As you get to know more about PCs and are comfortable with the various components you begin to realize that there is a lot more to learn.  If you’ve decided to put together an AMD based system, you might stumble upon a term you haven’t before, like TDP.  Right now many of AMDs parts are 125W or 140W, but do you know what that means, or more importantly what effect will it have on your system overall?  Maybe you are building an Intel machine and stumble upon a term like PAE when you are trying to determine the most amount of RAM your system can take.  Your 64-bit OS may theoretically be able to address an incredible 17.2 billion gigabytes, whereas PAE was used in 32-bit OSes to go beyond the 4GB barrier and is not what you need to look up to find your proper memory limit, that is a function of your motherboards signal integrity.   The wide and wacky world of LCDs is no different than the realm of the processor, with a lot to keep track of.  SSDs are keeping the storage forum hopping and there is no end in sight, we are seeing new SSDs using new controllers and memory, along with bus changes almost every day.

If you are sick of the hardware side, you could always attempt learning a new OS from scratch to keep yourself occupied, or just upgrade to a new version of a familiar OS.  On the other hand, if you would rather watch people talk about hardware and software you can grab the newest episode of the PC Perspective Podcast, we’re up to episode #92.  Let us know what you think in this forum thread!