I always get asked "what's a good motherboard, hard drive, etc etc etc".  Instead of constantly giving the same answers, I am going to point people to this web page.  Unless otherwise noted, I use http://www.newegg.com for all items.
Last Updated:  12/29/11


General Items.


Case:  The #1 thing, is to get a good power supply with your case. Most of the power supplies that come with the $60 and under cases are total trash. Power users should accept the fact they will need to buy a separate power supply (scroll down to my power supply section).  Beyond that, its all a matter of preference.

Apex PC-375   Cheap ($40 ), half way decent power supply (see notes though), light weight and easy to mount stuff in.  Its not the most sturdy case in the world, and I would not run a gamer or high powered system on the included power supply, but if you need a cheap case thats not total crap, this should work well.  

(the power supply is only a 300 watt model.  Its pretty reliable for a basic system that does not draw a lot of juice, but if your system is going to do any 3d gaming, or serious number crunching, or anything above and beyond basic usage, I'd really consider buying a beefier power supply.  )

Cooler Master  Not real cheap (runs about $50-60 with NO power supply), but its lightweight, EXTREMELY well built, easy to work with, has excellent cooling fans AND is dead silent too.  A very high quality case.



Ram: Since prices on these change so quickly, its hard to give one or two good picks that will stay consistent.  Stay with decent manufacters and you shouldn't have problems. 

For DDR 2 type ram, cas 3 or 4 timings are nice but cas 5 stuff is usually a lot cheaper.  Unless you find a screaming good deal on low cas ram, or have money to burn, the cas 5 ram is fine.  Do not bother with cas 6 or higher DDR2 ram, its no cheaper then the cas 5 ram, and your definitely starting to lose performance at this point.  Do not waste money on the overclocker type DDR2 ram (thats anything thats above the official 800 mhz standard), its expensive and doesn't give you any real performance boost.

For DDR3 type ram, go with the 1333 or 1600 mhz ram, cas 9 or better. Avoid the 1066 mhz stuff, its no cheaper and its definitely slower.  
The faster stuff (above 1333) is NOT a must, and will provide a fairly small performance boost (under 5%).  If its the same price as DDR3-1333, go for it, but I would not spend extra to get 1600mhz ram.

Avoid DDR3 ram that has voltages higher then 1.6 like the plague.  The reason is that Intel follows the Jedec voltage standards carefully regarding the integrated memory controller(which btw is 1.5 for DDR3), and some of the super high voltage DDR3 ram (like the 1.8 stuff) is known for blowing out the memory controller on the processor.

One final warning.  Anyone running a 32 bit OS (like XP or Vista / Win7 32 bit versions) should be aware that of possible issues when trying to put 4 gigs or more of ram in their machine.  The reasons why are complicated, but here's some links explaining whats going on.  XP on 4 gigs is usually stable, but Vista in paticular can have REALLY nasty issues with 4 gigs of ram (assuming its Vista 32 bit version). Also, you will NOT get the full benefit of 4 gigs of ram due to technical limits, figure 3 gigs is all your OS will be able to access.  If your OS is 64 bit, stuff as much ram into the box as you desire (and the motherboard will handle).

Link 1
Link 2


In any case, I've posted a few links that should get you going the right way.

For 2x1 ( 2 gigabytes total)  DDR2 800 ram, click here     (matched set of 1 gigabyte sticks)

For 2x2 ( 4 gigabytes total)  DDR2 800 ram, click here     (matched set of 2 gigabyte sticks)




For 2x2 (4 gigabytes total)  DDR3-1333 ram, click here    (matched set of 2 gigabyte sticks)

For 2x4 (8 gigabytes total)  DDR3-1333 ram, click here    (matched set of 4 gigabyte sticks)

For 2x4 (8 gigabytes total)  DDR3-1600 ram, click here    (matched set of 4 gigabyte sticks, avoid anything higher then cas 9)


Optical Drives:  

Optiarc 24x DVD burner (sata)  Gives excellent high quality burns, quiet, reliable.  What more do you want?    Newest firmware here

LG 12x Blu-Ray burner (sata).   Current model is untested, but the previous 8x and 10x LG's were excellent.



Hard Drives (non SSD):

Size is up to you, due to flooding in Thailand, there's been some huge price spikes.  If you need a really huge drive, try to wait a few months (spring of 2012) if you can.

