Part 5- Software Install Last Section

5A Windows7 Plus Hardware Drivers

BIOS Screen

*Difficulty: Easy.
*Unplugged the 1TB drive data cable and left the SSD drive hooked up. This is to ensure you end up with the WindowsOS installed on the desired hard drive.
*Put Windows Install DVD into DVD.
*Access BIOS- Pushed Computer Start Button and pressed "Delete Button" to bring up the computer's BIOS Page (Basic Input Output System) to control basic settings in Firmware.
*Set Boot Priority as DVD 1st, SSD 2nd. Drag the harddrive icons (in BIOS) into the order desired. For example, you want the DVD drive to be the first in the boot priority if and when you have issues and need to boot from a DVD. Note: For this BIOS, Boot priority was drag and drop. Simply drag the icon under "Boot Sequence" to the order desired. "Esc" to save and exit.
*Windows Install loads: Once BIOS is exited, the Windows install DVD should be detected and loads. Selected "New Install". Windows will restart a couple of times during the process. Follow the directions.
*Remember to reconnect other Hard Drive! After Windows is installed, remember to hook up any hard drives that were previously disconnected for the Windows install step.
*Find Windows Update and install the 100's of updates that it most likely requires.
*Drivers- Remember to install all of the drivers (control software for components)- Motherboard, Video Card, Wifi Card (if installed). Everything with a driver should come with a DVD. The NewEgg video takes you through this step by step and shows how easy it is to download drivers from the support section of the manufacturer's web site.
 
5B Software General
*Windows needs lots of help!- my opinion.
*Read this article: Ten Ways To Protect Yourself from Malware. Good suggestions in this article. I did not realize- you should not use an Admin account for daily use, Malware depends on this. I was aware that it is not that unusual for  free software to include add-ons such as toolbars. As the article suggests, just don't click, click, click, install.
*Pick a good Windows Maintenance Utility: I use TuneUp Utilities.
*Pick a good Anti-Virus: I use Microsoft Security Essentials.
*Use Firefox as your browser along with any/all of the associated Addons- '''AdBlock Plus, NoScript, Trust My Web, WorldIP, and Netcraft Anti-Phishing Toolbar'''. Be advised that NoScript requires you to allow scripts on every web page (one time), but after you get into the routine, mostly you just have to allow the main site.
*Consider a Malware Program: such as Spybot.
*Consider an uninstaller program: such as Revo Uninstaller.
 
5C Close Case
*Whenever you feel comfortable doing this. :)
*Hopefully congratulations are in order! :D:D

Hackintosh? I'm planning on this sometime. For now...

---The End---
 

Part 4- Internal Build

Assembly Inside Case
*I turned off and disconnected the Power Supply from the motherboard and video card. Then I removed the video card from the motherboard.
*Removed both sides of the Fratal Design case.
*Remember to use the cable management compartment  when routing cables.

4A Power Supply
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Installed the power supply into the case, four screws on back of the case secured it.
*Note the yellow grounding strap hooked to one of the Power Supply bolts.

Power Supply Installed

 4B DVD Player Physical Install
*Sony AD-728OS-OB
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Popped out the top slot on the front of the computer, slide in the DVD player/burner and installed 4 screws, 2 per side.

4C 1TB Hard Drive Physical Install
*Seagate Barracuda 1TB drives ST1000DM003
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Mounted to quick install tray, mounted on 4 rubber grommets with 4 screws.
*Trays slid and clicked into appropriate slots.
*Electrical Connection later.

Hard Drive in Quick Install Tray

Hard Drive in Appropriate Slot (Images are clickable!)

4D 120 GB SSD (Solid State Drive) Physical Install
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Sandisk SDSSDX-120GB-G25- Solid State Drive. This is the new standard for running the Operating System from. Faster than a traditional hard drive, no moving parts.
*Mounted directly to the middle of the tray. Find the aligned holes with 4 small screws that came with the case. Not mounted on the grommets.
*Electrical Connection later.

