What to look for when shopping around for new pc

[JERRY2KONE]

What I have planned is to build a newer unit for myself and then give my 14 year old son this one as a hand me down. He is thrilled to get this one though, because it is a pretty good unit. Anyway you could always sell your outdated one for a few hundred dollars or donate it to charity(without the HD of course). Just do a little research and start by buying a good CPU that appeals to your sense of computer savy. Then find a desent motherboard to match the CPU for mounting, and one that has all of the latest periferals. I found a book called "The Ultimate Custom PC Builds" that gave me all of the items to look for and how to find the best ones. I am sure that it is outdated by now, but there has to be something out there similar that is up to 2010 standards that will lead you in the right direction. Once you read up on what the different components are and how they differ anyone can build a pretty good system from scratch. I had to acquire help formatting the drives and getting all of the best software installed, and that takes the longest of all to complete. Still it was not all that hard to do. Now I plan to do the same thing with todays technology and build something that will last another 10 years or so. This one is 16 years old and still runs great. Everytime something failed on it or got broken in shipment I just upgraded it with the newest replacement. I have replaced the motherboard(cracked), the Video card(cracked), the hard drives twice due to viruses, and upgraded the RAM to 4gig, and finally the sound card was updated to 5.1 surround.

Now I just want something faster and more modern in components. The case I have is an old Thermaltake and it weighs like 20lbs empty.