Yes! I get to build my own computer:)

I've bought just about all my desktops and most of my parts from them. They have a wide variety of motherboards and cpus available, as well as "barebones" kits where you get the case, power supply and sometimes even the mobo and then add your own accessories. Not all their stuff is the latest, so be careful to check out reviews and such before you make a choice.

They also have prebuilt systems which you might find more than adequate on your budget.

www.tigerdirect.com

My suggestion comes from experience because I too bought the hardware and built my own system just weeks ago.
Your best bet is to go with a socket 939 motherboard which takes an athon 64-bit processor. Purchase the one with 16X for your video most newer motherboards come with this so it should be easy to find. This is the top of the line motherboard and will do everything you could possibly want now and in the near future. Your processor speed and type will be the largest in price for any single part of your computer so be prepared for the shock of it. You do not have to buy the fastest one in the socket series to get the speed you are wanting. You can always buy the faster one when the price gets in your range. The CPU fan comes with the processor so don't worry about purchasing one separate. Purchase a mid-tower with a power supply that rates at least 450W. You can pick from any number of ram manufacturers and get at least a pair of 1GB x 2 3200 sticks of ram. When you purchase the ram the latency you want to look for is 3 or less. Corsair value ram is very good and the numbers I get on my computer are 2.5-3-3-7 and thats pretty good. Buy the matched pair of ram because it does work better that buying separate sticks. The video card is one of most importance if you are going to do gaming or any major video so go with and 16x type connection with 256MB GDDR2 or GDDR3 ram with 128-bit interface. Purchase at least a 120 GB hard drive. You will need a DVD burner and a CD burner. You can buy these as seperate or combos built in one. One thing you may consider is a media card reader for your digital camera, most of these will read at least 7 different types of media cards. Last a surely not least is a monitor. You can buy a very nice 17" Sharp or 17" Septre LCD monitor for around $250. If you want the same quality in a 19" monitor add about another $100. If you go to newegg.com or tigerdirect.com both sell all of the items I have listed. They are very reliable for getting you the best price you can get and you will get it pretty fast. Monitors, hard drives, and mid-towers are better selection at tigerdirect and ram and video cards are better at newegg. You could far exceed your $1300 price you want to stay below if you go wild, however, most of the extra is overkill. I built my whole computer for under $1000.00 using both of the sites I mentioned. The only difference was I went with the socket 754 motherboard. The other things you will need are the mouse/keyboard and a good surge protector.

Contact me direct at adpizza@yahoo.com and I will share all of what I can help you with and your questions. Good luck!

For you here is MONSTER COMPUTER !
but I suggest you go to http://www.pricewatch.com
and get your computer parts like video board, memory, sound card, Dual Layer DVD/CD burner, and hard drive ( you will also need a 3.5 drive )
http://www.computergeeks.com for your case with power supply and get at least a 450 watt power supply in the computer or get a bigger one and change out the power supply to something like I have a 650 watt one . .
I put a 2.7 gigahertz Intel ( Celeron ) 478 pin CPU in all computers I make and sell on a mother board which will expand out to the latest greatest CPU so they can expand as they want forget the athalon CPU ! Its just a name ! And as for memory ALWAYS start with 1 gig of memory it makes the computer run somuch faster I put in PC-3200 DDR Memory as its 400 megahertz FSB to go with the CPU and mother board
just me
Jackie
jackie40d@earthlink.net

most importantly.. get a 19 inch LCD Flat monitor!
then choose a case that is large enough for the expansion and upgrading you may want to do.

also, power supply that comes with the case is basically a 'throw away'. you will want to select
a high quality power supply over 550watts, probably with dual fans. A case with a 120mm space for an extra case cooling fan is a big plus because the
large case fan(120mm is the largest) is much quieter than the 90mm or 80mm.


beyond that I recommend any CPU over 2800mhz.
video of 128mb ram or more, AGP 8x.
(some low cost video cards work well, sky's the limit on price of these cards)
high quality and quiet rated CPU cooling fan
1 gb or more of quality ram for the motherboard.
Get yourself a good three piece sound speakers unit
with a nice subwoofer.

Go all out for a high end wireless keyboard and mouse that is to your liking. Also consider a 5 or 6 mega pixel digital camera. Hewlett Packard and sony make great ones.

Get a flat top all in one color printer from hewlett packard rated over 30 pages per minute (ppm)

Good brands of motherboards include Soyo, MSI, Intel,
Asus, and others. The newer the motherboard the better. Make sure it is from 2004 or later. Some old ones are still around. Avoid chaintech and Pc Chips as well as ECS.

