Without picking the speed of the CPU, let's decide on the Intel Core 2 Duo
chip as our computer chip. This chip mounts to the motherboard with an LGA775 socket.

Looking at motherboards with the LGA775 socket.  We count over 50
motherboards available. Wow! I would prefer a later designed board, so lets
look for later memory chip technology. Let's look for motherborads that take
DDR3 memory.  We're down to nine boards.  I favor a couple of brands in
motherboards, Asus and Gigabyte. There's a Gigabyte GA-EP45T for $99.99, and the Asus P5P43TD for $94.99.  These two boards are pretty similiar with the Gigabyte getting better reviews. We'll go with the Gigabyte motherboard.

One small understanding. This motherboard only has one PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot. That means you can not have two graphic cards on this motherboard as the graphic cards fit into this type of slot. If you want a gaming computer, you want to look for two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots on the motherboard that claim NVIDIA or Crossfire ready.

We need one graphics card.  We want a NVIDIA card, made by PNY, XFX or EVGA that runs the latest NVIDIA graphics chips. There is a NVIDIA GeForce 200 series that is still a little pricy. Let's go with the 9800GTX. PNY makes a nice card with 512Mb of video memory for $109.99.

Let's max out the memory.  On a Core 2 Duo that's 4Gb's. The Gigabyte motherboard has four 240 pin memory slots. We'll use two of those and get two 2Gb memory cards.  The motherboard specs call for DDR32200(OC)/1333.  This means we can get DDR3 2200 or DDR3 1333 memory chips. DDR3 2200 240 pin chips runs $274.99. A tad too much for the latest technology. Let's back off one step and go for 1333. Crucial makes two 2Gb 240 pin DDR3 1333 cards for $69.99. Done.

Next let's do the computer case.  The motherboard is an ATX motherboard. This is simpler. I prefer Gigabyte cases. Instead of a Full Tower, let's do a Mid Tower. There's a GZ-X4 ATX Mid Tower for $34.99.

We need a power supply. We want a standard size, modular, and I'm partial to Corsair power supplies.  There's a nice 620W modular for $149.99 with excellent reviews.  Get a good power supply it provides reliable, stable power throughout your system.

We'll let you pick out the monitor, keyboard, mouse, tools, and any extra
cables you'll need.

So we have:
motherboard:  $ 94.99
graphics card: $109.99
4gb memory: $ 69.99
case: $ 34.99
power supply: $149.99
subtotal = $459.95

Not bad, except for one thing, we're missing a computer chip and fan. You can get the highest speed chip, or a lesser speed, and adjust your performance and overall system price by your choice.  For example the E8600 is priced at $269.99 and the E7400 is $118.99. The E7500 is $119.99, let's go with that.

And finally the computer chip cooling. We need a CPU fan for the LGA775 socket. Let's go with a Zalman for $39.99 and some thermal compound to make a good heat contact between the CPU and fan.  Artic Silver goes for $6.99.

Subtotal: $459.99
Computer Chip: $118.99
CPU Fan: $ 39.99
Artic Silver: $ 6.99

TOTAL: $625.96

This is a decent system, performance will be very good, graphics and video will be very good.  And the price is very good, given you still have not picked a monitor, keyboard, mouse, or any tools you'll need, and you have to add your shipping.

If you have any questions about why I made some of the choices as far as brand names or specs, please see my posting on the components.  Let's move on to assembly.

I thought it would be difficult to match their price, because Dell and HP have too many discounted contracts with manufacturers. Not only are they discounted pricewise, but the manufacturers get to offload their second generation products  that they would have a difficult time selling retail.

By building your own system, you can get higher quality components and an overall better system.  Our premise was, we thought the price would be slightly more than the Dell or HP eqivalent.  Let's check it out.

We went online at Dell to try to find a computer that we could use as a comparison.  We had a tough time doing that, because not all the components are listed on their computer system.  They hide the specs.  We looked at an Inspiron 534s with one 640gb disk.  The price they were asking was $729, which was on sale.

