Im new to the whole computer building scene, and im just wondering what are the best types/brands of components to use to create a quiet working computer.

Any help would be much appreciated

as far as selecting components go the phrase

"to each their own." However thats assuming you know what to look for. Alot of it has to do with what you are wanting out of a system. If you are just web surfing, email, chat, etc. then go to circuit city or something and buy an HP instead of wasting time building one. You state you want a quiet working computer so that tells me you aren't looking into anything high end. You just want to make sure you are getting quality parts for your system. You are going to have to research a little yourself. Obviously a good mobo is a huge factor in what your system can do. Look at the different kinds out there and select components for it.

Not entirely true.. you can have both top notch and powerfull parts and also a very silent PC, provided you purchase the correct combination of cooling solutions. Opposite could be said for prebuilt PCs, some overpriced others pretty decent but you could still build yourself the equivilant for cheaper and gain a bit of hardware knowledge in the process. But as you said, its purpose specific.

So the question will be, what is it going to be used for?
have you already looked at any components yet?

Im mainly going to use it for gaming/watching movies etc..

This is what i have come up with so far:

ASUS P5B Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz
Geforce 7900GS 256MB TV out DVI
Raidmax Ninja 918 Gaming Tower Case
G SKILL 1 GB DDR2-800 (PC-5400)

Get a X1950PRO, beats 7900GS, for same $. And look into some low-decibel fans for the case.

Cheers, thanks for the advice

Also get a PSU that is in excess of your currene needs. This will cause it to run much cooler than a PSU that is near max load, It also gives you alot f room for upgrades. You'll also want a quiet CPU cooler(The stock intel cooler cools the Core 2 Duo fine but is relatively loud).

Isnt nVidia 7900 better then ATI 1900? Like in pipelines and stuff

Also if you want to Cross-fire / SLI ( for better performance in games ) then you'll need a nice PSU, here is the best PSU out there for pretty good price http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817341002 It's 700w so you'll have enough power for alot of stuff and for future items you want to add ( Better videocard, soundcard.. stuff like that ) Also since it's your 1st build get some parts that come with instructions with it because it's hard to put together a computer 1st time =)

What made the biggest difference to the noise my old pc gave out was the case...either get somthing like the antec p180 or buy some soundproofing foam if you want somthing cheaper.

These PSUs are alot better:
http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=S61EPS
http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=S75EPS

and this is the best PSU out there:
http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=T1KWSR
but it is overkill unless your running dual or quad cpus and quad sli and it is also very expensive.

As for the video card he was compareing an X1950PRO with a 7900GS and the X1950PRO is the better card in that comparison.

Also, ATi 1950XTX beats all the Nvidia 7 series cards.