Samsung and Western Digital are the brands that seem to work best currently.   The WD black label series are some of the fastest and quietest drives on the market.
Seagate's (and Maxtor, which is just a Seagate brand) are noisier, and they've been having a lot of weird issues with firmware, so I'd generally avoid them.

For desktop drives, I would avoid the 200, 250, 320 , and 500 gig drives,as they use older and smaller platters, so they tend to be a bit slower, and not much cheaper.  Also, for desktop hard drives, avoid 5400rpm models at all cost, these are much slower then the standard 7200rpm models (for laptops, 5400rpm isn't horrible, but 7200rpm drives will be a lot faster for a tiny bit more money).

Pata drives are pretty much dead, if your machine doesn't support Sata drives, its time for a new machine.
 
I haven't tested the newer Hitachi's very much, but their 1 terabyte models seem pretty good in limited testing. 


Samsung SATA drive list

Western Digital  SATA drive list  (the blue label's are a tiny bit slower and only have a 2 year warranty vs 5 years for the black labels)

Western Digital laptop 7200rpm SATA drive list

Hitachi 1 Terabyte and greater models SATA


Hard Drives (SSD): At this time I am not going to make any definitive picks, as these are still evolving rapidly.  Some general recommendations - for Windows users, make sure you're running Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2.  Vista and the older variants do not support TRIM.  Mac OS guys, make sure you're on 10.7 and that Apple supports TRIM for your model of SSD (yes, Apple is retarded with their TRIM support).  Generally the better drives use the Sandforce 22XX series, Marvell, or Intel's controller.  The better SSD's will want a 6gbps Sata controller, but avoid add-on controllers as these tend to be slow compared to onboard 3gbps Sata controllers.  Make sure you have the LATEST AHCI drivers for your Sata controller, and the newest firmware for the SSD.  Before spending a pile of money on a SSD, do a lot of homework and research on a given model.




Video Cards: The big question is, do you need serious 3d capabilities or not. People needing 3d capabilities (i.e. gamers) will need to buy much more expensive cards.  If your going to use Linux, Nvidia is the only good performance and compatibility choice (Ati's linux drivers are horrid). Performance wise, ATI and Nvidia tend to be fairly close depending on the model and price point. Avoid low end cards that have a cooling fan, it adds a lot of noise to your system and its just one more thing to die (believe me, video card fans blow up a LOT).

Non power gamers building a new system around the Socket 1155 systems will be perfectly happy with the onboard video and don't need to spend the money for a separate video card.

For people who aren't sure how powerful of a card they need....  Unless you play 3d rendered video games, there is ZERO reason to pay big bucks for a high end card.  You will NOT notice the difference between a $40 Nvidia 210, and a $400 ATI 6970.  Even cad junkies will NOT see a difference.

For non gamers who can't or don't want to use onboard video, the Nvidia 210 cards are a great budget pick.

For high range gaming, the Nvidia 560GTX  provides excellent performance for around $190. (I've had excellent luck with the gigabyte dual fan version, its ultra quiet even during heavy gaming). These should run almost any modern game at 1600 x1280 (or even higher) with settings maxed (even games like Crysis).  A card with a fan is a requirement at this performance level, but stick with the better vendors (MSI, XFX, EVGA, etc) in case the fan goes kaboom.  Also, make sure you have a better quality power supply, as this card requires two 6pin power connectors. 

For about $30-40 more, the 560GTX Ti will get you another 10-20% performance boost.

Ultra hard core gamers will be best served by researching recent articles on the current video cards, this just changes too quick to make firm recommendations. Anandtech usually has great reviews on the current stuff.  Above and beyond that, it hugely depends on what games you play and what your budget is.

All of the cards listed below (except the 560 gtx series) can be had in fanless versions.  

Nvidia Geforce 210 pci-express

Nvidia 560 gtx pci-express

Nvidia 560 gtx ti pci-express


Sound Cards:  Unless your a hard core gamer or audio freak, the onboard sound card in most modern motherboards is fine.  I used to recommend creative labs cards for gamers to get EAX api support, but creative has so badly butchered their cards and drivers lately, that they are not worth the trouble (none of newer games are not bothering with EAX for this reason)   For audio purists, I'd suggest hitting some review sites, as I do not deal with music production level gear enough to make a good recommendation.  For gamers, unless you have a $200 plus speaker setup, just use the onboard.  For those who do have a serious speaker setup......

