron is the choice. If performance were the deciding factor, the Intel Pentium 4 or Athlon XP 512K cache would be your choice.

Clock for clock, the Athlon XP will do more work; however, the Pentium IV can go faster in MHz.

Here is a very crude analogy: AMD is a bus that can hold 20 people. You have 20 people that need to go one mile. Intel is a bus that holds 10 people. The AMD bus does it in 1 cycle. The Intel bus is twice as fast so it can take the twenty people in 2 cycles. Intel is just twice as fast to do the same job in the same amount of time.

Good thing there are only two real choices, AMD or INTEL - the decision is yours.

AMD Choices - Athlon XP (512K L2 cache), Athlon XP
INTEL Choices - Pentium 4, Celeron

Component: Athlon XP 2500

2. Motherboard

This is determined by the CPU choice above. AMD processors use Socket 462, while Intel processors use socket 478. Both of these sockets are ZIF, which mean if the CPU is oriented correctly, the processor will slip into place with very little pressure when a locking bar is in the up position.

No matter the choice, price is a deciding factor here. You can go as low as $50 dollars for a basic motherboard to $200 plus for a motherboard that has every imaginable feature and then some.

Features you should look for now in any motherboard:

DDR memory support
AGP 8X video card support

If you are just building a machine to do work, go cheaper or more features. If you are hardcore overclocker, read every review to see what is the best and buy it if it suits your needs.

Component: Asus A7N8X Deluxe

3. Heatsink

The Heatsink is needed with the modern processors to keep them alive. The Processor will die a quick death if the heatsink is not in place, unless there is a shutdown mechanism on the processor (Intel) or the Motherboard (AMD).

All heatsinks need a material between the top of the processor and the heatsink. This is because air is a good insulator and if there is any gap, heat will not transfer from the processor to the heatsink. If you are not overclocking, you can us a TIM, a small patch of thermal interface material, which will melt and form a fairly good path for heat to move to the heatsink. This usually comes with boxed processors or some low-end heatsinks.

Here is something you should consider: Buy a good copper heatsink or a copper base on the heatsink, and a slower fan if not overclocking. This will do two things.

1. Reduce noise
2. Reduce heat over a stock heatsink fan unit.

If you overclock, you need the best heatsink, fan and a good thermal compound, such as Arctic Silver 3 or Type 44, and place a thin layer on the processor under the heatsink.

Component: Thermalright AX-7, Arctic Silver 3

4. Memory (RAM)

At the time of this writing, there is DDR memory and Dual channel motherboards. I would suggest you buy a major brand such as Crucial, Mushkin, or Corsair. If you down clock the memory, it will just run more stable.

All of these numbers are the same in terms of memory ie: 100 MHz Front side bus is 200 MHz DDR and PC1600 refers to the theoretical bandwidth of 1.6 megabits a second. In other words, you are describing the same memory no matter the numbers you use. The choices are: PC1600, PC2100, PC2700, PC3200 and PC3500. The front side bus is: 100 MHz, 133 MHz, 166 MHz, 200 MHz and 233 MHz. Doubling the FSB gives the DDR ratings: 200 MHz, 266 MHz, 333 MHz, 400 MHz and 466 MHz.

AMD processors are using both the 133 MHz and 166 MHz busses, Intel is at 100 MHz and 133 MHz but are Quad pumped, giving you 400 MHz and 533 MHz respectively.

Buy a good brand, as fast as your motherboard and Processor supports. My suggestion is 512 Megabytes PC3200, 2 modules of 256 megabyte each. This will cover most situations.

Component: Corsair PC3200 256 Meg X2

5. Video Card

If you have a reasonably fast processor and a good motherboard, get a good video card. Most everything that you do depends on this card, as long as it is supported properly by the underlying motherboard/processor.

If you are just surfing the web and writing letters and not playing any games, watching DVDs, etc, then you can get a very inexpensive video card or use a motherboard with built in video.

There are two top video chip manufacturers: ATI and NVIDIA. Nvidia has the Geforce family of cards and ATI has the Radeon family of cards. Right now the best card is the Radeon 9800Pro. Here is what to look for: 128 Megs of Video memory and an 8x AGP interface.