Sandisk Solid State Drive

4E Motherboard Physical Install
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Gigabyte GA-Z87MX- D3H
*Caution: Avoid dropping screws onto motherboard. I had one all most get stuck under the CPU cooler bracket.
*Note the pic for section 3F.
*Motherboard Standoff Posts- Determine which holes your motherboard should attach to. Depending on the case, motherboard standoff posts may or may not be installed. These are posts that keep the motherboard away from the case. My case did not have these installed, but were included and they included a black fitting that could temporally be put on the end of a post so a screwdriver could be used to screw them into the case. I figured out which holes and screwed in the standoffs. The holes in the motherboard ment for attachment to the case have dashes drawn around them.
*Input/Output Shield- Before placing the motherboard on the standoff posts, insert the Input/Output shield in the hole at the back of the case where all of the external motherboard connectors are accessed. This is a finished piece of trim that surrounds the connectors after the motherboard is installed.
*Screw the motherboard to the case.
*Photo Orientation: Most of the motherboard photos and diagrams are oriented in the same direction. In this picture the back of the case is down. The bottom of the case is to the right. 
*Notice: Look for the motherboard mounting screws with the radiating dashed lines around them. I spot 9 of them. All of these photos are clickable for a zoomed view.

 

Standoff Posts (not installed)

 
4F H55 Cooler Fan Radiator Install (in Case)
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Relocated rear fan to top of case and installed fan/radiator into existing bolt holes on back of case.

H55 Being Installed

H55 CPU Cooler Installed. Fan Radiator mounted on back of case.

*Notice the main motherboard power connection (orange/yellow wires) in this picture above the CPU/Cooler.

4G Mobo electrical hookup in General
*If the paper manual is crap, hopefully your motherboard maker has a better one online to download. In my case, Gigabyte did.

The Value of A Good Diagram

*Compare the photo to the diagram (above). The Main Power Cable  in the graphic below is the large orange and yellow connector.

*This closeup of the CPU Aux Power is coming from the Power Supply through the Cable Management Compartment. It's not yet hooked up to the connector marked ATX 12v that is partially obscured by the power to the H55 Cooler fan.

4H Fan Electrical Connections
*Difficulty: Possible questions about connecting which leads to which case connectors
*Picture Description- Ok, so this is a pretty crappy picture from an illustrative standpoint, but it is in the vicinity of the top front, side of the case viewed from the cable management compartment. The individual wires are to connect to the individual fans. A single molex connector is used to power them (from the Power Supply) through the master fan switch this case has on the top front of the case.
*As in the video, this case includes a Master Fan Switch on the front of the case. So from the vicinity of this switch is a dangling power connector and 4 fan connection leads. The idea is that power is routed through the main switch, to each fan. So I hooked up a power supply lead with the appropriate size plug to the fan switch, and then connected all 3 fans, excluding the cpu cooling fan, to the fan switch leads. This particular lead included '''4 pin molex straight line connectors''', but it ended up only connected to the master fan switch.

Fan Connections

Molex Connector

4I F-Panel Hookup
*Difficulty: Figure out what goes where. Physically not difficult.
*Photo Orientation: The back of the case is to the left. The bottom of the case is down. Note the power supply.
*A variety of single pin hookups to the motherboard. These cables are in the case and marked. Use the motherboard install manual for reference.
*PW- Power Switch.
*PLED- Power LED.
*RES- Reset Switch.

Image is Clickable!

F Panel Diagram

4J Misc Hookup
*Difficulty: Figure out what goes where. Physically not difficult.
*Cables in case and marked. Use motherboard manual for reference.
*HD Audio
*USB 3.0
*Check out pic (above) "F Panel, USB, Audio".

 
 4K DVD Electrical/Data Connection
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Requires both power and (SATA) data cables.
*For power, DVD drive '''may have both SATA and Molex Power connectors'''. Use the one that is most convenient.
*Pick appropriate power cable from power supply.
*SATA data cables are individual connections. Each SATA device gets an individual cable to connect to the motherboards SATA block.
*Pick SATA data cable and connect DVD to SATA block on motherboard. I have no idea if this makes a difference, but I connected the DVD drive to SATA Port #4.

