If you have a socketed CPU, usually one corner of the chip is different (cut off slightly instead of square, or has a small mark on top), and the socket similarly has a marked corner. These marked corners go together. Most of the newer CPU types are also missing one or more pins on this corner, so that there is really only one way to plug them in, but this isn't guaranteed and I can't say I've seen all the different CPU variations out there.

For the floppy cable, the twisted end does not go to the motherboard! The twist of a section of the wires in this cable is used to distinguish between the first and second floppy drives. There are several different varieties of floppy cables, but all are essentially the same but just missing some features. The complete floppy cable has a total five connectors, as follows:

• A 34-pin (2x17) socket connector for the motherboard. Usually this is separated by the largest length of cable from the other connectors.
• A pin socket and a card-edge (slot) socket for the first floppy drive. You can only use one of these two connectors for a drive, and some cables may only have the pin socket here.
• After the twist in the cable, another pin socket and card-edge socket for the second floppy drive. You can only use one of these two connectors for a drive, and some cables may only have one of the two sockets here.

On the floppy/IDE/SCSI pin connectors, as stated above, always check to avoid plugging them in backwards by matching pin 1 of the cable with pin 1 of the sockets.

• Pin 1 of the cable is the colored edge, which may range anywhere from the entire insulation for one wire being colored red to barely-detectable red printing near the edge.
• Pin 1 of the sockets is usually labeled on the board or drive, or perhaps in the motherboard manual for the board connector. If you have a drive where you can't find the marking for pin 1, it's most often going to be the end of the pin connector closer to the power connector.
• Some cables have a tab and some sets of pins have a plastic sheath which allow the cable to go only one way, but if either is missing you can get it wrong.
• Be careful, if you have a set of pins without a sheath, not to plug in the cable offset by one pin in some direction; you'll usually be able to notice this because it won't go in easily, because you are bending pins to do this; normally these plug in easily. If you are sure you're plugging it in right but it still won't go, you may have a bent pin; inspect the pins and straighten any that don't form a nice, even grid.
• Most drives will not be damaged by a backward cable connection, but they won't work, and the drive activity LED will go on continuously to indicate a problem.
• The IDE cable for ATA/66, UDMA, etc. (faster IDE, like most hard drives made since 1998 or so) has 80 wires instead of 40 -- the extra wires are grounds to reduce interference between adjacent wires. This can be distinguished from floppy and older IDE cables because the ribbon cable quite clearly has a denser pattern of finer wires.
• SCSI has several different cable and plug styles, which apparently correspond to SCSI-II and SCSI-III, Wide varieties of both of these, etc., and the only kind I've ever worked with, a 50-pin connector like a floppy or IDE pin connector but longer, apparently isn't used much anymore, so I'm still going to leave this to somebody else.

Jumpers: As noted above, most IDE and SCSI drives will have jumpers to select master/slave status for IDE or SCSI ID number. These drive jumpers are usually smaller than the jumpers used all over your motherboard and on most cards, so be careful not to lose them!

Screws: You may find variations, but most standard cases only use two types of screws. One type is used for mounting the motherboard, cards, and the cover of the case, while another type, shorter with tighter threads, is used for drives. Don't use a normal screw here; you'll ruin the threading in the screw hole of your drive and possibly damage the internals of the drive if the screw is too long! These drive screws are like drive jumpers; they always seem to be the ones you lose and can't find enough of. If screws come from different sources, you may see different types of heads and different lengths of the normal screws, but in most cases they are interchangeable except for drive screws vs. normal screws.

Plugging in cards: Instead of a metal insert you have to twist and break out, some cases will have little metal panels that look like the parts attached to cards but with no card attached. (Some will have these in addition, for covering holes you once punched out but don't need any more). These screw in just like the cards do.

Power connectors: You will probably find 3 or 4 different types of power connectors coming from the power supply.

