Help me spend some cash

[scauffiel]

I'm building a new system and here's basically what I want:

Intel P4 2.4ish or the AMD equivalent (I've been an AMD man for many years now)
512 MB of memory
GeForce4 TI 4200 128 MB (But I need a video card with dual monitor support built in - I don't want to run two video cards anymore)

The problem I'm having is what friggin motherboard to buy. I look through the guides/FAQ's/Prices/reviews and just end up awash in confusion. I'm willing to spend around $250 for the CPU/MB combo; around $140 for the memory; and $200ish for the video card. End result being a computer that does everything well - I'm not a huge gamer, but occasionally I like to play, I just need an all around good, fast machine. Any suggestions? I'm primarily looking through Pricewatch for prices, but if y'all want to provide links to good deals I'd appreciate that as well. I'm coming from an Athlon 1900+512MB/Kyro II system that I was pretty happy with so there's that to take into consideration as well.

So what would you get (model numbers would be great) to run a 2.4Ghz, 512 MB'd computer within those prices?

Steve

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: scauffiel
I'm building a new system and here's basically what I want:

Intel P4 2.4ish or the AMD equivalent (I've been an AMD man for many years now)
512 MB of memory
GeForce4 TI 4200 128 MB (But I need a video card with dual monitor support built in - I don't want to run two video cards anymore)

The problem I'm having is what friggin motherboard to buy. I look through the guides/FAQ's/Prices/reviews and just end up awash in confusion. I'm willing to spend around $250 for the CPU/MB combo; around $140 for the memory; and $200ish for the video card. End result being a computer that does everything well - I'm not a huge gamer, but occasionally I like to play, I just need an all around good, fast machine. Any suggestions? I'm primarily looking through Pricewatch for prices, but if y'all want to provide links to good deals I'd appreciate that as well. I'm coming from an Athlon 1900+512MB/Kyro II system that I was pretty happy with so there's that to take into consideration as well.

So what would you get (model numbers would be great) to run a 2.4Ghz, 512 MB'd computer within those prices?

Steve

I'm glad you did'nt ask how to MAKE some cash


If you concerned about saving money AMD is still your best best. See anandtech's value gaming build. Most guys are building a Video, Memeory, and processor system for less than $300 then overclocking the 1.6 to 2200 levels. With that said Ihave a ASUS p2b533 MB soley based on it's populartity here and overclockablity. It's only crashed once but that becasue I was plaing with a bad MAME rom.