 
4L SSD and Hard drive Hookup
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Reference the Sata Pics above.
*Requires both power cables and (SATA) data cables.
*1TB Drive may include a '''Molex Connector''' power connection in addition to '''SATA''' power connection. Check your Power Supply cables to verify which power cable to use.
*Check your motherboard package for SATA data connections.
*SSD drive connected to SATA Port #0.
*1TB hard drive data connected to SATA Port #2.

SATA Power and Interface Cables

4M Wireless Network Card
*Difficulty: Easy.
*TP-Link TL-WDN4800.
*Installed in PCI x1 Slot, a very small slot.
 

---End of Part 4---

Part 3- External Build + Test Boot

External Build
*I can't over emphasis how important the 2011 You Tube Video Newegg TV: How to Build a Computer Part 1], Part 2, and Part 3] were to my confidence to able to successfully accomplish this task.
*Initial build Outside the Case- Motherboard, CPU, Cpu Cooler, Video Card (temp), Initial Power Supply hookup (temp) was conducted outside the case to determine if the motherboard would power up prior to having everything connected inside the case. Consider this an initial temporary build, because both the video card and power supply will be disconnected from the motherboard prior to installing the motherboard inside the case. The memory and cpu cooler will remain connected to the motherboard.
*Caution- Observe static charge cautions when assembling a computer. You don't want to discharge static electricity from yourself to the computer. I bought an inexpensive wrist static strap and used it during assembly connecting it to a partially installed power supply bolt.

3A Motherboard

Images are Clickable

*Gigabyte GA-Z87MX- D3H
*Initial Assembly Outside the Case- some components temporarily installed.
*With a clean table surface to work on, removed it from packaging and placed it onto of the box it came in for the initial assembly.
*Included manual: sucked. Downloaded manual: much better. For this example, I found the manual for this motherboard online at Gigabyte.com.
*The NewEgg Video does an excellent job of pointing out parts of a typical motherboard.
*Note: Points of interest marked on picture. Notice that the CPU mounting bracket is raised in expectation of placing the CPU.
 
3B Intel CPU

*Intel i5 4670K- Intel Haswell processor.
*Difficulty: Easy.
*No Pins! No pins to fit into the motherboard, nice! AMD processors have pins. Followed the video, aligned the cpu, latched it in to motherboard.

 
3C CPU Cooler

 

*Corsair H55- Water cooled with Radiator. It has thermal paste pre-applied.
*Difficulty: Slight Challenge, Determining what orientation the cooler should be mounted. Securing the heat sink under the bracket. Determining which plugs should be used for electrical connections.
*Determine Mounting Orientation- This water cooled CPU connector included two tubes connected to a fan radiator. Since the cooler is circular and can be mounted in any orientation under the bracket, I examined the case to determine the best orientation. I decided to relocate the rear fan from back of the case to the top of the case (mounting spot on case) and would mount the CPU cooler fan/radiator on the back of the case (for clarification: inside the case.)
*Fan Direction- Point of interest. Fans either blow into the case or out of the case. The instructions for the cooler said that cool air should be pulled from outside the case over the radiator, into the case. Since 3 of the fans blow into the case, I decided I would orient the top fan to pull air out of the case.
*Caution- keep in mind that the heat sink has thermal paste on it which should not touch anything other the the top of the CPU.
*Mounting CPU- My understanding is that most 3rd party CPU coolers have a bracket placed on the backside of the motherboard along with a front bracket that holds the cooler's heatsink. So did this H55. Cooler came with fittings for both Intel and AMD motherboards. The heat sink is circular. The front bracket has slots.  The the heat sink has slots. The idea is that after the front and back brackets are loosly connected, the heat sink slides into the front bracket and is turned so the slots on it, interconnect with slots on the front bracket. Followed the instructions, but the problem I encountered was while the front and back brackets were connected that even while lifting up on the front bracket, I could not get enough clearance to rotate the heat sink to fit under the bracket's slots. So I ended up unscrewing the brackets and placing the heat sink under the front bracket and then connecting the back bracket through the holes.
*Electrical Connections- The CPU cooler also had two leads/ 3 pin connectors for electrical, one for the fan, one for the pump. For this I would use the CPU, and Opt CPU connectors marked on the motherboard in close proximity to the CPU. This is a situation where 3 pin leads fit into 4 pin plugs on the motherboard. Note there is a small notch on the side of the connectors along with the shape of the pins, to make sure it is plugged into the correct 3 pins of the 4 pin connector.
*This Tom's Hardware thread sheds some light onto the situation. Quote: The 3 pin fans allow the motherboard to monitor the speed of the fan. The fourth line on a 4 pin fan allows the motherboard to control the fan.
The connectors of both are keyed so that you cannot plug a 3 pin fan into a 4 pin motherboard connector wrong.
 