• Two of these types have four wires, with the middle two black (ground, or earth for those of you in the UK). You probably have one of the smaller variety of plug and three or more of the larger variety. These are the power connectors for the drives, and can only fit one way, though the larger variety is subtle: two corners on one long side of the plug are cut on a diagonal, while the other two are square, and the socket is similarly shaped. The smaller one is used by most 3½" floppy drives, and the larger one is used by almost everything else. These plugs usually offer some slight resistance when plugging them in properly, but pulling them out is never easy and sometimes requires considerable force; they will never fall out on their own or get pulled out accidentally, like the data cables can. If you don't have enough of these, you can buy a splitter which turns one of these into two.
• The motherboard power connector(s) have more than four wires. In the ATX-style cases/motherboards which nearly all new systems use today, there is just one big connector which can only plug in one way, but in the older style systems, common only a few years ago, there are two separate bundles of (different) wires going to two identical plugs, and the individual plugs are tabbed so you can't plug them in backwards, but be careful not to swap the two! On these systems, the black wires (ground/earth) go together in the middle; if you have colors in the middle and black on the outside you've got them wrong.
• There may be one or more small jumper-style connectors with 2 or 3 wires, and there are a couple possibilities for these; read your manual to find out what these are, and what (if anything) you can do with them.

If you get it all set up and turn it on and nothing happens, check all the power connections (monitor and PC, at the wall and case ends of the cords), check the monitor data cable's connection at the video card and also at the monitor (if it's not the kind built-in to the monitor), and check that all your cards and RAM and CPU are firmly seated in their slots. If RAM or the video card is not plugged in properly, you will usually get a beep code on the PC Speaker, assuming you have plugged that in properly. These codes vary with different BIOS manufacturers and may be documented in your motherboard manual, but most likely if you get beeps other than one beep to indicate a good boot, your problem is RAM or the video card.

The absolutely most important thing you must remember if you are an absent minded person is to make sure the damned thing isn't plugged in when you start putting it together! I learned about this the hard way...

Picture: a motherboard. I have inserted the processor, a shiny new Duron. I have attached the enormous heatsink, making care not to crush the processor. I reach away to pick up the CPU fan. I turn back to the motherboard.

That's odd, I think. My chipset fan appears to be damaged - it doesn't have any blades.... I blink. THE MOTHERBOARD IS TURNED ON! I rush over and tear out the plug from the wall socket before inspecting the damage. Doesn't smell to bad... I touch the heatsink.

YYYYEEEEEAAAAARGGGGHGHHH!!!!!! DAMN that thing is HOT!

Suffice it to say, the motherboard did the annoying thing that some ATX boards do, and turned on when I first applied power to it, without me having to short the power header. Oh, and the processor was too light to be used as a paperweight.

Yes, I am an idiot

One thing that hasn't really been covered well enough above: How to choose the components you're going to be throwing into your computer. For tips on actually getting this stuff once you've decided what you need, check out How to buy computer parts.

For the purposes of this node, I'm going to assume you're making yourself a system you're going to use to play games and for the internet.

Disclaimer: For all you know, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Keep this in mind whenever you're basing purchasing decisions on what people on the internet tell you.

You need a case to put all this stuff in. You're going to want an ATX case. I don't really know what that means, but it's quite likely if you don't get one that your motherboard won't fit in there. That'd be bad.

I suggest that you do not skimp on the case. If this is your first time building a computer, you are going to want to have enough room to work in there. Not being able to see what the hell you're doing is a bad thing, as is not being able to fit your hand where it needs to go.

If you use a lot of peripherals that use USB plugs, try to get a case that has built in slots to plug them to. Less mucking about in the back of the b0xen.

If you have a fair amount of cash to blow, get a nice Aluminum case from Lian Li. Hell, even if the rest of the components are crap, at least it'll look cool.

Also with the case, you're going to need a power supply. These are usually included. Most places suggest getting a 300 Watt power supply or more. I'm not going to argue.