The buys in descending order of price/performance:

Expensive - High Performance

• Radeon 9800 Pro April 03
• Radeon 9800 May 03
• Radeon 9700 Pro
• Geforce FX (expensive but on par with the 9700 Pro) March 03
• Radeon 9700
• Geforce 4800
• Radeon 9500Pro
• Geforce 4200
• Radeon 9500
• Radeon 9000 Pro
• Radeon 9000
• Radeon 9100>renamed /Pkged 8500
• Radeon 8500
• Geforce 4MX
• Radeon 7500
• Radeon 7000

Cheaper - Still good performance

No matter what you do, the real performance of the system will be faster with a better video card than any other factor.

Please refer to this article if you don't believe me.

Component: Radeon 9700 Pro

6. Sound Cards

There are quite a few sound cards on the market. It is very subjective as to what is the best.

Creative labs Audiology2, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and Hercules Fortissimo series are all very good sound cards.

Some motherboards have built in sound which is fairly good, but most people are going to want an add in a sound card with one notable exception: the Nvidia Nforce2 Motherboard for AMD processors and Sound Storm audio.

If you are going to use two speakers and not listen to music on your system, then use the onboard sound - it's not that bad.

If you are listening to music, playing games and watching DVDs, then by all means get a good sound card. But you must realize the best sound card is going to sound only as good as the speaker/headphones your using to listen to these sounds.

Component: Onboard sound (however, installing a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz).

7. Modem/Network Card

There are two types of modems on the market today: Hardware Modems and Software Modems.

A Software Modem is cheaper. It does not have all the hardware on the modem to do the processing of the signals from the phone line to digital signals the computer understands. It relies on the power of the processor to do some of these functions. With today's powerful systems, you do not have to worry that it will bog down games.

A Hardware Modem does it all and feeds the digital signal to the system on its own.

It is suggested you get a V.92 modem, as it will work with virtually all Internet Service Providers that provide dial-up service to the Internet.

Network cards are for people with a Cable or DSL connection and/or networking. Some network cards are built into the motherboard and others are separate PCI cards. Some very good cards are very inexpensive to buy.

Only purchase a 10/100 card - this way you can plug into almost any network connection and you have room to expand. 10/100 refers to the speed the cards operate at when sending or receiving data, 10 Mbps (mega bits per second) or 100 Mbps.

Component: 2 onboard 10/100 cards, installing a US Robotics Modem V.92

8. Hard Drives

The things to look for in a hard drive are: Speed of rotation 7200rpm
Size. Bigger is better - minimum now is 40 Gigabytes
Cache size. Most drives are 2MB cache - try to get an 8MB cache if you can.

There reason you want a faster rotation is the disk will read and write the data you need in a shorter amount of time. If you are just surfing the web and downloading a few pictures, your drive can be smaller. If you are editing images and downloading MP3's, by all means go as big as you can.

Component: Western Digital 80 G, 8 MB Cache 7200 rpm drive

9. DVD/CDRW Drives

A DVD drive will read both CDs and DVD. The price of these drives is at or below the price of a CD-ROM drive! Get a 16x DVD and that will read a CD at 40x (1x is about 150 Kbs). CDRW drive can read and Write a CD and there are now DVD writers, but they are very expensive. Most of the CDRWs are rated as Read-Rewrite-Write and will be expressed as 52x-24x-52x.

Look for "buffer under run" technology. This prevents or helps you to avoid burning a "coaster" (an unreadable disk) due to the system not feeding enough data to the CDRW while writing.

Components: DVD drive 16x and CDRW 48x-12x-48X

10. Floppy drive

Not really needed anymore except to flash the BIOS on the motherboard. The disk is slow and holds 1.44 Megabytes - 2.88MB on some drives. For $10.00-15.00, it should still be included as you just may need it.

Component: Generic Floppy

11. Case

The case is the where you place the components. There are a few important items:

1. The power supply you purchase or that comes with the case should work with your motherboard and supply the amount of power required. The power supply you purchase should be at least 300 Watts. If it is Version 2.03, it will work with all Pentium 4 and Most AMD systems.

