Its that time again!

[Bighoss]

I'm noticing lately my comp is starting to hit directly reccommended requirements and somtimes even mininum with some of my other parts. I have a dell and I wanna build my own computer for fun and the expierence (plus its a lot cheaper!)

I have a moniter a monitor already so I'm all set in that department

but I have a pretty good sized budget, I'm in high school and I invested some money in the stock market and made over a grand!!! so I sold it and decided to use the money to enjoy life.

my budget is from 1000-1600

I know I'm gonna throw in the best video card I can buy when I get around to building this thing though right now that seems to be an ATI Radeon 9800 pro 256mb

but anyone else have any real part suggestions? I don't know a ton about compatability and I wanna make sure I don't screw up!

[Rbstr]

EDIT here is what i came up with (No OS included)
from www.buyxg.com
P4 2.8 ghz w/ 800mhz FSB
Aspire 500 watt power suplly
Aspire Silver Aluminum Case With indow
Silver 52x24x52x CD-RW and Floppy (the house brand they have)
80 gb 7200 rmp Hardrive with 8meg cashe
Asus p4p800 deluxe Motherboard (865 PE,I have one of these they are great)
1gb (2x512) of Kingston Hyper X cl2 memory
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 channel Sound card
the cue de gra{major SP errors} a 9800 XT with 256 mb of ram

for $1460! plus shiping
(if you wan't to spen less you can get a diff video card like a 98(7)00 pro or a 9600 pro)
BTW this system will kick ass, you iwll be the envy of me and all my friends if you got this baby

[Bighoss]

That looks great but I really wanna build one.

[Rbstr]

no these are just the parts, not a prebuilt system.(and it not liek you have to set it up that way i just picked what i though gave you the most bang for your buck)

[EarlyDawn]

My system...

3.0 Gig Hyperthreaded Pentium 4
1024 RAM (DDR, if I'm not mistaken)
190 Gigs of HD space, over 2 drives
Xtacy graphics card (ATI Chipset, 256MB vid ram, four pipelines)
Cable modem
18-inch flatscreen monitor
1 CD Drive
1 Floppy Drive
Four speaker audio system

All parts ordered from www.tigerdirect.com. I believe the final price was roughly $1200

[Rbstr]

did you get a mobo?

[EarlyDawn]

Ouch, knew I forgot something. :-x

Yeah. Pretty nice one. could support my processor, as well as several extra RAM sticks in addition to those installed now (2 IIRC). Internal sound, and One or two AGP slots.

[Daleon]

If you got $1600 to spend and you want to spend it now and get close to the best, I'd have to go with a AMD64 3200. Personally I'll wait for the FX's to be
re-pin'ed early next year and support un-buffered DDR. But if I HAD the money and HAD to do it now, I'd still choose it over even a P4EE. Also you can always put in Operton's later on in the current boards, as they aren't being re-pin'ed I think.

This puts you at about $600 range for chip/NF3 combo. Then I'd find a case/ps combo for $100 or less, easy to do. 2 512's of 3500 HyperX or TwinMos or something for $250. Prolly a 9800 Pro, non XT, for $350 (256 is still a waste and the speed boost is not much). Thats $1300, and you can throw a cpl hundred into a DVD burner, or get the XT. It will defintely beat the P4 2.8 system though.

[Bighoss]

did some research, gonna hold out until that FX athlon comes in.