My first PC

[Noprisoners]

I've been running with the same computer for quite a few years now, at least 7+ I believe. I've upgraded the RAM once and videocard a few times just to keep up with some games I played. I believe the video card right now is a Nvidia 9800 GT, not sure if that would be worth replacing I know it's relatively old but I always figured video cards are expensive and I'm on a budget somewhat.

I've got about $600 to spend.

It doesn't need to be game intensive or need to run something like Crysis in highest settings but I'd like it to be nice.

I have never taken a computer apart nor put one together. The most experience I have is simply opening it up and switching out my video card and adding RAM. Is the money you save building it yourself worth it rather than just buying an entirely new tower?

If so, I'd like to build one because I've been itching at giving it a go for awhile now.

I'm really not sure where to start so I hope you guys can help me. I know my current rig is an AMD Athlon dual core 4200+ and 2.2 ghz.

I think my biggest nightmare in this process would be purchasing something only to find out it doesn't fit correctly. Hope you guys can help a noobie here get his first PC built.

[rwest]

It's not that hard to do. Since youve aded a vid card and memory you're obviously comfortable inside the pc. Big first step. Almost all the connectors are close to idiot proof.

Value wise, you'll get more features with a prebuilt. But what you gain from doing it yourself comes nothing close to the added software in a prebuilt. All the individual parts will have thier own warranty, as opposed to the single warranty covering all parts. Another huge difference in building it yourself is that you can select only quality parts. Prebuilds tend to have less than high quality parts with a higher chance of failure. Sometimes the prebuild will have a few good solid parts, but hardly ever will all the components be high quality; unless you really just want to pay thru the nose.

Here's a starting list for you on an AMD build:
Newegg.com - AMD A8-3870K Unlocked Llano 3.0GHz Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 6550D AD3870WNGXBOX
This has just been listed at newegg. I personally have never built this kind of system, but jdeb reccomends these processors pretty regularly.

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
You probably dont need the vengence ram, but for the price you cant beat it.

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-A75M-UD2H FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
I like Gigabyte boards. They are full of features and offer good quality. Yhis one supports 6/gbs and usb 3.0

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Kinda nice to see a WD Black close to the $100 dollar mark.

Newegg.com - ASUS EAH6670/DIS/1GD5 Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
A card like this alongside the APU should last you a long time playing games at medium to high settings.

Newegg.com - ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS - CD / DVD Burners

Newegg.com - Thermaltake VL84301W2Z V3 Black Edition with 430W Power Supply ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
It's one of the few cases that has been reccomended that has a power supply that is at least adequate.

The whole shebang comes to 598.93 int the cart shipping included. The only thing left is an OS. You'll need about another $100 for that. I'm sure the build can be trimmed if neccesary and I'd wait for one of the mods to bless it too.