3D Memory

*Corsair CML8GX3M2A1600C9, 2x4GB: $83.
*Difficulty: Easy.
*This Motherboard (all ATX motherboards?) has/have two channel memory, so two sticks of RAM should be purchased and for example, they are sold as 2X4GB. For 8GB of RAM, I got 2, 4GB sticks.
*On the Motherboard, RAM slots were marked as DDR3_1, DDR3_2, DDR3_3, and DDR3_4 and they alternated, representing different channels and each linked pair of slots had different colors. For two sticks of memory, they would fit into the slots marked DDR3_1 and DDR3_2.
*A notch in the connector side of the memory stick prevents it from being installed backwards. If you install memory in the wrong channel slots, nothing dire will happen, the computer either won't start up or will not run optimally.
 
3E Video Card

*Asus GTX670-DC2-2GD5
*Temporary Install.
*Difficulty: Slight Challenge- Figure out what Power Supply connector to use.
*Placed in the  PCI 16x slot marked on the Motherboard. A notch will keep the card oriented correctly. The cable connection end of the card should face the edge of the motherboard.
*Caution: The video card is not secured properly in this step, to the case as it will be later. The motherboard should not have to be moved with the card installed, but if you do, be gentle.
*8 pin PCIE (PCI Express) Connector- This card has an 8 pin PCIE connector for auxiliary power and uses a 6+2 PCIE 8 pin connector from the power supply. The 6+2 is a 6 pin connector with an addition 2 pin connector that offers the flexibility of a 6 pin or 8 pin connector. Slid together they function as a single 8 pin connection. And when slide together, a small edge on the back of the 6 pin connector holds the 2 pin connector in place beside it. Not all cards need 8 pins. See more about this in the "What I Learned Section".

3F Power Supply

*Corsair CX600M 600 Watt ATX Modular
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Temporary Hookup.
*Choose a "modular" power supply. Plug in just the leads you need. Turns out I needed all of the leads, but it made assembly much easier than a giant bundle of wires.
*For this stage, I set the Power Supply on the table next to the motherboard and made 3 electrical hookups- main motherboard power, auxiliary mother board power, and the Video card 6+2 PCIE (PCI Express) connection. Watch the video. It does an excellent job of illustrating the motherboard connections. The motherboard connections are one of a kind plugs, can't connect them in the wrong place.  I had to figure out the 6+2 deal (see Video card).


3G Test Boot
*In the NewEgg video, for the initial power up, the host had a small speaker he hooked to the motherboard. The purpose was to hear a self test beep when the unit was powered up. I did not have one and was not compelled to go find one.
*After all the previously described connections were made, I connected the graphic card to my TV via a HDMI cable, turned on the tv, making sure it was set to the HDMI input. The HDMI was just a convenient choice as the TV was located right next to my assembly table. The other obvious choice would be to connect it to a monitor. I then plugged in the Power Supply and turned it on. As described in the video, normally the motherboard/computer is turned on by means of a case mounted "start" switch. Since this is not hooked up, a small screwdriver is used to make a connection on the two "power" pins, (that the case switch would plug into later).
*Making the screw driver connection, the graphic card fan started up and I got a Gigabyte splash screen on the TV followed by a "failure" to boot type of message. This is normal, because there are no hard drives containing an Operating System to boot from. This confirmed the motherboard was not dead. Although I heard no "beep" for lack of a speaker, I felt confident enough to continue.

