you could do that but I meant go get a mobo/cpu combo some ram and toss it in a case." --johnson_steve

This explanation of building one's own computer sounds easy, but isn't there more to it? Don't you have to "toss" other things into the case, such as a power supply? And a HD? Or do we consider the HD part of the CPU?

And every time I see an empty or nearly-empty case for sale as part of a bare-bones kit, it's a cube or some other odd shape for a desktop computer...

Out of curiosity, what is the context of this quote?

I just built a box a couple months ago, and you're right, there is more to it, but not a lot. I picked all the components separately, but you can pretty much buy a case/power supply combo, a mobo/cpu/graphics/audio/ethernet combo, a hard drive, and a CD/DVD-RW to just throw together. Oh, and maybe some RAM. So that's like 5 components...

As for cases, I agree that many are ugly to me (although aesthetics is obviously a personal thing). I finally found a plain black one from Antec at NewEgg.com.

I've started building my own PCs without any specific help from anyone. It's not as hard as you'd think and everything comes with an instruction manual so it's not too tricky.

Most cases come with a PSU that should be sufficient for your average desktop PC. Once you have your case (and PSU) then you just need a motherboard, CPU, RAM, hard disk and video card for a bootable machine. You just

Disclaimer: the only reason this thread's title is just "building" is because I his the wrong key at some point.

I said it this way because that was what was involved in building my last desktop I already had a few hard disks and almost every case comes with a psu check out http://www.newegg.com/ they have lots of great stuff I bought a motherboard cpu combo and a 1 gig stick of ram and put it in a case I had with harddrives and cdroms I had already. It's not much more involved then that if you need help let me know. If you really want to make it hard, do what I'm doing and weld a new case from scratch (this one obviously won't come with a power supply.) Now why would you quote me and start a new thread? I never would have found this except I have no life.

It's not as though I wanted to nitpick you, sir. I was just reading my old threads. I thought I should start a new thread to respond, or the response might never be noticed.

well if you do end up building your own and you want help let me know