New PC (finally)

[Lemur]

I think I can state with some authority that Bitz Computers' web site makes my eyes bleed. Okay, are you willing to order part-by-part, or do you need it to be pre-assembled? And if you swap a part around, will they work with you? That's half the benefit of working with a local shop, right?

-edit-

Man, I do not know how you navigate that web site without having a nervous breakdown. Here's the processor I'd suggest:

11744 Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - 3 GHz 6MB S775 - 1333 FSB 45 nm - With Original Intel Cooler 173,00

Can't even find the relevant video cards. I'll take your word for them.

[Andres]

I think I can state with some authority that Bitz Computers' web site makes my eyes bleed. Okay, are you willing to order part-by-part, or do you need it to be pre-assembled? And if you swap a part around, will they work with you? That's half the benefit of working with a local shop, right?

I can order part-by-part and they assemble it free of charge. They call it "PC à la carte" (I can't assemble it myself )

[Andres]

Videocard AGP 128 MB (ATI or nVIDIA) - (No Fan - No Noise) --- 36,00
Videocard AGP ATI 2600XT - 512 DDR2 --- 100,50
Videocard AGP GeForce 7600GS - 512 DDR2 fanless --- 108,50
Videocard AGP Nvidia Geforce 6200 - 256mb ---- 45,95
Videocard PCI-E ATI HD3850 - 512MB DDR3 ---- 208,00
Videocard PCI-E ATI HD3870 - 512MB DDR4 ---- 247,00
Videocard PCI-E GeForce 8400GS - 256MB DDR2 ---- 35,50
Videocard PCI-E GeForce 8500GT - 1024MB DDR2 ---- 73,50
Videocard PCI-E GeForce 8800GT- 512MB DDR3 - Silent fan ---- 215,00
Videocard PCI-E GeForce 8800GTS- 320MB DDR3 ----- 143,50
Videocard PCI-E GeForce 9600GT- 512MB DDR3 ---- 152,00

[Lemur]

I would take Crazed Rabbit's advice and special-order a Radeon 4850. Just doing a cursory read of the reviews tells me it's the new crown champion of the price/performance curve.

Then I would order that 3 ghz Core2Duo for the proc.

Then I would pick up any old 500 gig hard drive to give myself lots of room for educational software or video encoding.

Just about any modern motherboard should do the trick. I wouldn't bother paying extra for SLI capability, since you aren't going to use it. No, don't lie to yourself, you aren't.

Put it all in a case you can live with, and slap a decent DVD burner in there, and you're pretty much good to go. Don't skimp on the power supply, of course ...