The next thing you're going to need to decide on is your processor. This is important stuff and such. Basically, now-a-days, you're probably going to go with one of two choices, a Intel Pentium 4, or an AMD Athlon XP. Or, now the AMD Opterons are looking rather nice, all 64 bit technology and all. I'd only go for something cheaper if you're really on a budget, as you want to be looking at not only handling stuff out now, but in the future as well.

In general, it seems to be a good idea to buy 6 months behind the technology. At that point stuff is still pretty close to top of the line, but you can get it for a good value.

I suggest purchasing an AMD made processor, as most people agree that you're getting more bang for your buck with them. The majority of Intel's sales seem to be based upon brand name recognition, as opposed to providing a better product. This may work for most computer users, but we're Geeks, people. You must be by definition if you're building your own computer. And you want to be getting the best product you can for what you're willing to pay.

Anyhow, I got myself an Athlon XP 1800+ processor. I think they had dropped the price down a week before I got mine. I paid $159CND, which isn't bad for a damned fine piece of Engineering. Of course, by the time you read this, it'll probably be outdated. Like I said, buy 6 months behind the technology and you should be ok.

Update: Of course, by now this particular processor would be horribly outdated. I wrote this writeup in 2002. Now, in 2005, you expect a hell of a lot faster than 1800+ in a cheap ass laptop. So, if any of my guidelines are to work, scale them appropriately. I still believe my advise to buy 6 months behind the technology is valid, for getting good deals.

Once you know what kind of processor you want, you need to decide on the motherboard. The most important part is making sure that your processor will actually FIT.

Athlon and Duron (Athlon's predecessor) processors use motherboards with a Socket A, Pentium 4's use a Socket 478. Apparently the Opterons use a 939 pin socket. Anyways, just make sure your processor will fit before you buy the board.

The next thing to think about is your RAM. I suggest purchasing a motherboard that can handle the coolest new type of RAM on the market. You want to be thinking about upgradability. I mean, if you bought something that took SDRAM back when SDRAM just came out, you're fine for now. However, if you had skimped and gotten whatever was out before that, well, you're probably SOL.

So, at the moment, you want a motherboard that takes DDR RAM. It's fun, and still nice n' cheap. Memory is usually fairly cheap. I suggest getting at least a 512 meg stick of it.

Next you want to look at what kind of slots you want. Unless you're only going to be using it for word processing, you want to have one 4x AGP slot, to stick a fancy video card into. More on that later.

You're also going to have a number of PCI slots. You probably want at least 4. 5 is good. Go for five. Once again, you're looking at upgradability issues here.

One of the things that would go in one of those PCI slots is a sound card. However, a lot of motherboards come with a sound card built into them. These used to be crappy, but now they're pretty good. The determining factor in if you should use one of these is your speakers. There's no use in getting a neat-o sound card if you're using shitty speakers.

If you get a motherboard with built in sound, and later decide to upgrade, it's fairly simple to disable the motherboard's sound card and use yours.

Some will also come with a built in video card and/or Ethernet card. I suggest against getting one of these. You don't want to be stuck with the built in stuff.

Around this time, you might also be looking into having onboard SCSI connectors. Personally, I wouldn't bother. If you got the extra cash, go ahead, but I'm a starving student, so I didn't really look into SCSI all that much.

Anyhow, once you know what you want, it's time to choose which brand to buy. Again, I suggest not skimping too much on this step. You're saving money by building it yourself, you might as well get good components. I myself got an ASUS A7S333.

Ok, you've got yourself a motherboard, case, processor, and some RAM. You need a video card, young Skywalker. There is no reason not to get one with at least 64megs of video memory. This is what I did, since I was going to be skimping on the monitor anyways. If you're getting/have a nice monitor and want to run all the funky new 3D games, it might be a good idea to spring for better. But, as fuzzie claimed in the catbox, for the vast majority of applications, you won't notice the difference between a $100 card and a $400¹ one.

