Prologue
One of the things that you first and most important things you need to know regarding building your first desktop is "your budget" (how much are you willing to spend). Once you have that down you have to ask yourself questions like "What will I use my computer for?" "What kind of parts would I need to serve my needs?" "Do I need a small drive to store some pictures and browse the web or do I need a large drive so I can backup stuff and download games?". There's countless questions but too many people I have seen bought top of the line components that they don't even need for their purpose. That's the purpose of this article and this article will give you plain common sense layout of what each part is and help you determine what you might need.
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
Let's start with the CPU (the brain of the machine that does the thinking and processing), the main function of the CPU is to do the thinking of the machine, it computes what 2+2 is when you use a calculator on the computer and stuff like that. If your considering doing basic word processing and web browsing, maybe some blogging or maybe you just want to use Facebook, a single core processor or dual core processor like Intel's Celeron, Core i3 or something similar to that. If you're looking to do Photoshop, maybe you want to do a lot of graphic work or just play the latest games at maximum settings then a Quad Core CPU like Intel's i5 or i7 series would do the job and it will last you between 3 and 5 years depending on if you go with the Core i5 or Core i7.
Random Access Memory (RAM)
Next let's talk about RAM (The part that greases the tires on the machine and keeps everything going smoothly) the main function of RAM is it basically let's you run your programs and keeps your system running smoothly, it let's you put your computer to stand-by mode and let's you open 10 or 20 tabs at once. If you're a casual guy that just wants to watch movies, doesn't multi-task very much on their computer, only opens a few tabs at once and just wants to play a 2D old school game then 4GB of RAM would be fine but if you're somebody that opens 10 tabs at once and leaves them running all the time or games and streams music maybe queues up Youtube memes while playing Counter Strike: Global Operations then I would recommend between 8 and 12 GB of RAM but nothing more than 12 GB because then we enter the land of diminishing returns and then you will have a bunch of RAM installed that you can't use. Now there's purposes for higher amounts of RAM but that is for a different type of system altogether which is technically a server.
Storage Options
Now the next component of the computer is Disk Drive, we need to see what kind of drive we need so with that in mind, there's 3 different types of drives to choose from: Solid State Drives (SSD) as well as Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD) and Hard Disk Drives (HDD). If you just want to watch movies on your PC or let's say you want to just do basic Photoshop editing then an HDD would be just fine but if you want to load games faster, perhaps you have a bunch 3D graphical work that you want to process really fast or you have a lot of complex photoshop work for graphics art then an SSD is a must but if you don't have room for 2 drives and you only have room for 1 then I would go with a SSHD because it has both: an SSD and an HDD to do both purposes just fine, it's essentially the best of both worlds.
Motherboard (MB)
Lastly but most importantly you need to know what kind of GPU you need. If you are doing basic word processing or stuff that are really simple then you most likely can do with an Intel Integrated GPU however doing 3D graphics work or design and playing the latest games like Battlefield 1, Overwatch all require a dedicated GPU. If you're a guy that just does simple Photoshop work then you just need something lower to mid range like an AMD RX 470 or 460 GPU but if you want to play the latest games at the maximum level of graphics then an GTX 1070 or RX 480 would be required, playing at 4k resolution would definitely require a GTX 1080 or AMD Fury GPU (soon to be released, the new AMD Vega GPU) but 4k resolution wouldn't let you run at 60 FPS. The GPU tech hasn't advanced to that point just yet although it's reaching there.
P.S. I hope this hopes a lot of people out there, I cant believe how many people came to me asking what they might need and type of get the most for their money in the past.
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