Azaran2003 wrote:

.... snip ...

Motherboard:
This will of course depend on the CPU, but chipsets to go for or
avoid would be great. I'm going to assume she'll go for the
options on boards that have onboard lan/firewire/usb2 to cut
down on the cost of add on cards.

Just make sure the chipset can handle ECC memory. See the "Error
Correction" thread here.


RAM:
Looking for stable and large. Speed would be nice but only if it
actually makes a noticeable difference (by which I mean latency
issues, 2.5 Vs 2 , etc.). If going dual channel makes a
difference would be nice too. I know back when it was introduced,
AMD boards really didn't get a big boost (if I remember it was
something like 5%) whereas Intel boards got a noticeable
improvement. Is this still the case?

I highly recommend ECC memory. However, if you don't want to
spend the money (15 to 25% increase in memory cost) now you can
get less capable memory and choose to upgrade later, iff you have
the motherboard capability.

--
Chuck F ) )
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
http://cbfalconer.home.att.net USE worldnet address!