Update: Again, now a days, a 64 meg video card is on the lower end of the scale. Adjust accordingly.

Floppy Drive: Doesn't matter. How often do you really use it since high speed internet came around? I personally pulled one out of the old junk computer that had been sitting in the closet for 7 years.

CD-ROM: You're going to want a CD-R. You quite likely want a DVD-ROM, and maybe even a DVD Burner. You may also want a plain CD-ROM drive, to ease wear and tear on the CD-R drive. Making your own CDs is fun. It's up to you, I personally picked up a cheap Panasonic 24x CD-R drive OEM. Couldn't find any drivers for it specifically, but the generic drivers worked just fine.

Oh yeah, having a hard drive helps. Adequate storage space is good. Remember, Windows XP takes up like 1.75 Gigs or so. Depending on what you're doing with it, you may want nice and quick access times. In which case you're looking at SCSI drives. That'll eat up one of your PCI slots, unless you bought a motherboard that had built in SCSI adaptors. Most of us, however, will do fine with just plain IDE connections.

Higher RPM rates will make search times lower, and apparently the faster drives also last longer. Or at least N-Wing says so, that personally seems rather counter intuitive to myself. But, he knows a load more about computers than myself. But storage is the main issue here. I don't suggest getting less than 100 gigabytes of storage space now-a-days. This is a step up from the 40 gigs I have on the computer I built first writing this writeup, which was a step up from the 6 on the old family computer.

You probably want to be hooked up to the Internet, where you can look up cool info like this. If you are getting some kind of a dialup service, you need a modem. If you're getting a cable or DSL connection, the modem will be external, and you will need to hook it up to an Ethernet card. Fortunately, both of these are fairly cheap. Each will take up one of your PCI slots.

Ok. Case, Power Source, Processor, Motherboard, RAM, Sound Card (Maybe), Video Card, Floppy Drive, CD-R, Hard Drive, Ethernet Card. Throw it all together as described above.

The only thing I would like to add about the actual assembly process is a bit of a warning. When you get the case, the spots for the PCI cards and such may have a little metal thing that you will need to push out. Be careful with that. It can be sharp. Use a pen or something. I shaved a good millimetre of skin off my index finger, and I can still see the scar on the knuckle.

You might want to install some sort of an operating system at this point. Which one?

I'm not going to touch that subject with a 10-foot pole.

I like to think I'm not that stupid.

1: All cash amounts in Canadian dollars.

Building your own pc is the best way to insuring you get the best possible computer for your money as you know exactly what is going into your computer and so there won't be any cheap cost cutting components. Other benefits are that you save money for not having to buy a brand such as "Dell" or "Time", and more importantly no labour costs are charged. Also these companies don't make components instead they simply buy components from other companies such as Intel, AMD, Asus, Nvidia etc assemble them together and stamp their name on the case. There isn't anything wrong with this, as brand computers are better for people who want to just get a computer and get on with simple tasks, but if you want a powerful machine for the best price, then you should consider building your own PC.

To build a PC there are several components that you'll require.

Case

You'll need to start with a case as this will be the building block of your computer. Cases come in many shapes and sizes, and can cost from £20 to a few in excess of £100. Aluminium cases work best for thermal conductivity but usually cost more. If you want you can get a case with a see through-window which would allow you to see the components inside.

Motherboard / Mainboard

The motherboard is where all the components from your PC connect to. They cost around £100 to buy and you'll need a motherboard that will work for the CPU you're buying. For example an AMD Athlon XP CPU will require a Socket A motherboard. Other factors to consider are the number of PCI ports, AGP ports, RAM slots, if it contains on Board Sound / graphics, and the number of IDE cable ports.