Let's do some parts pricing and see how close we can come by ordering separate components.  The CPU was a Core 2 Quad we found a price of $149.99.  Then Windows 7 Premium, we found the retail price of $199.99.    A 20" hi-def monitor was $139.99.  The 16x DVD was $19.99.  The 4gb of memory was $29.99.  And the 640Gb hard drive was $59.99.  Add all that up and your at $599.99.  Mouse and keyboard were extra.  We would have to provide a micro motherboard with a built-in video card, and a microcase.   We priced the motherboard at  $49.99 and a micro case was $24.99.   That's it.  Total price by adding the components up is $674.97.  The Dell price was $729.  Wow! so we could have gotten an equivalent system for less than the Dell.

Now having proven that we could indeed have matched Dell by ordering the components and building our own system.   Let's talk about this.

We fudged the above numbers a tad by getting equivalent components. but staying on the lower price end of those components.  What happens when you build your own is you want the best components, and why not.  So you start ordering components of higher quality and more functionality.  The result, when you add up the price of the components, is a higher price than the computers made by a Dell or HP.

The other thing to take note of is the integration of the video with the motherboard.  I don't recommend this, because the integrated video chip set uses main memory for video memory.   This can slow the performance of your system down, but it does allow the Dell's and HP's of the world to cut their price.  I much prefer a separate graphics card with its own memory.

You can look at it two ways.  It turns out you can beat the Dell or HP price by building your own system from components as long as you go for inexpensive components.

Or you can, instead, purchase high quality components and build a system you will be proud of with high reliability and performance, but it will cost you a little more.

You have to be very careful with the specs on a motherboard to get the motherboard you want. Let's go through what to look for and what the spec is telling you.

The motherboard has a socket for your computer chip.  Since at this writing I recommend the Intel Core 2 Duo chip set, this will mean that your motherboard must have an LGA 775 socket. There are other sockets out there, like the LGA 1366 for example, so search for LGA 775 motherboards, if you want the Intel Core 2 Duo chip set.

Next memory, memory needs 240 pin slots, some motherboards come with two slots and some with four slots.  Since memory comes in matching card pairs, and the current memory cards max out at 4 Gb per card, the most memory you can have on a two slot motherboard is 8 Gb's.  You may think that you want four slots, in which case you will be told the motherboard supports 16 Gb of memory.  This is misleading.  In order to use more than 4 Gb's of memory you need to use a 64-bit CPU, which we are not using.  The advantage of the four slots is you can chip away, literally, and gradually add memory to your system in the future.  Come on, this is hooey, too.  Do yourself a performance favor and maximize your memory right from the start.   And that, with the Core 2 Duo, is 4Gb.  You can order it with two 2Gb cards, or four 1Gb cards.  With the former you'll need two memory slots on your motherboard, with the later you'll need four slots.

While we're talking memory, motherboards are designed to use a particular type of memory and memory speed.  There is DDR2 and DDR3 memory, and runs at various speeds.  DDR3 is the latest technology.  Currently there are not a lot of DDR3 motherboards made as technology catches up.  It's ok to use DDR2.  Try to get a memory speed number that is over 1066.  This will mean your motherboard is a later model.   No matter which memory you end up with DDR2 or DDR3 you must match the memory you buy to the motherboard type and speed of memory called for in the motherboard spec. They have to match.

Now to graphic cards, graphic cards connect using a PCI Express 2.0 x16 socket.  All motherboards have one.  You may want two slots, if in the future you want to expand to use two graphic cards.  If your not a gamer, this shouldn't matter, however if you are a gamer, not only do you need two slots, but they need to be the proper distance apart so you'll look for motherboards that claim their SLI ready for NVIDIA boards.  You'll also then need to look for graphic cards and power supplies that are SLI-Ready.  For ATI graphic card users will look for the word "Crossfire."  If you are ok with one graphic card, then a one slot PCI Express motheboard will be fine.

Since you will be buying a separate graphics card, you do not want a motherboard with an on-board video chipset.  See my graphic card post for more explanation.

Next SATA connectors, Each of your hard drives will need to connect to the motherboard.  Since you will be getting SATA hard drives, you'll need SATA connectors on the motherboard.  Also the newer DVD drives use SATA connectors.  I recommend you have a minimum of four SATA connectors on the motherboard.

