I was planning to build myself a new machine in october, but my brother has a nice opportunity I wouldn'l like to let pass: every couple of years, his company offers him a seious rebate on a new PC (brand and type don't matter). This year, he'll get 530€ back for a >1,100€ machine. The invoice date may not be greater than 15 juli tho.
So here I am. My brother, very moderately interested in computers, doesn't want to buy a new one this year and offered me the rebate.
1st questions:
The 'budget' solution would be an AMD XP 3000 Barton with an ABit KD7A MB (FSB 333, up to 2GB 400MHz DDR). Cost: 194 €. However, future upgrade options are NIL.
The 'performance' solution: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ on an ABit KV8 - MAXIII MB (FSB 800, up to 2GB 400MHz DDR). Much more expensive (439€), 'only' 2GB RAM, 6 SATA RAID controller are an overkill for me, but open to future upgrades IMO. OTOH, the technology is still relatively unproven (I still remember the Pentium I problems...).
The 'alternate' option: Intel P4 Northwood 2.8 GHz on an ABit IC7 MB (FSB 800, chipset Intel 875P, up to 4 GB 400MHz DDR, Prescott-ready). Middle range price (290€) and better max RAM than with AMD. However, are the upgrade possibilities justifying the 96€ difference with the 'budget' solution? (I've read here and there that the Prescott is a bad choice right now).
What are your comments/advices?
2nd question: I plan to go with 2GB RAM immediately. Do you recommend it, or do you think that 1 GB is still more than enough for nowadays gaming?
Note: I'm definitely partial to ABit. My actual MB is an ASUS CUS-L2C which gave me entire satisfaction, but I had a nasty experience with an ASUS A7V133 (if I recall correctly): I build a system for a colleague with this MB and a Hercules All-in-Wonder 7500, and he was plagued since with undesired system restarts in some games (i.e. Medal of Honor). Updating drivers for everything and MB or vid card BIOS flashes have never cured the problem. It isn't a single case, some other people with the same setup have suffered from the same problem. Apparently, ASUS and ATI are rejecting the origin of the trouble on each other...
Since then I've built a half dozen of ABit systems without a single glitch...