Processor / CPU

There are only two real competitors in this: AMD and Intel. Their flagship processors both have good and bad points. AMD Athlon XP is cheaper than Intel's Pentium 4 CPUs but they usually produce more heat and use up more power. Although Pentium 4 CPUs are quite expensive, they run a little faster at a cooler temperature. The speed of the processor is measured in MHz or GHz in today's standards, the higher this number, the faster the computer will be.

Random access memory is used by your computer to temporarily store information. This information is lost every time you reset, or turn your computer off. RAM comes in 128 MB, 256MB, 512 MB and 1024MB sizes as well as 266MHz, 333MHz 400MHz bus speeds. Usually the more Megabytes of RAM you have and the higher the bus speed, the better the performance of your computer. Also you should make sure that the RAM you buy is compatible with the motherboard.

ATI and Nvidia dominate the graphics card market. Aim to buy an 8x graphics card as they transfer information faster than the 4x version. The amount of DDR RAM the card contains is a factor to consider, the higher the amount of DDR RAM the card contains, the better graphics performance your PC will have. Most graphics cards come with cooling fan as the chips generate a lot of heat, and dual monitor ports are becoming commonplace as the technology advances. Prices range from £30 to thousands of pounds, but, for the average gamer £80 is an adequate amount to spend.

This is where all the data on your computer is stored. The prices of hard drives are coming down heavily. The price varies from around £30 to £100, but usually the bigger the hard drive, the more you spend. They usually come in sizes ranging from 20GB to 200 GB and obviously the bigger the size, the more data you can store. Hard drives connect to your motherboard via an ATA 133 cable, or the new Serial ATA cables. These cables usually come in ribbons but since the ribbons tend to block airflow inside your computer, I recommend you buy rounded ATA cables.

Usually when you buy a case it will come with a power supply unit. However from past experience the power supply wasn't enough to run all my components on my computer properly. Therefore I recommend you buy a 400 Watt or higher power supply unit and replace the one in the case as today's components require more power.

Floppy Drive

Floppy drives are not really necessary in today's computers, but they can sometimes be useful such as when upgrading your BIOS, or transferring small word documents to other computers, without having to burn them on CD.

Modems

Modems are used to connect to the internet. You'll probably come across the 56K modem for connecting via telephone, or an ADSL modem for faster access.

Sound Card

The most common sound cards on the market are made by Creative. Using a separate PCI sound card usually improves sound quality over the on-board sound on the motherboard. Most sound cards are capable of supporting 5.1 speakers which consist of three front and two rear speakers and a subwoofer. The higher end sound cards can even allow a 7.1 speaker set, as well as a jack bay that goes at the front of the computer for plugging in musical instruments and microphones to turn your computer into a recording studio. As well as that there is a MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) port which can be used to connect game controllers such as joysticks, and MIDI keyboards.

CD / DVD ROM

CD ROMs are most likely to come in 52x which is the fastest read speed at the moment. CD writers have a top speed of 52x read, 32x rewrite, and 52x write. This means that you can burn your data at up to 52x onto a writable CD (CD R), and at up to 32x on a rewritable CD (CD RW). CD Rs and CD RW can hold a maximum of 700mb or 80 minutes of music. DVD ROMs can read DVD's at 16x, and normal CDs at 40x. This means that you'll be able to watch DVD films on your computer as well as being able to read a lot more data than what can be stored on normal CDs. DVD rewriters have the added advantage of being able to burn films, and up to 4.7 GB of data onto a writable DVD.

Cooling

Cooling is a very important aspect in computers. Without it some of your components will overheat and burn out. Most graphics cards come with fans so you won't need to worry about that. However your CPU will require a very large heat sink and fan, or water cooling if you want to heavily overclock your PC. The heat from the CPU is conducted by the metal heat sink and is dissipated by the cold wind from the fan blowing on it. Power supplies also require fan and usually come with them installed. Two case fans in your PC should be enough to keep the air flowing through. Cold air should be blown in by the front fan, and the hot air is blown out at the back by the 80mm fan at the rear.