You may, or may not, want to use RAID when hooking up your disk drives for safety. This is a entirely new topic, which I will address in another post. For example, to mirror your disk to another disk drive you will use RAID 1, which implies you will purchase two identical disk drives.  Each RAID set up requires a different number of physical drives, and thus may require more than four SATA connectors and more power.  Since we are building a basic computer, I will not recommend you use RAID at this time, so for now just ignore the RAID specs.

Audio - today's motherboards have sophisticated audio built into the motherboard.  Bear in mind you will have to purchase a set of computer speakers or output your computer audio to your audio-in on your stereo receiver to hear anything. Look for something like Realtek 8 channel audio on the spec with 6 audio ports.

You want an Ethernet RJ45, better known as a LAN chipset.  And as many USB 2.0 ports as possible.  The latest keyboards and mice use USB connectors, then you may want to plug in a USB jump drive or back up disk.  It should have a minimum of four USB 2.0 ports.  Most boards have an IEEE 1394 interface, called firewire.

You want an ATX motherboard for your ATX computer case, unless you want to go for a small case and use a microATX board.  Make sure your case fits an ATX board, most do.

You can purchase a motherboard for as little as $41 and as much as $269.  How do you choose?  There are a lot of motherboards out there.  The most popular boards are made by Asus and Gigabyte.  Some boards have a wireless lan built-in to the board, most don't.  Most of the higher price boards are built for two graphic cards, you don't need that if your not going to buy two graphic cards.

Other than that, I would read the reviews, see what other users are saying about the board, is it reliable, how's the support, what kind of problems are others having.  You get the idea.

The most common problem you'll have is the cable is too short.  Most of the manufacturers that provide cables with their components always provide short cables.  They want to keep their costs down and still provide their customers with everything they need.  The result, short cables.

What I propose is for you to have a couple of extra longer cables, so that this won't slow you down.  What cables should you have in your kit?

DVD's hook to the motherboard either with an IDE cable, or the newer DVD drives use SATA cables.  The IDE cable is usually an 18" ribbon cable.  The ribbon cable is relatively wide, and stiff.  It get's in the way of hooking up other cables and impedes air flow.  If you have a full tower and put the DVD in the upper slot, there's a good chance the 18" cable will not fit.

I prefer the round IDE cables.  Better air flow, not as stiff and easier to route in the case.  So the first cable you should get is a 36" round, not flat, IDE cable, $4.99.

Round IDE Cable

Next SATA cables, SATA cables are used to hook up hard drives, and maybe your DVD drives.  Same sceanario SATA cables are too short, let's get a couple of extra longer SATA cables.  Two 39" SATA cables, $1.99 each, or $3.98.

SATA Cable

At this time, I'm not going to cover audio or video cables.  They depend on your components, the ports you have available, the distances between components, and what functionality you want to achieve.  We'll leave these to later.

Current motherboards usually give you over four USB ports.  You can get USB externder cables to increase your cable distance, and USB hubs which allow you to hook more than one USB device to a single port.

RJ45 Ethernet cables, these are the cables you'll use to hook computers to the network, to the Internet, and to hook to other computers.   There are two types of Ethernet cables.  Regular RJ45 cables that you hook from your router to your computer.  I recommend you get a 50 foot cable, 50 feet?  Yes, that way you can string a cable from the network, to your computer no matter where it is in the room.  I found a long ethernet cable is invaluable.  Friends come over with laptops and their computers, and you want to get them connected to the Internet.  It's a lot easier to string cable that move hardware.  The cable runs $6.99.

Ethernet Cable

Crossover Cable

The other type of Ethernet cable is called a "Crossover" cable.  This is a cable that switches the wires inside the cable so you can plug two computers together, and have them talk to each other, which gives you an instant, high-speed network.  Ethernet cables are normally color coded with crossover cables being orange, and normal cables being light blue.  A 50 feet crossover cable runs $8.39.  You can also get a Crossover Adapter Plug for $13.99 and skip the orange cable.

Crossover Adapter

A computer power supply takes 120 volts AC that you get from the power outlet in your home into its black box and out comes DC voltages +12v, +5v, and +3.3 volts that the computer uses to power its components.  The power supply is really a power converter.  Since it has these different voltages being output to different components, each of which has its own standard power plug, what you have out the back of the power supply is a mess of wires with different plugs attached to the wires.  And it is a mess.

