OT - So my friend says he can build me a computer

[jeff061]

Well, If you have a choice (IE: not going with Dell), there is no reason to get an Intel.
Athlon 64 3000 = faster for $150
Athlon 64 3200= Same price, a lot faster.

And if he says AMD runs hot you can pre-empt him and tell him that Intel actually runs hotter these days .

You should also always strive to go with 2 sticks of ram, not less and not more. You can run 2 sticks of memory in dual channel mode for a bit of a performance increase. You can't with 1,3, or 4 sticks. When I bought my system I bought 2 1gb sticks for this reason.

Either way though, it's still a fast and capable system.

[timmynausea]

I always go with AMD also. I agree with the others who say bigger hard drive. I like that you're going with an Asus motherboard, though. I've always had good experiences with Asus.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by jeff061

You should also always strive to go with 2 sticks of ram, not less and not more. You can run 2 sticks of memory in dual channel mode for a bit of a performance increase. You can't with 1,3, or 4 sticks. When I bought my system I bought 2 1gb sticks for this reason.

Yeah, it always seems that third stick just messes up on systems I've done before never mind a 4th stick. Better to do 2x 1GB unless it's really cost prohibative. Or just 2x512MB- that's not going to kill your performance by any stretch of the imagination.

SI