Building a Custom Computer

Ok I have never done a blog before, but I thought this would be kind of fun.  I am going to be building two (2) new custom Desktop PC's.  And I thought it might be interesting to some of you the process I go through before and during the actual build.  I will try and post pictures as I go along so you can see what I am doing.  Who knows you or someone you may know is lookinh to buy a new desktop and instead of purchasing one from the big box stores, you might realize that a custom machine is much better than just about anything you can buy from the store or on line.  Feel free to e-mail me at Computerhelpers@live.com if you have any questions along the way.  Now on to the project!!! First thing I always have to do is look for the motherboard that I want to use, as it will dictate all the other parts that will go into the unit.  I have a lot of criteria that I look at and compare.  Including the specs. of the board how it is built what type of processors it can handle, type of memory and how much memory it supports.   Then I look at all the reviews from end users and other builders to see what issues they may have run into, the good and bad etc.  Once that has been selected I start looking at all the other components.  Here is a list of all the basics, there are extra add ons that I can add if I, or a client feel that it should be a part of the final configuration.  I will explain in more detail what each part does and the differences as we do the build. The Case (this is what everything goes into and can cost from as low as $20.00 up to a few hundred) Power Supply The Mother board The Processor (CPU) The processor Fan Memory Hard Drive Media drive (DVD/CD) Video Card (this is sometimes built into the motherboard) Case Fans Operating System Any additional software (ie Office suite) All these parts can veri in price depending on it's features the decision of which parts is sometimes based on another part that is going into the system.  This will again make more sense as the build progresses.  The motherboard I have chosen is a Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H Motherboard - AMD 785G.  I am partial to both ASUS and Gigabyte, and over the years have had great success with both of those brands.  This is one area that most people have no idea of what brand is inside their PC.  There are probably over 50 different manufacturers of motherboards.  You will very rarely find one of the main stream boards in a unit you buy from a store as most manufacturers will buy thousands of one particular board made just for them for a particular configurement.  Which sometimes makes it very hard to replace if the board goes bad. And they don't usually use the better boards so they can keep the prices down.  The exception is when you get to the higher end custom computers usually referred to as Gaming PC's.   That doesn't mean you have to play games on it.  You might do a lot of multi-tasking, video etc. and you could do that easier with a higher end machine.  Back to the motherboard....I chose this one as it will accept just about every newer type of processor, memory types, and has a ton of features that I believe are important.  In my next sessions I will break down all the features of the board and maybe post some pictures.