Need help building a computer. What parts to buy?

Since others are giving examples of builds, here's another one. It's about $1000 (once you include shipping, mouse and keyboard, etc) w/o monitor. Prices are mainly from Newegg, and may have changed slightly since I last looked them up.

With all these suggestions for parts that you're getting, please don't just take our word for it. Look them up on Newegg, Google for reviews, and see if our advice makes sense.

Case: COOLER MASTER 590 $ 65.00

PSU Corsair 550vx $ 85.00

that price is from: http://www.directron.com/cmpsu550vx.html

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L $ 85.00

Processor: Intel q6600 $ 210.00

Disk: Western Digital WD3200AAKS 320GB $ 70.00

Memory: 4GB RAM - use configurator at crucial.com $ 110.00

Video card: a 512 MB 8800gt $ 160.00

DVD/CD: Pioneer DVR-215DBK DVD RW SATA OEM $ 31.00

Operating System: Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM $ 100.00

Total: $ 916.00

+ keyboard, mouse, shipping.

Maybe buy an extra fan or two for your case.

Maybe get a non-stock cooler for your CPU such as an

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro (if you do that, you can save a bit and get the OEM version of your processor).

Maybe spend a bit more for a graphics card and get a Radeon 4850.

well Id go with this build, Ill list the parts, it might cost a 100 bucks more with assembly and all that, but it shouldn't more than that.

intel q6600 2.4GHz quad $240 (this is much more powerful than a 3.2GHz pentium 4, despite its lower clock speed)

nvidia GTX 260 $375 (you could also go with an 8800GTS instead, it's cheaper, but less powerful. this is the top midrange card available though)

nforce 780i motherboard $300

4gb ddr2-800 RAM $100

Coolermaster CosmoS case $200 (this is one of the best cases you can get, the antec 1200 is just as good too)

850 watt power supply $170

zalman 9700 cpu cooler (this might not be available from some places, so a good alternative as well is the thermaltake v-1) $65

vista home premium 64-bit (I recommend this only because of directx10, and the fact that you'll be able to run it well on your computer.) $100

7200 RPM 250GB hard drive $70

the total cost of the components is $1620, and factor in the assembly and installation of the OS and drivers, and the cost comes to about $1700, which is a little over what you wanted to spend, but you'll have a beast sitting on your desk, you should have no problems running crysis or any other demanding games that come its way.

I will recommend www.newegg.com as will many people.

I will list some parts and terms that you can search for on Newegg, and usually the one with the best ratings are the best to buy.

CPU: Intel : any Core 2 Duo/Quad. I recommend anything up to the Q6600, any more than that is overkill.

Motherboard: any highly-rated motherboard that is socket 775, has SATA ports, is either DDR2-800 or 1066 and includes at least one PCI-e x16 connection.

Vid card: anything up to 8800GTS 512 MB. The 8800gt has a good price/performance ratio.

Power supply: I recommend Corsair PSUs. Nothing under 520 watts.

RAM: any high rated ddr2-800 or 1066, such as Ballistix.

Get any highly rated SATA hard drive. If you are looking for speed, get the new WD velociraptor or older raptor models. Capacity, get seagate or western digital 7200 rpm drives.

Optical drive: any highly rated one.

Get an aftermarket cooler, like the Scythe Ninja or Tuniq tower to keep that CPU cool.

As for the case, the antec 900 is the best aircooler. the antec p182 is also good and quieter than the 900.

CPU: Intel Q9450

Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro HSF

4Gb RAM DDR2 800

Gigabyte motherboard

2 Western Digital 640Gb HDDs

Thermaltake Soprano RS Case

2 Scythe Ultra Kaze Fans

8800GT/GTS/GTX video card

PCP&C Silencer 750W PSU

HT Omega Striker 7.1 Sound Card

...and any other goodies you want.

unless you know someone experienced in building computers, i would buy one whole. there are so many things that can go wrong. nothing is worse than getting the whole thing together and then it not starting (i have had this happen before: bad motherboard). plus, you will probably get a better deal from dell or others.

other than that, i like intel for chips (amd if you are on a budget), asus for motherboards, and ati for video cards.

Intel P35 motherboard, Intel quad core 6600, 2gb 800mhz ram, ati 4870, cooler master centurion 5 case. Hope this gets you started.

new egg may be cheaper but there interface is terrible and they dont have a large amount of items to choose from.....i built a awesome quality pc for 1300....quad core 6700 @ 2.66 ghz ,evga 9800 512 mb gtx, asus p5n-e sli motherboard , ocz 4 gb ram, 900 gb worth of memory, big typhoon heatsink/ fan , x20 multi dvd lightscribe burner x2

www.tigerdirect.com

They have all the parts and expertise for you to build your own computer, the reviews tell you if the part is good or crap, and their prices are dirt cheap!

try newegg also they are usually a little bit cheaper then tigerdirect