There are mainly two types of monitor available, a flat TFT screen and the bulky CRT monitor. If you have a lot of money £300 should buy you a 17" TFT flat screen monitor. The benefits of this are that these monitors are lighter and take up much less desk space, reflect less of the sunlight which produces glare, and uses less power. However if you're on a budget then a 17" CRT should be good enough. Larger 19"+ monitors are useful for doing graphic designs, spread sheets etc.

1) Before assembling the components you will first need to discharge yourself from static electricity, by for example touching the metal piping on a radiator.

2) Next you'll need to open the PC case and screw in and mount the power supply unit at the top right hand side.

3) Place the CPU into the socket on the motherboard. It can only fit one way round. Press the lever down and it should lock it in place. Squeeze the thermal gel that came with the heatsink onto the centre of the CPU. Place the heat sink and fan onto the CPU by clipping it in place. Finally plug in the fan onto a 3 pin plug on the motherboard. The motherboard manual will show you where to plug it in.

4) Place the RAM stick into place by pushing it into a free RAM slot on the motherboard, they too can only fit in one direction.

5) Mount the motherboard on the right hand side with the PCI slots facing horizontally towards the back. To do this you will need to place "riser screws" underneath that will lift the motherboard off the chassis of the case, then align the holes of the motherboard with the holes on the case, and screw it in place.

6) Next change the jumper settings on the CD ROM / DVD ROM drives. You can do this by moving the pin at the back of the drive which conducts a pin at the top row with a pin at the bottom row. The instructions on the drive will tell you which pin to connect it to. Make the first drive a master. If you have a second drive set it as a slave. Then slide the CD/DVD ROM drives into a free 5.25" bay and move them forward or backwards so that they line up flush with the front of the case. Finally screw them in place with the four holes on the drives.

7) Install floppy disk in a similar way, but into a free 3.5" bay. There are no jumper settings to configure.

8) To install the hard drive you'll need to set the jumper settings in a similar way to the CD ROM to make it either master or slave. Then slide the hard drive onto a free 3.5" bay and screw it in place.

9) Plug in the sound cable from the sound card into the back of the CD Rom drive.

10) Connect the IDE cables (red line on cable connects closest to power socket on the drive), make sure the hard drives share the same IDE cable, and the CD / DVD ROM drive share the other. Connect the IDE cable that the hard drives are on into the blue connector on the motherboard, and the CD / DVD ROMs onto any other connector.

11) Connect the Floppy drive with the "floppy disk cable" onto the floppy drive slot of the motherboard. The motherboard manual usually has a map of where all the slots are located.

12) Connect the power supply Molex plugs into the drives, and the wider Molex connector on into the motherboard. The shape of the plugs makes it obvious to where they need to be plugged in.

13) The graphics card connects into the AGP port on the motherboard. Unclip the cover on the back of the case, and push the graphics card into the AGP slot at an angle (hooked end in first) then screw in the metal side onto the case.

14) If you have any PCI cards, they fit in the same way as the graphics card, but obviously into a free PCI slot on the motherboard.

15) Screw in two case fans using the self tapping screws they came with. There should be a directional arrow on the fan which indicates the direction of the air flow. You want the front case fan blowing air in, and the rear case fan blowing air out. Connect these case fans into a free Molex connector, or if they have a small 3 pin clip connector, it can be connected onto the case fan power supply pins on the motherboard. Refer to the manual to find out where it is on the motherboard.

16) On the front panel of the case there should be thin wires which connect to the power switch, reset switch, LEDs, and possibly a USB bay.

17) You'll have to look in the manual to find out where each pin clip connects to, as it is different for each brand of motherboard.

18) Finally close your case up, and plug in the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and power cable.

19) When you first turn on your computer hit the "Del" key to access the BIOS page. This allows you to check through your options and make sure the CD ROMs, RAM, Hard drives, and floppy drives are detected. Next, change the boot up options, you should make the first boot CD ROM, second boot HD 00, and third boot Floppy. Insert your operating system's CD into the CD ROM drive, then save the changes and quit setup.