ASUS Xonar DX 7.1  Excellent sound quality.  Make sure to use the newest possible drivers, and watch for autoloading processes.



Ethernet Cards:  Pretty much all modern motherboards come with this built in, but if you need to buy an extra card (for example: you want to upgrade to gigabit ethernet), virtually any of the gigabit cards will work fine.  Avoid the name brand stuff (like netgear, linksys, smc, etc etc etc) its just a rebadge of something else and you get charged triple the price for a fancy box plus you lose the ability to use the OEM's drivers (trust me, you WANT the OEM's drivers, the name brand guys use drivers that are usually 2-3 years out of date, and the cards are deliberately crippled so the OEM drivers will NOT work on them).  Even if you don't have a gigabit switch, don't bother buying 100 megabit cards, as gigabit nic's have pretty much reached 100 meg price levels and they have some features 100 meg cards lack such as auto-mdix.  

Finally, if you have a free 1x  pci-express slot, avoid the pci cards (which have lower throughput and higher cpu utilization) and get one of the pci-e cards instead.  All the recommended pci-e cards perform about the same if you're using up to date drivers, so no need to spend an insane amount of money for a better "name" card as long as its a good chipset.

Quick run down of recommended gigabit ethernet chipsets in case any of the following links is dead or you have a system with built in ethernet:

Pci bus - realtek 8169, intel pro1000

Pci-e bus - realtek 8168 /811X , broadcom 57xx series, marvell yukon series.
(probably good pci-e cards but untested currently - Via 61XX )

Realtek 8169 pci   Good transfer rates for pci based cards, great drivers.  The main negative is slightly higher cpu utilization compared to Intel's, but its also 1/3 the price of Intel.  Unless your sticking this into a VERY high powered file server (where you should be using a good quality onboard or pci-e gigabit in any case), there's no reason to buy more expensive pci cards.  If the linked card here isn't availible, any of the generic 8169 cards will work equally well.
Newest drivers here.

Intel Pro 1000 pci  Pricey, but the best pci gigabit nic (but NOT better then the pci-e cards), bar none.  Excellent cpu utilization, great driver support.
Newest drivers here.

Rosewill RC-411 pci-e  This is a pci-express realtek based nic.  Comes with a low profile bracket if you need to install it in a rack mount case.  Works great in Windows or Linux.
Newest drivers here.  

Rosewill RC-401-EX pci-e  This is a pci-express marvell based nic.  Also works great in Windows or Linux.  Do NOT get the RC-401 (non ex) card, its an agere chipset, and has driver issues.  
Newest drivers here. 

Intel gigabit pci-e    This is a pci-express intel based nic.  A bit pricer compared to the other options, but if you feel more comfortable with the Intel networking line, this is as good as anything out there.
Newest drivers here. 





Power Supplies:  

With power supplies, there are 3 factors that matter.  1. Quality and reliability. 2.  How noisy it is.  3.  Does it provide enough amperage on the 12V side for a higher power system.  Non gamer systems usually do not benefit from a super high end power supply, a good quality basic PS will work just fine.  Gamers or people with LOTS of high current sucking gadgets will need more amperage on the 12V rails.

For most users, the first power supply below should work just fine.  The 2nd pick are only needed if you are a power gamer or have a similar type super high powered system.  Be careful what you buy, a lot of the cheap (even if they are "high watt" ) power supplies will cause major problems, especially under load.  When in doubt, its MUCH better to get a lower wattage power supply from a GOOD company then it is to get a super high watt from the Chinese supplier of the month.  A final word:  The overall wattage doesn't mean jack, what you want in terms of power is how much amperage it can provide on the 12V side.

One final consideration is how power efficient the powersupply is.  Many of the el-cheapo power supplies are only 60-70% efficient, where as the better quality models are 80-90% efficient.  This can save you a wad of cash on your power bill.

Some good manufacturers of power supplies are: Enermax, Antec, PC power & cooling, Thermaltake, Cooler Master, Seasonic.  

Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Great inexpensive mid range class power supply.  Very low noise, and can power anything short of a super high power gamer type rig.  Quiet, inexpensive, and will handle most uses. Also good as a replacement for older systems that blew a junk PS. Should handle most of the sub $150 gamer cards that do not require 2 pci-e power connectors.  Power efficiency is rated 80 plus bronze.

