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I've got a lot of experience building computers for myself, family and friends. CS degree, and worked for a large computer company for 14 years. ....so for what weight that add's, here goes.

Video card: If you want to play 3D games like Quake3, Unreal Tournament, Tribes, etc.....The best price, performance, stability and gorgous picture - 64MB GeForce2 MX400. Looking at $68 + shipping @ shentech.com If you don't plan on playing demanding 3D games, go with the 32MB GeForce2 MX200 at $54 (@ same place). I've bought and installed both these cards in the last month for different people. You won't be disapointed.

RAID: No, don't do it. Unless you are just wanting to complicate your install....There's no real reason. Just get a 7200RPM/ 100MBs UATA hard disk for the speed. 40GB Seagate (brand) drive like this for $98 right now. I've installed several of these over the last couple of months. Very fast and reliable. No need for RAID on your home PC in my opinion. But, if you want to complicate things and spend more money go for it. ...I do realize it's not THAT complicated. But, it's unnecessary for a home PC in my opinion.

Memory: Just get the PC133. Don't waste your money on the DDR stuff. Price/Performance...It's not worth it. You can get 256MB of PC133 for $29 right now. Three weeks ago it was down to $22. But, the price is always up and down. 256MB should be plenty. But, hey if you want to spend the money 512MB would be sweet. Get two strips of 256MB.

FAN: Humm, this one's tricky as it depends on if your processor is a Slot-A or Socket-A. The bigger the better when it comes to CPU fans. But, I've got a few AMD 1.2GHz Athlon Thunderbirds out there with just $8.99 fans in them playing demanding 3D games and not overheating. On the Slot-A systems I think you get more heat and need a bigger fan. I've used a $15 big fan on a few of those with no overheating playing demanding games.

My kids systems are my best test systems. They give them the severe workout continuously over hours playing 3D games. Well, that's my 2 cents worth. I can at least speak from a lot of system building experience. ...don't mean to sound cocky I swear. Just trying to be helpful to a freeper.

RiVer

Question. Why the MX over the pro? on the vid card. Not a huge price diff and there is a huge performance diff. I finally installed Gforce3s in my systems. Love them.

Thanks again to everyone here,those prices are very
encouraging,a lot less than I was expecting to pay,
I also checked on Ebay I can get a real nice 300W case
for $25-$30 and I already have a spare cdrw and floppy
so it looks like I'm in good shape.
One more thing ,this is a jumperless board,any problems to look forward to there?

I wanted to upgrade my video card to the 64MB GeForce2 MX400 card to which you refered. My problem is that it requires AGP 2.0, and my motherboard (ABIT BH6) is only AGP 1.0 compliant. Do you have any ideas on a similar card I can use? Thanks.

Great Post!

How would you answer the same question for someone looking to put together a system to run Photoshop, working with 130 Meg files...i.e. memory type, RAID, video card (2D mainly), ?.

(See )Moonhawk