20) If you're using Windows (very likely) then follow the on screen instruction on how to format the hard drive and install the operating system.

21) Once you have finished installing Windows, it will detect that you have new hardware on your computer. Simply install the hardware drivers that come with the hardware you bought.

22) Once you reset, press the Del key again to access the BIOS and change the boot up order to, first boot: HD 00, and second boot: CD Rom. Save changes and quit, and you're done.

A Case

The Case is the box that holds your computer together. You want to make sure that you buy a case that will fit in the space you have available. Cases are typically made either out of plastic or aluminum and the choice is yours. You want to make sure that the case has enough 5 1/2 inch bays for the number of optical drives you want to add, you don't want to find yourself with a DVD Drive and a CD drive and only one bay to put them in. Secondly, make sure that if you are going to have a floppy drive, there is a 3.5-inch bay in the front. For your first build I suggest buying a case with a power supply and fans pre installed, but if there is a case that you like, go for it. There are two form factors for motherboards AT and ATX, ATX is the newer form factor, so I suggest buying an ATX case, but make sure that you also buy an ATX motherboard. You should also count the number of PCI cards that you want, and make sure that you have enough card slots at the back of your case.

Motherboard

The motherboard is the piece that makes everything work. All of your components plug into the motherboard and the motherboard is the piece that requires the most thought. When you buy a motherboard, you will want to know what you want on and in your computer. Most motherboards now come with standard USB and IDE but you need to decide if you want onboard video (cheap and easy, but not recommended), how much RAM do you want? Do you want onboard sound? SCSI? Ethernet? What type of Processor do you want? Once you list everything that you want in your computer, you can pick a motherboard that supports what you want. You will also want to make sure that your board has as many PCI slots as you will need, a graphic card takes one slot and a sound card usually takes another. Graphics cards typically use an AGP interface and most modern motherboards and cases have slots for them. The newer standard is PCI-E so if you want a PCI-E card, make sure your motherboard and Case support them. Most motherboards today have built in sound, some even coming with 5.1 surround. If you want to add Ethernet, or additional ports you will want to have more slots open. AT motherboards are 12 inches long and come standard with a serial port a parallel port and a keyboard port on the back. The industry is moving away from AT because it uses older technology, and doesn't dissipate heat very well. Unlike AT, the ATX form factor has many more integrated ports built right onto the back of the board. The ATX form factor has been designed so that important connections, like the power connector will only fit on one way, this prevents dangerous cross connections which have the potential to fry your board. ATX is also known for it's advanced BIOS and safety precautions. Most boards have onboard temperature sensors and will shut down before any component overheats. As always, the more you want your motherboard to do, the more it will cost.

Processor

The processor is what determines how many calculations your computer can do per second, how fast it is. The faster the processor, the more expensive, but believe me, faster is better. There are two major manufacturers of computer processors that you should look to, AMD and Intel. Both work fine, but you need to pick a processor that will work with your motherboard. I prefer AMD because I believe they provide a better product. AMD chips tend to run a little hotter, and a little slower then Intel's newest products, however AMD chips almost always use the same type of connector, making upgrading to a new chip easy, as you do not have to replace your motherboard as well. Intel makes a good product and most of the heavy gamers that I know use Pentium IV chips. The majority of the processors out there are 32 bit, however AMD and Intel have been coming out with 64 bit chips recently. These chips make use of more electron states then a 32-bit board, but since they are so new, there isn't much software written for them. As of writing this Microsoft has only a beta 64-bit version, so if you want a finished version of a 64-bit operating system, you will have to go with Linux.

