[cheesepuff]

its simple. the mother board is the main board where you plug stuff into like your CD drive and hard drive into and your floppy drive. it looks like this.

This motherboard is fitted with only a AGP 8x so you will need a AGP 8x (or a AGP 4x) Graphics card to use it with.


This motherboard is fitted with only a PCI-E 16x so you will need a PCI-E 16x (or a PCI-E 8x) Graphics card to use it with.


a motherboard holds your CPU as well. there are many different size CPU's and along with that are many different mother boards that hold the various sizes.

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There are things called Graphics cards. what they do is process a lot of data like in games. such as the detail and rendering and many other things. they have special memory on the graphics card that hold the data for the environment of the game. they come on PCI, AGP PCI-E and PCI-E 16x. you may be thinking, "why so many PCI thingys?" well, why they named them all that, no clue. PCI was the 1st major kind. they are very old and out dated. then came AGP, it stands for "Advanced Graphics port" don't let the name fool you, its also outdated. I'm not sure where PCI-E 1x came in, but don't get it confused with PCI-E 16x. they are completely different. right now PCI-E 16 times are the best. they are faster and cost less to make than AGP or any other kind for that matter.



PCI


AGP


PCI-E 1x


PCI-E 16x
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RAM is another component that you put into your motherboard to make a computer work. Its stands for Random Access memory. Basically, it holds data for the application you are currently using. if you don't have enough, then you computer will get slow. what happens if you run out is it will use the hard drive as a back up for the RAM if necessary, but the hard drive will be very slow compared to RAM. there are 3 main types of RAM. DDR, DDR2, and DDR3. DDR was last generation and now the standard is DDR2. DDR2 runs at higher speeds and is more efficient. they are not backwards compatible. DDR3 is new and needs more time to develop.


also, if you have a 32bit OS (OS= Operating software (ie: Xp, Vista, 2000, 98)) it will only detect 3.25GB of RAM MAX. If you want to use more, you have to get a 64bit OS. the problem is, 64Bit OS have many compatibility issues with lots of software. Vista 64Bit has been better support now compared to the 64Bit XP.


DDR


DDR2


DDR3
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Now for a hard drive. hard drives come in 4 different types. only 2 of which are mainly used. they come in IDE, E-IDE (enhanced IDE), SATA, and SCSI. SATA is becoming the standard while other older computers still use E-IDE. they hold all you data that you save. when data is needed it reads it and sends it to the RAM. there are a few variations of each. (SATA1, SATA2) (SCSI 68 pin and 80 pin) etc. they connectors are all different.
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Overclocking is making a computer part run faster than its stock speeds. (IE a CPU stock speed at 2GHz run at 3GHz.) you can overclock a CPU, a graphics card, RAM. and a few other things. the shortened term for overclocking is "OC". note, when you overclock you void all computer parts warranties of the parts that do OC.
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now for CPU's

AMD Sockets

* Super Socket 7 - AMD K6-2, AMD K6-III; Rise mP6.
* Socket 563 - AMD low-power mobile Athlon XP-M (µ-PGA Socket, mostly mobile parts).
* Socket 754 - AMD single-processor socket featuring single-channel DDR-SDRAM. Supports AMD Athlon 64, Sempron, Turion 64 processors.
* Socket 939 - AMD single-processor socket featuring dual-channel DDR-SDRAM. Supports Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX to 1 GHz2, Athlon 64 X2, Opteron 100-series processors.
* Socket 940 - AMD single and multi-processor socket featuring DDR-SDRAM. Supports AMD Opteron 2, Athlon 64 FX processors.
* Socket A (also known as Socket 462) - AMD socket supporting Athlon, Duron, Athlon XP, Athlon XP-M, Athlon MP, and Sempron processors.
* Socket AM2 - AMD single-processor socket featuring DDR2-SDRAM. Replaces Socket 754 and Socket 9392 (PGA 940 contacts}.
* Socket AM2+ - Future AMD socket for single processor systems. Features support for DDR2 and HyperTransport 3 with separated power lanes. Planned to launch between mid 2007 and Q3 2007. Replaces Socket AM2 (PGA 940 contacts).
* Socket AM3 - Future AMD socket for single processor systems. Features support for DDR3 and HyperTransport 3 with separated power lanes. Planned to launch mid 2008. Replaces Socket AM2+ with support for DDR3-SDRAM (PGA ? contacts).
* Socket F (also known as Socket 1207) - AMD multi-processor socket featuring DDR2-SDRAM. Supports AMD Opteron2 processors. Replaces Socket 940*.
* Socket S1 - AMD socket for mobile platforms featuring DDR2-SDRAM. Replaces Socket 754 for mobile processors (638 contacts).