Antec HCG-620  Excellent power supply for gamer types.  Has a single beefy 12V rail (48A), so should be perfect for high powered video cards.  People who are thinking of running a super high end video card (cards that generally cost more then $150) should consider this power supply.  Very low noise even under load.  Power efficiency is rated 80 plus bronze.
Motherboards and CPU's, the really fun part.

Intel bunny man burnt to death by heat output of the Pentium 4.
Preface:

With AMD falling more and more behind in the performance race, Intel is the way to go.  With the cost of motherboards for AMD and Intel CPU's reaching parity, there's very little cost savings going the AMD route.  Even a budget I3-2120 matches or beats AMD's high end cpu's and draws less power.

Regarding motherboards with integrated video, make sure the video chipset is either AMD(ATI), Nvidia, or the Intel HD2000 or 3000 series (which is used on the socket 1155 series).  Older Intel integrated video chipsets, as well as no name vendors, tend to put out piss poor drivers, drop driver support quickly *cough Intel cough*, and generally have horrible performance even in basic Windows tasks. 




Intel CPU recommendations
Avoid anything prior to the socket 1155 I3 / I5 / I7 series cpu's, anything else (from Intel) just isn't worth it cost wise.

Be aware that the current LGA heatsink mounts just BLOWS and extreme caution should be used when working with it.  Just adding or removing a heatsink off a LGA socket can damage the socket or heatsink mounts unless you are extremely careful.  

Intel has 4 different cpu platforms currently available.


Old and out of date platforms

Socket 775 with Core2 class processors - The now very out of date Intel platform.  Its well proved and stable, but it's way dead . Uses DDR2 or 3 ram depending on the board.  Skip socket 775 and move on to Socket 1155.

Socket 1366 with I7 Cpu class processors -  Very overpriced, but offers a lot of ram slots.  Generally NOT worth the money. Uses DDR3 ram.  Pretty much dead with the introduction of Socket 1155.  Intel plans to update Socket 1366 in the future, but little is known at this point.

Socket 1156 with I7, I5 or I3 Cpu class processors  - The older mainstream platform for the older I series cpu's.  With socket 1155 out, skip this, its dead.


Current platforms

Socket 1155 with I7, I5 or I3 Cpu class processors  - The new platform for the Sandy Bridge I series cpu's.  When buying a higher end Sandy Bridge cpu, go for the "K" models, these are not crippled for overclocking, and have a few other nice enhancements.

Listing of Intel Sandy Bridge I series processors






Socket 1155 Boards:
These are brand new, and none of them have been tested.  All of these boards are DDR3 only.  With the memory controller now on the processor, performance should be virtually identical for any Socket 1155 board.  There was a bug in the first batch of chipsets for these boards, but this has been fixed with the B3 revision.


ASROCK Z68 PRO3 Atx format, low cost (by 1155 standards).   Has VGA, DVI, and HDMI video output (video chipset is provided from CPU), 4 ram slots, 6 native sata ports , 6 rear usb ports, with 4 more usb ports on the motherboard itself, and 2 pci slots, 3 1x pci-e slot, and 1 16x pci-e slot.  Other features are usb 3.0 support, gigabit ethernet.   Has been stable in limited testing.

Newest bios updates for this board can be found here.


ASROCK P67 PRO3   Atx format, low cost (by 1155 standards).   Has 4 ram slots, 6 native sata ports , 8 rear usb ports, with 6 more usb ports on the motherboard itself, and 3 pci slots, 3 1x pci-e slot, and 1 16x pci-e slots.  Other features are usb 3.0 support, gigabit ethernet, an excellent bios, and e-sata port.  I currently have a system using this with an I5-2500K clocked at 4.5ghz,and its been very reliable. 

Newest bios updates for this board can be found here.

 



Cpu Fans:   An often overlooked item, but one of the most critical.  I prefer quiet and RELIABLE fans that are still capable of keeping the cpu cool even at full load.  99% of the time I just use the retail fans as they meet my goals.  Hard core overclockers may want to check reviews at anandtech for fans that go above and beyond.


COOLER MASTER GeminII S  Overclockers with a tight case may want to give this heatsink a shot.  Its a good sized chunk of metal, and a bit of a pain to install (you'll need to pull the board out of the case), but it works extremely well.  Make sure your motherboard has enough clearance around the socket (the motherboards in the recommended section are fine).  I use this heatsink on a Core2 Quad thats clocked at 3.4ghz, and even when maxed out, the heatsink is barely warm.  Will work with socket 1155 and AM3.


