"Azaran2003" wrote in message
...
Hey all, heres the situation.
Friend of mine has saved up 1k for a new computer system.
CPU:

AMD 64 is the CPU of choice these days. Find where the price jumps up a lot
and get the CPU below that. An extra $10 or $20 for the next best CPU is
fine, but $100? Nope.

Motherboard:

VIA was the chipset to avoid before. Can't say much about them these days.
Having extra options on board is always good and they can be disabled if you
don't need them. Don't spend a lot more for a board just to get an extra
option though.

RAM:

1gig for sure. Determine the speed of memory that you'll need to match the
CPU and find the cheapest NAME BRAND that meets the spec. Then add about
10-20% to that price and see if you can find lower latency or faster speed.
You don't want to spend too much extra for a small gain in performance.
You'll want a pair of 512's and not a single 1gig stick. Consider ECC memory
if your mainboard supports it.

Video:
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. 128meg version of these cards is selling at a
reasonable price. 9600XT would be a cheaper second choice.

As for PCI-e... Definately a good place to start, but it's a bit early as
far as availability goes. If you can find a good mainboard with PCI-e and a
videocard to match definately go for it, but don't spend a lot more for it.
The deciding factor is how long she plans on keeping the machine without
upgrading.

Hard Drive:
I recently got a 34gig Raptor. I don't notice a large improvement and the
drive is louder than the rest I have when seeking. A pair of these in RAID 0
might make a noticable performance difference and most mainboards provide
RAID these days. Does add a bit of cost for a small amount of fast storage
though.

Sound:
Onboard sound will most likely work just fine for her, she's not an
audiophile
so it may be a good way of going about it.

Smart move. She can always add a soundcard later if needed. Avoid anything
made by Creative though.

Case:
I know she'd like to LAN party this thing so something the lil thing could

Has she considered one of the Shuttle cube machines? Not a lot of room for
upgrades and you won't be able to install Raptors for RAID, but they are
still good performers if you don't plan on adding a bunch of cards into the
machine.

Monitor:
The cost of a monitor is being picked up by friends so the 1k will be
completely for the system and keyboard/mouse (by the by she's a south paw
so
any advice on neutral mice would be cool).

Go optical and cordless for the mouse (Cordless keyboard is cool too, but
don't spend a lot extra to get one). Best to go to the local bigbox store
and see what is comfortable.