PC Master Race

It's quite the opposite, though. PC components have never been as compatible as they are today with the inclusion of different standards like ATX and stuff.

As for you figuring stuff out, here's how I pick parts:

Coolers: I go see the temperature tests to decide on which one fits depending on noise vs temps vs price.

Motherboards: Here are the main bits I look at

• Compatible socket
• Amount of USB ports
• Amount of Sata ports
• Amount of M.2 slots
• Other ports you'd want to use
• Supported type of RAM (DDR4 vs DDR5)

Then there's extra

• Chipset (top-tier chipsets are often a waste of money)
• Bluetooth and wifi (can always be added later, but nice to have built-in)
• A button for updating BIOS (bypasses need for CPU)
• Troubleshooting LEDs (very handy when tinkering)
• How chunky the heatsing is (bigger = better)
• Amount of power phases (black cubes around the socket, more = better, only need to pay attention to those when going for high power-draw CPU)

PSU: Very simple, go to power draw calculator or multiply power draw from pcpartpicker by 1.3 or 1.4, that's your Wattage requirement. Then find a list of reliable PSUs, look for cheapest reliable one that has enough Watts. It's a good idea to have some overhead as well. Alternatively to a tier-list is knowing which manufacturers are good.

Cooling for RAM: ignore cooling for RAM, not important at all. It's mostly for looks.

RAM clock speeds: MT/s, aka Mhz, is bus width. Higher amount = more data can pass at once. But we're currently at a point when 6000mhz doesn't make much difference against 3600mhz. So, latency is more important. Google, which combination of clock speed + timings (they look like 36-38-38, can also be written as CL36) has lowest latency, go with lowest.

Pcpartpicker makes sure things you put together are compatible with each other. So, start with CPU and GPU.