ive built 2 systems now, listed below. These guys here will get you through the technical stuff, but some subtle things to KNOW after you get your parts but before you start assembly that are not really stressed. Make sure you plan for your hard drive, cd roms, dvd burners, which is master and which is slave. That can really hit hard when you flip the switch and 1300 dollars worth of components fails to initialize. Make sure you match the motherboard mount studs or spacers to match your motherboards holes. It really sucks having to pull everything back out because you thought you could skip a cupple of mounts. You really need the support when you are pressing the RAM sticks in and the vid card, and the connectors. And keep very good track of those small screws. I dropped one on my motherboard when I was putting a dvd drive in. Chances are your system aint gonna fire right up and the last thing you want to deal with is the possibility of a wayward screw shorting out your system. (when it is probably a drive set to slave instead of master). By the way, you can get Windows XP OS for under a hundred OEM from newegg. Its 2 hundred in the stores for a fresh install copy. Good luck. Its pretty exciting when the thing starts to purr. Beats the hell out of generic ones at the store.