heres a crash course in modern diy system building.
first thing you do is decide amd or intel. once youve decided find a mobo. amds have a reputation for power whorism, while intels used to have a reputation for being whores in general. root for the underdog or go with the giant, i just go with who makes the better cpu at the time.
start with a motherboard and work your way out. look for a mobo which has all the connections you want, slots, ports, sockets whatever. make sure all the ports are up to current standards, pcix 16 2.0 i think is the big one to wory about, if you plan sli/crossfire configs, make sure the slots can operate at full speeds when more than one is used bandwidth bottlenecks to your video card suck.
check the qvl mem list (go to the manufacturers site), most motherboards have a list of ram that is tested and known to work with that board. i buy ram according to that list as a rule of thumb, but i think the days of random memory non-functionality are over. check your mobo specs and try to get the best ram you can afford. get the highest rate and look at the latecny, memory bottlenecks are an expensive *****. i usually fill up 2 slots (dual channel kits are usually good) with the amount i want and leave the other 2 open for upgrade, unless you get an insane amount of ram. or use more, lower capacity sticks if theres a latency advantage.
cpu comes next, check the socket specs and compatible cpu types. you might want to go tot he manufacturers website and download a manual for a board your looking at to see what it can take. get the best you can afford. go for dual cores if your a gamer and quad cores if all you do is mod (makes photoshop an order of magnitude faster i hear). most cpus now are x64 and frankly i wouldn't buy a 32 bit cpu anyway. get over your 32 bit fanboyism, your slowing down technological progress if you do
get the best one you can afford and look at benchmarks here.
once your core system is established, pick a video card. whether it me nvidia or ati doesn't really matter. know the good and bads of each. nvidia is good if you like open gl, ati if youre a windows whore and dont mind the inferior directx standards. be sure it works with your port on your mobo.
now pick a psu that can handle twice the power requirements of all that stuff. and a case that can fit it all. don't skimp on a psu especially if you plan to upgrade. you can use one of the many psu calculators out there if you dont know how to look for power requirements in online manuals. i like to count watts myself. also look at the cooling. stock coolers are ok if you dont plan overclocking. use your own thermal compound if you want a performance rig. im still on the same tube of artic silver 5 that i bought last year. get extra fans as needed, look at cfm values and noise levels if you give a **** about that stuff. i like at least 2 case fans in addition to fans in things like psus, vid cards, and the cpu. passive cooling is at your own peril.
now pick other knick knacks like drives, sound cards, speaks, accessories, fan controllers, pimp kits, extra usb ports,card readers, network gizmos, ect. and you may need additional cables. for drives a 3.0 gb/sec sata does nicely. you can get sata burners too. i dont like pata anymore sence it hasnt improved much sence 2001, they just keep em in for legacy purposes, and people who want to move their files over from their old computer in a hurry.
then you can build it, prep the case, get the psu in, put in the port plate that comes with the mobo. and fans in (mind their orientation!). shake out foreign objects, you may need to modify it abit, sheet metal shears and a hacksaw are sometimes, but not often, required. now ground everything, esd damage sucks and is expensive. ground your table your floor, plug in the case (leave the psu master switch on off), ground yourself if you want. i usually just rest my arm on the plugged in case while i work, thats why you leave the master off. if you know somone with a static free clean room at their disposal, see if they will let you sneak in to build the thing.
mount your mobo. dry fit it first so you can find sets of holes that lign up, place standoffs accordingly. some people like to build the core system (ram, cpu, mobo) out of the case and then insert it, i dont, because you loose any grounding benefits of being in constant contact to the grounded case during assembly. once stand offs are in, count them and make sure you put the same number of screws in. a lost standoff shorting out your board sucks. also when fitting the ports into their port panel, make sure none of the tabs enter the ports, i had this happen to me once and was pissed that i couldn't plug a network cable in because the contact tab went into the port instead of around it. finally bolt the thing down. if you have any 3 pin case fans (mobo regulated), hook them up now.
if you havent already add your ram and cpu. c2ds have what seems to me an over elaborate means of installing a processor and heat sink, i think amd still has the zif socket with the nifty little lever you pull back so you can drop in the chip, then you got to deal with the infernal mounting bracket. the c2d mounting system sorta scared me for a moment, because i didnt feel like i used enough force to install it. dont run a cpu without the fan it will fry in a few miliseconds. if you do, and thats bad. oh and dont forget to connect the fan to the proper header.
memory installation hasnt changed much. line up the notches and push it in till it snaps. if you got dual channel, be sure you stick them in slots that are both of channel a or b, dont stick one in an a and one in a b or it wont be dual channel mode.
shove your video card in there, well not really. most high end videocards are heavy enough to set themselves.
if your mobo has multiple slots, and you dont have multiple cards, theres usually a primary pcix slot you should use, rtfm!
all the other drives and cards go in as usual. accessories vary, again rtfm on those. if your case has a rail system, put the right rails on the right drives. wire the front panel, leds need to have the correct polarity. the mobo manual and the case manual will be helpful there. nowadays the conections are spelled out for you right on the mobo in big bold letters (too many ****ing rmas from so called geeks back in the 90s
).
hook up all your data cables after that, and any back panel brackets that came with the mobo. most mobos have usb and firewire headers littered across the board, and seldom do all of them get used (see the paragraph on accessories). extra usb ports come in handy if you want to use a ch control config and a track ir and still want a place to plug your usb keyboard, mouse, and your webcam that you never use, or even a printer if your totally archaic. run any ribbon cables if you have any, if your using them at all, electrical tape and zipties suddenly become useful. try not to block airflow.
ok, start hooking up power cables. start with your mobo and work your way up from their. get the 24 pin cable in there, and the 4/8 pin connector for the cpu. then hook up your video card's extra power. then plug in your 4 pin fans (these are constant speed or self regulated), drives, and other accessories. assuming you didnt **** up horribly, the thing should boot to an error message that tells you you for got to drop you os installer in the drive.
