[Pheonixx]

I'm building a computer with my father in the next couple of weeks and we don't know where to start. Any suggestions on the hardware and such?

[DoubleHelix]

This question is about as useful as walking into a grocery store and asking the clerk, "What should I make for dinner?"

Have you ever built a computer?
Are you familiar with the various hardware components?
Do you want a big computer or a little computer? Or a laptop?
What will it be used for? Gaming? Web surfing? Video editing?
What are some key features that are important?
Do you have any parts you want to reuse such as a keyboard? Monitor? Mouse?
Do you already have an operating system disk and license or do you need to purchase those as well?

[low man]

I would usually goes from "what is the computer intended for?"

[Pheonixx]

No, I haven't ever built a computer.
I'm sorta familiar with the parts of a computer. My freshman year exam in Computer Science was to put a computer back together, but it doesn't mean I exactly know what I'm doing.
Want to build a desktop.
Used for all-around...use.. (lol). Going to be used for a lot of gaming, as my dad and I game quite a bit.
Needs to have a lot of space, and to be fast... (? is that what you mean?)
Reusing mouse, keyboard, and monitor.
I have windows XP and Ubuntu. Which ever my dad wants to use is what we'll use. Prolly XP because he doesn't like Linux too much.

[low man]

The next question would be "What is your budget?"

[Pheonixx]

Anything that you think a 17 yr old who works for about 5.28 an hour (30+ hours a week) and his Military Father can afford, lol. (which... doesn't say much). Again, we just need this for relative use, so I doubt that we are going to get things that are a grand a piece.

[low man]

Well, i would like to say that the best thing is buy a medium level computer spec.
MOBO: Minimum of Pentium 4 or AMD64 with SLI Support
MEMORY : DDR2 PC 4200 at least
VGA Card : Min. of 256MB, Min of Radeon X1600 or NVidia GT card.
HDD : For getting on the games pretty much you'll need at least 200GB.
Casing Power : Min of 600Watt Pure.
Keyboard : Logitech gaming
Mouse : Razer Copperhead + ExactMad+Pad
Monitor : Min of 19 Inch, CRT is well suited for medium budget. LCD is for later.

[cfhpantera]

Here is a Few tips for you:

1. Never neglect the power supply. Always buy a high quality power supply such as Cooler Master or Antec and you will never need anything more than 550W. The most demanding home PC that you can possibly build right now will not use any more than 550W so anything over that is overkill. You should be fine with a high quality 450W power supply.

2. Go with Intel Core 2 Duo instead of an AMD processor. Intel's processors right now are embarrasing AMD. If your on a budget and feel comfortable doing an easy overclock, buy a Core 2 Duo E4300, it has a low default multiplier and low FSB speed which allows for a lot of headroom for an easy overclock to 3.0Ghz. This can be achieved even with budget RAM and a budget motherboard, just make sure you have good airflow going through your case. Otherwise look for a Core 2 Duo with 4MB of L2 cache such as the E6320.

3. Don't over do your motherboard. The difference in performance between the expensive boards with heat pipes and the budget boards are negligable. I would buy something such as the MSI P6N SLI-FI. MSI is well known for their stabibility.

4. Don't spend a fortune on RAM as the performance differences between different flavors of DDR2 800 are negligable. Just settle for something cheap such as A-Data Value Series RAM on newegg. 2GB is running for 69.99 right now. If your going to install vista and play some modern games then be sure to get atleast 2GB of RAM to be safe.

5. Be sure to buy a case which allows you to have an intake fan and an exhaust fan. A case that just has room for a fan in the back isn't good enough.

6. Don't get a graphics card with a 128bit memory interface. You don't want to cheap out on a graphics card. The more you spend now the less you will find yourself spending later because the budget card you bought didn't cut it for as long as you thought. So consider focusing most of your money towards a fast card if you plan on gaming. If you must settle for the best deal the EVGA 7900GS is 150.00 on Newegg with a risky 20.00 rebate.

7. Don't settle for on board sound. Get yourself a sound card. It doesn't have to be expensive. A cheap Sound Blaster Live 24bit card will do. Using on board sound will take a toll on your processor so it's best to get a dedicated sound card.

[blahbuds]

If you've got NO experience in building a PC, then I say don't try. Unless you've got someone to guide you through it. I'd atleast buy a "barebones" pc and add to it. It will be cheaper and the annoying parts of the build will be done for you. I'd check out CyberPower. they're always running really good sales, and you'll still be able to do part of the build with your dad so you can still learn.