Tuniq Tower 120    Massive (weighs 1.75 pounds! ), very tall, and expensive, but the best cooling performance possible.  A bit of a pain to install (you'll need the motherboard outside of the case).  But if you're going to do aggressive overclocking with a high wattage cpu, this is your best bet.  Make sure your motherboard has enough clearance around the socket (the motherboards in the recommended section are fine).  I have an I7-860 (2.8ghz native) overclocked to 4.00ghz and a I5-2500K (3.33ghz native) overclocked to 4.5ghz (!), and both are stable (and cool) with this heatsink. Will work with socket 1155 and AM3.

Monitors
I'm blind, I'm blind! Oh wait, that's your old packard bell 14" .39dp monitor running at 1280x1024 60hz. :)  Monitors tend to be a major preference buy, as any of them will work with a semi-modern machine.   Super cheap LCD's usually aren't worth the loss in brightness and flexibility in scaling to smaller resolutions, and you can get decent 19" (or bigger) LCD's now for well under $200.  Whatever you get, make sure it supports DVI output (the older analog VGA connection will look blury compared to DVI).  Also, the bigger the screen size, the smaller text fonts will seem (due to the higher resolution mode these run in), so people who read a lot of text may find the really big LCD's to be ironically harder on their eyes then a 19" or 20" model.  CRT's are virtually impossible to find anymore, and the few I've seen floating around are not worth the trouble.   Generally the more expensive the monitor, the better the screen quality is going to be.  Also, if possible avoid the "widescreen format" LCD's, but this can be difficult or impossible to avoid on the larger models.  With that in mind, here are some of my picks.



Dell Ultrasharp series   Not as cheap as the bottom feeders, but with monitors, you get what you pay for.  3 year warranty, and excellent clear picture.


Odds and Ends
The junk you always forget to order and then you realize you really need it :)

Blank Cd's and Dvd's:  The media you need really depends on what burner you got.  In general, media from certain companies just seems to do a better job then no name junker blanks. You can often found cd and dvd blanks going for very low prices after rebates at various stores, but the brand and quality can vary radically.  When in doubt, name brand stuff from memorex, sony, fuji, and verbatim is usually pretty good quality.  Dailydeals is worth keeping an eye on for cheap media.  I personally prefer the following media myself.

Verbatim 100pack 16x DVD+R  Gives VERY high quality burns in most drives, and not much more expensive then the generic crap discs.

Verbtaim 100pack 52x CD-R     Gives VERY high quality burns in most drives, and not much more expensive then the generic crap discs. 


Speakers:  Or how to annoy the cr*p outta your roomates and neighbors : )  Usually name brand stuff from Logitech and Creative works nicely, though some of the name brands can be hugely over rated  and over priced.  Do your homework before buying anything thats mega bucks.

Logitech Z-906 5.1 speakers   About the best speakers in their price range.  These are kick ass for gaming and movies. I use a set for my computer, and another set for my home theatre setup.   Pair them up with a quality sound card and bring ear plugs.

Logitech Z-506 5.1 speakers   Not as high of a quality as the above speakers, but much much cheaper.  If your not looking for booming audio, and don't want to spend the money on a high end sound card, these are a perfect match for on board sound cards.  My old roommate has a pair of these, and they are great, especially for the price.


Keyboards and Mice:  This is a tricky area for recommendations, as everyone has their own preferences.  In general anything will work, but in general avoid wireless stuff, its usually expensive and not always reliable.  I tend to prefer aopen, samsung or fujitsu usb keyboards, and logitech or M$ optical mice.  But get whatever floats your boat.  Avoid installing funky keyboard software, its not required, and it just bogs down your system with autoloading garbage.

M$ optical rat   Simple, reliable, usb interface. What more do you want?  I used to recommend Logitech rats, but their software has gotten clumsy and a tad buggy, and the M$ ratware seems to be more user friendly.  Latest M$ mouse software (useful to make the middle button a double click function) can be found here.

Targus usb keyboard  A tad more expensive compared to the el cheapo keyboards, but these are super reliable and take a lot of abuse (we have several hundred of these at work, and I've only seen one or two die)



 



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