Intel Sockets

* Socket 1 - 80486
* Socket 2 - 80486
* Socket 3 - 80486 (3.3 V and 5 V) and compatibles
* Socket 4 - Intel Pentium 60/66 MHz
* Socket 5 - Intel Pentium 75-133 MHz; AMD K5; IDT WinChip C6, WinChip 2
* Socket 6 -
* Socket 7 - Intel Pentium, Pentium MMX; AMD K6
* Socket 8 - Intel Pentium Pro
* Socket 370 - Intel Pentium III, Celeron; Cyrix III; VIA C3
* Socket 423 - Intel Pentium 41 Willamette core
* Socket 463 (also known as Socket NexGen) - NexGen Nx586
* Socket 478 - Intel Pentium 4, Celeron, Pentium 4 Extreme Edition1, Pentium M Socket N
* Socket 479 - Intel Pentium M and Celeron M
* Socket 486 - 80486
* Socket 499 - DEC Alpha 21164a

* Socket 603 - Intel Xeon
* Socket 604 - Intel Xeon

* LGA 771 (also known as Socket 771) - Intel Xeon
* LGA 775 (also known as Socket 775 or Socket T) - Intel Pentium 4, Pentium D, Celeron D, Pentium Extreme Edition, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, Celeron1, Xeon 3000 series, Core 2 Quad.

* PAC418 - Intel Itanium
* PAC611 - Intel Itanium 2, HP PA-RISC 8800 and 8900
* Socket B (LGA 1366) - a new socket for future Intel CPUs incorporating the integrated memory controller and CSI
* Socket H (LGA 715) - a future replacement for the current Socket T (LGA 775).
* Socket M - Intel Core Solo, Intel Core Duo and Intel Core 2 Duo
* Socket N - Intel Dual-Core Xeon LV
* Socket P - Intel-based; replaces Socket 479 and Socket M. Released May 9th, 2007.

those are all the socket types ever. that quote was from Wiki. only a few are actually used now when making new CPU's. LGA775 is the most popular as it supports the new core 2 duos which have been revered as the best overclocking CPU's ever as well as the new core 2 quads. Don't let a CPU's GHz (ie. 2.4Ghz) trick you into thinking that a CPU is faster by that. Things inside a CPU called pipelines matter more. the shorter the pipelines the less speed you need for date to go through. right now that's why core 2 duo is the best.

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OK, Power supply time. A power supply is often referred to as a PSU, or Power supply unit. remember, what makes a good power supply for hi end computers with demanding parts are not how many Watts it has (ie 400Watt PSU) but mainly the Amps on the 12V line. What is this? well, its a power cord that goes directly from your power supply to your graphics card. PCI-E 16x cards use a 6 prong adapter. it is very important that you have good amps on this line or your card may not function correctly. Efficiency is another thing. if your PSU is only 50% efficient, then you will not get as much power as advertises since a lot of the power will be lost in heat. Also, before buying a power supply always look at the reviews (well do that for anything you buy really) and if they tell you its bad, don't get get it. a bad power supply can be the fate of your whole build.
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Cooling is next. Lets start with the basics. A good cooled case. When you look for a case you want to know how good the air flow is. what you should look for is one that has a 120mm fan on the front to intake cold air, since cold air resides on the lower part to the ground. the air will go from there, to the case. a good CPU heat sink (get there in a minute) will have 2 fans. one sucking and one blowing. the one sucking will take the cold air from the front of the case and the one blowing will be opposite of the sucking and blow the now hot air away. next a fan on the back of the case will exhaust the hot air. since hot air rises, the fan it normally placed on the upper back of the case.


