The 1st step in building your own computer is to gather all the required materials needed for the build. There are many places you can go to get computer parts but one of the best places would be newegg.com. They have everything that is needed at usually at the cheapest price. The most important thing when choosing computer parts is to make sure they are compatible with one another.

1. Choose the motherboard

The motherboard you choose wil be based on which processor you chose above, if you get an intel processor you will need an intel compatible motherboard, and same for amd. There are also many more things you must look for to make sure you get the right motherboard, as everything plugs into the motherboard you need to make that every part you buy is compatible with your motherboard. Depending on the needs of the user, you will want to look at things like how many harddrives are you going to need to have plugged in, what processor you want to have, what kind of video card you want to install, what ports you need the motherboard to have, and much much more. Take a lot of time choosing the correct motherboard, because everything else you choose will be based on what selection you make here.

2. Choose the processor

There are two major cpu manufacturers to choose from: Intel and AMD. Intel is the biggest and most known of the two, which AMD is the cheaper brand that has been most popular amongst the tech community. Remeber when choosing a processor that it will fit into your motherboard. The CPU is probably the number 1 determinant of speed in your computer, the more money you speed to get a faster processor, the faster your computer will be. Processors now come in dual core, and even quad core units. Which means each processor has 4 individual cores working together to get increased speed and reducded heat comsumptions.

3. Choose the memory

This would be next part you will need, the memory is a very important part. Depending on what you need the computer to do, memory is probably the next most important part determing speed in a computer, number 1 being the processor. If you need to run big programs, multiple applications, and other memory intensive things, then you will want to spend some time choosing the right amount of memory for your needs. Memory is an often overlooked part of a computer that can cause some serious slow downs, especially if you do a lot of multitasking, when not buying enough to fit your needs.

4. Choose the video card

After choosing your memory, the video card will need to be the next thing you get. Again depending on your computers needs, the video card can make a huge difference in the performance of the computer. If you play a lot of video games or use a lot of movie or 3d animation software, a better video is needed to be able to handle those. If you are a gamer, I would suggest this be where you spend a lot of money on, as it will determine how smooth and reliable your gaming experience will be. If you don't do any gaming or other such activities, then speeding a little bit less money on a video card can really cut your budget down. Trivial tasks such as displaying a web browser, or something similar, is not very hard for a video card to handle and if that is all you do then you need not spend a whole lot of money on a video card.

5. Choose the hard drive

The harddrive is the next part you will need, and it determines how much information you can store on your computer. The more things you download and the more programs and applications you use, the more harddrive space you will need to store all that information. Downloading a lot of movies or mp3s will take up a lot of space on a harddrive and make it fill up very quickly. Installing big programs like video games will also take up a lot of room on the harddrive. When a harddrive starts to get full, you will experience some slow downs with accesss times. It is a good idea to keep your drive as clean and clutter free as possible as it will help with performance, if you know you will be saving a lot of stuff on the harddrive, then buying a larger capicity one will be needed.

6. Choose an optical drive and PC case

The last parts you will need when building a computer will be an optical drive and a PC case. The optical drive is the cd or dvd drive that you will play cds and install programs from. These days is most common to get a CD/DVD Burner, which will play both dvd and cds, as well burn each of those too. The more expensive option would be to go with a blu ray player or burner. Blu Ray is the newest technology is optical drives and can hold the most data, but comes at a heftier price than a dvd writer. You will also need to buy a PC case to house all these parts, some pc cases come preinstalled with power supply units, if not you will then need to also purchase a power supply to install into the case.