Use a 300 gb or more hard drive from Western or Maxtor or Seagate. Make sure it has 16mb ram cace onboard. Good luck.

1300 should get you what you need to start and do the things you want. I recommend a socket 939 board with PCI ExpressX16/SLI. You need to decide if you want to overclock the he## out of your machine or just want stability. For overclocking the DFI LanParty NF4 series will do what you want quite well, but can be very difficult to get running stable(if you are new to this be careful, you can burn up hardware in a nanosecond overclocking). For stability Asus A8N-SLI Premium is a good board. Their newer revisions out now prove more stable than a couple of months ago. Get matched memory that is approved for your board you pick. You can find compatibility charts on the motherboard manufacturers website. Get at least 1Gb. Buy a mid sized case at least, something in the 50 dollar range should be just fine, for mine I picked a case that would allow me to place a 120mm fan in the front to pull cooler air from near the floor in. You will want a 550W power supply so if you go with a dual core processor and two SLI video cards mated together in the future it will handle the loads. These things are very power hungry. Something by Enermax type II, OCZ modstream, or Antec type II will do just fine. Shop at NewEgg and read the reviews carefully. For a processor a Athlon 939 San Diego core should be just fine, which you can get for about 150, to start with, but if you plan to go dual core, check the motherboard manufacturers website to see which boards will accept dual core. As for a video card, get something like a 6600GT PCI Express 16 card, MSI/Sapphire etc...with DDR3 memory.....this should start you out just fine with your games, upgrading to more expensive cards can be done later. You say you do alot at once, well dual core is going to be the way to go eventually to satisfy this need, however the system with the San Diego core may do just fine for you now. The monitors are cheap these days. I would come up with the tower build, see what is left over then go to NewEgg's site and compare reviews on the price range you are left with. You can get 19" monitors for 240 bucks after rebates, tell Mom and Dad you need an extra 50 bucks that they will get back in 12 weeks. You can also get 17" monitors for under 200.....pay attention to the reviews and see who is playing the same game or similar to yours and having success. Well, that's a mouthful, so hope it helps. Good luck with your shopping and remember, reading reviews on different webites is good, but always remember that bad reviews MAY come from individuals that know nothing about what they are gibbering about. If you need any help, I have done recent research on the 939 systems. Tecniguy@gmail.com

You need to check out Sharky extreme and look at the Budget PC build. it will get you the best bang for the buck.

HI, first off, I run my own little computer hardware and software company. It's a very small company, I have approximately 200 regular customers, and only two of them are small businesses. I mostly build, or upgrade computers for private families, and I design them according to what they really use the computer for. I have built really cheap computers designed for just surfing the internet and checking email, up to and including really screaming gamer machines for a couple college fraternities.

That being said..........I would advise the following: First, plan out realistically how much you do on the computer, and what for. It makes a great deal of difference if you build for running Doom 3 or if you do not play the graphics intensive games.

I just built myself a brand new serial ATA drive machine with a new AMD 64 bit processor. I am extremely disappointed with the 64 bit processor. It is not nearly as fast running as my older 32 bit processor and the serial ATA is much harder to configure and get to run properly and boot properly. The serial ATA is touted as being faster, but in reality the difference in speed is 150mbs for a IDE ATA and 160mbs for a Serial ATA. Not a great deal of difference at all. Plus with the serial ATA, you are limited in the number of drives. The serial ATA cables and connectors only support ONE drive per channel. IDE channels support two per channel. It will be along time before I build another Serial ATA, and as of yet, not many motherboards are actually coming with serial on them, although more are coming out.

I have always been happy with Asus or Biostar motherboards. Asus are better quality, but Biostar are always easier to configure it seems. I always use AMD processors. They are cheaper to buy and buy parts to go with them, and their speed is greatly superior to Intel chips. Don't be fooled by the ghz ratings on Intel chips. They don't actually run that fast. That is an artificial number created by certain diagnostic software. It's a marketing ploy. AMD has actually come up with a better numbering scheme, but it is kind of confusing also. The model name of their chips is relative to which Intel chip it compares to. Thus an AMD 3000+ chip is relative in REAL processing power to an Intel 3.0ghz chip. They are really comparing apples and oranges though.

One HUGE factor is cooling. All the modern CPUs out there generate heat in the 100s of degrees F. The better the cooler, the better performance you are getting out of your processor. However, there are very fancy heat pipe coolers that run $100 or more, and water coolers and such. Well, I have a $49 heat pipe/fan system that keeps my processor running at 107 degrees consistently, even playing Doom3 and multitasking.