Power supplies are described mainly by a wattage rating, for example 450w.  This stands for 450 watts.  The higher the watts the more power or current going to the components in your computer.  Well that's simple, Not.  It turns out the different manufacturers have different ways to determine the wattage of their power supplies depending on how they state their specs.  You'll see specs calling out peak power, continuous power, and multiple rails with current limits all of which can be twisted depending on how their stated or not stated.  The fact is there is no standard for describing and specifying power supplies, and as a result there are some pretty shoddy power supplies out there. The specs are a mess.

In fact it is so bad that I need to caution you about taking a Dell or HP power supply out of your old computer and using it in your new computer.   Dell and HP went so far as to make power supplies with standard internal connectors with different voltages on different pins.  Plugging this into a modern motherboard and components could instantly damage those components.

How much power do you need?  Unfortunately, most component and graphic card companies do not state the power needed in their specs. The idea that you can add up all your power requirements to get the total amount of power needed is also a mess.

Let's approach this from a different perspective and see is we can pick out a decent power supply for your computer.  Most computers without a lot of components run on about 350 watts.  Now having said that, I would not purchase a 350w power supply and think your all set.  I don't think they make one anyway. You always want to go over the watts you'll need.  So for the average system, nothing fancy, I recommend a 500 watt power supply.  Now if you start adding multiple disk drives, hot graphic cards, or double graphic cards, then you are going to need a lot more power, at least a 750w power supply.  Those basically are the two main sizes you'll see for the home computer. Disk drives not so much, but as soon as you go hot graphic card, which now require their own power connector, I would move to the 750w power supply.

Next you want a power supply that has the letters ATX in the spec.  What this means is it is compatible with an ATX motherboard.  It has the proper plugs and proper power to the pins for an ATX motherboard and components.   When you turn the computer off or go to standby power with the software,  the power supply to do the same.  All most all power supplies have this, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.  Some power supplies also state they are ready for Crossfire or SLI.  This refers to running two separate graphic cards in your computer, see my previous graphic cards posting for more on this.

Get a power supply with an on-off switch on the back.  This allows you to absolutely kill all power to the computer. Power supplies without the switch means you have to pull the power plug to get the same effect. You want to kill power when your working on the inside of the computer, in lightning storms, and when your computer hangs and you can't shut it down.

Some power supplies are modular, which means that you are given a separate bag of internal power cables and plug them into the back of the power supply only if needed.  This cuts down considerably on the wires inside the box and improves overall air flow, reducing heat.  It use to be modular cabling led to problems if the cables became loose, most modular cables today have positive latching to make sure that doesn't happen, but you will not find this anywhere in the specs.  Non-modular power supplies come with all the cables coming out of the back of the power supply.  Cables you don't use have to be pushed into corners of the case. I recommend a good modular power supply.

Power supplies come in a standard size of 5.91" width, 3.39" height, and 5.52" depth. And as a result you will not see dimensions stated with your power supply specs.  This size fits perfectly into your computer case which is built to include a power supply with those dimensions, easy.  Well not so fast.  The first two dimensions are the closest thing we'll find to a standard in power supplies, but the last one depth you have to watch out for. On your bigger power supplies, the 750w version, some manufacturers have elongated the case to about a 7.48" depth.  They'll sneak this into their spec by stating dimensions, and not say anything else.  I do not recommend elongated power supplies.  They may or may not run a tad cooler, but they can create problems in fitting into your case as you start to wire up your computer.  Stick with the standard size.

Which bring us to heat, power conversion takes energy which is expelled in the form of heat.  Power supplies get hot.  Every power supply includes a fan that cools the power supply.  The problem is noise. I recommend the power supplies with the bigger fans rather than the smaller fans.  Smaller fans run faster and make more noise.  Curiously, fans always are mentioned in the spec.  Stay away from the 80mm fan. Some manufacturers will stress quiet in their fan spec. That's goodness.

In picking out a power supply, look at the reviews and awards.  As I said, because of all the messes above, there are some shoddy power supplies out there that will crap out on you after a very short use, and have flaky and unstable voltages.  Unstable voltages can cause all sorts of problems in your computer that you will have trouble tracing back to your unstable power supply.  Currently, I am using Corsair modular power supplies.  Look for the word "modular" in the spec as they make both kinds of power supplies.  At this writing, they make a 520w, 620w, 650w, 750w, and 850w modular power supply.  I have used  both the 520w and 750w with good results.

