>>>>>>I saw a Dell system listed last week for $400 WITH a 20” LCD monitor.
Dell uses atrocious rock-bottom low performance components (esp. video and audio).
If it’s $600 for a Dell vs. $800 to build your own with top-shelf components, I’ll go with the latter.
Yeah, that's why I tend to surf eBay and Craig's List for old server parts - like the old Tyan server mobos I was talking about above.
For instance, just a few months ago, I grabbed a used Intel server mobo/combo off of eBay, with dual 3.06GHz hyperthreaded P4 Xeons, and 2GB RAM [upgradeable I think to 12GB], which was state-of-the-art circa 2005, and it cost me all of about $225 [if it had been purchased back in 2005, it would have cost $5000-$10,000].
And I don't mean to diss RebelTex, but I think part of his problem here is that he went with the cheap Soyo mobo in the first place.
My gut instinct is that if he'd spent a few more dollars on a quality mobo [Tyan, Intel, maybe Asus], then that system of his would have been humming along for another 50 years.