Building a PC is one of those things that sounds difficult, intimidating and impressive to those who have never done it, but is actually shockingly simple in practice. If you can plug in a home theatre system, there is a good chance you can build your own PC. As with a home theatre system, most of the sockets are different shapes, so it’s unlikely you’d plug anything into the wrong place without forcing it.

This school holidays, if you’ve got a teenager who’s really into gaming, video editing, or anything digital that requires more power than an iPad, then building a PC together will provide an excellent bonding and educational afternoon, while saving you money in the long run.

The reason you’d build a PC is pretty similar to why you’d bake your own cake, though less delicious. Buying a cake is much easier than making your own and it’s probably going to be a more attractive cake, because someone who works with icing (or cables) all the time will be able to do a neater job. But the cake you make will taste better because you know the exact balance of flavours you enjoy. You know what size you need, and it will be much cheaper even if it’s more labour intensive. Where this metaphor falls apart is that the PC you build is also going to be cheaper in future because you’ll feel more confident replacing parts rather than just upgrading the whole thing in a couple of years when you need a more powerful graphics processor or more memory.

The first step of building a PC is working out how powerful you need it to be now, and then going at least one step above that to account for the future.

Here's all the components you'll need, along with the exact parts I chose recently to build my gaming PC. You may not need a machine this powerful, but you do need to make sure the processor, graphics card and memory you choose are compatible with your motherboard, and that the whole thing can be accommodated by your chosen case. If in doubt, ask; the folks at your local computer parts store are usually happy to help.