When your computer runs an application, it loads your application into memory from the disk.  If you open another application, another space is set aside in memory for that application, and so on until there is no memory space available.  If another application is loaded after that, your computer starts to do what is called paging.  The oldest application is taken out of memory, and loaded to a swap space on your disk.  As you go back and forth between your applications.  You swap your pages in and out of memory from your swap space.  Needless to say this going back and forth to the disk slows the performance of your computer.  The more memory, the less swapping.  Enough said.

The only problem is when you turn the power off and shut down your computer, you lose everything in memory, while your hard disk retains all your data and applications on the disk surface.  You need both memory to run your applications and hard disks to store your data.

Let's look at a typical memory name:  OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel.  What is all this gobly-gook or should I say gobly-geek?

Let me take it apart a step at a time.  OCZ is one of your top memory board manufacturers.  OCZ Reaper HPC is the brand name.  4Gb(2 x 2GB) means there is a total of 4GB of memory in two sticks of 2GB each. 240-Pin is the number of pins needed on the socket of the motherboard. DDR2 SDRAM stands for double-data-rate two synchronous dynamic random access memory.  What's important here is the type of technology, DDR2.  DDR2  describes the DDR chips themselves, whereas PC2 8500 denotes theoretical bandwidth, and is used to describe assembled DIMMs. 1066 is the bandwidth, the higher the faster the memory.   Dual channel implies that it will work with a motherboard that can transfer data on a dual bus for improve thoughput.

One other way a spec might be presented is: DDR3 2000(O.C)/1600(O.C)/1333 This is usually what you'll see as a memory spec for the motherboard.  This says the motherboard takes DDR3 memory boards running at one of the following bandwidths: 2000, 1600, or 1333.  The O.C. means the memory can be overclocked.

You always want two matched pairs of memory cards and thats the way their sold. No worries. DDR3 is the latest memory technology replacing DDR2 and they both use a 240-pin socket.  DDR3 is faster than DDR2 for the same clock rate.

Ok, here's what you need to know.  When picking out memory, you have to match the memory board to the motherboard.  If you don't you'll have a heck of a mess as the motherboard may not work and you won't know why.  If you look at the above motherboard spec, that motherboard requires DDR3 memory, not DDR2, and the bandwidth on the memory has to be one of the three speeds listed: 2000, 1600, or 1333.  You may be able to get away with a lower frequency, but I don't recommend it. I recommend you look for DDR3 2000 memory for that motherboard.

If you look at the first example that memory is made for a motherboard that requires DDR2 memory that can handle a 1066 bandwidth.  I recommend you pick out your motherboard first, and then purchase the memory called out for by the motherboard spec, not the other way around.

From the start, graphic cards have plugged into slots on the motherboard, and have their monitor output plugs on the card come out the back of the computer.  In the beginning graphic cards used a shared PCI bus to plug into the motherboard. Soon technology began to push the limits of the shared PCI interface, and a new interface came along called, AGP, accelerated graphics port. This provided a dedicated path to the CPU. There were several versions of AGP with different voltages required to run the card, and you had to be careful which version your motherboard could use.  Because of the confusion, and the need for even higer tranfer rates, starting in 2004 a new interface was introduced that all modern graphic cards use called PCI Express, or PCIe, or PCI-E, depending on the specs. There all the same.  To give you an idea of technology improvements. PCI had a data rate of 250Mb/s, AGP had a rate of 500Mb/s, and PCIe has a rate of 1Gb/second.

Graphic cards work by building a display in the graphic cards memory of what you will see on the screen and then transferring that display image to your monitor.  As games got faster, more graphic card memory was needed to build displays in the background, so as one image was being displayed on the monitor, the next image was being built in the graphic card memory.  High definition video and realistic 3d computer games have progressed to the point that two physical graphic cards are used to draw alternate images and to make your display operate like your television.

