Whatever you do, just do one thing at a time and finish it before jumping to the next thing. I built mine about a year ago and pretty much built it around my mobo. My mobo dictated what kind of chip I could get, how much RAM I could stuff in it and what kind of HD I could put in. That was my only pitfall. When I was done, I couldn't get XP loaded because there was a problem with my HD. It wasn't finding it. I opted for the SATA HD(after reading up on it). Only thing is, my mobo had to be "flashed" with the update. I found this info on the web thank God. After that it was cake. Slapped in the new video card, loaded all the goodies, updated the drivers, then on to the soundcard, same process until I was done right through to the DVD and CDR.. Like I said, just one thing at a time. And if you plan on putting some heavy cards/hardware in there, make sure your PS in the case is 400-450. You'll need it.