Building the Perfect PC

From Low-Cost, Vista-Ready Systems to Fire-Breathing Game Machines

First the crew over at MAKE Magazine-the “Bible of the DIY
movement”-lit a big ol’ bonfire of enthusiasm for the growing community of
garage inventors, backyard scientists, and DIY enthusiasts around the planet,
now they’re showing us how the Perfect PC is the one that any of us can build
ourselves in our own basement. With instructions for crafting a budget PC for
about $350 to creating a fire- breathing, high performance system running Vista
and all the latest games-Robert and Barbara Thompson’s new edition of Building
the Perfect PC (O’Reilly) aims to inform and inspire anyone with the DIY itch
and a little patience to start flexing their PC-building muscles.

“This was a year of major change in PC components,” notes coauthor Robert Bruce
Thompson about why he put together the new edition. “New technologies
proliferated, including an entire new processor architecture from Intel, the
triumph of the new PCI Express video interface standard over the older AGP, new
types of memory, and even including new power supply standards. Nowadays, PC
builders have to be much more careful about choosing the proper components, and
this book is their guide to doing so.”

Additional fun do-it-yourself projects include:

Configuring a PC appropriate for your own needs
Choosing the best and most cost-effective components for it
Designing and building a low-cost SOHO server system with a 2 terabyte subsystem
for a residential environment.

“Increasingly, building your own PC (or paying a screwdriver shop to build it
for you) is the only good way to get a high-quality system,” adds Thompson. “The
typical mass-market PC you find at a big-box store is the computer equivalent of
a Yugo at a Chevrolet price, whereas a home-built PC can be the equivalent of a
Rolls-Royce for not all that much more money.”

Straightforward, easy-to-grasp directions and full-color illustrations make this
detailed, step-by-step reference accessible to DIY computer builders of every
skill level. So if you’ve always wanted a customized, super-charged, quality
machine with high-end components-get this one-stop guide and make one yourself.