I have searched the internet for sites that just lay out, all in one area, all the information that you need to know to build a computer - and build it well. I want to know all of the important details that I need to know to get the best computer that I can get for the money. I want a site that answers all the good questions, like:

• What do I need to know to avoid bottlenecks? For example, if I get CPU X, I want it to be able to run as fast as it's capable of and not be limited by a slow bus or slow RAM.
• How fast of a FSB do you need for two [random video cards]?
• Do you need a motherboard with two x16 PCI-E slots to take full advantage of two [random video cards that support x16 PCI-E]? Do such motherboards even exist?
• How does one calculate the amount of PSU power one will need?

Please don't get caught up on trying to answer each individual question I gave - I'm just using them as examples - but rather the main idea of my thread: What are the most accurate, most consolidated, most up-to-date sources of information out there for general computer building? - with less focus on putting it together and making it work and more focus on part selection - because that is the hard part.

Thanks.

I think the best way to learn about part selection is to research as many places as you can. Here is one good place, and other tech forums are good too. You will gradually build up a lot of knowledge, and perhaps more important, an index as to where even more knowledge is located, so you can go to it when you need it.

see other people's thread and gather knowledge from them.

Yeah, I was just hoping to find something more consolidated, that didn't require so much digging around.

One of these days I will likely puke under my desk, after which I'll wash my face, apologize, and plug on; I will have seen yet another question concerning a "bottleneck." There will always be a "bottleneck," in any system. Will you care? Do you need to drink Coke so fast that you can't get it fast enough out of that 2-liter bottle? E.g. "My Crossfire setup should do 175FPS, but I think my CPU is a bottleneck so I only get 135FPS. Should I upgrade to a Q9550 and overclock it to 4.2GHz, or just buy a whole new system?" Oh, woe. How you must wring your hands over that.
>*ralllllllphph*<
Oh, sorry.....
There are tools available for some questions, such as your last one. For example, http://www.extreme.outervision.com [...] orlite.jsp will tell you a good approximation of the size of PSU you need. The pro version, if you want to pay the fee, will break it down further by rail. There's probably a nice database behind that site with the power consumption of every part for which they can get the data from the manufacturer.
Over time, your Favorites (or Bookmarks, or whatever) will become full of links to tools like that, and places like this. It may even become fun to try to figure out what's the least amount of money you need to spend to get a decent system, or one that can play X, or run Y, or whatever.

calm down man i know how u feel!sigh............

You can do what lots of others have done: tell us your country, your budget, your favorite games, and then we can make suggestions. You'll end up with a good PC at a good price within days. You won't get much knowledge that way, true, but you can read some books or articles later for that.

I don't understand why you have an issue with people asking about bottlenecks. Any time one part's capability is limited by another part, a bottleneck exists, right? We want to eliminate such things. No one's interested in eliminating minute, insignificant bottlenecks. But everyone's interested in eliminating bottlenecks where the memory or bus keeps a processor limited to 75% of its processing power.

Pulseczar, don't mind jtt283. He's been on this forum for a long time and he's getting sick and tired of the endless discussions about bottlenecks. I totally understand him, I feel the same. You did nothing wrong to ask, it's just that 1000 others have asked too in recent months.

To answer your original question: I don't know of any site like that, but you can find some excellent reviews at www.anandtech.com and www.guru3d.com and www.extremetech.com for example. You can also ask specific questions on this forum and usually you will get useful answers. If you want to actually build a PC, not just learn, we have countless threads like that and you can start your own, specifying the budget and requirements. I can also recommend that you spend $37 or whatever on Scott Mueller's latest edition of Upgrading and repairing PCs - a very thick and very good book and it comes with demos on DVD too.

It would be difficult (maybe even impossible) to create the situation you describe - 25% of a CPU's power being limited by other components (unless you really work hard at it).
The limiting factor in every computer will always be the user - how fast they can type, how fast they read the screen and how adept they are at using the software.

The parts selection process can be very easy - just follow one of the many cook-book style recipes put out by many PC Tech websites.
Good example; TR's back-to-school system guide; Recommendations for building the right enthusiast's PCs
They have sections for a $500+ Econobox, $1000 Grand Experiment, $1500 Sweet Spot, $2800 Double-Stuff Workstation, and $270 Mini-Econobox. They explain the reason for the choice selections, list alternatives and cover peripherals, accessories, OS and extras.
Essentially they answer your questions for you. For more in depth knowledge you'll have to follow the PC Tech websites over time to gain the knowledge from the in-depth review and articles they publish. Places like THG, AnandTech, ExtremeTech, TechReport and othera like them. Many sites have an area of specialization - like JonnyGuru.com being the Guru site of power supplies.
I don't think I've ever seen an all-in-one shortcut to the type of knowledge I think you may want.

Yeah, the problem is usually between the keyboard and the chair

I wasn't trying to pick on you, Pulseczar, nor on anyone else, really. I suppose it is a matter of perspective. It is a question of relevance; in my example a particular "bottleneck" is just not relevant to the end-user experience, since your eye can't tell a difference between 175fps and 135fps. Eighty fps and 20fps, certainly.
I enjoy user support, I really do (strange but true), but my perspective is more cold-fish practicality (e.g. budget and stability) than how to erect a massive e-penis. If someone wants to build a $500 system, I'll jump in every time; if some kid says his budget is $5000, I'll pass it right on by. I can walk in the first guy's shoes, but not the second's.

Actually I should know by now that almost nothing is impossible; and that some people really do work hard to surprise us.
One HTPC builder's 780G motherboard and X2 5000+ new system was having some unwanted shutdowns and poor/choppy HiDef video playback. The immediate suspect was the budget HTPC case's 270watt power suppy.

But as it turned out the system was overheating causing the unwanted shutdowns and the poor/choppy HiDef video playback was fixed by using better media player software. In this case you had the PC being limited first by the poor choice of a case causing shutdowns (effectively limiting 100% of the CPUs power). Another limitation was found in the open source free software causing poor/choppy HiDef video playback.

That builder had been recommended a X2 4050e CPU but in another thread someone had suggested the X2 5000+ was the better choice as it had "more power".

If I were to pinpoint all the possible bottlenecks I'd list them in order of difficulty to correct:
Wetware (the users brain) whatcha gonna do about that limitation?
Software - not well optimized for multi-threaded, multi-core CPUs (and for games - multi-GPUs), including poor driver support.
Limited funds - it IS possible to sometimes throw money at a system to get better peformance.
Hardware - being the easiest of the possible bottlenecks to correct to get well balanced PC peformance.

If you simply google "build computer guide", you'll find a lot of info. Try to find one that has the motherboard of your choice in it, or download the mfg's specs for all the wiring details. I'm 62 and finished my first ever build 4 months ago, and all was a success. Using the Anted P182 case, I even found an article with photos of the case and how to install everything, including some good ideas for a neat wiring job. Here's a start, but there are lots of others. The case, psu and mobo mfg's are also a must read, once you make final choices as to parts. Here's a simple start guide from Tom's:

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] c,511.html