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Cooling heatsinks. What is a heat sink? Well, its a metal piece that goes on things like a CPU, or GPU (graphics processing unit(it on the graphics card)) etc. its what help keeps the thing that its cooling stay cool. along with that is a fan that is mounted on the heatsink to help dissipate the heat on it. There are a few things to look for when getting one, especially if your going to overclock. Copper is the best out there. it dissipates heat quickly so that is one thing you should look for when getting one. another thing you should look for are these things called heat pipes. they are solid tubes of what ever material is being used that make the heatsink take the heat even faster. normally you only see these in CPU heatsinks but now you can upgrade some graphics cards heatsinks with them. When you apply your heat sink you cant just put it on and go. you must use what they call, "thermal compound" to bond the CPU and heatsink together so they can actually transfer heat out of the thing it is cooling. Arctic Silver 5 is the #1 choice. it is 99.9% real silver. why is this good? well, silver conducts heat even better than copper, but silver is dangerous. you get it on your hands you got a problem. latex gloves do nicely.


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Fans. they come in a few sizes. 80mm, 92mm, 120mm and a few others. what to look for in a fan.
1 size matters. the bigger the fan, the more cooling area it covers, the less speed you need to get good airflow.
2 fan noise can be annoying. the noise are rated by dBA (decibels)
3 CFM (or Cubic feet per minute) is how much airflow it gets.


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Sound cards. not all are the same. lets start with sound quality. there are 4 bit, 8 bit, 16 bit, 24 bit and 32 bit. 32 bit cards you don't see often, 24 are what cards now a days normally have. some cards have there own sound processor on them so when gaming gives you more frames per second. ( get to that in a minute) and some even have X RAM on them that holds super quality sound for game like in battlefield 2 and battlefield 2142 and Prey. these cards will have available surround sound where when in games helps locate the enemy easily. I got my 5.1 surround sound from logitech for only $32!!! really good system too!

[IMG]http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m265/fungusboy/soundcard2.jpg[/IMG

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FPS can stand for many things. Knowing how to figure out what term it means is simple. when talking about game genera's FPS means First person shooters. when talking about performance in a game FPS means frames per second. that is a measurement of how choppy game play is. low FPS is like stop and go, while hi FPS is smooth game play. FPS in other terms like feet per second don't normally come up here.


I wish i could just have the last 5 pictures show instead of having to click on them. says i have to get permission from a moderator er something...any who, do you guys think my report is good? all it is is to explain simply to new builders about computers.

[evilfantasy]

Thanks for sharing.

Just one thing, on a guide like this make sure everything is 100% accurate.

If you see something that needs clarified post here and a mod will assist you in editing the information.

[cheesepuff]

If i should need to edit anything to please feel free to tell me. I am always adding, editing this thing to make sure its accurate and spelled correctly

edit- this guild is not on how to put it together, just on what the pats are and info about them for easy understanding of what they do. just in case anyone gets confused.

[HistoryGirl]

I've never built a computer so I thought I'd pass a comment. The majority of it sounds/looks good the pictures definitely help. However is there a need for the complete list of CPUs surely you only need a few examples that may actually be relevant.

What about the cases themselves? I wouldn't know what one to buy to be honest.

[Hybr!d]

Looks good, thanks for sharing.

[mbonwick]

May I suggest that you might turn this into a step-bu-step for new builders?

It is very good and the pictures definitely help.

WELL DONE!

[cheesepuff]

thank you all! you guys think a moderator can make those last 5 pictures so you dont have to click on them? step by step huh? hmm...i'll make a video soon on that then. remember, this is not for recommending what to do, just info on what they are. No, i dont think the whole CPU list was necessary, but it was in quotes. after the quote i enplane what is the standard now.

edit- dont forget to vote at the poll above this thread :D

[HistoryGirl]

A step by step guide sounds good to me. Where to start and how to put everything together.

[cheesepuff]

i think i can do that.

[cheesepuff]

i think i'd be cool to have this as a sticky. but i have a feeling that would never happen... lol. still a fun thought though *hint hint* *wink wink* :D