Building my own computer

[Funkmasterr]

Not in the near future, I plan to aquire the pieces over the next 8-10 months as I can afford them and then finishing it up.

I am looking for two things, advice on parts(will get back to that in a second) and I have a question. I have done upgrades in my computers in the past (hard drives, video cards , sound cards, memory ) easier shit like that, but never putting my own computer together. Is this something that can be done fairly easily?
I guess maybe if there is a good site to look at or something, cause I know I would need to figure out a cooling system and such, and I wouldnt know exactly what I needed for that.

Now back to the parts. First off, what are some other good sites to check for parts besides newegg ?

Secondly, im just gonna kind of throw what I want out there and see what people suggest.

Im looking to have about this

Motherboard (Don't know really, I dont want to go with a dual core processor right now, but I want a mb that will be capable of upgrading to dual core in the future.)

Processor- I want to get Athlon I think, unless someone can give me reason to get a p4. This isnt too complicated, I just want something probably around 3 ghz or slightly higher.

I forgot to mention I do want to do PCI express at the correct spot in the post, but that leads me to the graphics card. I have a fair Idea of what I want here, and this will be the last and most expensive piece I buy. I want a mid to upper-mid 256 pci e card. Just looking for some general suggestions from there.

Last thing I think I need suggestions for is ram. I don't need to have the fastest possible ram, but I dont want to get the lowest grade either. I plan on having probably 3-4 gigs of ram.

So yeah, any advice is appreciated.

[Llaffer]

I've built 3 machines in the last 2 years. I'd say the most critical part of the build is getting the heatsink, processor with the goo connected to the motherboard correctly. If you slip, you either have goo in the wrong place and have to re-try it (making a mess) or you may crush something that will destroy the chip.

After that, everything else is less critical in that if you find you messed up, can be safely removed and put back into place.

Read the manual of the motherboard carefully. it should outline how all this fits together.

Once the chip is on the board and the board is in the case, it's all back to your old upgrading knowledge. Just not needing to remove the pieces first.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

Here's a good resource for picking parts http://shsc.info/PCPartsPickingGuide and one for assembling http://shsc.info/BeginnersPCAssembly . In fact, all of shsc.info is a treasure trove.

[Leonaerd]

I plan to aquire the pieces over the next 8-10 months as I can afford them and then finishing it up.

Ew. Save up the money and buy all the parts 10 months from now, or else you'll regret having 8-month-old technology once you've completed it.

[Funkmasterr]

I thought about doing what you said leonaerd, but im not concerned with having the very newest and best of everything at the time I get it. Mainly because its just unnecessary, and also because I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on the project. I hope to keep the budget for the whole system minus the video card to like 500-700 dollars.

The top of the line stuff thats out right now will be more than sufficient to run games that come out in two or three years, so I think having the very newest and best stuff is a bit overrated. Although I do plan on trying to push off about half into the time period I want to build this all, so the stuff that is the best out now has fell down a notch and is a bit cheaper.

But then again, im no computer expert, so if there is a good solid reason I should wait longer for the stuff that I listed let me know. Im very open to exploring as many options as possible, which is why I asked here, there are a good lot of people that are far more knowledged then I am about computer hardware then me on these forums.

[Zaelath]

Motherboard (Don't know really, I dont want to go with a dual core processor right now, but I want a mb that will be capable of upgrading to dual core in the future.)

Processor- I want to get Athlon I think, unless someone can give me reason to get a p4. This isnt too complicated, I just want something probably around 3 ghz or slightly higher.

Unless you're looking to spend less than the lowest dual core, there's no good reason to go w/ a single core. They're not even priced that competitively against the duals (personally I'd go w/ the 4400+ since it's dual core and has the newer architecture and larger cache, but is a *lot* less than the 4800+)

There's no good reason to get an intel at the moment, AMD have left them in the dust; AMD run cooler and faster than Intel, even at higher clock speeds.

BTW, there's no AMD faster than 3Ghz at the moment. I take it you're looking at the 3800+ thing? (that runs at 2Ghz..)

[Winnow]

The ceiling for AMD's current dual core chips is 3GHz and any of their dual cores can get that high. It's a matter of luck.

You could buy a 3800+ or Opteron 165 and get them to 2.8 although it's unlikely and probably the 2.4-2.6 range is where you'd end up...still much cheaper than the 4800 or 180 for the same performance.

If you are waiting 8 months to save up, I'd wait and buy everything in eight months and you'd have a dual core system along with your graphics card all for under 1000.00.

Browse this forum for good advice and suggestions:

http://www.hardforum.com/index.php?

[Leonaerd]

I thought about doing what you said leonaerd, but im not concerned with having the very newest and best of everything at the time I get it. Mainly because its just unnecessary, and also because I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on the project. I hope to keep the budget for the whole system minus the video card to like 500-700 dollars.

But it wouldn't be a matter of spending more money =P. You would be spending the same amount of money for better parts, on a computer that you would get to use after the same allotted time period, anyway! How is this a bad plan?