RAM capacity is another major factor you want to consider. The new Double speed 400 DDR ram is nice, however, you do have to buy matched pairs, which adds up in price.

I would say for $1300 you can put together a real nice system with an LCD flatpanel with at least an AMD 2400+, 1gb RAM, 160gb IDE hard drive, DVD/CDRW, and a really good ATI 256mbs Video card. You shouldn't have any problems putting that together.

So, decided to build your own machine, eh?

I built mine too. I was pulling my hair out since I couldn?t play the latest games; either they wouldn?t even install, laughing at my 400 MHz Pentium II, or would crawl at 15 frames per second, all the eye-candy turned off.

Building a new machine is a matter of "How much money do you have?" instead of "What do you want to do in it?" because you said you wanted to play some modern games. Once games are thrown into the equation, you can spend up to US$15.000 (YES, FITEEN GRAND) to build a top-notch rig. Be prepared to sell your car. Dont worry, since 1300 will get you going.

Well, you said World of Warcraft, so you MUST include some decent graphics card. Ati Radeon or Nvidia Geforce will do the trick. I don?t know prices, but think Nvidia Geforce 6xxx or Ati Radeon 9xxx and up. Below these models, you don?t get enough bang, and above, you need lots of buck. The sweet spot is up to you. We are talking about a new PC, so it will have PCI express; some AGP card from previous generations can do equally fine, but your new Motherboard probably wont have AGP.

Well, since it came to mind, motherboard. Again, price and features go in opposite direction, but even low-end mobos will work, because they use the same chipsets as top-notch motherboards, they just dont pack many extra features, like an extra Hard-drive controller, and SLI support. But, they run PCMark just as fast as their big brothers. Check www.tomshardware.com for some fair comparisons.
What you will want:
-SATA support. New Serial Ata hard drives cost as much as their PATA counterparts, pack as many GB as them, work as fast as them, but they make air circulation so much easier, it is not even an issue. You can always upgrage your HD later, but a motherboard is harder to upgrade.

What you might want:
-RAID support. Again, HD feature. If you plan to purchase two identical HDs, and speed up things up to 50%, you will want RAID 0 (stripping). It makes a 20 MB chunk of data, (for example) to be written in 2 hard-drives instead of one, 10 MB in each. So, it is faster, no matter what. Failure of one HD will get you in trouble, be sure. Only if you got enough cash.
Most mobos come nowadays with sound, network, and unlike previous generations, they have specialized chips embedded for each task, instead of forcing your CPU to do everything. In short, any modern mobo will get you going, either for AMD or Intel CPUs. Go for ASUS, ABIT, Intel and avoid "generic" brands. Some extra cash for knows brands pay up.

CPU. Again, price x power. Intel is famous for stability in server functions, AMD is famous for cheap speed. If you plan to leave your machine permanently turned on, go with Intel. You plan to get some extra speed, and not spending much, go AMD. It doesn?t mean roles can?t be reversed, since you may find some 3.4 GHz Intel for a bargain, or get an extra-stable AMD that will run for days, without a hitch. Some 2+GHz AMD or 3+ GHz Intel will get you happy. It is a matter of personal choice, really. Remember to cool them down, and you?ll have no problems.

Cooler and case. you need to worry only if you got some cheap (below $50) case with no extra fans. I got myself an extra ventilated Thermaltake case, and found out that stock Intel cooler would work fine, thanks to the case. Not to mention the extra room, that makes your job, as an assembler, much easier. You can remove any component, without interference on any other. New HD? No problem, it can be installing without removing the graphics card, (as my previous case). Think about it. If you dont have the cash, go for the cramped cases, it is your patience, not mine, that will be depleted after 5 minutes trying to remove a CD-ROM.

Memory. Not much here. Go Kingston, Corsair, and that?s it. Match the frequency supported on your mobo, and there you go. Go 1 gigabyte, at least. Watch out for DDR, dual-channel, ECC (error correction if you want stability, that is) New games are thankful for extra memory. So will XP, Vista, Linux... Remember that if your Graphics card doesn?t have enough memory, it will start eating up system memory. Spend some extra bucks here. It is a gaming rig, after all.

