Is there some way to confirm compatibility of parts?

[hellagrant]

I never built a PC before and my main concern is that I am going to order parts that won't work together. Is there a website where I can enter 2 products in and get an answer either "yes it works" or "no it doesn't work".

If not, how do you ensure that parts will work with one another?

 

[branflakes71]

I don't know of a website that provides what you want.

If you're going to build yourself a computer, you really need to educate yourself on computer parts. Reading more on this forum will help. plus check out the various Tom's articles. Read on these forums what other people are building to get an idea of what works.

Other basics:

CPU: know the brand (AMD vs Intel) and socket type.

Video Card: understand which types there are (mainly PCIe) and if you ever want to run two or more, whether to plan for SLI or Crossfire.

Motherboard: what CPU you want and video card you want will determine which one you get. All about making sure the chipset of the board supports the CPU and video card you want. The chipset on a board determines what features a board has and what processors, video cards, RAM, etc, are supported.

RAM: Which type (DDR2 or DDR3 and the speed) again depends on which CPU you're going for.

Hard drives: SATA II connections are the standard for now. There are SSD and the tradational HDD types now.

Power supply: make sure it has enough juice to power your video card selection and is certified to work with your CPU.

Case: pretty much personal perference.

There's more out there, but those are the basics to purchasing compatible parts.

 

[bgd73]

to simplify,
it usually boils down to exact memory check (kingstons site does great for this ie: I learned an 875pbz can take the same timing as 64bit ram in ECC mode)

..and vid cards.
you got vid cards powerplaying to oscillations at less than a volt pretending to be a laptop, you got vid cards with mmeory speed too crazy for the system...
never any advice there, until now: match the vid cards ram speed to system, and check if powerplay on ati and whatever they called it in geforce cards is dynamical enough to keep an aero fat desktop looking good. 3d modes and UVD are pretty much nailed down good, trustworthy. Big problem down the road all dealt with before any begin.

the rest is quite dynamical, even pushing boundaries of bad thermal designs for cooling...

and maybe verify PSU. there is several different versions of those...

have fun.