---End of Part 3---

Part 2- Parts list, What I learned and Important Points

2A PC Build Parts List
*Researched online, read some gaming reviews and decided on the Intel i5 Haswell processor. The video card represented the most expensive card I have ever purchased at $250. After reading over the material at TonyMacx86, I decided I wanted the Hackintosh option. Not 100% sure, if I will pursue this option, but if I do, I'll add it to this guide.
*PCPartPicker.com- once you have an idea of the parts you want, this is a tremendous resource for comparing costs from different vendors.
*Options to Save: There are options to save on this build. By looking at the case, video card, motherboard, a single hard drive, although you'd want to choose the 1TB drive and omit the SSD drive), and using the stock cooler that comes with the CPU, I believe you could push the cost down to about $1000 or less. Just keep in mind, you need to have your CPU, Motherboard, and Video cards to be compatible with one another.

*Total Build Cost: $1219+ $97 tax = $1316.

2B Parts
*Motherboard- Gigabyte GA-Z87MX- D3H: $135. Make sure motherboard, CPU, and case are compatible. Gigabyte blurb: The latest Intel 8 Series platform offers significant improvements in performance and power consumption with the latest 4th generation Intel® Core™ processors and Intel® Z87 chipsets. Description at  NewEgg: GIGABYTE GA-Z87MX-D3H LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard.

*CPU- Intel i5 4670K (Haswell): $200.

*Video Card- Asus GTX670-DC2-2GD5: $250.

*Memory- Corsair CML8GX3M2A1600C9, 2x4GB: $83.

*Power Supply- Corsair CX600M 600 Watt ATX Modular: $68.

*CPU Cooler- Corsair H55: $45. (Optional! The CPU comes with a stock cooler.)

*Storage- Sandisk SDSSDX-120GB-G25: $100. Solid state drive.

*Storage- 2 Seagate Barracuda 1TB drives ST1000DM003: $120. Internal drives.

*DVD Burner- Sony AD-728OS-OB: $28.

*Wifi Card- TP-Link TL-WDN4800: $35.

*Operating System- Windows 7 OEM: $65.

*The Case- Fractal Design Define XL R2: $90. Fractal Design blurb: ATX, Micro ATX, mini-ITX, E-ATX and XL-ATX motherboard compatibility.

An Empty Shell

2C Case Discussion
I don't believe there is any pressing need to spend more than $100 on a case. You can probably find a good case for half that price. That said, there are a variety of nice cases on the market with a range of prices. When purchasing a case, you want one with easy access to both sides, with a cable management compartment which is a separate space on the back side of the case about an 1" wide where cables can be routed. A give away clue is that when looking at the main compartment of the case, you'll see rubber cable access slots for the cables to come through. Another good feature quick connect slots for the hard drives and several/many fans. For a first time builder, I think a mid-tower is a good choice. USB and headset connections on the front of the case should be expected.

*The Cable Management Compartment: notice the backside of the motherboard and access to the bottom side of the CPU that would allow the future install or uninstall of a CPU cooler.
*Sound Proofing- I zeroed in on the Fractal Design "Define" cases, because of their sound proofing. Honestly I don't know how much difference it makes, but I liked the idea. My old PC was noisy. My G5 Mac was relatively quiet until all the fans kicked in, but it was still not annoying.
*Originally I was going to purchase the Define R4 which is a mid-tower case about the size an old Mac G5 tower. This is plenty big enough, but when I went shopping, I found that the XL R2, a full size case was less expensive ($99 vs $125) . I assume because it is an older design case? Not sure. The XL R2 case came with 3 fans included.
*If I had a critique regarding the XL R2 case is that the front door gives it the minimalist appearance if you like that, but it requires the door to be opened for DVD access. Not a big deal, mostly a neutral.
*The builder in the NewEgg video builds in a Corsair case (link perishable), Corsair Carbide Case which has these same type of features, but I'm not sure about sound proofing. Those cases run from $70- $170. If the Amazon link dies, google "Amazon.com Corsair Cases".



