Building a new system!

[halfadder]

I'm building a new system for a friend. I myself use a mix of AMD and Intel CPUS, but my friend wants a P4 because the application he uses benchmarks better on P4 then it does on Athlon XP. I suppose Athlon 64 is possible, but we have a hard budget limit of $1000 US.

Anyway... the system has to be rock-solid stable above everything else. This machine will be a "mission critical" home office desktop for light to medium-duty CAD work. Solid DX8 and OpenGL 1.4 graphics are a must, but we only need about Radeon 9600 Pro level performance. Future software upgrades may require DX9 and/or OpenGL 1.5, so a card like the Radeon 9250 is out of the question.

Here is what we're thinking:
Motherboard: Reputable/Solid brand with Intel 875 chipset
CPU: 3.0+ GHz P4, 1MB L2, 800 MHz FSB
RAM: 1GB via Matched DDR400 512 MB sticks
HD: Uncertain. Either a quiet/cool Seagate 7200 RPM 8MB or a 74 GB WD Raptor
Optical: Samsung 16x DVD+/-RW
Monitor: AVIDAV 17" LCD w/ DVI (Ghetto brand, but *beautiful* display)
Keys/Mouse: Uncertain. Will probably visit several computer and office stores to try as many as possible in person before buying.
Case: Antec w/ Antec 350W PSU.

Another idea we have been tossing around has been to use a Shuttle XPC SB65G2 barebones. It's only an 865 chipset, but it's small and is almost perfect.

Also, we've been thinking about going with a 915 motherboard chipset and PCI-E. I'm uncertan about reliability and BIOS maturity, though. I also don't know much about the newest PCI-E cards. For example, I don't know what the modern ATI or Nvidia eqivalents are to the excellent Radeon 9600 Pro.

Thanks in advance for any advice, pointers, suggestions, or flames! 🙂

 

[Operandi]

Looks good, I go with the Seagate since noise is issue to me but I wouldn?t change anything else.

 

[Gnoad]

I'm just gonna put it out there and recommend a s754 A64 3000 or 3200. I first recommend s754 over s939 because the mobos are much more stable currently, though nf4 may change that. The 3000 should either match or outperm that p4 in most apps and only cost about $130-$140. The 3200 is the same price as the p4 but should most definitley be kicking it around. Mobo I say the DFI lanparty, as most seem to be having great results with it with no major problems, unlike the current 939 mobos. It also is a great OCer, but I don't know if that interests you.

edit: Here is a 256mb 9600pro for just $112. That will probably be your best bet. And just to let you know my raptor drive is just as quiet as any other drive I've used.