Underpowered power supplies are the leading cause of system instability you will find. Cheap 300-400 Watt power supplies for $15-20 cannot supply the power needed for a truly stable system.

2. The case is large enough to hold what you're going to install inside. There are many sizes of cases and colors and even materials they are constructed from. Most cases are steel that is painted beige or white with a plastic face or front cover. There are now aluminum cases on the market, but they are expensive.

3. Make sure you buy a case that is the same as your motherboard ie; the Motherboard is ATX form factor, buy an ATX case. This is pretty much standard.

4. Cheap cases usually have inferior power supplies, sharp edges and things don't always line up, resulting in frustration. Get a good brand and you will be much happier. You will also find the case will continue when the Geforce 4600Ti has been retired to the kids' system because it was not powerful enough!

5. Cases are labeled with the drive bays exposed and hidden. So if you see 4 - 5.25 and 3 - 3.5 inch bays, 1 hidden, then you know that you can have 4 large drives and 2 small drives that you can access from outside the case and 1 inside that cannot be accessed from the outside. For example you need to expose the floppy drive or you're not going to be able to place a floppy in the drive without opening the case!

Component: Aluminum Chieftec case, Antec power supply - 400 Watts 2.03 compliant

12. Keyboard

There are inexpensive keyboards and good keyboards. The best way to purchase a keyboard is to try them. There are two types a standard keyboard: flat and a Natural keyboard, which is split and is more comfortable depending on your preferences. Some keyboards have extra functions that usually don't get used, but there are exceptions like a power or sleep button.

Component: Microsoft internet keyboard

13. Mouse

This is probably used more than the keyboard, so purchase a comfortable mouse and you will not be disappointed.

A few suggestions:

Get an optical mouse so you don't have to clean the rubber ball in a normal mouse.
Make sure it has a scroll wheel - this makes it easier to navigate.

Component: Logitech MX300 for left handed users and the MX500 for everyone else. The MX700 is a wireless mouse that works extremely well, even in gaming. Some older wireless mice actually lag when gaming. The Microsoft Intellimouse is very good also.

14. Monitor

The monitor is the most used component in a system. You should get a large monitor that will display at a resolution of at least 1280 x 1024 @85 Hz and have a Dot pitch less than 0.26. The smaller the dot pitch, the clearer the screen to a certain extent. 19-inch monitors are not that expensive, but if you can afford it, get the largest and best monitor possible.

LCD screens are now becoming more affordable. The good thing is they are clear and use less power. You need to watch the contrast ratio and native resolution, however. Contrast ratio is the difference between the lightest and darkest objects on the screen - the bigger the difference, the better the image.

If the monitor's native resolution is 1280 x 1024, then that's where you will get the best picture. One issue with LCD screens: If you're playing a game and your video card cannot refresh the image at an acceptable frame rate at 1280 x 1024, the image is going to look bad if you drop the resolution to 1024 x 768. If the objects move too fast on the screen and the LCD cannot change colors fast enough, you will get blurred images.

Component: 19 inch Sampo - 1600 x 1200 @85hz, 0.25 dot pitch

15. Speakers

There are lots of speakers on the market from $10 - $400. Speaker systems come in 2, 2.1, 4.1 and 5.1 packages; the ".1" refers to a subwoofer. Most people have either 2 or 2.1 systems as they are inexpensive and fit right on and under the desk. The 4.1 and 5.1 systems are for people who play games or watch DVDs.

You really need to listen to the speakers and decide for yourself which to purchase.

Component: Logitech Z-540 - a 4.1 system

16. Fans

There are many fans on the market for PCs. Most use 60mm, 80mm and 120mm. Try to get a good flow of air with the least noise you can.

Component: 4 Panasonic Panaflow 21 CFM @ 20 decibels, quiet

17. Operating System

There are many operating systems to choose from, but the operating system most people use is going to be Windows XP. Linux is a good operating system and very powerful, but has a higher learning curve and some of the applications you may need are not supported.

You finally did it! You purchased all your parts, now what? The first thing is to read the motherboard manual. This will show you where everything is and how to install it.