2D What I Learned/Important Points
*Caution: Static Electricty- Observe static charge cautions when assembling a computer. You don't want to discharge static electricity from yourself to the computer. I bought an inexpensive wrist static strap and used it during assembly connecting it to a partially installed power supply bolt.
*Cases include marked wires- I assume this is a standard, but for the Fractal Design case I used, all of the interface items on the case (USB connections, Power Supply, Audio plug in, etc), include installed and more importantly marked wires making it relatively painless to figure out what they are, and in combination with the motherboard diagram, where they should be plugged in.
*Initial Build Outside the Case- Really smart to determine if you have a viable motherboard before getting everything hooked up inside the case and then have to take it all apart.
*Motherboards are basically plug and play- I may be going out on a limb here, but it seems that motherboards and components designed to make an electrical connect to the motherboard are designed so that you can't plug the wrong multi-pin connector into the wrong motherboard receptor, either by virtue of the shape of individual pins on a multi-pin plug and latches on the side of a plug.
*Memory- Also called RAM should be installed in pairs for ATX boards. My understanding is that it is not required (but don't quote me), Dual channel architecture insures optimum performance. References: Dual Channel Archtecture, SuperUser Link. So if you want 8GB RAM, you'd buy 2x4GB which are sold as a pair. On the motherboard, RAM slots are organized into pairs/channels and are labeled. Two sticks or RAM are not installed adjacent to one another, but skip a slot. Two sticks of RAM go into slots marked DDR3_1, DDR3_2. A notch in the slot prevents RAM sticks from being installed in the wrong orientation in the slot.
*CPU- Intel CPUs have no pins, AMD CPUs have pins.
*CPU Cooler- Fan and pump plug into the CPU and CPU OPT connectors on the motherboard.
*3 Pin Plug Can fit Into 4 Pin Receptor- I saw this when hooking up 3 pin CPU cooler fan/pump electrical connections on the motherboard. Note, there is a small notch on the side of the connectors along with the shape of the pins, to make sure it is plugged into the correct 3 pins of the 4 pin connector. This  Tom's Hardware thread sheds some light onto the situation. Quote: The 3 pin fans allow the motherboard to monitor the speed of the fan. The fourth line on a 4 pin fan allows the motherboard to control the fan. The connectors of both are keyed so that you cannot plug a 3 pin fan into a 4 pin motherboard connector wrong.
*Fan Direction- Point of interest. Look for arrow on side of fan which indicates which way it blows. Fans either blow into the case or out of the case. Case installed fans suck cool outside air into case. Since I added a fan, I elected to make the top fan and exhaust fan that pulls air out of the case.
*6+2 PCIE 8 pin connector: Depending on the '''PCI Express Video Card''' that is purchased, it may require a 6 pin PCIE or an 8 pin PCIE connection. The 6+2 is a 6 pin connector with an addition 2 pin connector offering the flexibility functioning as either a 6 pin or 8 pin power connector. When Slid together and plugged in, an edge on the back of the 6 pin connector holds the 2 pin connector in place beside it. Reference this JonnyGuru.com FAQ. Quote: High end PCI Express (PCIe) graphics cards often need auxiliary power. This power is delivered to the card via either a 6-pin PCIe connector or a 6-pin and 8-pin power connector. PCI Express graphics cards without any kind of auxiliary power connector are called "75W cards" because 75W is the most power the card can pull from' the PCI Express slot. A graphics card with one 6-pin PCIe power connector is called a "150W card" because the 6-pin allows the card to draw up to 150W of power. A graphics card with two 6-pin PCIe power connectors is called a "225W card" and a graphics card with one 6-pin PCIe and one 8-pin PCIe power connector is called a "300W card". Some power supplies use what is referred to as a PCIe power connector. This is because the power connectors have a removable pair of pins that converts an 8-pin PCIe connector into a 6-pin PCIe power connector.
*Molex Connectors- Used to provided electrical power from the power supply to devices such as hard drives.
*SATA- Serial ATA Components data cables used to connect DVD, SSD, and Hard Drives to the motherboard. SATA data cables are individual connections. Each SATA device gets an individual cable to connect to the motherboards SATA block. I need to verify if it makes any difference which device is connected to which port. I've had no issues with the SATA connections I made in my build.
*SSD- Solid State Drive. Data storage device. This is where your Operating System and programs reside. Faster than legacy hard drives and no moving parts.
*Power Supply-  Go modular! A modular power supply with power cables that can be connected to the power supply as needed is the way to go. It makes assembly easier and reduces clutter. A single Power cable coming off the Power supply can power multiple devices.

