1. Choose the best CPU you can afford.
2. From this, find a motherboard that is compatible. Make sure it handles the best graphics card you can afford. PCI-e is good, AGP is obsolete.
3. Using the stats of the motherboard, select the fastest memory you can. If the motherboard supports 4 sticks, then get four sticks instead of two larger ones.
4. If the motherboard does not support SATA or SATAII, then select a different one.
5. Choose LAN and sound cards if the motherboard does not include them. Its not very easy finding a motherboard that doesnt include these
5. Select hard drive(s) and DVD from SATA capable lists. IDE/PATA is obsolete. Get drives rated at 7200 RPM or faster. and 52x for the optical drives
6. Select the processor fan based on suggestion from the retailer. Opt to pay more for a quieter fan. You may wish to go with liquid cooling. If so, see below.
7. Choose a case based on personal aesthetics. Make sure the case does NOT include a power supply(or waste the money). It will likely be underpowered. Some cases come with liquid cooling built in. If the case comes with no fans that is ok. Bigger fans are better. 120 millimeter fans are way quieter than 80 millimeter
8. Add up the power requirements for all devices
measured in watts
- CPU/motherboard - 150
- Graphics card 100
- Drive/optical drive 30 each
- memory sticks 10 each
- fans 5 each
- built in LED case lighting - 5 unless its cold cathode
optional stuf
- sound card - 30 at least
- lan card 20
- liquid cooling system - 100
Select a power supply that exceeds this total by at least 10%.
The requirements of the keyboard and mouse are sunk into the motherboard, as are the sound card and lan for the most part. Even if you are not a gamer, you will find that a dedicated graphics card will give you far superior performance. With a lot of integrated graphics cards, the graphics steals some of the system ram. Dedicated cards have their own.
I'm somewhat iffy on the power requirements of the separate sound and Lan cards, but those are ok working numbers.
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davidred wrote...
I installed Ubuntu once and it completely destroyed my paying relationship with Microsoft.