PSU. Power supply. Don?t neglect it, ever. Go 480+ Watts. Dont stop, dont think, go for it. This component, if neglected, can compromise EVERYTHING ELSE. Your graphic card probably will want some extra juice plugged directly into it, your PC will crash if voltages skew out. The power grid around my city is a mess, and my PSU saved my PC more than once. One microwave oven, one VCR, lost to power hiccups. Plus, some of PSUs can help to reduce temperature inside case, since they usually blow the hot air out. Consider also SATA power plugs, extra molex connectors, noise control. Dont go for less than 400W if you think you want 2 graphics cards. Go for brands, also. Thermaltake did great for me.

CD/DVD. Optical drives. You want a CD recorder, and a independent DVD player. DVD recorder is a must if you want to get rid of old VHS, otherwise it is a waste of cash. The DVD will get the dirty job, to read all of those scratchy, dusty, bent, semi-rusted CDs and blockbuster-rental DVDs, while the recorder will have the noble purpose of backups. Those games that refuse to work without the CD will be shoved down the DVD throat too. Let me tell you, these games can wreck a DVD unit in no time, especially if you play all weekend long. I have wasted some 5 CD-ROM units that way. Should the DVD unit ever fail, you wont be unprotected, since you still have the recorder, and you can wait for the repaired or a new DVD. Think of it as insurance. Battefield 2 now comes in DVD, remember that.

Monitor. If you aint? got space, go LCD. If you ain?t got cash, go CRT. A large, chunky CRT will get you top-notch eye comfort, and spare lots of cash. Any CRT that will give you 85Hz or more of vertical frequency will do fine. LG F700P can do that at 1280x1024, and I know no other CRT that can, with less than 21". Yes, it will drain lots of power. Yes, it will brake your back you haven?t done your weight-ifting regularly, and decides to move it. And YES, it is CHEAP. LCDs will get you rid of your money, for sure.

I guess all bases are covered, I hope I have helped. Good luck, and good shopping.

Okay......

For 1300 bucks, you can build a fairly good system.

Now, which cpu? That depends on what you will be doing with it for the most part.

Gaming and/or multimedia editing/creation, or Office-style apps?

For gaming purposes, the AMD chip is generally a better choice, for office apps, the Intel chip.

If you are going to be doing a lot of gaming, aim for at least a Gig of RAM, and at LEAST a 128 mb vdeo card....I would recommend one of the 256 mb vid cards, using the Nvidia chipset, for gaming.

Hard disk drives are getting LOTS cheaper...I just saw a 250 Gb for sale on http://www.tigerdirect.com for 50 or 60 bucks after rebate.

you can also buy motherboard/cpu combos there, but I would definitely recommend reading the full specs on the motherboard, to make sure it is as upgradeable as you want.

Cases can run you anywhere from 30 bucks, up to a couple of hundred, depending on the bells and whistles they have.

On monitors, it is the S&H that can kill you pricewise, not the size, lol. Which is why a lot of manufacturers ae switching to lcd's to go with their new pc's, they are LOTS cheaper to ship.

LCD or CRT? it all depends on your deskspace available, honestly.....And...do you have any pets/younger siblings that might knock over a LCD?

An LCD is VERY fragile. A CRT is much more robust.

Hope all this helps...feel free to email me if you need any other info, lol

I think I can answer a few of your questions (but of course, anyone is free to argue)

--I'm planning on making my computer very upgradable.
I'd suggest a case with lots of drive slots.

--I plan on playing games similar to world of warcraft on it.
Get a Radeon video card. Some argue GeForce is more powerful, but Radeon tends to last longer.

--I want it to be able to handle alot of programs open at once<==I do alot of stuff at once>_< =ram
Get a processor that's at least 1.3GHz, and a nice big ammount of RAM for desert (probably 500?).

--Also what kind of monitor should i get<== i really want to spend almost all of the money on the computer itself and not some spendy monitor. Should i go lcd or crt? I want at least a 19" one.
Brand New, but Cheap.

--Should I go with Athlon or intel????
Intel

--Does anyone think they can help?
Hopefully I just did.

First off, i frequently visit these types of boards, here and on Gamefaqs. I know some general stuff on parts, but have never built my own system before.

First off, as far as figuring out which parts to buy, it ain't an easy process, but can be a very fun and fulfililng none of the less. Research and research. Try online user/editorial reviews, read reviews like on Newegg/TigerDirect, try sites like Tom's Hardware Guide, here cnet, try these forums which u've alr done, also try Gamefaqs DOS/Windows board. Many self built PC veterans there. Ask friends who've assembled their own PC for help on what and where to buym and even help with assembling your new PC. I know ppl who spend a whole summer (altho few weeks to a month would also suffice) picking out the right parts. It may be long now, but if u do upgrade and/or make a new PC, it'll be shorter the 2nd time around. Even if there are new parts available, u now have an idea of how it works.