---End of Part 2---

Part 1- Preliminaries

Where is the Hackintosh info?
Despite the title of this article, there is no Hackintosh section at this time. Honestly I'm still thinking about if I want to mess with Hackintosh.

I am a long time Mac user, who continues to use Mac computers who built a Gaming PC in October 2013 with the intention of also making it a Hackintosh, placing MacOSX on a PC. I've finished up the first part of this guide- building it and installing Windows 7 to be published on this blog in steps. An additional section will be added if and when I tackle  the Hackintosh aspect.

With the help of the Newegg TV: How to Build a Computer Part 1 followed by  Part 2 and Part 3, building a computer only took me two evenings at a relaxed pace. As compared to what I imagined. It was fast and relatively easy with some mild challenges, that I'll outline below.  Note that although the Newegg videos are from 2011 they are still relevant and accurate!

Before this build, my computer hardware experience level had been upgrading power supplies, memory, video cards, and hard drives. I admit that where I am lacking is in the troubleshooting department. Fortunately I had no serious issues to troubleshoot. However, this is Windows I'm talking about which is known for mysterious  "why is this happening?" moments, many more such moments than I've ever experienced on MacOSX.

If you are a first time builder, and/or are having second thoughts about a project like this, I'd suggest you go visit Digital Storm and check out their gaming towers for a price comparison. During this process I found that what they offer in the Vanquish Series, that has been customized, is very close price wise to my build. I wanted to do this for the experience.

How Did I Pick My Parts? 
Because I had Hackintosh in mind, I visited  TonyMacx86 the resource for building a Hackintosh. Due to Mac drivers/Intel components, etc, some components lend themselves better to function as a Hackintosh. So TonyMac86 was my primary source for picking parts, parts that would be compatible. For figuring out the best prices for parts, I used  PCPartPicker.com.

Disclaimer 2: This is not intended to be a comprehensive guide, more of a report of how my build went. I suggest referring to the NewEgg TV Video as the primary resource.

I'm sure there will be an abundance of typos. I'll fix them as I see them. If you want to send suggestions, tips, or solutions, please send a note. Thanks

PC Build Links
*There are sources online who post good gaming computer builds. I'll add some links. If you subscribe to PCGamer, they include a typical gaming build, also don't overlook Digital Storm who offers computer for just about at the same price you can build one. Compare components before you buy.
*TonyMacx86- The best single source on info about how to build a MacOSX compatible PC, without using Bootcamp. For Hackintosh compatibility, site includes recommended parts located in Buyer Guides.
*After components are decided on, use PCPartPicker.com- to locate the best prices.
*Newegg TV: How to Build a Computer Part 1 (2011) This is an outstanding series that shows you step by step how to build a computer from start to finish, includes intel and AMD builds.
*Newegg TV: How to Build a Computer Part 2.
*Newegg TV: How to Build a Computer Part 3.
*Clip Converter- Excellent online site allowing you to download and Youtube videos and save them to your computer.
*KeepVid.com- Video download site. 

---End of Part 1---