How do you pick a graphic card?  Well, you have three choices.  Intel has been pushing its graphic chips to be included with the motherboard, and thus manufacturers, like Dell and HP, would not need to provide a graphic card with their computers.  This resulted in a great savings to the manufacturers, and this technology is pushed today.  Buyer beware.  I view this as step back, not forward. Why?  Well these chips do not have their own graphic memory.  They use the computers main memory to draw their images. So your main memory is being used for all your computer operations, which can slow down your overall system performance, in addition, it requires you to load up on memory if you want to have decent performance.  My advice, your building your own computer, don't get a motherboard with built-in graphic chips that run off of main memory, and hamper your overall performance.  Buy a separate graphic card.

That was choice one, back to the other two choices.  There are two companies that design and make the graphic chips, ATI and NVIDIA. They do not, as their main business, sell graphic cards, but manufacture the chips. Other vendors sell the cards with their chips on it. Most people that I know either are ATI or NVIDIA users, they don't switch back and forth. I personally have used both, but currently favor NVIDIA.  Both companies use to be independent, but in 2006 AMD the competitor of Intel purchased ATI.  What this means is now AMD can compete with the built-in graphic chip set of Intel. Microsoft just announced they will use the AMD and ATI for their next generation Xbox so the merger is paying off.

You will choose one of the other, either ATI, or NVIDIA, and this will affect which motherboard you purchase, as will see later.  One other wrinkle is the use of two graphic cards instead of one in your computer.  I do not recommend this unless you are a state-of-the-art computer gamer.  One card is usually enough.  ATI calls their dual graphic card set-up, "Crossfire." and NVIDIA calls theirs, "SLI."  You'll see motherboards and power supplies that claim the are either "Crossfire-compliant" or "SLI ready."  There are pluses and minuses of each.  If you decide to go the two card route, I recommend you research the differences first.

Since the graphic cards plug into the motherboard, you will have to pick a motherboard that fits the graphic card, or visa versa pick a graphic card that fits the motherboard. For example, if you want two graphic cards, your motherboard must have two PCIe slots the proper distance apart on the motherboard.  More on this when I talk about motherboards.

My recommendation is you get one of the latest graphic cards, that fit in your budget, produced by a graphic card manufacturer, like XFX, PNY, or EVGA.  You can get two card compatibility, i.e. SLI ready, and just buy one board with the idea of picking up the second board later, but do some reading first, if you want to go that route in the future.  You want a good chunk of memory with the card.  Usually the higher the number of the card, the better performance, and the higher the price.  Just like computer chips.

There is an exception to this.  NVIDIA recently got to their 9800GX2, and instead of going into GTX10000 for their next products decided to start their numbering over with the 210.  There latest is the GeForce GTX 295.

The faster the computer chip, the hotter the computer chip. The heat if it gets too hot can start causing problems in the operation of the chip and the motherboard. The way around this is to use a heat sink with a fan placed directly in contact with the computer chip to dissipate the heat. Thus we have the CPU cooling fan. All current computer chips require a CPU cooling fan.

There's a couple of ways to go. When you order a cpu, it comes with a fan. You're all set. However, most computer enthusiast don't think those fans are good enough, and want to order a better fan for their computer for a number of reasons: they anticipate overclocking the cpu, producing more than normal heat; they want a super quiet fan, as the packaged fan usually is noisy; you want your rig to look good, you can get lights with your fan.

If you would like to order a CPU cooling fan. There are some things to consider: The first is noise. CPU fans can be noisy. You can replace the CPU fan with a less noisy fan. Look on the CPU Cooling Fan specification for the Noise Level. The lower the dba the better.

Cooper heat sinks exchange heat better than aluminum.

CPU fans/heat sinks are made for certain computer chips and sockets. If you order a Intel Core 2 Duo, which has an LGA 775 socket, you need to order a fan made for that socket and chip.

CPU fans attach in two ways. There are four holes through the mother board around the chip socket. The heat sink of tha fan sits on top of the computer chip. The fan body either has four push pins that push into those four holes in the motherboard and are held firmly in the holes by expanding the pin after it is through the hole. Or you screw the fan into a plate on the underside of the board. I've found the push pin types are flimsy and the pins break easily. I prefer the type where you screw into a plate on the back of the motherboard. "Zalman" is a brand name that uses this technique.

One other thing you'll need is thermal grease. This is a grease mixture that you place between the CPU chip and the heat sink to enhance the heat transfer.  I recommend a brand called "Arctic Silver."  It comes in a tube with an applicator for about $7.