RAM

RAM stands for Random Access Memory and is interesting to describe. Essentially, the more RAM you have, the more programs you can have open and the faster that programs and games will run. RAM is memory for programs to use. Unlike a hard drive, RAM is volatile, meaning that when the power goes of, the memory is cleared. This memory is divided among the open programs for their use. The more memory a program can use, the less it relies on your slow hard drive for information, and the faster it will run. More is better, I usually recommend at least 512 megabytes, but I have 2 gigabytess in my computer. Make sure that your motherboard supports the RAM that you buy and that it will support more RAM in the future if you want to upgrade.

Hard Drive

Simple, pick up an IDE or SATA hard drive 40gigabytes or bigger is usually good. This is the easiest component to buy. IDE is slightly older, and SATA is typically faster and eliminates the ribbon cables. If you buy a SATA drive, make sure that your motherboard supports it. The alternative to IDE is SCSI (pronounced Scuzzy). SCSI drives are large and fast, and will usually require an adapter to connect to your motherboard. SCSI drives are best left to people who need very reliable drives, although SATA is almost as reliable. I see no real need to use SCSI any more with the arrival of SATA but SCSI is still available. When buying a drive, make sure you pay attention to cache size. The disk cache is a piece of memory inside the hard drive that stores the data you look at most. This usually includes executable programs and libraries. The bigger the cache the less you will need to spin up the hard drive, and the faster your computer will run. The second concern is RPM. The more rotations per minute, the faster the data passes under the reading head inside your drive. Higher RPM means faster seek times for your data which means your computer will run faster. The bigger you want the drive to be, the more you will pay for it, however there are companies out there that wildly overprice their components. Find a few drives with the same specifications and pick the best out of the mix. I tend to stick with Seagate or Western Digital drives.

PSU and Fans

I recommend buying a case with fans pre-installed and a PSU (Power Supply Unit) installed as well. If you don't pick these up, you will need to find out how many spots there are for fans, and fill them. A PSU of 400-500watts will suffice unless you are planning on getting heavy duty components Keep in mind that the PSU is most frequently the problem in many computers. You do not want an inferior product when picking up a PSU.

Optical Drives / Floppy Drives

This should be easy. I recommend that everyone picks up a CD/DVD combo drive. You will need a CD drive in order to install an operating system. I also recommend you pick up a cheap floppy drive. Some of the software that comes with your components will only come on a floppy, and a floppy is a good thing to have in case you need to recover data.

Video Card

If you decide not to go with motherboard onboard video, you will need to pick up a graphics card. Your motherboard should support an AGP card, and this is what you should buy. The two leading suppliers are nVidia and ATI. Among the gaming community there has been a war over which card is better raging for years. I have always used ATI cards, and prefer them over nVidia, but the real answer is go with what you like. nVidia is known for getting its cards out with excellent drivers (the software that makes the card work) while ATI drivers frequently require tweaks. Of course this only matters if you are picking up a top of the line $500 dollar card. The consumer level cards they offer now hardly differ, and the choice is pretty much up to you. For a new user, you will probably be better off using a nVidia card. Most cards today use AGP slots. A new standard is coming out, although it is only available in the most high-end cards. It is called PCI-E and it is faster and better. If you want to use a PCI-E card, you need to make sure that your motherboard supports PCI-E and that your case has a slot for it.

Sound Card

This is simple, find a card that has all the output, and all the input that you want and buy it. Your motherboard should have onboard sound, so only true audiophiles or heavy-duty gamers should really think about adding a sound card. Most onboard sound doesn't support duplexing which is essential if you want to use software for voice communication.

Monitor

The monitor you pick is almost as important as your graphics card. Monitors are beyond the scope of this guide, but the monitor is the most robust part of your system. It will almost always outlast your current system. You want a monitor that can display pictures with at least 1024 by 768 resolution. There are special monitors for gamers and for video editing and they each have a specific role. I suggest asking around for advice on what to pick up.

Operating system

Picking an operating system and using it to its fullest is beyond the scope of this guide. Just pick up a copy of the operating systems of your choice.