[clue-tech] Suggestion for upcoming presentation - build you own PC

[Collins Richey]

Perhaps others are in the same boat as I am. I've spent 10+ years
tinkering with Linux, etc., and I've done some repairs on PC's, but
I'm still a complete dummy when it comes to selecting cases,
motherboards, etc., etc. I'm in the market for building a new PC, and
I'm sure there might be others who would love to know more about this
arcane science!

What I'm looking for is a good virtual base to make it easy to tinker
with various OS, so there would be plenty of ram, fast CPU with
virtual assist, large drives (maybe RAID). I'm not interested in one
of the giant gaming cases with flashing lights, but rather a medium
sized box (either mid tower or one of the newer cube shapes) with
quiet fans and lots of usb connectors since almost everything plugs
into USB these days. Probably a quad-core cpu with something like 8G
memory. Many of the available standard boxes from the big hitter
manufacturers have disabled virtual assist, so their boxes are
worthless for my wants and needs. There must be 100K or greater
options for this type of equipment, and how does an amateur/idiot go
about selecting select the right thing?

So, would one or some of you guys who have hardware savvy please put
together a presentation, perhaps something like the following?

* how to select cases, power supplies, motherboards, etc.
* best sources for equipment
* techniques for building
* gotchas
* etc.

-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.