Case
get something that'll support your expansion options. E.g. more bays for extra hardrives, holes for front side USB 2.0 ports, enough physical space for dual graphics cards, etc.

PSU
make sure everything has enough power. Some of the high end vid cards will use 350W alone. Also note that some power ratings are max power ratings, not average or garaunteed. e.g. a 600W PSU may typically give out only 500W of power

heatsink
no comment

mobo
see below

proc
u've mentioned vid editting/ripping won't be often and moreso for fun. I'd say go AMD here. The general consensus is AMD better for budget and gaming, Intel better for multitasking and vid editting/rippings and image works. Dual core 'll allow for better multitasking. Clockspeed up to you. I'd say go for a 2.4 P4 Intel equivalent.

RAM
DDR2 if possible. Else DDR will also suffice. 2GB isn't too bad in price and will allow much more multitasking and/or larger tasks to run.

HD
SATA, else, IDE is also ok. 7200rpm and shoot for 8MB buffer cache

vid card
high end 128MB or low end 256MB vid card then. SLI (nvidia's dual vid card config) and Crossfire (ATI's version) are overkill. This gives u "invicible" performance, but will jack up your budget significantly

monitor
Some ppl r content with a 15" CRT. Others can't work with anything less than dual monitor setup. U gotta find your needs and budget. in general, CRT to save $$ initially, better image quality, no ghosting, and higher resolutions supported (1600x1200+). LCD to save $$ on electricity, better on the eyes, easy to carry around, low footprint, and lighter.

CRT for budget reasons. $150 to $250 should get u a nice 19" to 21" CRT. I hear 17" LCD stocks are shrinking. Go 17" LCD for the absolute cheapest (IMHO, 15" LCD too small for a decent gaming exp), but go 19" to 21" LCD te get "the best bang for the buck". 17" LCD will set u back $250 to $450 while latter will cost $350 to $800.

sound card
Sound Blaster Live 5.1 or lil higher at Sound Blaster Audigy 2 will do on average. Don't bother with $100+ sound cards if u think u won't be able to tell the diff or get expensive speakers to compliment them. Heck, u could even stick with a higher end integrated sound.

speakers
I'd shoot for basic unless u want better sound mentioned above. at the very least, get a subwoofer to go with it. A subwoofer will be noticeably better for most ears.

mouse
I'd suggest a Logitech MX510. 8 buttons but for righthanders only. Only $22 on ZipZoomFly last i bought it months ago.

I've been building computers for about 5 years, and I know the hassles of doing it. Here's my list of recommended components:

CPU: The socket 939 AMD64 chip is one of the best out there right now. Order a chip rated at 3000+ or higher(comparable to a Pentium4 3Ghz or faster)

Motherboard: Gigabyte brand motherboards are good boards with a lot of the new functions like 8x or better AGP slots and PCI express slots for new video cards and support for higher speed RAM (DDR 400 or higher).

RAM: The truth is that more RAM is better, and it will contribute more to how fast you can run programs than your CPU will. DDR RAM comes from 128MB to 1GB dimms. 2 Gigabytes of DDR 400 (PC3200) will set your system running fast without eating up more of your money than RAM is worth.

VIDEO: Nvidia and Radeon both have great new cards but a Radeon card usually has more options like tv out or dvi or dual display for a better price. Look for a card running 256 Megabytes of DDR RAM along with a fast GPU (a lot run dual gpu's at around 350 Mhz each). Right now cnet favors a Radeon card you may want to check out.

HARD DRIVE: This is important. Whereas any high capacity (100 gigs or more) drive off the shelf will store plenty of data, it wont necessarily be faster because it is newer. Dual hard drives running 10,000 rpm with a RAID controller work well (say, 60-80 gigs a piece) for fast data storage & recovery plus keeping video, music and games seperate from your operating system and whatever business programs you have like MS Office or Quicken.

DVD R/RW + CD/RW DRIVE: Play, burn, rip movies and music cd's. Almost any brand will do. Might be something you want to go to Best Buy or Circuit City if you want an extended warranty. And get a backup drive, just a basic high speed dvd drive is good.

MONITOR: In case you need a new one of these there are some nice ones to be found on-line. 17-19" LCD monitors range from $200-350.

