Just to clarify one thing, this paper is based solely on the experiences of someone who had NEVER built a computer. When I first started doing the research to build my computer, I was a little apprehensive and overwhelmed. I had no idea the amount of information I would have to go through to make my decisions. Hopefully, with all the research, these decisions were well informed and thought out. The thing that was nice for me was having a number of knowledgeable, well-informed friends to use as my personal resource. The main concern I had was making sure I stayed within my budget of $750-1000, not including the printer or monitor.

The first step I took in deciding what type of computer to build was a two-part decision. I first had to decide what type of motherboard I wanted to use, and what type of CPU I was going to use. After speaking to a friend, he mentioned www.tomshardware.com, a website that he had used in the past for making decisions on buying computer parts. The website ended up being the resource I used for making my decision on what motherboard to use. I decided to go with the MSI KT6Delta-FIS2R. The article that I read compared this with a number of other boards, and this one seemed to have the best features for the best price. After reading about it even more, I felt this board would also allow me to upgrade more freely in the future.

The second part of the first step was deciding on what type of CPU I wanted to use. After speaking to a friend and my brother-in-law, I decided on an AMD processor. The decision after that was figuring out how powerful I wanted it to be and what I truly wanted the computer to be able to do. My brother in-law is really into gaming on Friday and Saturday nights, so he would love for me to have something powerful enough to play with him sometime. I, on the other hand, wanted something powerful enough that when I go on the Internet I am not waiting 10 hours for the page to come up. The processor that I decided on was the Athlon XP 2500+. Anyway, I believe the decision that I made would accommodate for both requests.

Once I had made these two decisions it was onto the video card. After speaking with a friend of mine, who is also into gaming, I decided on the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. Not knowing a great amount about gaming, I totally relied on his expertise to make my decision a good one. "For the price that you will end up paying and for how powerful the card is, this one is one of the best," he said. He added "there are better ones out there, but you will end up paying double the price for just a little more graphics."

The next decision was partially made by desire and necessity. I had to decide on what type of RAM to use. I made my decision based on the gaming aspect of things once again. I went with a PC2700 DDR 1GB. I was debating on only going with 512 MB, but opted on the higher memory so I would still have enough room left when it came to playing games, etc.

My decision on what type of hard drive to buy was based again from what other people's experiences have been. A friend informed me that Western Digital is one of the better-known brands when it comes to hard drive manufacturers. After hearing this, my only real decisions were whether I wanted to spend the money for a name brand hard drive and how big I wanted to go. I decided to go with the Western Digital Serial ATA 120GB.

The next decision that I had to make involved what type of devices to go with such as: DVD, CD-RW and floppy. At first I was debating on possibly going with a DVD combo, but after talking with my teacher and a few other classmates, my decision leaned towards separate devices. The pros about having separate devices outweighed the cons. I decided to go with a DVD 16X, CD-RW 54x/32x/54x and, a 1.44MB floppy disk.

I decided to purchase a modem card only for the fact that I wasn't sure how I was going to hook up to the Internet. I figured if I decided to go with dial up, at least I would have it ready to go. The card I decided on was a V.92 fax/modem card. For the low price, I felt even if I never had to use the card, it was better to have one now than to have to buy one later.

The keyboard and mouse that I decided to go with were strictly a choice of my own. I had used various keyboards over the years and had found that the ergonomic keyboards were the nicest to work with. They were a lot more comfortable and you didn't feel cramped when you were typing. For this reason alone, I decided to go with the Microsoft Natural MultiMedia Keyboard w/Microsoft Optical Wheel Mouse PS2/USB Combo. At least for vanity's sake, by purchasing a combo I knew the two would look good together.

The last three things that I needed were a case, fans, and of course, a power supply. To decide on the power supply I deferred to my good friend for a name brand on a power supply. I knew most cases would come with a power supply, but I wanted to make sure that I had enough power so I bought a separate one. I went with the Enermax EG465P-VE FM 460W power supply. I figured this would be plenty of power and would last a reasonable amount of time. The fans were not such a concern of mine, yet. I figured I would wait until I got the case and see how many locations I had for a couple more fans. I figured a couple generic fans would probably do just fine. The case was a different story. I was so overwhelmed with the choices for cases that I decided to finally just go with a case by Power Magic. It supported the form factor I was using and it actually came without a power supply. At least I didn't have to throw a power supply away that I wasn't even going to use.

The one thing that I did not really put in my budget besides the monitor was a printer. I figured that was a luxury that I did not necessarily have to have right away. I did do a little research on this though and came up with, I believe, a reasonably priced printer. The Lexmark Z23 seemed like i t might give me what I would need in features. I have, also, seen the Lexmark name so I felt pretty confident in the brand, even if I did not know a lot about the product itself. I also looked at a couple monitors and thought the Philips 109S13 19inch looked good.

As it stands, I was happy to see that I was able to stay within my budget. My prices were gathered from www.pricewatch.com and are as follows:

• Motherboard: MSI KT6Delta-FIS2RR..$147.00
• CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2500++..$80.00
• Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600 Proo..$164.00
• RAM: PC2700 DDR 1GBB..$124.00
• Hard Drive: Western Digital Serial ATA 120GBB..$115.00
• DVD: Liteon 16XX..$28.00
• CD-RW: Mitsumi 54x/32x/54xx..$37.00
• Floppy: Panasonic 1.44MBB..$7.00
• Modem: Chipset V.922..$6.00
• Keyboard and Mouse: Microsoft Natural MulitMedia Keyboard/Optical Mouse.....$37.00
• Power Supply: Enermax EG465P-VE FM 460WW..$78.00
• Fans: Enermax fanss..$20.00
• Computer Case: Power Magicc..$31.00
• Total for above devices: $874.00
• Not included in above price Optional Printer: Lexmark Z233..$36.00
• Not included in above pricee.Monitor: Philips 109S13 19inchh..$169.00

I have to say, the whole process of researching for a computer and how to put everything together was very overwhelming. I found with certain things that I just had to make a decision and go with it. Otherwise, I would still be researching and not writing this paper. All in all, it was very fun and am looking towards many hours of fun and excitement in front of my computer.