I recently built a new pc with the following:
Ultra aluminus midtower case
Ultra X-Pro 600watt psu APFC 80 PLUS
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L Motherboard
IntelCore 2 Duo E7200 @2.53ghz
PNY 2gb ddr2-800 ram
DVD/CD-RW Drive
120gb hdd (soon to be 750gb)
HIS Radeon HD2600Pro ICE-Q Video Card
It was fun, but kinda hard at first. I actually wanted to quit at first, because i thought i bent the cpu pins, but it wasn't, so i stopped, and continued at night. It worked fine at first boot, and i installed vista home premium 32bit. It took 5 hours since i was a first timer, half the time spent on trying to get the motherboard tray back in. If you are building a PC for the first, here is what you should expect:
1. It will take time. It is better to do it slow and get it working fine, rather than fast and have something accidentally placed incorrectly, and have to do it again. It may get depressing at times, so if you get tired, immediately stop working, and if possible, leave the work area the same and continue later. You don't have to get it done the same day. Remember, you are not an expert as a first time builder.
2. You will have the most trouble when installing the cpu, intel cpu stock cooler or really fancy cooler, and the mother board tray. The rest of it is really easy.
3. The cpu is very tricky, especially intel. The intel cpu needs you to
carefully examine the exact position of the notches. If you mess up on them, you may bend a pin on either the cpu or the mobo. One bent pin, and the whole thing is screwed. Take your time, and read the manuals on the cpu installation several times before beginning.
3. Speaking of cpu installation, the cpu fan installation for intel stock heatsink can be a PITA. It may warp the mobo, but if it works, you'll be ok. To prevent warping, use a case with a removable mobo tray, remove the tray, and install the cpu on the mobo tray. The cpu cooler may come off when installing sata cables, front panel audio, etc, and if that happens, just push them really hard, even if the mobo is in the case.
3. The mobo tray will take time if it is like the one on the ultra aluminus. It may actually be worth it to leave the tray in the case if it looks hard to install. It took me a while to get the thumb screws and align the mobo tray in the case, but maybe it's just my mistake.
4. The rest should be easy. Insert the ram with the notches aligned properly, with the ram holder notches open, and they will automatically closed. Then, insert the hard disk and optical drive, and plug in the sata/ide and power cables. Then, insert the video card if you bought one, and you'll basically be done with a basic setup. I may have missed something though.
4. If push comes to shove, and you seem to have many problems, take the unbuilt pc to a local repair shop, and have them do it, so it doesn't get messed up any worse.
Hope this helps.