One thing to checkout is YouTube build videos, you can often find ~2 minute shorts of a professional installing your exact part into your exact motherboard. This really removed a lot of the anxiety and trepidation I had while installing parts (it was my first time ever). Funny enough I plugged my monitor into the motherboard directly (when you’re supposed to plug it into the GPU) and had a black screen panic until I figured it out.

As far as figuring out what parts I would recommend three strategies:

1) start at reddit.com/r/buildapc and reddit.com/r/buildapcforme and checkout some of the threads at price points you are interested in. These builds will include pcpartpicker lists which are a tool that checks compatibility and general prices for you through a web ui. These builds are not perfect but will give you a general idea for how people are commonly building for the given ~6 month cycle. They all have their own biases, some like to save costs by getting a slightly weaker CPU, some spend more on the motherboard for future proofing, some need more storage so they throw in a giant SSD etc.

2) once you get a feel for the common components you’ll want to pick out your main two items: the cpu and gpu. You’ll already know your options from step one, so this step will be the icing on the cake. As long as you get a powerful cpu and gpu you will most likely be thrilled with your build (also an SSD and decent monitor for completeness). The cpu choice will also help you select a motherboard since that is really the biggest compatibility check throughout the whole process. Watch a video or two if you need help making a selection and to understand how to get your best value. I strongly recommend Paul’s hardware videos or Linus tech tips for a little more entertainment value.

3) now you’re ready to go on pcpartpicker and pick your full parts list with all the secondary pieces that complete your build, first the motherboard, your ram, SSD, psu, and case. From 1 you already have an idea of what you should go for, but now is your chance to tweak things around. If you don’t understand the difference between an nvme SSD or a sata SSD look it up, just like with software development, and you’ll find it easy to make an informed decision. Remember your cpu and gpu were the biggest difference makers so all of these decisions are relatively minor as long as you stick with reputable brands.

Iterate with 3 as much as you’d like. Post the build and see what people say about it. When you feel satisfied buy it and build it with the short YouTube videos demonstrating the exact parts you selected.

The low-effort way is to choose from a tier on https://www.logicalincrements.com/. Their component recommendations are pretty good, and they succinctly explain the different performance you can expect from different components.