CASE: Get a good size tower with at least 6 open drive bays if you need a new one. They got some cool looking towers out there for gamers. And get at least a 500 watt power supply. Trust me on this, I've had 2 systems shut down on me because the 300 and 350 watt supplies couldn't handle all the load.

A big thing to remember when you build your own system is that there are some parts you can buy that will allow you to upgrade your system once or twice before you have to start all over again, and it mainly resides in what motherboard you get.

Of course what will contribute the most to overall performance and stability in you new computer is not having the fastest cpu, high speed ram, or the highest end video card. It's all about making sure that the components you want to put into your computer have been thoroughly researched and tested to work efficiently together. Also, depending on what the main use of your computer is going to be will affect what you want to get for it. Even if you are a hard core gamer or power graphics designer/user, the online stores will have all the parts you need at a discount price that will let you build a heck of a nice system for $1300. I use pricewatch.com to find parts because it is linked to all the online elctronics stores.

Good luck!

Building your own computer can be both fun and rewarding provided you do your homework. I built my first pc about 8 months ago and I love it. The first advice I would give you is to take the cnet online course on building your own pc like I did. It only takes a few hours and when you complete it you'll know enough to intelligently pick the components you need. If you live near a major electronics superstore, I would advise visiting it rather than selecting the components online (I visited a Frye's Electronics store). I began by selecting the motherboard/chipset that met my requirements. I then picked out a case, followed by the other components. It helps to be able to see and handle the components up close. In addition, the store clerks were helpful in answering specific questions I hadn't thought about beforehand. I spent several hours in the store to make sure I had exactly what I wanted. I then spent the better part of a day assembling and installing the operating system and applications software. I had a great deal of fun throughout the whole process, and had no major problems going from a pile of boxes to a complete working PC. It doesn't take an engineer to accomplish this. If you take your time and ''do your homework'' you'll end up with a machine that you'll both enjoy and be proud of. Good luck!

I have built several computers for myself and friends. The first thing you need to decide is your processor of choice. Personally, I am an Intel man. Motherboard and processor, but either Intel or AMD will do what you want them to do. I suggest getting the fastest processor that you can afford. After selecting a processor, make sure that the heat sink/fan are included with the processor.. If not, many aftermarket models are available. Then do some comparative shopping for a motherboard that is compatible with your processor. Many vendors websites have a link from the processor to compatible motherboards. Get a compatible motherboard that does everything you want. For instance, if you plan to use a raid array for hard drives, look for SATA. If you plan to network look for a LAN port.. (Also necessary for broadband modems) If you plan to buy a separate sound card, no need to buy a board with built-in sound.. Personally, I think it's wise to buy a top of the line motherboard with all of the above options (and more)and use only what you need. This adds expandibility in case you decide to change things later. Then you have to consider memory.. There are quite a few memory configurations.. Just make sure to consult the technical specs for the motherboard and get the correct ones (configuration and speed) for your impending system. Again, don't short yourself here. Buy as large a block of memory as you can afford. The more memory you have, the faster your system will be. Next, shop around for a case that is designed for your motherboards size. There are many sizes and colors of cases. Suit your own preference (as long as your motherboard fits) i.e. ATX motherboard, ATX case. If the case doesn't come with a power supply or fans then shop for these as well. I suggest a beefy power supply (400 watts or greater), and buy quiet running fans. Most are listed with a Db rating. Noisy fans drive me nuts.. This will give you a sound basis for whatever peripherals you decide to install in your new computer... i.e. video card, modem, CD/DVD burner... etc I hope this has given you an idea of where and how to start. Good luck, and have fun!!

I think you're already on the right track because you're asking questions. I accomplished my first build by asking alot of questions to those who knew what they were doing. There's no such thing as a dumb question.

If you can find a machine that has and does all the things you want, you can use it as a pattern and make any changes that you think will better suit your situation.

One point of caution; if you are planning to play high end video games on your new machine study the system requirements for the software first and then either meet or exceed those standards.

Thanks for replying all of ya Though it got off topic lol

Anyway I'm set on a dual processor: Amd 4400 Toledo I'm thinking...

And Not sure about what kind of ram to get

for the mobo I think I'll get a DFI lanparty one without the sli stuff on it which is about half as cheap

hdd a seagate 250gb one. I think...?

For a PSU thinking http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817148012#sctNav

mabe.... but the problem with it blowing hot air in the case is a badddd thing:\\

though large review sites say its a good PSU and that it still is a good PSU....? Not so sure about that..

For the graphics card i'm still stuck on whether the 6600something or 6800GT ....:\