Two companies dominate the computer chip market, the market leader, Intel, and the "Avis" of computer chips, AMD.  Not that there aren't other manufacturers, it's just that your x86 desktop architecture is dominated by these two companies. Intel created the x86 architecture back in 1978 and it is the architecture, by making sure we can always run legacy code, that persists to this day.  You would think that this would make it easy to make a choice. But...if you go to the Intel web site and look at all their processors, you'll be at a loss to pick the right computer chip for the system your building.  AMD, which also supports the X86 architecture, has less choices, but there's enough processors to still make it difficult to know which one to choose.

We could go through a bunch of specs, comparing this against that, but you would still be overwhelmed by the choices. We are going to approach this slightly differently.  Since the computer chip is mounted on a motherboard, computer chips and motherboards are intimately connected.  It does you no good to pick out a super fast chip, and not find any motherboards that can run the chip.

Computer chips are mounted in sockets on the motherboard.  In order to increase your  overall system options, we want to pick the cpu socket that has the most motherboards available.  For Intel the current socket of choice is called "LGA 775." LGA stands for "Land Grid Array" and the socket has no holes, instead it has posts that mate with pins on the bottom of the chip.  The current popular chip that uses that socket is the Intel Core 2 Duo.  Yes, there are faster Intel chips, like the i7 with 45nm techology that takes a "LGA 1366" socket, and other Intel chip types, like Quad core, but at this point in time in software development, the Core 2 Duo is more than adequate.  You can tell one Core 2 Duo chip from another by their "E" number.  The higher the number, the faster the chip, and the higher the price. E numbers E6850 and below are 65 nanometer technology and E7200 and above are 45nm technology.  The 45nm are denser and faster.  That's about all you need to know.  I admit this is simplistic, but you can't go too wrong with this approach.  The chip you pick will be the highest E number Core 2 Duo that fits in with your overall budget.

Intel Core 2 Duo

LGA775 Socket

Let's take a peak at the AMD chip set.  There are actually two sockets we could choose with AMD.  The AM2+/AM2, or AM3.  Theoretically the AM3 will work in an AM2+ socket, while an AM2+ chipset will not work in an AM3 socket. To be safe, if the chipsets calls for an AM3 socket use an AM3 socket motherboard only.  This corresponds to the Athlon X2 chipset for the AM2+, and Athlon II and Phenom II processors for the AM3 socket.  The chief difference is the Athlon X2 chip set uses 65 nanometer technology and the Athlon II and Phenom II uses 45 nanometer technology. Just like with Intel the higher the number of the chip the faster the performance. Both the AMD chips are Intel chips are fairly equivalent.  See my previous blog entitled, "Quad Core Battleground coming in 2009,"  for some more details.

AMD Athlon II

AM2+ socket

I favor the Intel chips sets at present, but I have to admit I don't have experience running an AMD chip set. I don't see any problems in using AMD, as long as the motherboard has the correct AMD socket.

Now which chip to purchase?   This is dependent on how much money you want to spend on your overall system.  You could buy an expensive chip, bear in mind, that you will probably then want to buy an expensive motherboard, and an expensive graphic card. The next thing you know, you may be way outside your budget unless you are planning on building one of those dream computer gaming rigs.  If your outside your budget you can move to the next lower E number chipset or lower number AMD chipset. I think you'll find unless your building the hottest system you can imagine, a processor running above 2.6 Ghz is probably adequate at this point in time for a home computer.  If your going to run a Microsoft Windows7 you'll probably want a fairly fast chip as all those 3d graphics on the desktop come at a performance price.

We are about to get into the heart of the computer, and talk about power supplies, graphic cards, cpu chips, and finally motherboards.  All of these components inter-relate with one another.  For example, if you purchase a computer chip it mates to a particular type of socket on the mother board, so you need to be careful when you purchase your motherboard that it comes with that socket.

Do not purchase one of these components until after you read about all of them.  Each component has to mate with the other components in your system.  And if your careful, you'll find that everything will come together neatly, if your not, you'll be exchanging and returning parts. A royal pain.

At the end of the hardware components, I'll summarize everything you'll need to buy with cautions about what you need to make sure you have with the part you purchase.

Nuff, said.